34
“How do you feel about staying with Jason for a couple of hours?” Linc’s voice echoed off the tight walls of the small guest bathroom, minutes later, from where he leaned forward on his knees on the edge of the toilet.
Emma stood before him clutching his knees in her tiny hands. “It’s okay.”
Linc noted the slight English accent she had, finding it both horrifying and adorable. Horrifying because it further solidified the life that had been stolen from her in her real home in America, and adorable because… well, she was fuckin’ adorable.
“You sure?” he asked. “If you’re even a little uncomfortable… if you’re scared… I won’t go.”
She shook her head. “I’m not scared.”
He smiled, knowing it was the truth. Wondering if she was scared of anything. Not a single glimmer of tears in her eyes. Not a single flash of fear. Again, he found it both horrifying and adorable. Horrifying because most six years olds couldn’t handle being left all alone with a profane, scowling—not to mention balding—stranger like Jason O’Malley. And adorable because he could almost see the valiant little ankle-biter before him with a bow and arrow in her hand, charging out onto the battlefield without a second’s hesitation, her big blonde curls blowing in the wind behind her. He couldn’t decide whether he loved her courageousness, or hated it.
He landed on love. “You’re so brave, baby.” He pushed her hair away from her face, his heart churning at the softness of the shorter, wispier baby hairs at her temples as they trickled over his fingers. Even as he found himself in awe at her strength, the urge to comfort her was still alive in him as well. “Jason’s a director at NCA Intelligence. He’s looking for his little boy just like I’ve been looking for you. Played a pretty big role in helping me get to you. He’s been a good friend of mine for a long time. He was a good friend of your mother’s once too.”
“He didn’t find his little boy?”
“Not yet, but I have no doubt he will because he’ll do whatever it takes. Just like me and your mom did everything it took to find you.”
“Are you gonna go away like Mommy?”
His stomach caved in. When he tried to speak, nothing but a croak came, forcing him to take a moment before collecting himself. “I’m not going anywhere, Emma.”
She pressed her lips together. “You promise? You’ll never leave me?”
He assumed this was one of the many moments most parents struggled with. The moment when he knew the real truth—that he would eventually leave her—but didn’t want to hurt her by saying it out loud. On the other hand, he wondered if lying to her, deluding her about the realities of the world—about the fact that a parent was supposed to die before their children—would do her just as much a disservice. Was she still too young for that kind of truth? Should he hold her hand and humor her? Or trust in her innate strength and be honest?
Finally, “I promise,” spilled from his lips because he’d landed on humor. “I’ll never leave you, baby.”
It was a lie, but Emma had been through hell and back. She deserved to be humored for a little while. To believe there was still sunshine and rainbows in the world. He, at least, wanted her to have that.
She leaned in, tightening her hold on his knees with her bottom lip jutting out. “He took all my pictures of you and mommy.”
Assuming she was talking about Malik, Linc barely contained an infuriated scream. “It’s all good. I’ve got pictures. You can have them all if you want. I’ve got pictures of your mom for days.”
“And of you too,” she insisted.
“Me too, baby.” He drew in a deep breath, taking in her button nose. Her wiggly toes, the middle toe a little longer than the others, like her mother’s used to be. Her unkempt blonde eyebrows and her crooked teeth. The way his sweatshirt nearly swallowed her entire body whole. Everything about her was perfect to him. “Like I said, Jason won’t let anything happen to you. You can trust him. I’ll only be gone for a few hours, max.”
She nodded.
The more lion-hearted she was, it seemed, the less lion-hearted he was, forced to draw in a trembling breath to temper the tears that tried to burn his eyes. “You look just like your grandmother. You know that?”
She gave a small smile and shook her head softly.
He dropped his face into his hand, pinching the corners of his eyes when the tornado in his stomach nearly became too much to bear. “It’s crazy.”
“Is she nice?”
His gaze shot up, nostrils flaring as he managed to temper the redness in his eyes, cupping her cheek. “She’s an angel. Just like you.”
“Can I see her?”
“Yeah…” He nodded, laughing breathily. “Soon. Real soon.”
She searched his eyes, and Linc forced his own away when the feelings tearing him apart inside became too much, looking toward the bathtub next to them where Emma had sat her yellow stuffed bear on the edge.
“Do you need any help?” He frowned. Another question no father should ever have to ask his daughter during bath time. His guilt-laden gaze flew back to her just as she shrugged out of his big sweatshirt, letting it puddle to the floor at her feet. Then she got to work on her overalls.
“I need help with these,” she grumbled, tugging at the suspenders of her blue overalls, making the clips rattle. Her high-pitched voice filled the bathroom as Linc seized the clips and undid them for her, letting the straps collapse to her sides. “And I need help turning the knobs the right way to get the right temperature.”
“A’ight…” Linc shifted on the toilet seat once her overalls were undone, the rustle of her clothes filling the bathroom as she got undressed. The rustle was drowned out when he turned on the faucet, however, sending water gushing from the spout and into the white porcelain tub. Emma approached him once her overalls were off, leaving her in just a white t-shirt and underwear, placing her hand on his bicep, which looked the size of a tire by comparison. Linc tested the water with his fingertips and then turned to meet her eyes. “That good?”
Using his massive arm for leverage, she leaned in and tested the water too before giving a soft nod of approval.
After plugging the drain and squeezing some bubble bath inside the tub, Linc faced her once more. They shared a soft smile. Their cheeks went red. His eyes were the first to fall, and when he found the will to sneak a look up at her, her eyes had fallen as well. A silence took over that could only reign in a room where two people loved each other but didn’t really know each other.
“I wanna know everything about you,” he whispered.
She bopped on her toes. “Me too.”
“Let’s see… favorite color’s yellow. Don’t watch TV. What more is there to know?” He teased, the sound of her giggle lighting up his world. “What’s your favorite cereal?”
“Fruit Loops!”
He chuckled.
“What’s yours?” she gripped his knees once more.
“Captain Crunch.”
She cringed, pushing her pointer fingers into her mouth. “Ew, I don’t like those. They hurt my mouth.”
Linc assumed she was pointing to her palate, the delicate roof of the mouth that proved no match for the sharp ridges of Captain Crunch cereal. “Yeah, but it’s worth the pain.”
Her eyes widened. “No, it isn’t.”
He chortled, feeling his face light up as he nodded up at her. “Favorite subject in school.”
“I don’t know. I never went to school.”
His blood ran cold, hands tightening into fists that he’d love nothing more than to send into Malik Ali’s face. Fighting through the anger, he licked his lips and went on. “You like books, though. Favorite book.”
She leaped clear off the floor with a gasp. “Prisoner of Azkaban!”
“Prisoner?” His lip curled. “Is that a kid’s book?”
“Harry Potter.” She beamed as if that was the silliest question she’d ever heard. Apparently transported to another world just by saying the words Harry Potter, her eyes widened as she clenched both his immense biceps, which were flexed from where he leaned forward on his knees. “You remind me of Rubeus Hagrid.”
“Rubeus who?”
“He’s a giant too.” She stopped herself, squinting one eye while tilting her head back and forth, her voice full of light as she discussed a character she clearly held a deep fondness for. “Well, half-giant, half human.”
“Aren’t those books too old for you? Aren’t they scary or something?”
“No,” she breathed, voice wistful. “They’re wonderful! Mia and I read the whole series together. Well… almost. We still have one more book to go.”
“Did Mia teach you to read?”
She nodded.
Linc’s stomach fell to his feet, and he took Emma’s waist in his hand, squeezing tight. When his voice came again, it had fallen so low it was almost indiscernible. “You love Mia?”
Her eyes softened. “Yes.”
A lump rose in his throat. “Me too.”
She gasped. “We should go and get her.”
Linc could hardly believe his ears. By default, Emma was already perfect to him—because she was his—but with every word that spilled from her smiling lips, amazingly, she became even more flawless in his eyes. To the point that he wondered how she was even real. He almost told her that he intended to do just that—to go and get Mia—but something in him stopped the words from coming out of his mouth. Some part of him had already become more of a father than he ever thought he could be. The part that had risen the moment he’d held Emma in his arms for the first time, and he couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t risk getting her hopes up about seeing Mia again until he was sure he could deliver. He couldn’t risk breaking her heart.
“I feel bad.” Her words were muffled as her chin fell into her chest, voice suddenly shattered, a far cry from the thrill that had been present when she’d been speaking of Harry Potter. “I promised Mia that we could escape together. I feel bad for leaving her.”
“Aye.” He took her chin under his pointer finger and jutted it, waiting for her eyes to meet his before shaking his head. “Don’t you ever feel bad about that. Don’t you ever blame yourself for that, a’ight? It’s not your fault.”
Her chest swelled in a deep breath, and then she was speaking a mile a minute. “I always knew you’d come. Mommy told me that you’d find me and that it might take a really long time, but I always knew you’d come.”
Fury encased his heart. He found himself speaking before his newly discovered fatherly gene could kick in and stop him. “Did anyone ever hurt you in that house?”
Her eyes expanded at the question, and she shook her head no.
Linc studied her response to see if she was lying, but couldn’t find any of the clues he’d come to know well in his years as a former detective in SVU.
Still, he pressed. “Did anyone ever go to the bathroom with you?”
“No.”
“You always went alone?”
“Yes—” She faltered, eyes shifting to the knobs on the bathtub faucet. “Well…”
His heart stopped in mid-beat, wondering who he’d have to kill.
Her eyes flew back up to his. “Only when I needed help turning the knobs. But then he always left.”
“Did anyone ever touch you in a way you didn’t like?”
“No.”
“No one ever made you uncomfortable?”
“No.”
He noticed her voice rose a little more with every no she uttered and realized he’d have to take her word on it. He wanted to take her word. He wanted to believe that, even though she’d been bought on the black market and taken captive by a madman, Emma had miraculously come out unscathed. He recalled Mia telling him that Emma was still too young for Malik—that he wouldn’t hurt her until she was older. As those words made his stomach do a somersault of sickness, he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief that he’d gotten to his baby girl before any further damage could be done.
“No one has to right to touch you without your permission,” he said, aware that his stern voice was already proving effective at keeping her full attention since she seemed to hang onto his every word with wide eyes as he squeezed her waist. “If anyone ever does, man, woman, child… if anyone ever makes you feel uncomfortable, I want you to tell me right away, a’ight?”
She nodded.
“No matter what they say or do to discourage you… even if it’s someone you know… someone you trust… I want you to trust your own feelings more.” He paused, hoping that he was saying the right words. “I want you to know that it’s never your fault and to always tell me. Because I’m not scared of anyone. And I’ll always protect you, Emma. Always. I love you.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I love you too.”
Linc released the breath he hadn’t even known he’d been holding when they embraced, tucking his nose into her shoulder and jamming his eyes closed. The world around him ebbed away until nothing else existed but his daughter in his arms. Only the trickle of the bathtub faucet, on the verge of overflowing the tub, pulled him away from the hug, and he leaned over to turn it off moments before the water trickled over the edge.
He helped Emma out of the rest of her clothes and came up behind her to lift her into the bubbly water. Just as he got her legs and feet inside the bath, however, his eyes landed on the Aztec bird tattoo on her shoulder. The same tattoo that had been branded on her mother after she’d been abducted and forced into prostitution. The tattoo that, in his years as a cop in California, he’d learned was a local indicator that meant Emma’s original trafficker worked out of Guatemala.
The wave of anger that ebbed over every inch of his body almost caused him to drop Emma from his trembling hands, but he found his center quickly enough to ease her gently in the rest of the way. The lingering warmth of Emma’s ‘I love you too’ was the only thing that stopped the rage from enveloping his body and swallowing him whole. Along with the admission that she loved Mia just the same.
If Emma couldn’t have Lisa—if she couldn’t have her mother—at the very least, she could have Mia.
They both could.
And Linc wouldn’t sleep until he made it happen.