Annapolis, Maryland,
Sunday 12 June, 2.20 P.M.
‘He’s not dead.’
He breathed a silent sigh of relief at Margo’s words. The men he’d sent had given Thorne enough GHB to take down an elephant. Idiots. ‘Is he awake?’
‘Not yet,’ she answered, the sound of a car starting in the background, ‘but he’s stabilized. I had to wait to call you until I was alone.’
‘Thank you, my dear. I appreciate the update.’ He also appreciated the risk she was taking. For me. For Colin.
‘Any time, Papa,’ she said warmly, and the constriction in his chest relaxed just a little. His daughter-in-law was one of the few bright spots in his life. Her baby was the other.
‘Are you bringing Benny to dinner with you tonight?’
‘I’ve hired a sitter because I thought we were talking business, but I can bring him if you want to see him.’
He could respect Margo not wanting her son to hear any of what they were going to discuss. He’d kept Colin from the darker aspects of his business until his son had been sixteen. But Colin had always known.
‘I’d really like to see him,’ he murmured. ‘I’m missing Colin today.’
A sigh. ‘Me too, Papa. I’ll bring Benny. Once he’s had his evening bottle, I’ll put him in his crib in the nursery, and then we can talk.’
The nursery. The room on the upper floor of his home that had been painstakingly decorated by Margo. And Madeline. The thought of his late wife had his chest constricting again, and he had to concentrate to take a simple breath. I miss you, mi alma. My soul. ‘Thank you. I’ll leave the gate open for you.’
‘Thank you, Papa. Te amo.’
‘Te amo, Margo.’
He hung up the phone and walked to the office he used for disciplinary procedures. Closing the door behind him, he looked at the two men chained to chairs in the middle of the room. Idiots. Soon they’d be dead idiots. ‘He’s not dead.’
Both visibly relaxed.
The one on the left swallowed hard. ‘So . . . you’re letting us go, right? I mean, he’s gonna be fine.’
He rolled his eyes. God. I should have done it myself. And he would have, if Thomas Thorne weren’t a damn behemoth. He could never have gotten the man into his house.
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
The one on the right’s nostrils flared. He looked a little green. Some of that might be the slight rolling of the vessel, which, anchored far out in the bay, was as private and soundproof as a vault. But most of the man’s distress appeared to be fear. ‘You wouldn’t say what?’
He let his mouth quirk up. The one on the right wasn’t quite as stupid as the one on the left. ‘Either. Both.’ He began removing his clothing, hanging each piece carefully in the antique wardrobe adorning the far wall. Suit coat, trousers, silk shirt, tie. His shoes and socks went on the wardrobe shelf. He shucked off his boxers, folded them neatly and placed them on top of his shoes.
Hesitating, he gripped the small vial, then lifted it over his head and carefully tucked it into the pocket of his trousers.
He closed the wardrobe and turned to face the two bound men, who stared at him in horror. Good. They should be afraid. They could have spoiled everything before it had even begun.
The one on the left’s eyes dropped to his groin, widening comically. ‘What the fuck are you going to do?’ he whispered hoarsely.
He rolled his eyes again. ‘For heaven’s sake, get your mind out of the gutter. I’m not going to sexually molest you. I’m just going to kill you.’ He indicated the wardrobe with a nod of his head. ‘That’s a two-thousand-dollar suit, and blood is a bitch to explain to the dry-cleaner.’
‘But Thorne’s not going to die!’ the one on the right sputtered. ‘You can’t do this.’
‘Oh, but I can. And I will.’
The one on the right tried rocking his chair back, but it was bolted to the floor. Not my first rodeo. He’d learned a thing or two over the years. How to properly restrain his prey was one of them.
He stood studying them for a long moment.
‘What?’ demanded the one on the left, appropriately scared out of his mind.
‘I’m just trying to decide which of my skills I want to hone. See, I told you the exact amount of the drug you were supposed to use on Mr Thorne. For whatever reason, you disregarded my instructions. I can’t let that stand.’
The one on the left gulped. ‘But . . . But he was huge, man! One heavy motherfucker. We just . . . we wanted to be sure he didn’t wake up while we were dragging him into his house.’
‘Well, he very nearly didn’t wake up at all. Had you given him the amount I specified, he would simply have slept several more hours. As it was, you nearly killed him. If I let your incompetence go unpunished, what kind of a message would I be sending to the rest of my employees?’
He didn’t wait for an answer, instead opening his weapons case and drawing out a simple bludgeon. He’d decided on a physical approach. He needed to work off some excess stress.
Baltimore, Maryland,
Sunday 12 June, 3.35 P.M.
Thorne swallowed hard, confused when his throat felt raw. His head hurt too. Dammit. And there was beeping. Something was beeping.
Close to him, someone was murmuring. He drew a breath and relaxed. Lavender. Gwyn is here. She always smelled like lavender because she soaked in scented Epsom salts every night. It kept her muscles from hurting after performing at the club.
He turned his head toward the scent and breathed once again. ‘You’re here,’ he whispered, then jerked awake, because she wasn’t supposed to be here. He was asleep and she was . . . here. In his bedroom.
His eyes flew open at the same time he tried to sit up. Pain sliced at his wrist and he yanked his arm to get away from it, only to have it hurt even more. Two sets of hands pressed against his chest, both female. Both familiar.
All he could hear was his own roar and the clang of metal until Gwyn’s voice broke through his confusion. ‘Thorne. Stop. Please. Stop before you hurt yourself.’
Wide-eyed, he stared into Gwyn’s dark blue eyes, then at Lucy’s pale face. Both were urging him back down. Suddenly exhausted, he dropped his head to the pillow. Then turned to stare at the handcuff that cut into his wrist.
He was handcuffed. To a bed. He scanned the room. White walls. Monitors that beeped incessantly. He was handcuffed to a hospital bed.
Swallowing again, he drew a breath that he hoped would calm his racing heart. But it didn’t. ‘What happened?’ The words came out as a hoarse croak.
Lucy abruptly turned her back to him, shifting her body so that she blocked Thorne’s view of the door.
Gwyn’s gaze flicked over Lucy’s shoulder to the doorway, then back to his face. ‘You were drugged,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘You’re in the hospital. The police will ask you questions. Don’t answer them. Wait for Jamie to get here.’
‘Gwyn. Lucy.’ The voice and the sigh were familiar. JD Fitzpatrick was here. This couldn’t be good at all. ‘Step away from the bed, both of you.’
Gwyn’s chin lifted. ‘He’s not talking to you without Jamie in the room.’
‘I figured as much,’ JD said, sounding a little bit . . . hurt? ‘But I need to be here in case he does say something. You two can stop acting like I’m the enemy, you know.’
Lucy stepped aside and Thorne realized she hadn’t been blocking his view of the door, but JD’s view of him. ‘I didn’t expect it to be you coming through the door,’ she told her husband, sounding relieved. ‘I thought Lieutenant Hyatt had taken over.’
Hyatt? Thorne wanted to groan, but his throat hurt too much. If the arrogant, abrasive, grandstanding homicide lieutenant was on point, things really had gone to shit. Wait. Homicide detective? What the hell happened to me?
‘He has,’ JD said. ‘He had to take a phone call. He’ll be in here as soon as he’s done. Now, can the two of you step away from the bed, please?’
Neither Gwyn nor Lucy did what they were told. Both took a step backward so that they stood on either side of Thorne’s head. His sentries.
Thorne might have smiled had his head not been splitting in two. ‘Can I get some water? Maybe some aspirin or something too? My head feels like I got kicked.’
As did the rest of his body. Now that he was awake, he hurt all over. He had been in enough fights to know that whatever had happened, he’d soon be covered in bruises, if he wasn’t already.
What time is it? He was in a single room cubicle. With no windows. In the hospital. What the fuck happened?
JD studied his face, the cop’s expression one of genuine concern. ‘That’s the doctor’s call. She’s on her way.’
Gwyn’s small hand stroked the hair off Thorne’s forehead. ‘Where else does it hurt?’
‘Everywhere.’ He closed his eyes, tried not to panic. ‘What happened to me?’
JD came to stand at the foot of his bed. ‘You don’t remember?’ he asked carefully.
No. I don’t. And it was terrifying, because he was handcuffed to a hospital bed and a homicide detective was in his room in case he said anything. What happened? What the fuck did I do?
His lips started to move, but Gwyn’s hand over his mouth kept him from saying another word. ‘Wait for Jamie,’ she said.
She was right. It was what he should have told himself, but he cut himself a little slack because the other words she’d spoken had finally kicked in. You were drugged. He opened his eyes to meet hers, a deep dark blue that he’d dreamed of waking up to so many times. Just not like this.
Drugged. It explained a lot, actually. Except . . . How? And by whom?
‘Can you unlock the cuff?’ Lucy asked JD. ‘He’s not going to flee.’
JD frowned, his gaze dropping to the handcuff fixed to the bed rail. ‘Who cuffed him?’
Lucy’s mouth tightened. ‘The detective who brought him in. Brickman.’
‘And against his doctor’s orders,’ a woman said as she strode into the room wearing a frown. And scrubs.
She glanced at the monitors, then flicked a light in Thorne’s eyes, nodding at whatever she saw. ‘If you have to restrain him, we can use softer restraints.’
JD simply unlocked the cuff and removed it from Thorne’s wrist. ‘I don’t have to restrain him at all.’
Thorne flexed his fingers, then gently removed Gwyn’s hand from his mouth, hesitating before placing it on his cheek. Needing her to touch him right now, he was relieved when she didn’t move her hand, curving it instead to cup his jaw. ‘I’ll wait for Jamie,’ he murmured, then looked at the nurse. ‘Water?’
‘Let me take your vitals and I’ll get you a cup and a swab. You can’t drink until the doctor’s been in and changed her orders, but you can at least wet the inside of your mouth.’ She glanced at Lucy. ‘Can you move, please?’
Lucy complied, standing next to JD at the foot of the bed, watching every move the nurse made. Thorne closed his eyes again, secure in the knowledge that Lucy wouldn’t let the medical personnel hurt him and that Gwyn wouldn’t let him say anything stupid before Jamie got there.
‘Am I under arrest?’ he asked quietly.
‘No,’ JD said quickly, then sighed. ‘Not yet. But it doesn’t look good, Thorne.’
What doesn’t look good? he wanted to shout, but held it back because he was so tired.
The nurse returned with a cup and a small sponge on a stick. ‘There is an angry-looking bald man on his way to this room. If he causes a problem, I’ll call security.’
Lieutenant Hyatt was coming. The man was mostly trustworthy. Mostly. But he tended to make decisions first and ask questions later. And it was no secret that he had no love for defense attorneys. And if things didn’t look good? Thorne didn’t like the odds that Hyatt would be on his side of things.
‘Thank you,’ Gwyn said, then took the cup and sponge from the nurse. ‘I’ll take care of him.’ When the nurse had backed away, Gwyn leaned in close to wet Thorne’s lips with the sponge. She was very close, he realized seconds before he heard her whisper, ‘I found you in your bed at a little after six this morning, unconscious. You were lying next to a woman. She was dead, beaten and stabbed.’
His eyes widened in shock, but after flicking a glance at the door, Gwyn leaned in even closer, blocking his face. She made a show of re-wetting the sponge and swabbing the inside of his mouth. ‘There was a knife on the floor, placed as if you’d dropped it before passing out.’ She rested her forehead against his, her swallow audible. ‘You nearly died. If I hadn’t found you when—’
‘Miss Weaver.’ She was interrupted by a deep, booming voice that Thorne also recognized, unfortunately. Lieutenant Peter Hyatt had arrived. Thorne and Hyatt had butted heads far too many times over the years. But Hyatt did seem to know the meaning of loyalty, and Thorne had done the homicide department a few favors in between the head-butting.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
‘Say nothing,’ Gwyn whispered as she pulled away. ‘I was just swabbing his mouth,’ she told Hyatt with a sweet smile that anyone who knew her would realize was a charade. Gwyn was many things – most of them good – but sweet wasn’t normally one of them.
Which had only made Thorne want her more.
Then, once again, his brain seemed to catch up. A dead woman in my bed? Stabbed? Beaten? What the fuck is happening?
He clenched his jaw, determined not to say another word.
‘Mr Thorne,’ Hyatt said grimly, then frowned at JD. ‘Who removed the handcuffs?’
‘I did,’ JD said flatly. ‘He’s not a flight risk. He can barely lift his head, much less run, and the cuff was causing injury.’
‘Mr Thorne is a suspect in a homicide,’ Hyatt growled. ‘He will be treated like a suspect in a homicide. I need to chat with him. You all need to leave.’
‘He’s not saying a word without his attorney present,’ Gwyn said, all pretense of sweetness gone.
‘His attorney is here.’ Jamie Maslow wheeled his chair into the doorway. ‘I’m going to need everyone to clear out so I can talk to my client.’
Thorne saw a flicker of something in Hyatt’s eyes. Relief? It certainly looked that way. JD’s relief, on the other hand, was unmistakable.
And mine? Off the fucking chart. He was finally going to find out what was going on.
Gwyn started to move from his bedside, but he caught her arm. ‘Stay,’ he murmured, then glanced over at Jamie. ‘I need her to stay. Please.’
She found me. In my bed. With a dead woman. That part hadn’t entirely sunk in yet, because the words felt . . . surreal. Why had Gwyn even been in his bedroom? Why the fuck was another woman there? A dead woman? Jesus.
‘You’re entitled to talk to your attorney,’ Hyatt said tightly. ‘No one else.’
Thorne’s temper stirred and suddenly he needed not to be flat on his back. He jabbed at one of the arrows on the side of the bed and raised himself a few degrees. His head spun, but he gritted his teeth and locked his gaze on Hyatt’s face. ‘Am I under arrest, Lieutenant?’
Hyatt pursed his lips. ‘Not yet.’
‘Then I can speak with whomever I choose,’ he said coldly. ‘However, if it makes you feel better, Miss Weaver is a paralegal with my office.’
Hyatt’s eyes narrowed. ‘She manages your nightclub.’
‘I’m a multitasker,’ Gwyn told him. ‘I’m also a licensed paralegal.’
‘She assists me part-time,’ Jamie chimed in. ‘She helped me write a brief just last week.’
Because the case had been a sensitive one that Thorne hadn’t trusted to just anyone. He trusted Jamie and Gwyn with his life.
Hyatt’s nod was curt. ‘Very well. I’ll be waiting to take your statement, Mr Thorne.’
Jamie backed his chair away from the doorway, allowing Hyatt to exit.
Shaking her head, Lucy pressed a kiss to Thorne’s cheek. ‘We’ll wait outside too. Don’t worry. We’ve got your back.’
He met her eyes, unable to hide his dread any longer. ‘What did I do, Luce?’ he whispered.
‘Nothing bad,’ Lucy whispered back. ‘I know you, Thorne. You did not kill that woman. We’ll get to the bottom of it. I promise.’ She forced a smile. ‘Now I’ve got to find a quiet room and pump. My boobs have to weigh fifteen pounds each.’
His lips twitched, as she’d meant them to. ‘TMI, Luce. Way too much.’
She gave him a wink. ‘See you soon.’ Then she took JD’s hand and led him from the room, leaving Thorne alone with Jamie and Gwyn.
When the door was firmly closed, Thorne turned to Gwyn and repeated his question. ‘What did I do?’
And then his throat closed, because her expression grew shuttered. But not before he’d seen the accusation flickering in the dark blue eyes he knew so well.
He shrank back against the bed, suddenly too damn weary to hold his head high. She believed it was true. Gwyn believed he was guilty.
Not again. This couldn’t be happening again.
Annapolis, Maryland,
Sunday 12 June, 3.40 P.M.
He glanced up when Patton came in, looking disgusted and the tiniest bit scared. He already knew why, but he wasn’t nearly as upset about it as Patton seemed to be.
On the other hand, Patton had disposed of the bodies of both Ramirez and his wife after his former clerk had died such a painful death. He knew the price of failure, so a few nerves were understandable.
‘Yes?’ he asked softly. ‘You look upset, Mr Patton.’
The man called himself George Patton, but he’d really been born Arthur Ernest, his parents farmers in Kentucky, as traditional as they came. A former soldier, Patton had been dishonorably discharged, narrowly missing serving time for the death of another soldier killed in a bar fight. Not that any of that really mattered, except that Patton believed he’d gotten past his extensive background checks. Foolish man. But he was also a power-hungry man whose loyalty could be bought.
I’ll use his greed as long as it suits me. And when it no longer did, there were thousands of Pattons out there just waiting for a chance to shine.
Patton squared his shoulders. ‘Thorne was discovered hours too early. I had the person who should have found him set up and ready to go, but his business partner found him instead. The scene was set as you directed, but because he was discovered early, the GHB was still in his system.’
He met Patton’s eyes directly, reluctantly impressed when the man didn’t look away. ‘That’s unfortunate, but no surprise. I have eyes and ears in the hospital,’ he explained when Patton’s eyes widened. ‘I am, however, disappointed that you waited so long to tell me.’
Patton scowled. ‘I waited until he woke up, to see what he remembered.’
He blinked. ‘You went to the hospital?’ There were only a million surveillance cameras there. Good God, man.
Patton’s scowl deepened. ‘No. Of course not. I have eyes and ears too.’
Well, at least there’s that. ‘What does he remember?’
‘Nothing so far. The problem is that the presence of GHB in his system will make the cops doubt his guilt. He doesn’t have an alibi, but he was drugged and bruised. Your goons were not careful.’
Because he’d told them not to be. He’d wanted Thorne in pain. A few broken bones would have been lovely, but his goons hadn’t been that resourceful. ‘It doesn’t really matter. The police would have doubted his guilt regardless. He’s done too many favors for them in recent years.’
Patton frowned. ‘Wait. What? You mean you never intended for him to be arrested for murder?’
‘I did intend for that to happen, yes.’ But that isn’t the end goal. ‘He will be arrested when all is said and done, so don’t worry, Mr Patton.’
Patton gave him a long, assessing look. ‘What is this really about? I mean, I could have put a bullet in his head twenty different times already. Now he’ll be on his guard.’
‘I don’t want a bullet in his head,’ he snapped, then drew a breath. He hadn’t meant to show his temper. Immediately he calmed himself. ‘There are worse things than death, Mr Patton.’ Like living alone for the rest of your life. Like watching your family die and knowing the person who killed them still lives.
He didn’t actually want Thomas Thorne to die. He wanted Thorne to know his pain. To live his pain. Preferably behind bars, where he’d be hunted like the animal he was.
‘I agree,’ Patton said evenly. ‘So what would you like me to do next?’
‘These two.’ He passed a photograph across the desk. ‘Bring them here.’
Patton’s eyes were flat as he studied the photo. ‘Where can I find them, and what did they do?’ he asked.
‘What they did is not important.’ Because it really wasn’t. The two men in the photo were tools. Nothing more. ‘They’ll be at Sheidalin tonight.’
Patton folded the photograph. ‘I’ll let you know when it’s done.’
‘Thank you. In the meantime, please dispose of the two currently tied to chairs next door.’
Patton’s jaw grew taut. ‘I see. Are you going to kill me too?’
‘No. First, you did tell me about the error. Second, it really wasn’t your fault that they were colossal idiots. Do be careful when you go into the office. The floor is slippery.’ Because the two who’d botched Thorne’s drugging had both bled out. From multiple wounds and orifices.
It had been . . . cathartic.
‘Where do you want them dumped?’
‘Over the side is fine. They’re fairly tenderized, but you should cut them up a bit more. Don’t want any identifiable parts washing up on shore.’
‘Of course not. May I go now?’ Patton asked.
‘Please. Have a good afternoon, Mr Patton.’
Baltimore, Maryland,
Sunday 12 June, 3.50 P.M.
Frederick Dawson rubbed his forehead with a sigh. He’d hoped that the files he needed to read would take his mind off the fact that he was sitting in a hospital, but no such luck. He really hated hospitals, but he was pretty sure nobody gathered here in the waiting room liked them either. Yet more than a dozen people waited for news on Thomas Thorne, the atmosphere tense and disbelieving.
It didn’t look good. Thorne had been unresponsive when he’d been brought into the hospital that morning. That would be bad enough, but the circumstances under which he’d been found . . .
None of the people waiting for news believed Thorne had killed the woman discovered in his bed. Frederick had heard the shocked words ‘He wouldn’t do that’ so many times.
But these were Thorne’s friends. His employees and co-workers. Of course they’d say that. Most of them even believed it.
Frederick wanted so badly to believe along with them. He didn’t want to think Thorne could commit such a heinous crime, but he no longer trusted his own judgment in such matters. He’d believed the liar he’d called his wife for years, after all. Not once had she set off his bullshit detector.
Still, he desperately wanted to believe in Thorne’s innocence, because he truly liked the man. He’d only known him for ten months, but he’d been impressed with Thorne’s ethics and his dedication to getting justice, especially for clients nobody else would touch. Not because they were guilty – many of them were guilty as sin – but because they couldn’t afford private counsel. Given representation by the public defender, they’d probably do far more time than was fair. Or, in the rare case of a truly innocent client, they’d get railroaded because they had no advocate.
Many of them had found an advocate in Thomas Thorne, and Frederick respected that. Thorne was the kind of attorney Frederick himself had once been, before he’d been forced to leave his practice and go into hiding to protect his adopted daughter, Taylor, from the biological father they’d believed would harm her. That belief had been rooted in the lies that Frederick’s wife, Taylor’s mother, had told him for years. Lies that hadn’t been revealed until after her death.
Frederick had given up his practice, his home and ten years of his life based on an unforgivable lie. Worse, he’d forced his family into hiding, stolen years of freedom from his daughters. The cost of his choices had been . . . immeasurably high. To his daughters and to the man he’d hidden Taylor from. A good man, who’d been innocent of any wrongdoing. All those years.
I judged him, found him guilty, hid his daughter away from him. And I was wrong. A year later, this remained a hard truth to swallow.
That same biological father was now lowering himself into the chair next to Frederick with a weary sigh and two cups of coffee from the Starbucks in the lobby.
Clay Maynard was not the monster Frederick had been led to believe. Now, unbelievably, he counted Taylor’s biological father as a friend. Unbelievably because Clay had forgiven him. Now, if Frederick could only forgive himself . . .
‘Hey,’ Clay murmured quietly, offering him one of the coffees.
Closing the file he’d been reading, Frederick took the coffee gratefully because it wasn’t the sludge he’d been drinking from the pot in the waiting room. ‘Thanks. Any news?’
‘Nope. I checked at the nurses’ desk on my way back in, but his status is unchanged. I really just needed to take a walk. The quiet here was getting to me.’ Clay grimaced. ‘But the zoo outside changed my mind.’
‘How many news vans?’
‘I saw at least six before I hightailed it back in here. Vultures,’ he snarled.
Frederick lifted his eyes to the TV mounted on the wall, its screen set to a cartoon channel even though there were no kids in the room. ‘We had to change the channel. The media have already declared him guilty.’
‘Vultures,’ Clay snarled again, then drew a breath to calm himself. He cast a look at the file. ‘I don’t mean to bother you. Keep reading if you need to.’
‘Nah. I wasn’t absorbing any of it. Just trying to stay busy. I met Anne in the office and we pulled the files as soon as I heard what had happened.’ Anne Poulin, Thorne’s receptionist and paralegal, was one of the most steadfast voices in his defense. ‘Whatever happens to Thorne, we have to protect the privacy of our clients.’
‘We’re going to clear him,’ Clay said, his jaw tight.
‘I know.’ Frederick wasn’t so sure about his own judgment anymore, but he’d bow to Clay’s any day of the week. ‘But in the meantime, his clients will still have trial dates. Jamie and I will figure out how to split Thorne’s caseload. It’ll be fine.’
Clay studied him, narrow-eyed. ‘You’re not sure, are you? If he’s innocent?’
‘I’m sure that you’re sure, and that’s good enough for me.’
Clay sighed. ‘Frederick. Dammit, man. How many times do I have to say this? Donna lied to us both. You’re gonna have to let all that shit go. I have, and so has Taylor. What does your gut tell you about Thorne?’
‘That he would never do anything so heinous.’
‘Then there you go. He’s being framed. That’s clear to me and . . .’ He sat up straighter, brightening at the sight of the daughter they shared coming through the waiting room door holding a red-headed toddler on her hip. ‘Taylor.’
Frederick smiled, because the joy on Clay’s face was infectious, just as it was every time Taylor walked into a room. Clay appeared to have truly put the pain of his and Taylor’s twenty-plus-year separation behind him. Every time Frederick saw the man’s face light up, he told himself that someday he might forgive himself.
‘Hey, baby,’ Frederick said, leaning his face up for a kiss. Taylor complied, kissing his cheek, then Clay’s.
‘Any word?’ she asked, sighing when both he and Clay shook their heads. ‘Well, Miss Wynnie here was missing her mama.’ She dropped a kiss on top of the baby’s head. ‘I texted JD and he said to bring her in, that Lucy could find a quiet room to nurse her. And before you ask, Pops, I left Ford on babysitting detail. Mason is in good hands.’
Ford Elkhart was Taylor’s fiancé and Frederick liked him very much. Mason was Clay and Stevie’s new son, already six weeks old. That Clay was getting to experience fatherhood from the beginning for the first time made Frederick very happy.
‘I never figured you’d leave him alone,’ Clay said mildly. ‘And don’t call me Pops.’
Taylor just grinned at him. ‘You know you love it.’ She sat down next to Frederick, settling the baby on her lap. ‘Oh, Dad, I heard from Daisy. She’s coming for Mason’s christening.’
Frederick raised his brows at this news. His middle daughter had been enjoying the new-found freedom that had come with Taylor and Clay’s reunion. No longer needing to stay in hiding, she’d been backpacking in Europe for the past four months. She wasn’t supposed to be back for another two months. ‘Is she okay?’
Taylor moved her shoulders in an uncertain shrug. ‘I don’t know. She said she was. But I worry about her.’
So did Frederick. Daisy’s sobriety had been only one of the casualties of their years of forced hiding. His twenty-five-year-old was now a recovering alcoholic because of the choices he’d made.
‘Dad, stop it,’ Taylor chided. ‘I can see you going into guilt mode.’
‘I keep telling him,’ Clay muttered.
The two of them huffed such similarly aggrieved sighs that Frederick found himself smiling. ‘Fine, fine. Is she planning on telling me, or am I supposed to act surprised?’
‘She said she was going to text you. I only know she’s coming because I went online about five a.m. and saw she’d posted new pics on Facebook. You don’t want to see them,’ she added quickly when Frederick started to look on his phone. ‘She met this guy. With a motorcycle. So . . . save your blood pressure and let those photos just pass right on by.’
Frederick only nodded. He’d look at the pictures later. And then he’d check out the guy to make sure he was legit. Nobody messed with his daughters.
‘Anyway,’ Taylor said, ‘I saw she was online, so I called her. Had a nice chat while I shoveled out horse stalls. Then I did a few therapy sessions at the farm.’
Taylor was an intern at Healing Hearts with Horses, an equine therapy center that provided services to child victims of traumatic violence. It was what she’d been born to do, and Frederick’s heart nearly burst with pride every time he thought about it.
‘Jazzie was one of my sessions,’ Taylor went on. ‘She’s doing really well. She’s gotten over her fear of riding and she smiles much more often. See?’ She took out her phone and showed them a photo of a smiling young girl astride one of the farm’s horses. ‘I thought if Thorne was awake, I could show him. She doesn’t know what he did for her, but . . . Well, he still asks about her.’
Jazzie had been one of Taylor’s first clients. A little girl who’d discovered her mother’s brutally beaten body, she’d lived in terror that the murderer would find out that she’d seen him leave the scene. When he had indeed come after her, Thorne had provided key evidence that enabled the police to bring the killer to justice, ensuring the little girl’s safety.
The memory of Thorne’s actions in that case dispelled the remaining doubt in Frederick’s mind. See? He’s a good guy. ‘Send me the photo,’ he told his daughter. ‘When he wakes up, I’ll make sure he sees it.’
Taylor smiled up at him. ‘Thank you.’ Then she twisted in her seat, because everyone around her had come to their feet.
Lucy and JD had entered the room, their expressions relieved. An audible sigh of relief rose from Thorne’s group of friends.
Lucy made a beeline for her daughter. ‘Thorne’s awake,’ she announced. ‘Ask JD for details. I’ve got a baby to feed.’ She took Wynnie from Taylor. ‘Thank you,’ she said fervently. ‘You’re a lifesaver. I was about to go pump or explode. This is so much nicer than either.’
Without another word, she hurried from the room with the baby, and Taylor sat back down with a slight grimace. ‘You know, I’ll sometimes start thinking about how sweet babies are. Then she reminds me about exploding . . . well, you know. I hate to break it to you dads, but it’ll be a while before you get any grandchildren out of me.’
‘Fine by me,’ Clay said. ‘You’re too young.’
‘Older than you were when I was born,’ she retorted.
‘Which was too young,’ Frederick echoed. ‘Live a little, baby. Go to Paris like Daisy. Have fun.’
Clay pushed to his feet. ‘What he said. Now excuse me while I go listen to what JD has to say.’
Taylor laid her head on Frederick’s shoulder once they were alone in their corner of the waiting room. ‘I’m not the Paris type. And I am having fun. My life is good, Dad. I promise. So no feeling guilty, okay?’
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. ‘Okay. Then I’ll go talk to JD too. You planning to stick around?’
‘Until Lucy’s done with the feeding, then I’ll take Wynnie back to the house.’ She tugged on his sleeve when he stood up. ‘Dad, let me know what I can do to help Thorne. Please? He’s a good guy. There’s no way he did this.’
‘I will,’ Frederick promised. ‘And I agree.’ He was happy to realize that he really did. His new boss was a good guy and he wasn’t going to allow his own ridiculous insecurities to convince him otherwise.