Executive Protection(43)

“We have to do this,” Lucy said.

“I don’t want to live here!”

“Out of the car, Sophie,” Lucy said in a sterner tone, but it sounded forced. She didn’t like doing this.

Sophie began crying again, but she climbed out of the car.

Lucy knelt down with her hands on the child’s shoulders. “I’ll come and see you.”

Thad walked around and stood over them, torn apart inside. A couple of tears ran down Lucy’s face.

Sophie cried, deep and genuine. This was more than a childish tantrum. Sophie was hurting.

When she reached her little arms up toward him, wailing unintelligible pleas, he dropped the bag and lifted her up into his arms. She cried against his shoulder while he rubbed her back.

“It’ll be all right, Sophie,” he tried to comfort her.

“Take me back home,” she sobbed, leaning back to look at him. Her wet face and sad, red eyes broke him.


He looked down at Lucy, who stood up and wiped her tears, crying outright now.

“Why can’t you take me home?”

Thad looked at her. “I would if I could.”

“Is everything okay?” a woman asked.

Thad saw Rosanna standing on the sidewalk, worriedly observing the scene.

“Rosanna’s here, Sophie,” Lucy said. She’d regained control, although it was obvious she’d been crying.

Sophie’s cries eased and she looked back.

“Hi, Sophie,” Rosanna said. “I baked some cookies for you. And I thought we could watch a movie together.”

Sophie turned back to Thad. Her sweet eyes heavy with innocent despondency.

“Lucy and I will come and see you,” he said, wondering what had made him.

“Promise?”

“Promise.” He kissed her temple, and then she hugged him, her tiny arms squeezing him around his neck.

Touched more than he could handle, he put the girl down, and she all but dragged her feet toward Rosanna.

Rosanna took her hand. “Things are going to be so much better around here. You’ll see.”

Until she had to be yanked out of this home and into another once she was adopted. Thad didn’t know what to do with the helplessness he felt.

Lucy knelt to hug her and then stood beside Thad.

Rosanna tugged Sophie toward the house. The little girl’s lower lip quivered as she looked back at them.

When she disappeared inside, Lucy turned to him and cried. He held her and for the first time noticed a car parked across the street. A man was inside and he was taking pictures.

* * *

Late that night, Lucy couldn’t sleep. Piling all the pillows behind her, she gave up and sat up on the bed, turning on the TV with a remote. Not only did Sophie’s heart-wrenching tears haunt her, so did the man who’d taken pictures of them. As soon as Thad had noticed him, the man had spun the car around and sped off. Who would do that and why?

Flipping channels for several more minutes, Lucy gave up on finding anything that would take her mind off Sophie and the strange man. Letting her head fall back, she stared up at the ceiling.

Thad barging through her bedroom door effectively changed her focus. Fully dressed in jeans and a leather jacket over a white T-shirt, he had an urgency about him. What had him so wound up? Cam? His mother’s shooter?

“I just got a call from the station. A 9-1-1 call was placed by Rosanna...”

Sophie.

9-1-1.

That was something she hadn’t expected. Lucy sprang out of bed as Thad went into her closet.

“What happened?” She quickly dressed in what he started throwing at her. A pair of jeans came first.

“Rosanna’s been murdered.”

Murdered? He threw a thin, soft sweater at her next. No bra. The shock of his announcement sank in.

“Where’s Sophie?” she asked.

Finally his eyes met hers, helpless and grim with bad news.

The stab of apprehension took her next breath. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“She’s missing?” Oh, God...

“It appears that way.”

Kidnapped? “Why would anyone take her?” And who? It didn’t add up.

And then she recalled the stranger parked in the car and taking pictures of them...of Thad holding Sophie. Of Lucy crying. Sophie crying...

Clearly Sophie and Lucy meant a lot to him. Lucy was harder to get to at the estate, with all the Secret Service agents roaming around. Sophie, on the other hand...

* * *

Minutes later, Thad raced to a stop in front of Rosanna’s house, where police had already strung up crime scene tape. He knew the officers there and some of the other crime scene investigators. He hadn’t been called officially because he was still on leave.

“We should have kept her with us,” Lucy said, breathless. The scene frightened her. It should. He dismissed the thought that they were behaving like worried parents. Under less serious conditions, he’d expect Lucy to tease him or tell one of her stories. If only that were the case.

Rosanna was dead and Sophie had been kidnapped—he had to assume this was related to the threat he’d gotten.

Thad faced her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I think you should wait out here.”

In a daze, Lucy nodded.