Chapter Three
“Why weren’t you the one to pick up your daughter from daycare today, Ms. Baker?” Officer Ramiro asked. He had been at the daycare, or rather crime scene earlier, but we hadn’t met him until we got to the station where he’d led us to his office and began the arduous process of taking our statement.
I glanced at Sayer, finding courage in the steely look he returned. This was where the lying would begin and I needed to know Sayer was going to cooperate. Up until a few hours ago, I’d believed he was my enemy, a ghost from my past come to haunt my new life.
Now I didn’t know what to believe.
The letters I found in his office flashed in my head. He followed me here. He knew about Juliet. He knew about everything. And he claimed he gave up the Russians to the FBI for me.
I still struggled to trust him. We had a complicated history and he was a master con man. Up until four hours ago, I would have blamed the entire thing on Sayer.
Only an hour ago, I had been positive he had nothing to do with any of it. Now that I knew more about why he was here, and the passion felt during our office tryst had faded, my accusations swung on a wide-arcing pendulum. One second I believed him. The next, I blamed him for everything. Meaning I needed to fact check. And fast.
“Sayer and I are working out the details of his move,” I told Ramiro. “He moved here to be closer to Juliet and me. But Juliet doesn’t know about him yet. Sayer has been anxious to meet her. I’ve… wanted to find the right time to introduce them. I was nervous about traumatizing her.” I looked down at my twisting hands and allowed a single teardrop to fall. “But now… now she’ll be scarred no matter what.” I hiccupped a sob and pressed the back of my hand to my mouth. Lies, truth and half-truths, and just enough to explain why Sayer hadn’t met her yet.
Sayer’s hand rubbed soothingly over my shoulder. “If she’s anything like you, Caroline, she’s tougher than this. You saw her fight. You saw her kick and punch her kidnapper. She’s going to be okay. She’s strong enough to handle this.”
I clung to his words, even if he hadn’t meant them. I chose to believe them. She had fought. She had fought like hell. And she was strong. She was tough as nails.
“I’m sorry, I’m trying to get a handle on your relationship,” Ramiro interrupted. “You’re not married? Are you a couple?”
Sayer tore his gaze from mine to answer the officer’s question. “Yes.”
My heart stopped beating. Completely. It was so shocked at his bold declaration that it gave up and quit.
“You don’t look like you agree, Ms. Baker.”
Shoot. I was a better liar than this. “Don’t I?” I cleared my throat. “It’s just so new. I’m not used to it yet.”
“It’s new? You have a four-year-old daughter together.”
I felt Sayer’s judgment roll off him. Pull yourself together, Caroline. “We’re high school sweethearts,” I confessed. “Sayer and I grew up together. I thought we were going to get married. Life… took us in different directions. I moved out here with Juliet and Sayer lived his life back east. I just… I thought we were over for good. When Sayer wanted to move out here with us to be in Juliet’s life, I guess I had trouble believing his move had anything to do with me. I’m still trying to adjust to this new normal.”
“I didn’t only move here for my daughter,” Sayer confirmed with an affectionate glance at me. “She was the determining factor of course, but I wanted my family back. I wanted to fight for the people that mean the most to me.”
“You’re okay that he’s here?” the officer prodded.
I licked dry lips and lied without hesitation. “Of course I am. Sayer moving here has been the best thing for me. And as soon as Juliet comes home, it will be the best thing for her too. She’ll love him. She’ll love having him in her life.”
My hands trembled as I struggled to keep my composure. God, I was out of practice. It was easy to recognize the officer’s careful questions for what they were though. He wanted to make sure I was safe, that Sayer was a welcome presence in our lives. He wanted to cross Sayer off the list of suspects.
Sometimes policemen and health care professionals came right out and asked what they wanted to know. “Do you feel safe in your home? Do you have reason to be afraid? Is there someone at home hurting you?”
Sometimes they danced around the issue trying to catch you in a trap. They wanted you to give up the other person without realizing what you were doing.
Turning Sayer over to the authorities wasn’t an option. And not just because I cared about him enough not to send him back to jail. I needed him now. I needed him to find and retrieve Juliet.
Whether he had something to do with Juliet’s disappearance or he was one hundred percent honest about why he was here, I needed him close to me.
The officer’s questions bounced around in my head, kindling the growing doubt, creating shadow monsters out of my chaotic thoughts.
He suddenly showed up in town with Gus by his side, pretending he didn’t know anything about my life in Frisco. He did know. He knew everything. He’d had a private investigator follow me around… take pictures of me… spy on me for him. He’d opened a restaurant here, established himself in the community. And then he’d lured me into his lair and carefully set his trap.
For the first time since everything had happened, I took a second to look back at the afternoon and evening’s events with more clarity. Sayer had known I was going to check out his office. He’d taken me down there that first time to bait the hook. Of course I’d go back to a room that was set up like a personal trophy case of everything that used to be mine. And then that goddamn safe.
It had been open.
And what had been in it? One manila envelope conveniently filled with letters to me. Dated years ago, but a detail like that would be a piece of cake to doctor.
My hands turned to ice. Was I being paranoid?
Or was I his next mark?
Oh my God. Had Atticus taken Juliet so Sayer could establish dependency?
Or worse? Had he taken my daughter with plans to get rid of me completely?
“Is there a bathroom nearby?” I struggled to keep my voice from shaking. There was no manipulation this time, I was having a real panic attack. “I, uh, I need a minute.”
Ramiro stood up and waved out his office door. “Of course. It’s around the corner and on the right. Ask one of the girls at the front desk if you can’t find it.”
Sayer jumped to his feet too. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head no and then nodded yes and then grabbed my phone and fled. I pushed through the bathroom door and stumbled to the sink, yanking the faucet on to hot water. Dropping my phone on the ledge beneath the mirror, I braced my hands on the edge of the sink and dipped my head, letting the running water be my focal point.
Think, Caroline. Put the pieces together.
Only I couldn’t. I couldn’t separate my fear and anxiety of losing Juliet from pointing to my suspicions of Sayer. They fed into each other, making everything more potent, more hysterical.
Plunging my hands in the water, I decided to focus on what I knew to be true.
I didn’t know when Sayer found out about Juliet, but it was after he hired the investigator to look into me.
He didn’t force himself into her life. He didn’t even really force himself into mine.
Okay, that wasn’t true. He was staying in a cabin at my place of employment. He’d opened a restaurant in my town. He’d coerced me to give him wake-up calls and made out with me in the office. Or had that been me that had made out with him?
But he hadn’t been aggressive. He hadn’t been unreasonable and controlling.
He hadn’t tried to force me back to DC. He hadn’t even suggested going. In fact, he’d set up a permanent place of business in Frisco, giving the appearance he had no plans of going back east either.
Sure, restaurants went out of business every day so it could have been a front, but it was hard to imagine Sayer would go to all the trouble of setting up the DC Initiative if he hadn’t meant to stay in town at least for a while.
Otherwise, this was the most elaborate scam in the history of scams. This was some Ocean’s Eleven bullshit. Any moment, Julia Roberts and George Clooney were going to walk through the door and take us for a ride in their heist-necessary-limo.
I scrubbed at nonexistent dirt on my hands and tried to get a grip. I was becoming borderline insane at this point.
God, Juliet. Where are you? Are you okay? Are you terrified?
The tears finally started to fall. Real ones this time. Fat, heavy, self-hating drops that mingled with the water in the sink. My knees buckled and I found myself on the floor of the police station bathroom, wrapping my wet hands around my knees and pulling them tightly to my chest.
I hated him—Atticus. I hated what he stood for and the lifestyle he came from. I hated the Volkov and the bratva and the entire fucking city of DC.
Why would they take her? What did they want? And why hadn’t they made contact yet?
The door cracked open and Sayer’s deep voice echoed off the walls of the cavernous bathroom. “Caro?”
I rested my forehead on my knee and cried harder. I didn’t know if I could trust him. I didn’t know who I could trust. And I needed to trust somebody because very suddenly I didn’t feel like enough for this. I didn’t feel competent enough or strong enough or brave enough. And I had nobody else I could go to. The cops couldn’t help me. The FBI would only arrest me. And all of my other resources were connected to the people that had taken my daughter in the first place.
“Caroline,” Sayer said more firmly.
I cried harder.
“Is there anyone in there with you?”
Valid question, but I hadn’t noticed. For the first time in my life I was completely unaware of my surroundings. That only made me cry harder.
“Okay, I’m coming in.”
Sayer walked in the bathroom and shut off the faucet. Without the constant stream of water, my cries were too loud in the quiet bathroom, too vulnerable. I felt entirely exposed. And not only to Sayer, but the whole station, the whole damn country. My biggest secret had been broadcasted to the world and used against me and all I could do was sit on a dirty bathroom floor and cry. I was the worst.
He crouched down in front of me and rested a hand on my knee. “I’m going to take you home,” he told me, that same tone of authority in his voice.
“But we have to answer questions,” I hiccupped.
“I’m done with those,” he huffed. “And so are you. They have enough from us. They can call us tomorrow with anything else they need.”
I cried harder and harder until I couldn’t see straight or breathe right, until I felt sick and exhausted and helpless.
“Come on, Six.” Sayer stood up and took my hands, tugging me to stand. He wrapped me in his arms and held me against him.
More confusion. Was this what he’d planned? Or was this real? I should be resisting him, not leaning into him for comfort.
My arms didn’t listen to any of my crazy thoughts. They just wrapped around his neck and clung to him for life support. He kissed the top of my head and murmured promises I couldn’t hear over my violent sobbing.
Eventually, he supported me and led me out of the bathroom where he scooped me up and carried me to his Jeep. I complained about my phone, but he kept going. It had started to snow. Big, fat flakes fell on the top of my head as Sayer struggled to get the door open and set me inside.
An officer ran after him, shouting something about more information. Sayer had just finished buckling me when the guy approached.
“Can’t you see the state she’s in?” Sayer growled at the nervous guy. “Can’t you see she needs rest? You have plenty of information to start searching for my daughter. You should be out there already, combing the highways, stopping every fucking car from here to Nebraska. You should not be sitting on your asses, harassing my… my… Caroline. You’re fucking monsters. You’re supposed to be on our side and you’ve done nothing but make things worse.”
“I-I-I’m so sorry,” the guy mumbled, having not expected that kind of reaction from Sayer. “We’re just trying to help, sir.”
“If you want to help you can go get her phone from the bathroom and leave us the fuck alone for the night.”
The officer turned around and hurried inside, presumably to retrieve my phone. I looked up at Sayer. “Thank you.”
He glanced quickly, irritated and harassed. “Fucking cops.” He slammed my door and met the terrified officer halfway to the door where he grabbed my phone and stalked back to the Jeep like a pissed off lion ready to pounce on whatever crossed him next. He would devour it in one bite.
A shiver rocked through my body as it became clear that poor, helpless creature was probably going to be me.
The ride back to my apartment was silent. I realized he didn’t need directions once tonight, not to Juliet’s daycare, and not to my apartment.
I licked dry lips and decided not to ask him about it right now. The answer was obvious anyway. His private investigator would have handed over everything he had found on me. I’d seen Sayer demand the information himself in the letters.
And if Sayer hadn’t been given the info from the PI, he’d had ample amount of time since he arrived in Frisco to follow me around. I thought back to the beginning of the renovation of the building that eventually became the DC Initiative, Sayer’s restaurant. How long had Sayer been here before I had been aware of him? The thought sent chills skittering down my spine.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise that he knew where I lived. Not after I put all the pieces together.
But it was. And he just… knew the area so well. Sayer had been to Juliet’s daycare before. He’d been to my apartment. He knew the shortcuts and the turns in the near-pitch dark and he knew to anticipate the corner that didn’t have a four way stop sign, but should.
He’d been to our familiar spaces often.
Panic rose like a tidal wave in my chest, taking all of the violent emotion with it, sweeping over me with white foamed waves of annihilation. I made a gasping sound, but I couldn’t get the air to my lungs. My fingers curled around the handle and without thinking I slammed my shoulder into the door, trying to escape.
It was locked! More panic. More struggle. More breathlessness.
Sayer’s voice dipped low and gentle. “Caroline?”
I gasped for impossible air and tried the door again.
“Caroline, are you trying to get out of the moving car?”
“I-I can’t breathe!” My ears started ringing and an intense feeling of dizziness smacked me in the face. I swayed, my grip loosening on the door.
Sayer swerved over to the shoulder and threw the car into park. He leaned over and grabbed my shoulders, making me face him. “Slowly, through your nose.” He mimicked taking in a long breath through his nose, his nostrils flaring slightly with the effort. His lips pursed and he exhaled through his mouth, even slower. He motioned for me to do the same thing.
The edges of my vision started to darken. I felt like clawing at the inside of his car to get out of the locked box, to find the fresh air I knew was just on the other side of the window.
“Caroline,” Sayer snapped, losing patience with me. “You have to breathe.”
I blinked and tried to focus on his face. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
The vise grip on my heart loosened and my lungs finally accepted oxygen. Neither of us spoke as he continued to breathe with me, guiding the way like a seasoned expert would show a small child. I took the opportunity to study his face and that body that was so familiar and at the same time so, so foreign.
The years that separated us had been unfairly kind to him. I didn’t understand how that was possible since he’d spent them in prison.
There were lines at the corners of his eyes and his facial bones seemed to have hardened, narrowed, defined into an infinitely more chiseled version of the boy I’d known growing up. His shoulders had broadened, and his entire body had packed on muscle, bulking out his arms and chest, his back, stomach, and thighs. There was a shadow over his jaw, the end of the day scruff that only made him more delicious to look at. And he smelled amazing—like clean soap and fall air and something richer, deeper, leftover from when we were kids.
At the end of the day, after our romp in his office and the trauma of losing Juliet, his hair had lost the professional style he’d showed up in town with. Now it fell over his forehead in wild abandonment that was mirrored in his eyes and the twitch of his mouth.
Since he’d reappeared in my life he’d been nothing but poised and professional. His clothes fit his new frame perfectly. His glasses added a refined sort of sophistication to his face. His hair was styled and well-kept. And his manners had been deceptively dignified. But it was all an illusion, a careful mirage crafted to convince me that he’d somehow become civilized in the years since we’d been apart.
This was the true version of him: wild, feral… dangerous. And instead of letting him undress me and seduce me and remind me of how insanely incredible he could be in bed, I should have kept my guard up.
“You’re starting to scare me,” he said in a quiet voice. “I don’t know if I should get you help or make you go to bed or what.”
I ran my tongue over my chapped lower lip. “How long have you been watching us?”
His eyes narrowed. He didn’t like that question. “You saw the letters.”
The letters he’d let me see anyway. God, was I really this paranoid? Yes. Yes, I was.
“How long, Sayer? How long have you known about Juliet? The truth this time.”
“Four years. I’ve known for four years.”