Full Contact

“How?”

“I— My… She was the one.”

“Maybe Aaron was, too.”

“You really think so?”

She had. At one time. Then…time…had changed things. Less than sixty minutes of it had changed everything.

Forever.

And that was something that Joe Frasier understood all too well.

CHAPTER TWO

BEFORE DAWN FRIDAY MORNING, Jay left his motorcyle in the short-term parking lot at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. He caught the shuttle for the off-site car rental place he’d phoned the night before.

Half an hour later he was on I-10, his six-foot frame chafing beneath the seat belt in the Chevy Impala. He’d never driven in Phoenix before, but at that early hour there was little traffic and he’d studied maps. He also had a sense of direction that could get him from one dark hole to the next without a spot of light.

Mostly what he wanted to do was remain inconspicuous. As inconspicuous as a long-haired, broad-shouldered man could be. He’d shed his leather vest and figured his white T-shirt blended in as well as anything might.

He’d signaled his exit and followed his preset route to his destination. The neighborhood, once he got to it, was a nice one. Elegant. Expensive. The best.

He’d expected nothing less.

The gated entry slowed him not at all. Saying he was surprising his sister with a visit, he’d coaxed a garbage guy down the street to give him the service code.

Jay had been investigating those who didn’t want to be found too long to let things like gates stop him.

Not that this particular jaunt had anything to do with him finding someone who didn’t want to be found. No, this time it was him who didn’t want to be seen. Not yet. All in good time.

“HOW DO YOU FEEL WHEN Josh hugs you?”

Ellen didn’t want to answer Shawna’s question. She didn’t want to answer any more questions ever again. Period. Questions made her feel like a freak.

And…they helped.

Which was why she was in counseling again.

She took a deep breath and forced herself inside, where the truth she was seeking lay waiting for her. “Sometimes his arms around my neck, his little body close to mine, is like what I imagine heaven to be. Light and free and so good you need to cry. With overwhelming joy. Other times, I feel peaceful.”

There. All true. And as normal as it got.

“And?” Shawna peered at her over the reading glasses she always wore when she had Ellen’s file on her desk in front of her.

Ellen, hands folded across her stomach, met the older woman’s gaze head-on.

She and Shawna had been together, on and off, since before Josh was born.

“And sometimes, most particularly when he comes at me when I’m not expecting it, I have to fight the instinct to tear his hands away.”

And then she quickly added, “But my patients at work hug me all the time and I’m fine with that. I love it.” She was fine. Healthy.

She just wasn’t dating.

And while no one but old Joe Frasier was on her about it, Ellen didn’t want to spend her life alone, raising her son alone, watching him grow and succeed alone.

She didn’t want to sleep alone for the rest of her life.

“How many of them come at you unexpectedly?” How could Shawna’s question come out so quiet when her voice sounded so firm?

“None.”

“Are there times when Josh hugs you, when you are expecting it, that you feel cramped?”

Oh, God. Was she a horrible mother? “Yes,” she barely whispered.

“Hey.” Shawna leaned forward, her blond hair falling over her shoulders to her desk. Ellen focused on the hair. “It’s okay.”

She met Shawna’s gaze and listened intently.

“You’re fine,” Shawna said. “Look at you, Ellen, you live independently. You have a successful career that you love. From what I can tell, everyone in town, young and old, comes to you for assistance because they know they can rely on you. You go out alone all the time.”

Of course she did. She was alive. She lived.

She just didn’t date.

“You’re going to have hard times. We talked about that five years ago. I told you to expect them. And to know that you would get through them.” But…

“And you have gotten through them, haven’t you?” Shawna asked.

Ellen thought to the time when she couldn’t be in a room alone. When she couldn’t leave her mother’s house.

It had taken her two years to walk into Walmart.

She thought of the years when she hadn’t slept through the night—any night.

“Yes,” she finally said.

“You’ll get through this, too, if that’s what you want.”

Because she could do anything she set her mind to. She knew that. Believed it.

And yet…

“Listen, I have a suggestion…” The way Shawna sat back, her words trailing off, got Ellen’s attention. “What?”

Studying her, Shawna remained silent, then glanced at Ellen’s file and seemed to come to some kind of decision. “There’s this new guy in town. He arrived this week. His name’s Jay Billingsley.”