Emma

 

Emma’s pulse throbbed in her ears and throat as Dean picked up his phone and dialed. She assumed he was calling 911 until he said someone’s name, and that things were getting worse, like some kind of movie villain. She thought of walking to the staff room, grabbing her own phone and calling the police, but his gaze was fixed on her in a way that made her wary making of any sudden moves. She wasn’t sure exactly what was going on. He’d had the right ID, and he was on the emergency list, but ID could be faked. The list would be harder, but not impossible. Abbey had never mentioned Mia’s father, other than to say that he wasn’t in her life. Could this be some kind of custody kidnapping?

 

No, that didn’t make any sense. Dean was on the list. More likely, if the father was suddenly back in the picture Abbey was caught up with him, and Dean was here to make sure that Mia was safe. But if they thought she’d been kidnapped, surely the first thing to do was to notify the authorities?

 

Emma needed to think. How could someone have gotten Mia out of this room? The staff offices were closed off, and there was only the one door, unless…

 

She grabbed Mia’s backpack — she didn’t know if Dean had noticed, but Mia’s inhaler was still in the bag, and that was potentially a real problem for the girl — and headed back into the staff offices. She didn’t have asthma flares often, but when she did, they were intense. Emma hadn’t been working at the center at the time, but she knew that last year, someone had to call an ambulance because Mia’s breathing had turned to wheezing so quickly.

 

She’d glanced around the staff room quickly, looking for a little girl who might be hiding to play a silly game. Now, she looked more closely — and, yes, the table in the corner, which they used for meetings and which blocked the unused door to the playground, was out of alignment. As if someone had tried to pull it back when they had closed the door, but there was no way to get it all the way shut, not in a hurry.

 

“Dean!” Emma shouted and heard his footsteps behind her. She went to the door, hauling the table out of the way. The door was unlocked and the screws that had held it shut previously had been removed. At a quick glance, she couldn’t tell when it had happened, but that didn’t matter right now. She pulled the door open and glanced around the playground. Yes — there. Across the long field, she could see someone running, a small bundle tossed over their shoulder.

 

There was a small bloom of fear in the center of her chest, but most of her body was consumed by anger. Someone had taken a child, a child who was under her care, and from the limp way that the small body was bouncing, she had probably been sedated. Emma didn’t know a ton about asthma, but she knew that when her older brother had been sedated for surgery, the anesthesiologists had to give him different meds because sedation and asthma combined could lead into a deadly situation. Whoever that person was, did they know? Were they going to take care of Mia? It certainly didn’t look like it from here.

 

She was already running before she had the conscious thought to give chase. She heard a male voice shout behind her, and assumed Dean was close on her heels.

 

The jerk ahead of them had too much of a lead, though. He skipped through the gate around the fenced in playground and ducked into a waiting car — new model and dark paint, something American, but she wasn’t sure from halfway across the field — and sped off. She sagged, her breath ragged from the run. She was never a sprinter, although she’d been built for it: small and lithe. She was better at yoga, and endurance events when she did track, and why in the name of all that was holy was she thinking about this right now.

 

Dean pulled up next to her, his eyes were sharp. He was still on his phone, and his breath was quick, but not ragged like hers. “Late model Ford, Explorer, black. Yeah, I know, nothing really distinct.” A pause. “No, you shithead, there’s not an airbrushing of the Death Star on the side.” A laugh that carried nothing like humor. “Okay. Get to work. I’ll see you soon.”

 

He clicked the phone off, and she found herself looking at him, waiting for him to dial the police. He looked back at her. The moment grew and grew until it was awkward and uncomfortable.

 

“Aren’t you going to call the police?” she finally said. Her tone was snappish. His eyes narrowed, and his lips tightened.

 

“No,” he replied. “And it would be best if you didn’t either.”

 

“I—” she sputtered for a moment, then forced herself to refocus. “I didn’t really introduce myself before. I’m Emma Mills. I’m one of the care providers here, and as such, I’m responsible for the kids until they’re picked up by their representatives. I’m a mandated reporter in this state. Do you know what all of that means?”

 

He watched her, clearly waiting.

 

She forced herself to keep going, pretending it was just one of her aunties glaring her down. She’d mastered that at sixteen years old. Some super-gorgeous man with stunning eyes the color of bronze was absolutely not going to convince her to back down. “It means that I’m legally liable for her. If I don’t call the cops, it’s not just that I could lose my job, I could be prosecuted for all kinds of things. Interfering in an investigation, child endangerment — they could even decide that I was an accomplice.”

 

He nodded. “I understand,” he said, but his tone didn’t convey much in the way of understanding. “Go back inside. I’ll call the police. You just go ahead and go home.”

 

“But —” He couldn’t be in on it. He’d panicked just as hard as she had when Mia hadn’t been in that room. There was something bigger going on, but he wasn’t a part of it. She needed to believe that right now if she didn’t want to just crumple to the ground in a pile of fear and tears. “The police will want to ask me questions. They’ll want to talk to me. To both of us.”

 

“Sure,” he said. “Give me your phone number so I can give it to them. I’m sure they’ll call you if they have any questions.”

 

She shook her head. “You’re a really bad liar, you know that?”

 

He laughed. “I’ve heard it before, now and then. Look. I can’t call the police. I don’t know who has Mia, but I have some guesses. If I’m right, then things are going to go from bad to worse. Involving the cops is just going to make things especially worse.”

 

“Where’s Abbey,” Emma asked, watching his face carefully. She saw his jaw tighten and his gaze flick away from her face. “She isn’t just running late, is she?”

 

He was quiet for a long time, his gaze focused in distance, staring at nothing but seeing everything.

 

“No,” he eventually said. “No, I think someone grabbed her, too.”

 

“Who?”

 

“I’m not sure. But there’s stuff going on in this town that you don’t know.”

 

It was Emma’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You’d be surprised what I know.”

 

He looked her up and down, and this time his gaze didn’t tell her about how much he liked her curves and her hair and the way she stood. This time he saw nothing beyond the costume that she wore to fit in with a bunch of rich, white women who sent their kids here for “after school enrichment” like it was a fancy babysitting service.

 

“Maybe I would,” he said. “But the truth is, Miss Mills, that you’re in danger now, just as much as I am. That shithead saw you running with me, and pardon me for stereotyping, but I doubt it would be hard to pick out the Latina who works here. I’m guessing you’re the only one?”

 

Oh, she wanted to kick him in the ankle. Or higher. Asshole. “Is this the part where you tell me that I need to come with you if I want to live?” She hadn’t meant to say the word “come” quite as hard as she did, and heat flushed through her again. He smirked, the heat and spark between them pushing the danger back for just a moment — or maybe making it flare all the hotter.

 

“Would it work if I did?”

 

“No,” she snapped, which of course made it even more obvious that it absolutely would. Shit. Shit forever. “I love that kid,” she said after a moment. “I can’t let anything bad happen to her. They didn’t even take her inhaler.” She held out the small Star Wars backpack, emblazoned with the latest female heroine. Mia had been so proud the first day she got to bring it to school. She’d said that one day, she was going to be in a Star Wars movie.

 

“Do me a favor and don’t scream, okay?”

 

“What the hell are you doing?” She liked a little rough handling in bed, but that was not what was happening here. She tried to jerk her arm free, but she didn’t have the leverage and he was hustling her along way too fast for her to go for a pressure point or try to really twist around on him. She could go dead weight and force him to drag her, but the odds were he’d just throw her over his shoulder, and then she’d be in an even worse position.

 

Instead of pulling her farther along, he stopped, spinning around, his face painfully close to hers.

 

“Listen to me, and listen to me very carefully. I love that little girl more than I have any right to, and I one-hundred percent believe that if you call the police right now, the people who snatched her— and Abbey — are more likely to harm her than they already are. Right now, they have leverage over the people I know and over me. Once the cops are involved, that leverage goes away, and they will know that. If you care about her as much as you say, please, just come with me. Come with me, and I promise, we will figure out how to get her back. But I can’t let you call the police right now. I can’t.”

 

In the end, it wasn’t his surprisingly sincere speech that put Emma over the edge into trusting him. It was a good speech, all things considered, but it wouldn’t have been enough. No, what finally convinced her that he was speaking the truth was the wetness that suddenly glimmered on his lower eyelashes. There was no way such a shitty liar could fake tears that easily. Whatever was going on, she believed it. It was weird, though. If Abbey and her kid were so important, why were they scholarship students at the center? Why did Mia come in with second-hand everything, so proud to show off that her new backpack was brand new, the kind of new that meant no one had ever had it before? It just didn’t quite stack.

 

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. But I need to get my purse. All right?”

 

“Yeah,” he replied. “Do that. Go ahead.” He loosened his grip, and she stepped away. “No, wait,” he added, and she paused. “Just grab your absolute essentials. Leave your purse here. If we need to, later, we can tell the cops that you were snatched, too, but got away. All right?”

 

“Okay…” Emma ducked back into the building and pulled her phone out of her purse. She pulled a small wad of cash after her wallet and left the wallet itself inside her bag. She had two small bottles of medicine that she kept with her all the time — and thank goodness she did — and then she was done. She stuffed her phone and the bottles down her bra and headed back outside. She’d half hoped that Dean would be gone, but he was standing there, waiting for her.

 

Well, the good news was that she was about to get her first ride in a Gran Sport. That was something.