A MAN TO TRUST Read online

  Kelsey grimaced.

  "You knew she was pregnant?" Gage asked. Kelsey nodded. "Did he rape her?"

  She stiffened. "Does it matter? Would that make Melissa's case more important to you?"

  "It just means," Cruz put in gently, "that if Melissa has that trauma to deal with, on top of being pregnant, she might react … differently."

  Kelsey felt her instinctive anger drain away. "Oh," she said, wondering how long she'd been so ready to jump to unwarranted conclusions. And how many times she'd done it without realizing it. Odd, since she instinctively trusted Gage to do what he promised. And that realization didn't help, either; why did she trust Gage, but not Cruz?

  There was only one obvious answer, and she didn't like it much; the difference between them was that with Gage, her heart wasn't involved.

  "No, I don't think so," she answered at last. "She thinks she's in love with him," she said sadly. "And she thinks he loves her. Or did."

  "That doesn't give him the right to—"

  Gage cut himself off abruptly. Kelsey looked at him, struck by the fierce intensity in his face, in those eyes. And she suddenly knew what Cruz had meant when he said the man's dedication to the job bordered on obsession.

  "Tell me what you know," the blond man asked her peremptorily. "I swear I'll do everything I can to help her."

  She believed him. She had no other choice in the face of that earnest intensity. Whatever was driving Gage Butler, she had no doubt that his goal was not arrests or glory. She wondered if he even knew himself what drove him.

  "I don't know much. She arrived late at night, a week ago Friday." She didn't dare look at Cruz, didn't want to be reminded of that foolish call she'd made in her panic when the girl showed up. "She didn't talk much at all, but she mentioned coming to the beach, that she'd heard it was easy to get by there."

  She really didn't know much more, just a couple of names Melissa had mentioned of kids who hung out at the beach, but since she had no last names to go with them, she doubted they would be much help. But she told Gage anyway, and he wrote down everything she said. He asked a few more questions, none of which she could answer, then put down the pad he'd been writing on.

  "Okay, I'll get on it."

  "Thank you," she said, meaning it. "I know you have other things to do, and this isn't really your—"

  She stopped when he held up a hand. "It'll be payback time for him later," he said, nodding toward Cruz with a grin.

  Kelsey lowered her gaze, feeling more awkward than she had in a long time.

  "Any chance she'd head back home?" the detective asked.

  Kelsey shook her head, looking up at him once more. "She said she couldn't ever go home, her folks had thrown her out when they'd found out she was pregnant. She was almost as afraid of them as she was of Doug. They'd always been very harsh, she said, and now they really hate her."

  "Which is why they bothered to report her missing," Cruz, who had been oddly silent, observed mildly.

  "I know that," she retorted, looking at him at last. "I know I only get one side of the story, and there's always another, but I also don't think this is something you take chances with without knowing all the facts for sure. If she's telling the truth, then sending her back would be … more criminal than anything she's done."

  "She's already lied to you," he pointed out.

  "People lie when they're scared sometimes," she snapped. "Of course, you wouldn't know about that, would you? You've probably never been really scared in your life!"

  She felt like an idiot the moment she'd said it. His eyes narrowed, and he just looked at her. The man was a police officer, for God's sake, of course he must have been scared at one time or another. But before she could say anything—and probably make it worse, she thought in chagrin—he spoke.

  "Wait here. I'll go get Sam, and then we'll leave."

  He was gone so quickly that she felt a little breathless. And more than a little foolish.

  "He's been scared before," Gage said, his voice so neutral she knew it was intentional. "He was pinned down by a barricaded suspect once, caught in the field of fire. And he disarmed a bomb in a crowded high-rise a few years back, when the bomb squad couldn't get here before it was set to go off. They gave him a medal of valor for that one. And I've never seen him more scared than when his little girl was hurt last year, even though it was only a broken arm."

  He was saying it casually, almost chattily, but every word made Kelsey feel worse. She didn't feel any better when he added, "It's easy to be what people call brave if you've got nothing to lose. Cruz has Sam, and he loves her more than life, but he goes out and does the job anyway. And does it damn well."

  Kelsey grimaced. "I think I'll go outside and sit with my own stupidity," she muttered. "If you'll point me in the right direction?"

  He gestured toward the door they'd come in. "Out and to the right, then down the outside stairs."

  But he stopped her before she could move, with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  "He's a good man, Kelsey. The best. I don't know what's going on between you, but I can tell you that anybody on the force here would trust him with their life. Or the lives of the ones they love. And a lot of them have. He's never let them down."

  Nothing was going on, Kelsey thought glumly as she followed Gage's directions out to the parking lot. Not a thing was going on between them. And it was just as well. He was a cop. She couldn't have a cop in her life.

  And she didn't know if what she was feeling was relief or disappointment.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  « ^ »

  "My mom ran away, just like your friend did," Sam said blithely.

  Cruz winced; he had known Sam would likely pick up on what was going on, she was too bright not to, but he'd never expected her to come out with an observation like that. He didn't know which bothered him more, that she'd done it at all, or her matter-of-fact tone. He'd never used the phrase running away when he talked to her about her mother; apparently she'd come up with it on her own.

  He felt Kelsey's puzzled gaze and remembered that he'd told her Ellie was dead. It hadn't been a lie, he told himself. True, over the years it had become a defense, a quick way of stopping a line of conversation he didn't wish to continue. But it was the truth. As far as it went.

  He waited, not knowing what to say now, and dreading Kelsey's inevitable question.

  It didn't come. Instead, Kelsey turned her attention back to Sam, who was, at Cruz's insistence, seat-belted securely in the back seat of the four-wheel-drive.

  "I suppose everybody feels like running away sometimes," she said to the girl with gentle compassion.

  He let out a compressed breath, silently thanking Kelsey for not opening a can of worms he didn't want to deal with right now.

  "My mom never came back," Sam said. "Do you think your friend will?"

  "I … hope so."

  "You'll be okay, even if she doesn't," Sam said soothingly. "Dad and I are, huh, dad?"

  "Yeah, we're just fine, squirt."

  "I don't remember her much."

  He did, Cruz thought. He remembered more than he wanted to. He remembered things that he'd just as soon forget. Things he'd kept nicely buried, and he would just as soon they stayed that way. Even if he did have the grim feeling on occasion that he'd buried them alive.

  He was thankful when the quicksilver Sam spotted a fast-food restaurant and wheedlingly suggested a stop for some dinner before they took Kelsey back to where her car was parked at the beach.

  "I don't think so," Cruz said. "You've had nothing but junk all day, anyway."

  "Da-ad," Sam said in an exaggeratedly drawn-out tone.

  "Well, I haven't," Kelsey said brightly. "And I'm overdue for some good, greasy junk food."

  "See?" Sam crowed in delight. "Let's go!"

  Cruz grumbled about being outvoted, but his heart wasn't in it. A short while later, Sam abandoned the last remnants of her hamburger and fries for the kids'
playground outside. Cruz watched her go, made sure he could see her from where they sat, then turned to Kelsey.

  "Thank you for … handling what she said about her mother without…"

  He trailed off awkwardly, not knowing exactly what to say.

  Kelsey's mouth turned up at one corner in a half smile that was full of understanding. "Is she really … dead?"

  He nodded. "Five years ago. But she left us … long before that."

  "Ran away, like Sam said?"

  "Sort of."

  Kelsey looked at him speculatively. "You must have married very young."

  He nodded. "I was nineteen. Ellen was barely eighteen." His mouth twisted. "Everybody said we were too young, tried to talk us out of it. But we were so sure we were right, that our love was different, that we'd prove them all wrong…"

  "You think things like that at that age," Kelsey said gently. "So … you both changed?"

  He saw where she was heading and shook his head. "Not like that. I mean we didn't just grow apart or something. It didn't just happen."

  He stopped and ran a hand over his hair, shoving it back from his forehead. He hadn't talked about this in so long that he was finding it very difficult. In fact, he hadn't really talked about it much at all, and he was a little surprised at finding himself trying to do so now. But Kelsey was looking at him with that expression of warm concern and understanding, and the words began, as if a dam had been breached.

  "It wasn't like that. And it wasn't Ellie's fault. She was in an accident on Sam's third birthday. A bad one. She nearly died. When she finally got better, she … said she'd had a lot of time to think. And that almost dying made her realize she'd never really lived. She'd been sent a warning, she said. She had to have some time to herself, to figure out what she wanted."

  He didn't tell her what a shock it had been, didn't tell her how panicked he'd been, wondering how he was going to deal with taking care of Sam alone, didn't tell her how he'd felt when Ellie looked at him, tears streaming down her face, and told him everyone had been right, they'd been too young, they hadn't had a real life. And that she was going to grab hers now, now that she'd learned how uncertain life really was. He didn't tell her any of that, but she was looking at him as if he had, as if she knew.

  "Did she figure it out?" Kelsey prompted softly.

  "Oh, yeah," he said, unable to stop himself from sounding sour. "Six months later, divorce papers arrived. She didn't even ask for visitation. She wanted out, and neither Sam nor I were part of whatever life she planned to grab before it was too late."

  "I'm sorry, Cruz."

  He sighed. "No. It turned out she was right." He jammed his fingers through his hair again, reining in the simmering anger he'd thought he'd conquered long ago. "She died a year after that. A stroke. From a blood clot. Probably the end result of that accident."

  Kelsey made a small sound, he wasn't sure if it was sympathy or commiseration, but he didn't want either.

  "It was nobody's fault. Not Ellie's, not mine, not Sam's. It happened. It was just … chance. There's nobody to blame."

  It came out more sharply, more vehemently, than he'd intended, and Kelsey looked at him first with surprise, then thoughtfully.

  "This is what Kit was talking about, when she said sooner or later you're going to have to deal with it, isn't it?"

  Cruz tensed. "Kit talks too much. She's always … looking for deep, dark reasons for everything."

  "Even in her friends?"

  His jaw tightened. "We … dated for a while. Before we realized we were wrecking a great friendship trying to make it something it wasn't. But that makes her feel free to … butt in."

  He hoped that would divert her; women tended to fasten on things like that, he thought. But, not for the first time, he found he'd underestimated Kelsey Hall.

  "But she's right, isn't she? You haven't let go of it."

  "There's nothing to let go of. I told you, it wasn't anyone's fault."

  Damn, he sounded as wound up as he ever had; where was all his hard-won equanimity? He'd struggled for so long to not be angry, and yet here it was again, as hot and fierce as it had ever been.

  "That's my point," Kelsey said simply. "Maybe you haven't dealt with it exactly because there's no one to blame."

  "What's that bit of psychobabble supposed to mean?"

  "I just mean that the natural way to deal with abandonment is to blame the one who left you. But in your case, you don't feel you can, because she died."

  Cruz turned his attention to a solitary leftover french fry, bending it between his fingers, as intent upon it as if the fate of the world depended upon discovering how many bends the thing could take before it broke.

  "Dying doesn't make someone right, Cruz," Kelsey said. "We tend to sanctify people for the simple act of dying, because we're taught not to speak ill of them. But the fact that she died doesn't make your wife a saint."

  "It wasn't her fault," he insisted, chanting what had been his watchword for so long, whenever the anger and frustration would boil up inside him too hotly to be ignored.

  "Maybe that's true. Maybe she did what she had to do, but you and Sam paid the price for it. And the circumstances made it worse, because there was no outlet for the feelings you had."

  The fry tore in half. He looked up at her. "What do you know about what I felt?"

  "I know, Cruz. I know about … abandonment. I know those feelings of anger are only natural. But you didn't have anyone to blame. At least I had my father to hate—"

  She stopped suddenly, and Cruz knew he wasn't mistaken when he thought she'd gone slightly pale, even though she quickly turned her head away. She stared out the window into the playground, where Sam was scrambling through a network of plastic pipes that looked like child-size hamster-habitat tunnels.

  "Kelsey?"

  "Sam looks like she's having fun," she said, her light tone clearly forced.

  He wanted to ask, wanted to know exactly what had happened between her and her father. And at the same time, he didn't want to know, because he was afraid the truth might be too close to the many ugly stories he'd seen in nine years of police work; there had been clues enough to make him think so.

  And he also knew what it was like to be pushed into talking about something as painful as this apparently was for her. Although, he thought wryly, it hadn't seemed to take much pushing for her to get him to spill the miserable story of his marriage and its aftermath.

  He watched her as she stared out the window. Was she right? he wondered. Was that the reason it had never really gone away for him, why he still felt so angry when he thought about Ellie? Was it that simple, that he just hadn't had anyone to blame? Because there had been no one to vent his anger on, had he carried it around bottled up inside until those times when it boiled over?

  Gradually he sensed the tension quivering just beneath the surface in Kelsey. Did just the thought of her father do this to her? Or was she afraid that because he'd spilled his guts to her, he would expect her to do the same?

  He was curious. He wanted to know. But he also sensed how skittish she was and knew that if he did push her, she would simply close up on him. Kelsey Hall might be the confident, competent woman who ran Oak Tree with practiced efficiency, but she was also a woman with secrets. And a woman who would not be pushed.

  So instead, still not sure why he didn't just walk away, he chose another tack.

  "So where do we look for Melissa next?"

  Kelsey's head snapped back around, and the look of relief that flashed across her face told him that she had been afraid he was going to press her with questions she didn't want to answer.

  "You've done enough already," she said.

  He couldn't tell from her tone if she was being sarcastic. "Still mad at me?"

  She looked surprised. "No," she said, then understanding flashed in the green eyes. "I meant that, really. You're on vacation—"

  "I told you, I'm the one who made that choice. It's not your problem."
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  "But it's not fair to Sam, to drag her along like today."

  Cruz couldn't argue with that. 'You're right. But there are other options."

  He crumpled up the napkin he'd wiped his fingers with after the destruction of the french fry and tossed it on the tray. A shrill electronic beep sounded as his pager went off. He checked it, saw Gage's number and glanced at Kelsey.

  "Will you watch out for Sam for me while I make a call?"

  The smile she gave him was astonishingly bright. "Of course I will."

  It wasn't until he was halfway to the telephone in the back of the restaurant that it hit him; she was flattered that he trusted her to look out for Sam.

  He was a little surprised himself. Yet somehow he knew that, whatever else she was or might be up to, Kelsey would die before she let Sam be hurt. He wasn't sure how he knew, only that it came from the same source as that gut instinct he'd learned to trust as a cop. He just knew.

  Gage answered on the first ring.

  "Are you 10-35?" he asked, using the code asking if Cruz was clear for confidential information. Used like this, Cruz knew it could mean only one thing: Gage wanted to know if Kelsey was within earshot. He felt his fingers tighten around the receiver and forced himself to relax them.

  "Yeah. Go ahead."

  "Nothing on the Bargman girl," Gage said, "but I thought I recognized your Ms. Hall's name. So I did some checking. Called a couple of kids I know."

  Cruz knew that Gage had reliable sources; he'd helped enough kids to have built a reputation among them as tough but fair, and he kept in touch with those he'd helped get their lives straightened out. It usually paid off for him later, sometimes in unexpected ways.

  "And?" Cruz prompted.

  "They know about your lady."

  Cruz opened his mouth to protest the appellation but found himself asking only "What do you mean? Know what?"

  "The word's been out for a couple of years now that Kelsey's place is a haven. That if you're a runaway and want to get off the street, she'll help you. Hide you out until things cool down, give you a roof and food and time to get your act together, think things through."