A Cop In Her Stocking. Ann Peterson Voss

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СКАЧАТЬ have a few different angles.” Ty glanced at Baker.

      He rolled the snips of video and magnified the kidnapper. “Better?”

      Megan shook her head. Tears wound down her cheeks, but she didn’t make a sound.

      Baker stopped the video on an image. A sliver of the kidnapper’s cheek peeked from beneath the hood. “That’s as good a shot of his face as we could come up with.”

      It was strange, Ty had to admit. In each bit of video, the kidnapper had averted his face at just the right angle and pulled up his hood in just the right amount to avoid security cameras.

      Megan shook her head. “I don’t know. It could be Doug. It also could be almost anyone.”

      Ty stared at the image, comparing it to his memories of Doug Burke’s face. She was right. It could be almost anyone.

      “You lost him…how did you lose him? You’re right there.” Her voice was only a whisper, yet it cut into him like a whip crack.

      He met her eyes. They glistened in the muted light of the window. A few tears spiked her lashes and escaped down her cheeks.

      He could understand her frustration, understand her fear. Scratch that. He couldn’t truly understand. But he could imagine it. And if he were in her place right now, he imagined he would be furious. One thing was certain. He more than deserved her fury. “I’m so sorry, Meg.”

      She didn’t answer. She looked back at the image on the computer.

      “The department is working on finding him,” Baker said in a steady voice. “We are searching every inch of the mall. We’ve contacted the FBI, in case we need their help. We are prepared to issue an Amber Alert. Everyone is on this.”

      Ty had already told her all this, but he was grateful for Baker’s calm, reliable recitation. Maybe Leo was right. Maybe Baker should have broken the news to Megan instead of him. He had a steady influence Ty couldn’t come close to matching. But the thought of not being there when Megan needed him wasn’t acceptable. Not again.

      “How did it happen? What were you thinking? What were you doing that you weren’t watching him?” She hadn’t looked up, but it was clear she was talking to him.

      He opened his mouth, then shut it tight. What could he say? That he was looking at lingerie? That he was fantasizing about how she’d look in it? Imagining taking it off her? “I was…shopping. I only took my eye off him for a moment.” He decided not to mention the Giftinator. Megan would only think he’d been flirting instead of paying attention to her son. It hadn’t been like that, not at all. But he wouldn’t be able to convince her.

      Not that it mattered. He’d been absorbed in his own world, his own concerns. He hadn’t been focused on her son. He deserved all the blame she could heap on him.

      “A moment…” She buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders jerked, a silent sob shuddering through her body.

      He wanted to touch her, soothe her, promise it would be okay. But he doubted she would accept his touch, and right now even he had trouble believing that promise.

      “I want to go to the mall. I have to go to the mall.” She pushed herself up from her chair. “I need to find him.”

      He stood and reached out. But instead of grasping her arm, he let his hand hover in the air.

      Baker stood, as well. “We have officers all over the store. People from our department. From the sheriff’s department. Store security. They are professionals. Let them handle this.”

      She shook her head. For a moment, Ty thought she might bolt for the door, then she focused on him. Her eyes shifted back and forth as if she didn’t know where to look.

      If Ty knew anything about Megan, even after all these years, it was that she was not good at accepting anything from anyone. Not help, not reassurance, not promises—regardless of whether those promises were likely to be kept. But she was comfortable doing. “There’s nothing you can do there that they can’t. But here, there’s a lot only you can do here.”

      “Only me…like what?”

      “First, you need to stay by the phone.”

      “You think there might be a phone call? Like a ransom call?”

      “Maybe. Or someone might find Connor or see him and give you a call. You need to be here to answer.”

      She stared past him, focusing on the twinkle lights and colorful jumble of decorations covering her Christmas tree, her eyes unseeing, her expression blank.

      “There’s more, more you can do.”

      She returned her gaze to his.

      “We need recent pictures of Connor to release to the media and use in the search. Can you compile some?”

      “Of course.” Taking a deep breath, she turned away from him and half ran toward the bedroom. A few moments later, she came back with a wad of photos cradled in her hands. “I have a lot of them. I printed them out to make a collage for my mom as a Christmas present.”

      She shuffled through the stack of pictures as if they were playing cards. “School pictures, some from his birthday, Halloween. No. What am I thinking? He’s in a costume on Halloween. That’s not going to help.” Except for a few stray tears, she hadn’t cried since he’d broken the news, but now tears swamped her eyes and gushed down her cheeks.

      “I’m so sorry, Meg,” he said again. He could never say it enough. He took a chance and grabbed hold of her hand.

      Her throat moved as if she was swallowing emotion, preventing it from further breaking free. Finally she looked him in the eye. “I know you didn’t mean to lose him. I’ve had him wander off when I was shopping with him, too.”

      The fact that she would think about reassuring him in the midst of all she was facing made him feel worse than he already did. He rubbed his hand up her arm, as if simple friction would warm the chill that he knew was running through her. “We’ll find him. We’ll get him back to you.”

      “I should have told him to stay next to you in the store, to hold your hand. I should have known something like this could happen. I meant to remind him to stay close to you before he left, but it slipped my mind. God, I’m so stupid.”

      He couldn’t stand this. “No. I’m stupid. I wasn’t paying attention. I lost Connor.”

      She shook her head, but the tears didn’t stop flowing. She pushed the photos into his hands. “Here. I’ll see if I can find any better ones.”

      He set the pictures on the table and took both her hands in his. He looked down into her wet green eyes, eyes that were so desperate. “I will find Connor. I will make all of this okay. I promise.”

      Maybe an impossible vow. But God help him, he had never meant anything more.

      MEGAN WAS EXHAUSTED, frustrated and more than a little panicky by the time Ty’s lieutenant arrived at the apartment to fill her in on the search and ask her to repeat everything she’d already discussed with Ty. At Ty’s direction, she’d written СКАЧАТЬ