Mother by Fate

She had a record that was pages long and included aiding and abetting a bombing. According to her ex she was a meth addict—which explained how skinny she was.

Drawing closer to the shrub he was almost close enough to grab the woman. Trevor Kramer had told him that unless she was in need of a fix, she was pretty good about following orders.

He’d found the comment strange, but gathered Trevor was talking about his ex-wife’s work ethic as Michael had been asking about her employment—anything that could give him a clue to where she might go to hide. So Nicole Kramer followed orders at work, did her job well, when she wasn’t jonesing.

After spending a night in a women’s shelter, where she most certainly wouldn’t have had access to illegal drugs, she was probably desperate for a fix. It was probably what had driven her out of the shelter that afternoon to begin with.

He pulled his gun. He was going to get this woman, no matter what it took.

“I have you cornered, Nicole. I’m only here to help you, to keep you safe. I know Sara.”

No response. He’d seen the shrubs move. He knew she was in there.

Too far in for him to grab her. And he couldn’t just start shooting. Not unless she shot at him first.

She had to come out at some point.

“I’ll wait as long as I have to,” he said, leaning against the corner of the house closest to the end of the line of shrubs. She’d chosen well. The bushes were so dense he still couldn’t see her.

He could hear her, though. Hear the swishing sound as she moved in the dirt. She was crawling through the line of bushes. Intending to come out on the other end around the corner of the house and get away from him while he stood there talking to the shrubs. “It won’t work, Nicole,” he said, moving with the sound of the swishing as the tops of the bushes quivered as she made her way along the house.

The sun was setting behind the house, leaving the front in shadow. Keeping his gaze honed on every little movement, he almost missed the swaying back near the original entrance to the shrubs at the front of the house. She wanted him to think that she was going around back to escape so she could slip out the front.

No, he heard rustling in the back.

But saw movement up front.

She was playing with him. Trevor had said the woman was an escape artist. She’d managed to elude not just the LAPD, but the San Diego Police Department, as well.

She wasn’t going to elude him.

Another sound from the back.

Movement in the front.

She was in one area, and using something to either create noise or movement in the other. At the corner of the house now, he watched both shrub exits. If she was as smart as Trevor had said she was, she’d go out the back. She could hop the five-foot fence into the woods. Maybe even make it to the beach.

Another swoosh, like a body sliding along in the dirt, or a shirt rubbing up against a foundation. He moved toward the sound. If he went in after her, cornered her in the dark, she’d likely shoot him.

He had to be ready to grab her the second she showed herself.

The sound came again. Ignoring the movements up front now, he prepared to jump the woman as soon as she emerged.

He heard the rustle before his brain had a chance to process what it meant. It was in front of him and she was out of the bush and across the driveway by the time he could react. As she fled, he saw the long branch she’d been using to make the sounds. She’d pulled it out with her, dropping it as she ran.

She only had a thirty-second head start. Back the way they’d come. And he knew, as she probably did, that that side of the house wasn’t fenced. She was off in the woods, heading toward the beach, and their little game continued.

Michael chased her until dark. Until after dark. The night was more friend to her than to him. But he was good at what he did.

It wasn’t until she hopped on a bus just as it was pulling away that she finally lost him.

His SUV was at least a couple of miles from where he was. He had no way to follow her.

But he took the bus number.

He had contacts. As long as he had a bus number he could find the driver and question him. Canvass the entire route if he had to. One way or another he was going to find out where she got off.

And he’d continue the hunt.

* * *

STOPPING SHORT OF wringing her hands, Sara paced her small office at the Lemonade Stand. The sound of her heels on the hard plastic chair runner jarred her as she crossed around the back of the armchair she most usually sat in, to the desk, over to the front of her chair, around the walnut coffee table to the floral-pattern couch and back.

She adjusted the box of lotion-filled tissues on the table. And listened for the sound of footsteps outside.

Lynn Duncan Bishop, the Stand’s full-time nurse practitioner and chief medical officer, had said they’d only be a minute.

But with Maddie, Lynn’s live-in sister-in-law and a former victim of domestic abuse, one could never quite predict how things would go. In her thirties, Maddie had the emotional and mental capacity of a child.

Yet in spite of her mental handicap, Maddie was a superb child-care worker. She lived on campus full-time.

A short rap and the office door opened. Lynn stood on the other side, her thick strawberry blonde hair mussed as though she’d been in bed when Lila had called. It wasn’t even late—nine o’clock or so. But Lynn was on call 24/7.

“Sorry it took us so long,” she said.

“It’s my fault, Sara.” Maddie entered the room behind Lynn, dressed identically to her sister-in-law, in jeans and a Lemonade Stand polo shirt. “Darin and I were in bed together and Lynn said I could have sex again and Greta was asleep so we were copulating.” Her thick-tongued diatribe was issued with as much haste as Maddie could manage.

Deprived of oxygen at birth, and then locked up and beaten for over a decade by a man who’d married her straight out of high school, Maddie couldn’t discern what to say and what to keep to herself. But her word was always 100 percent the truth.

“It’s okay, Maddie.” Sara slipped instinctively into the role that Maddie would expect. With all the calm in the world, she asked Maddie and Lynn to have a seat.

“Lynn said that you need to know about Nicole, the new woman that talked to me, and I will tell you everything because I do not want her to be hurt, but I have to get back home, Sara. Greta will be awake in thirty-eight minutes and I will have to be there to feed her. Lynn says that as long as I am there to feed her and she gets full I am allowed to breast-feed her. I really think that’s important because kids have less childhood illnesses if they are breast-fed, isn’t that right, Lynn?”

“Statistically, that does appear to be the case,” Lynn said, with a look of urgent apology directed at Sara.

Smiling, Sara bent forward until she was looking Maddie in the eye. “I want you to be home to feed Greta,” she said. “You know we all understand how important that is.”

Maddie nodded. “I know, Sara. Thank you.” The almost thirty-seven-year-old new wife and mother was usually a bundle of happiness, and Sara knew that if Maddie became upset, she’d be of less use to Nicole. And right now, Maddie wanted to help Nicole.

It was up to Sara to assist her. Those roles were clearly understood.

“So are you ready to think about Nicole for a moment?” The afternoon clerk at the thrift store, a former resident, had been out to dinner with her adult children and they’d been unable to reach her until just half an hour ago. She was the one who’d told them that Maddie had been with Nicole in the store. Other than that, she hadn’t been able to tell them anything. She hadn’t seen Nicole leave. Or Maddie, either. She’d assumed, perfectly understandably, that the two women had made their way back to the Stand through the rear exit.

“Yes, I am ready.” Eyes wide, Maddie nodded. “I like Nicole. She hurts and needs her baby boy and I will do whatever you need me to do to help her get him.” Her eyes clouded and her head swung toward Lynn. “If I can help,” she said.

“All we need you to do is tell us what you remember about Nicole,” Sara said, keeping her tone soft. Maddie had come a long way since her ex-husband had kept her locked alone in a room for weeks on end, since he’d punished her so cruelly, for possessing a brain that would never progress beyond the preteen level. He’d married her fully aware of the situation. And then spent about twelve of the next fourteen years brutalizing her for it. In Sara’s professional opinion, Maddie would probably never completely get over her fear of disappointing those she cared about. Or her fear of getting in trouble for it.

“I remember that she’s really skinny,” Maddie said. “And she has blond hair and she’s very white. She doesn’t let her skin get tanned at all.”