Finding Her Son(27)

Emily peeked around. “What are we going to do?”

“First off, I’m hiding you someplace safe. Then we’ll figure out exactly what you’ve stumbled onto. Because it’s big. And worth killing over.”

Emily clutched the bear to her chest. “I should never have asked for your help. I didn’t know it would get this dangerous for you. If you want out, I understand.”

Mitch didn’t like how her words cut him straight through to his heart. He shouldn’t feel so much—except he couldn’t believe that she’d said something so incredibly dense. His anger was about more than just her putting herself in danger. She had him. He was with her all the way. Until she was safe. Until she found out what happened to her son. But she didn’t believe in him.

“I am not going anywhere. Get used to it.”

“But—”

“Subject closed.”

Mitch checked the rear-and side-view mirrors every couple of seconds. The neighborhood streets were abandoned. To his surprise, his Neanderthal declaration seemed to ease the tension in the car rather than ratchet it up. Maybe Emily wasn’t as ready to go it alone as she wanted to appear.

“I wonder if I’ll ever see my home again,” she said, finally breaking the silence.

“I don’t know.” He wouldn’t stop being honest. At least about some things. “If all the bad guys wanted was your research, they got that.”

“The whole thing is so bizarre. Nothing was disturbed in the rest of the house. If we hadn’t gone into the dining room, we wouldn’t even have known.”

“Since they took your research, you either found something or came close to exposing someone. Whoever did this thought you died in the explosion, or else emptied the house right after we left. If he’d succeeded in killing you, the cops wouldn’t have known there was a home invasion or that anything was missing.”

Emily sighed. “Very few people know about the room. If I died, there’d be no one to look for Joshua anymore.”

She shivered, her eyes huge in her pale face.

Mitch’s heart twisted as he thought of just how close she’d come to getting killed on his watch. Again. “I’ll always look, Emily. No matter what.”

She drew out the photo of an infant, gently touching the face. “Perry told me he would find Joshua. He had a lead, and he sounded very confident this time.” She glanced at Mitch. “What was your phone call about?”

“Nothing helpful. Tanner letting me know that Ghost is still at large. There have been alleged sightings downtown and one near Sister Kate’s, but nothing concrete.”

“What if we can’t find Ghost? All the evidence was back at my house.”

“Not everything. We didn’t take Perry’s box inside.” Mitch cocked his head. “Our luck could be changing.”

Emily sank into the soft leather seats. “Where are we going? Your place?”

“Not secure enough, especially if there’s a cop informant like Perry said. We’ll head to my brother Noah’s house. He loaned us the car. Might as well put us up, too. What he doesn’t know when he’s traveling to every corner of the world won’t hurt him.”

“What if they find us?” she said softly. “I don’t want to cause trouble for you or your family.”

Mitch exited toward Boulder. “Noah’s place is like Fort Knox. Gated community, high-tech alarm system, video surveillance around the perimeter. No one can get in. Not without us being aware.”

“Maybe I should find my own—”

“Do you have somewhere you can go that would be safe?” He said the words gently.

“Sister Kate,” she said, her voice hesitating.

“Not with Ghost on the loose. Besides, the threats on your life started after you began working with Sister Kate’s girls, right?”

Emily nodded.

“Enough said.” Mitch pulled up at a booth to a gated community, and the guard waved him past.

“He let you in without showing an ID,” she said.

“I watch Noah’s place when he’s gone. And play with some of his toys. He’s got a killer man cave. Don’t worry. No one else gets in.”

Mitch pulled onto a long drive past a series of oaks and flicked open the SUV’s console. He pressed a remote control and one of five garage doors rose. “I don’t want any sign someone’s home,” he said as the door closed behind them.

He escorted her into the house, past a large interior courtyard with an Olympic-size pool. At her dropped jaw, he laughed. “Yeah, Noah went a little overboard on the decoration. You should see the hot tub. Looks like it’s in the middle of Belize.”

He placed the box they’d taken from Perry’s house on a huge dining table, then started toward the kitchen. “You hungry?”

They could both use some food. And a distraction.

He turned, and Emily held the two photos and the teddy bear with its unique one blue eye and one brown eye tightly in her arms. She looked lost.

“You don’t think we’ll find Joshua, do you? Not really.” She took in a shuddering breath. “I need the truth.”

The vulnerability in her words shook him. He wanted to tell her yes, more than anything. Instead, he settled for the truth. “We have a chance.” He walked to her, then gently tucked some errant strands of hair behind her ear. “And we will explore every lead we find, no matter who wants us to stop. That, I promise you, Emily, is the truth.” He cupped her cheek and looked directly into her eyes, unblinking. “We can relax, have a good meal, do whatever we want. No one will bother us here.”