Yesterday's Gone (Two Daughters Book 1) (15 page)

“I doubt that. Karen seems to be pretty good at reading people.” She’d known how to get to him, he thought ruefully, that was for sure.

“It’s funny. I’ve always loved fabric. I had a foster mother who taught me to sew. I mean, just the rudiments, and then I got moved. But, not that long ago, I was thinking I might get a sewing machine. Maybe it’s in the genes or something.” She made a face. “Scary thought. Except... I might like to try to learn to make quilts.”

He pushed his plate away. “I don’t think it’s genes, Bailey. You must remember your mom sewing. Maybe making clothes for you. It’s there in your head. Her turning a piece of cloth into a pretty dress you loved. You hear a sewing machine whirring or see a fabric store, good connotation.”

She stared at him for a long moment, unmoving, unblinking. Then she drew a breath. “Yes. I do think... I can feel myself twirling, and the skirt of my dress forming a bell. It was purple.” She plucked, apparently unconsciously, at the quilt she held in her arms. “Velour, I think, or velvet.” Her eyes pleaded with him. “It was real, wasn’t it?”

He wished he knew what she needed. “Yeah.” His voice came out gruff. “I think it was.”

“Seth?” This was barely a whisper, but her tone was...different.

Somehow, he’d come to be standing. Because he’d wanted to go to her, hold her, he realized. He managed to say, “Yeah?”

“If you don’t want to, you can just say no. But, um, would you kiss me?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

S
EEING
THE
EXPRESSION
on his face, Bailey would have given anything not to have said that. Was he appalled? Embarrassed?

“Forget it,” she said quickly. “Dumb impulse.”

“No.” He came around the breakfast bar, stopping when he was no more than a foot from her. He looked kind. Just what a woman wanted to see when she’d come on to him.

She retreated a step. “Really. I can tell that’s the last thing you want to do.”

“Bailey, I want to kiss you more than I want to sleep or eat or maybe even breathe.” His voice was deep, huskier than usual, and maybe
kind
wasn’t the right word to describe the way he was looking at her after all.

This time her “Really?” came out as a squeak.

“Yeah.” He lifted a hand and grazed his knuckles over her cheek. “I’m a little conflicted, that’s all. You’re pretty vulnerable right now. And the idea of scaring you or repelling you... Not so good.”

“You don’t want me to experiment on you,” she guessed. Which he was smart enough to know was exactly what she’d been asking.

“No, I’m okay with that.” His eyes were darker than usual, a brown-black. “I don’t want to fail, that’s all.”

“Oh.” She squeezed the quilt, then realized it was in the way. Really smooth. There’d been a time she knew how to seduce a guy. Because it had been all surface. She hadn’t felt anything. This was deeper. She wanted not to fail, too. She hoped he couldn’t guess how much she wanted that. “Um...” She cast a glance sideways. Kitchen counter. With a couple of steps, she was able to set down the quilt. When she turned, it was to see that he waited where he’d been. A really confident guy she suspected could even be domineering; he was letting her do this her way.
He
was hesitant because he wanted this, too.

That gave her the assurance to go to him and to flatten her hands on his chest, atop the sweatshirt he’d donned after his shower. She liked him in his detective uniform of slacks or chinos and a white shirt with badge and weapon, but she liked him in jeans even better. He was more approachable.

She loved the hard muscles she felt beneath her hands, the beat of his heart, and wished—well, that she knew what he looked like without the sweatshirt.

Her own pulse had speeded enough to make her feel light-headed.
Heights.
For a long moment, he did nothing but look down at her, although his eyes had heated. Finally he lifted his hands slowly, as if he was making a conscious effort not to alarm her, and he framed her face with them. They were big, and strong, and warm. She tilted her head to deepen and savor the contact. His expression changed, hardened in a way, but she didn’t feel so much as a flicker of fear.

Finally he bent his head, and at the same moment she rose on tiptoe. Somehow he still kept the contact soft. He rubbed his lips over hers, then nibbled at them. Bailey’s eyes closed. In a state of suspended wonder, she quit breathing. The damp tip of his tongue testing the seam of her lips was like an electrical conductor, sending a bolt of heat to her core. She opened her mouth and let him in.

Suddenly the kiss was deep and serious. He cupped the back of her head, his fingers tangled in her hair. His other hand had come to grip one of her hips. He was trying to lift her even as he explored her mouth. He was still holding back, but not by much. When she sucked on his tongue, his body jolted. He lifted his head to stare down at her with molten eyes, before he kissed her jaw, nipped her earlobe, sucked on the sensitive skin on her neck. When he came back to her mouth, she wrapped her arms tight around his neck and plastered her body to his. She was hot, melting, hungry for the very thing she would have sworn she absolutely did not want.

Starting with his hand on her breast.
Her
hands on bare skin.

But that was the moment when a groan vibrated in his chest, and he let go of her hip to rest his hand at her waist, almost as if he was restraining her. “Bailey.”

Lost in shocked pleasure at her own response, she took a minute to understand that he was trying to say something. His touch had become gentle instead of urgent. He was backing off.

She whimpered in protest. His muscles tightened, but he said her name again. “Bailey. Honey.”

She let her head fall back and really looked at him. His face still had the predatory cast of a man who wanted sex, but determination was there, too. Determination, she realized,
not
to take her to bed.

“Wow,” she mumbled.

Seth gave a strained laugh. “Yeah, I’d have said something stronger.”

“Like?”

“Holy shit.”

That made her laugh a little, which enabled her to ease back and go for light. “The experiment was a success.”

“Was it?” His very dark eyes searched hers. “No panic?”

“I...didn’t really expect that.”

“Then what were you testing for?”

“More like indifference. I’ve never actually been swept away.” She sounded as amazed as she felt.

For an instant, his fingers bit into her arms before he backed away and rubbed his hands on his thighs. “You know I don’t want to call a halt.”

Bailey bobbed her head.

“But you need to be sure. This can’t be about thinking you owe me.”

Outrage cut into the sensual haze. “Owe you?”

“And I don’t mind kissing as an experiment. Making love, I guess I’d like to know it’s a little more.”

“Oh, come on,” she scoffed. “You can’t tell me you don’t take it where you can get it.”

His expression went flat. “Take it?”

“You know what I mean.” She crossed her arms, feeling defensive. Wanting to retreat, but refusing to let herself.

“Have I had casual sex? Yeah. But I don’t do one-night stands with women I don’t know, if that’s what you were suggesting. And with you, Bailey, sex won’t be casual. Not for me.” His jaw flexed. “I’d rather it wasn’t for you, either.”

Dumbfounded, she didn’t know what to say.

After a minute, his eyebrows quirked and he took a big step back. “I’m going to bed. Thank you for dinner.”

“Oh, but there’s pie.” Automatic hostess.
Too many years spent waitressing
, she thought in embarrassment.

Amusement flickered in his eyes. “Save it for tomorrow. Good night, Bailey.” He surprised her by closing in again to kiss her tenderly and so briefly she could have almost imagined it.

Then she was alone in the kitchen.

* * *

“S
HIT
,” S
ETH
MUTTERED
the next day, as the pages rolled out of his printer.

“What?” Ben asked. “You got something new?”

“Huh? Oh. No. This is a list of all female children, five to seven years old, abducted in the eighteen-year time frame in six states. There are way too many.”

Ben grunted. “Of course there are. Why five years old? Why not four? Or eight?”

Seth swiveled in his seat. “It’s not impossible Hamby would grab a kid that young, but she’d be a pain to tote alone with him. There’s a reason we don’t put kids in school until they’re minimum of five.”

“Okay. That makes sense.”

“And eight.” He shook his head. “If he loses interest when they start maturing physically, he’s gonna want them younger. There are ten-year-olds getting breasts.”

Ben grimaced. “Not something I want to think about.” A frown tugged at his eyebrows. “May I ask why you’re back to hunting down the guy who abducted the Lawson girl twenty-three years ago when we’re working a killing that took place thirty-six hours ago?”

He showed his teeth. “Because the asshole probably has a child sex slave right now? And if not, he’s hunting for one? That good enough for you?”

“Yeah.” Ben sighed. “Those are good enough reasons.”

Seth tried to dial it back. “This isn’t me thinking with my dick, the way you keep suggesting. It’s more than that.” Yeah, it was. What he felt for Bailey was way more than that. “I’ll put time in on this at home. Identifying possibles from this list could eat up a lot of hours.”
And, yes, goddamn it, I am obsessed.
“You ready to go?”

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

They planned to talk to the girlfriend’s brother, who lived in Lowell, a small town deeper in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. He hadn’t been home when they’d tried to track him down yesterday, and he wasn’t answering calls from either of their numbers. He’d been fired from his most recent job three weeks before and the sister insisted he was job hunting but hadn’t found the “right” one yet. As in, he hadn’t found an idiot willing to overlook an erratic employment history and multiple convictions for crimes relating to a temper, a drinking problem and a propensity for violence. In other words, just the guy you wanted greeting your customers.

Ben wasn’t the only cynic, Seth reflected.

He let Ben drive, getting in on the passenger side without comment. The first five minutes passed in silence. Then Ben said suddenly, “Hope is a pretty woman. I can see the appeal.”

Seth gritted his teeth.

“Got to say, though, at least on TV the sister is the one who qualifies as a real beauty. And, hey, you’ve been seeing her. What’s she think of all this?”

This time, Seth had the sense his fellow detective was genuinely curious instead of mocking him.

“There’s some tension,” he admitted.

“I get why she wouldn’t like you spending so much time thinking about her sister.”

“Eve and I aren’t dating. Haven’t been for a while.”

“Really?” Ben sounded surprised. “Dumped you, did she?”

At this rate, he’d be needing crowns on all his molars.

Ben’s mouth curled. “So the tension is between the sisters?”

“Yes.” The single, curt word didn’t seem like enough. After a minute, he added, “This is a strange new world for Bailey. And she prefers to be called that, by the way. Meanwhile, Eve probably sees her as usurping her place.”

“Except she always knew her blonde, blue-eyed sister was out there somewhere,” Ben said thoughtfully.

“No, I imagine she thought Hope was dead. Karen and Kirk didn’t, or at least they pretended to themselves they didn’t, but to Eve, Hope was just a fairy tale.”

“Until she arrived to claim her place in the family.”

“Yep. Not likely to happen smoothly.”

“No.” Ben kept his mouth shut for a few minutes, although he looked as if he was thinking hard. “You noticed Darrell and Jordan are stepsiblings, didn’t you?” he said abruptly.

“No. Shit, I missed that.” Man, he hated to admit it. “Why do they share a last name, then?”

“Her legal name isn’t Jordan Swann. It’s Dyer. But when her mommy married Darrell’s daddy, she started using Swann for her kid, too.”

That wasn’t uncommon. Still... He mulled over what he’d learned about Jordan and her stepbrother. “I wonder how close they really are?”

“And what kind of close,” Ben added. “Darrell was fourteen when his father remarried. So it’s not like they grew up together. Even though he’s a badass, would he really risk life in prison for her?”

“He’s on a path to end up a lifer even if he didn’t pull the trigger this time.”

Ben shrugged. “True enough.”

Seth brooded for the remainder of the drive, shuffling the play cards into a different order in his mind. Maybe they’d looked to Darrell too quickly. They’d assumed he was mad that Moore had insulted his dearly beloved sister by refusing to ditch the wife for her. What if Darrell and Jordan had had a different kind of relationship, and instead he wanted to off the guy who’d taken his place?

Or maybe they should be concentrating all their attention on the women, not assuming either had required a man to pull the trigger.

“We should look more closely at Dulcy Burgess,” he said, as the car slowed upon entering the Lowell city limits. She was the woman the wife had been on the phone with when Moore was killed. They knew the call was real, but they had only the two women’s word for what was said during the conversation and particularly at the end. How loud the gunshot had sounded, or whether any words might have been exchanged between husband and wife right before Dulcy heard the
bang
.

“I agree.” Ben flicked on the turn signal. “Damn, this place is turning into a ghost town.”

It was. A once-thriving lumber mill had been the economic heart of Lowell. When it shut down, residents either found jobs elsewhere and commuted, or they moved. Too many vacant storefronts shared the three short blocks with businesses still trying to hang on. Seth noticed a coffee shop he’d really liked that now sported a window blank but for a sign that said For Rent.

Houses got smaller and more ramshackle the farther they drove from the central district. They pulled up in front of a cottage with a moss-eaten roof, sagging porch and one boarded-up window. The cabin where Bailey had stayed looked good compared to this place.

“Nice,” Ben remarked before opening his door. Over the roof, he asked, “You want to take lead?”

“Sure.” Something about his face and build was intimidating enough to win grudging compliance from men not happy about being questioned. Ben was better with women, who all preened around him. The two of them didn’t always divide it up that way, but often.

Seth’s head turned as they walked up to the porch. His right hand rested on the butt of his gun. He didn’t see anyone watching them, but had an itch between his shoulder blades and could tell Ben felt something similar. Both stepped carefully on the porch, with boards underfoot that had more give than they should. A couple wires stuck out of the wall where a doorbell had once been. Ben eased to one side of the door while Seth knocked.

He kept an eye on the window to his left. A flicker of movement told him someone was home. He nodded slightly at Ben, then knocked again, hard.

The door swung open. Darrell Swann, recognizable from his driver’s license photo, glowered at them through the opening. “Jordan figured you’d come looking for me. I suppose you think I shot that rat bastard.”

“We’re just looking for information,” Seth said mildly.

Swann was a big guy even compared to Seth and Ben, who were both in the neighborhood of six feet tall and stayed fit. The DMV had Swann at six foot two and two hundred pounds. Seth was betting he’d weigh in at closer to 230. Mostly beef, a little fat. Tight black T-shirt advertising Harley-Davidson, although the DMV didn’t show him having the motorcycle certification. Sandy brown hair brushed his shoulders. The rest of the picture: hazel eyes narrowed to slits and bloodshot, two-day stubble and a stance that looked as if he was ready to swing a fist.