A Cold Dark Promise (Cold Justice #8.5)(3)

Alex meandered through the crowd, making sure he wasn’t followed. After circuiting the entire zoo, he doubled back to the panda enclosure—the zoo’s pride and joy—and found a vacant bench. He placed the second coffee on a wooden strut and rested his arm along the back of the seat. The big, male panda was out of his den and walking laps around his compound, examining the walls as if looking for an escape.

Sudden panic scratched at the edges of Alex’s mind like sharp claws on a dirt wall. Memories of being imprisoned hit him—filth, pain, despair. He forced himself to breathe slowly and steadily. He wasn’t in that Moroccan shit hole anymore. He wasn’t at someone else’s mercy.

The bench seat creaked as someone sat next to him. Alex held out the second cup of coffee he’d bought, and the woman took it from him gingerly, careful not to touch his skin.

She’d skipped the power suit this morning and had gone with workout gear—black yoga pants with a black zippered hoodie fastened to her chin. Bright orange Nikes provided the only splash of color, and she wore a neat leather bag strapped around her waist. Maybe she thought she might need to run from him. Not a good sign.

“Jane.” He nodded carefully.

Once upon a time, he’d despised Jane Sanders, who’d acted as a go-between for the heads of The Gateway Project and its foot soldiers. Now he pitied her.

Unease was visible in the wideness of her eyes and the tension that emanated from her frame. She scraped her white-blonde hair behind one ear. Her hand shook.

She was terrified of him. She had always been terrified of him. So why seek him out now?

“Mr. Parker.” Her voice was rough.

Alex raised his brows. “I thought you’d started to call me Alex?”

Her lips pinched, and she looked away, staring into the distance, not seeing the panda or the crowds.

“I found my daughter,” she said slowly.

Everything in the world muted.

Four years ago, Jane Sanders had obeyed a court order to let her four-year-old daughter visit her father for the summer. Jane had never seen the child again. An international arrest warrant had been issued, but her ex had disappeared.

Her fingers played with the hem of her jacket, knuckles prominent and white against soft, pink skin. “Ahmed is on a yacht in the south of France. Antibes. Taylor is with him.”

“How do you know?”

“A friend of mine spotted him.”

“Then Masook is already gone.” Ahmed Masook was a wealthy man who wouldn’t take chances with his liberty.

Jane swallowed. She had sharp, delicate features. A short, straight nose and vivid, blue eyes and chalk-white skin that would burn rather than tan. “He didn’t see my friends. He doesn’t know them. He’s still there. They both are.”

“So, go to the authorities,” Alex said impatiently. He wasn’t her stooge. He didn’t have time for this. He was getting married next week. They weren’t friends. They’d never been friends.

“He must have paid the cops off. He wouldn’t be there otherwise. If I go to them he’ll know. He’ll run.”

Alex rolled his shoulders and leaned forward so his forearms rested on his knees, still cradling his paper cup of coffee. Birds sang in the trees that bristled with new leaves. Daffodils nodded their yellow heads in time with the wind.

“Help me grab Taylor, and get us back to the US. I’ll take care of things from there.”

“You’re asking me to take a child away from her father,” he said calmly.

“He stole her from me!” Her eyes burned electric blue. She put the coffee cup down, untasted, hands gripping one another like tangled vines. “I was willing to abide by the court order. I was willing to share Taylor for all our sakes. But Masook didn’t want that. He didn’t like the fact I left him and took our daughter. He thinks he’s above the law.”

Now that Alex was going to be a father, he’d gained a better understanding of Jane’s anguish. And Masook’s.

Jane grabbed his hand. “I’m begging you.”

The fact that she touched him was astonishing. She’d always been petrified of him. Yet she’d come to him for help.

Her eyes sprang wide as she realized what she’d done. She released him and inched farther away. Then her lower jaw thrust out mutinously and her eyes narrowed. “I could threaten you and your precious fiancée. I could rip your world apart.”

Alex held her gaze as everything inside him stilled. A little piece of his soul tore loose and drifted away on the breeze.

“I could. But I won’t.” Her expression turned stricken. She stuffed her fists under her armpits as if deathly cold. “I’m just saying I could.”

And he’d destroy her. But he didn’t want to destroy her. She was already broken.

“Taylor might not even remember you anymore.”

Her mouth warped as her expression shattered. “I know. But I also know the kind of man Ahmed is.” Her fists clenched and unclenched in her lap. “I will not abandon my baby to that monster.” She started to sob.

Alex didn’t want to be moved by her impassioned plea. He stared at his shoes. Jane was young. She could have more children. Even as he thought it he knew it wouldn’t matter. One child did not replace another.

She stood, wiping her cheeks. “What would you do, if it was your child?”