Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(96)
An engine sounded in the distance, then grew silent. A car door slammed. Voices echoed around them, but Raegan didn’t turn to look because she had what she needed right here.
Alec lifted his head, and his body stilled against hers. Near her ear, he whispered, “Oh my God.”
“What?” Raegan drew back and searched his face. His eyes widened as he gazed through the back windshield of the car at something behind her. Twisting in her seat to see what he was looking at, she said, “What are y—”
The words caught in her throat when she spotted the slim, blonde twentysomething woman standing beside a Toyota Camry Raegan didn’t remember being in the drive when she and Alec had walked out of that house, speaking with two FBI agents. And perched on the young woman’s hip, looking around with wide eyes, was an auburn-haired four-year-old girl.
“Alec,” Raegan gasped, reaching for his shoulder.
Alec stood quickly and pulled Raegan to her feet, his eyes never once leaving the little girl. “I don’t believe it.”
Raegan rushed around the back of the squad car with him. Others had noticed the woman and child too, and several officers moved toward the woman, blocking Raegan’s view. Her pulse shot up. Against her hand, Alec’s palm grew damp. An FBI agent on the outside of the group spotted them drawing close and stepped back. He tapped another agent on the shoulder to make room. As the sea of bodies parted, Raegan heard the young woman’s voice saying, “No, I’m not Jennifer Waldorf. I’m the Waldorfs’ nanny. My name is Lisa. Lisa Schneider. No, I don’t know where they are. Mr. Waldorf is away on business right now. I don’t know where Mrs. Waldorf is, probably at the spa. What’s going on here? Would someone please tell me why there are so many cops here? What’s happened?”
The last agents moved out of the way, and Raegan’s chest drew tight as a drum as she stared at the little girl in the young woman’s arms. The little girl with Raegan’s auburn hair and Alec’s mesmerizing blue eyes.
“E-Emma?” Raegan asked in a voice just above a whisper.
The woman’s forehead wrinkled, and a worried look passed over her features as she glanced from Raegan to the girl in her arms and back again. “No. Her name is Emily. Who are you and what do you think you’re doing here?”
The little girl blinked several times as if she had no clue what was happening. Her small hand fisted in the puffy fabric of the woman’s coat sleeve. But slowly, as her gaze darted between Alec and Raegan, a hint of a smile pulled at her lips. And when she tipped her head to the side in that shy, sweet way Emma always had, Raegan spotted the small, strawberry birthmark near the corner of her eye.
In a rush, all the fear and agony and longing inside finally slipped away. Raegan squeezed Alec’s hand, and tears blurred her vision all over again as she looked up at his shocked and joy-filled eyes, then gazed back at their daughter.
“We’re her parents,” Raegan managed, finding her voice. “And we’re finally here to take her home.”
EPILOGUE
Six months later . . .
“Stupid bastard doesn’t know when to quit,” Alec said into the phone pressed to his ear when he heard the news that John Gilbert had finally awoken from his coma nearly six months after he’d run from the cops and rolled his stolen pickup off I-5.
“No,” Jack Bickam said on the other end of the line. “He sure doesn’t. Miriam Kasdan is still blaming him for everything, saying he was the mastermind behind the whole abduction ring, not her.”
Alec huffed as he crossed one arm over his chest and tucked his hand against his side. “Gilbert isn’t smart enough for all that.”
“Don’t worry, her story isn’t flying. But it’s gotten Gilbert singing like a canary. He’s talking. A lot. According to him, Arnold Kasdan, the son, was the first abduction. I guess the Kasdans couldn’t have kids of their own, and Walter Kasdan, Miriam’s husband, was too busy building his empire to care much about his wife’s desire to be a parent. So she started volunteering with inner-city youth, trying to fill the void. They lived in Spokane back then. Arnold was one of the kids she came across during her volunteer work. The way Gilbert told it, Arnold’s biological mother was a meth addict, and his father wasn’t really in the picture. Good ol’ Miriam bonded with the kid and was so appalled by his living situation she decided to take him with her when she and her husband moved to Portland. She saw it as an extension of her ‘good work.’ I guess she told her husband Arnold’s mother had died of a drug overdose and that he had no other family. The husband agreed to let her keep the kid, and they passed him off as their son. We’re checking into the story. Gilbert also told us that when she got to Portland she continued her charity work and came across more kids like Arnold. She couldn’t adopt them all—nor did she want to—so she made it her life’s work to find them ‘better homes.’ Arnold has been involved in the operation for a long time. He, apparently, sees Miriam as his savior and totally bought into the whole ‘saving kids from a terrible life’ crap. He’s the one who got Gilbert released early, by the way. He’s also the one who arranged for Conner Murray to disappear when Murray got nervous after you and Raegan talked to him. It was a real family business all around.”
A family of psychos. “What about the kid you found in the mountains?”