Mother by Fate. Tara Taylor Quinn

      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.”

      Maddie had to do the telling in her own way.

      Sara bit back the impatience that was bubbling so close to the surface. Every second that it took them to find the endangered woman was another second Nicole’s husband got closer to his goal.

      “She asked me to come with her to get the jeans at the thrift shop because I don’t know why.” Maddie wrung her hands.

      “Because she likes being around you,” Lynn said. “She told you so.”

      “Yes, she did say that, but sometimes people say things just to be nice.”

      “They do.” Lynn nodded and took a hold of Maddie’s hand. “But this time I think she said it because she meant it.”

      Maddie’s glance was intent as she turned back to Sara. “Okay, then, she likes to be around me because I am genuine,” Maddie said. “She trusts me because I am genuine. That’s what she said.”

      “Good.” Sara smiled, liking the missing woman even more, though this wasn’t about liking. It was about saving a high-risk victim from probable death.

      “She didn’t want to go alone.” Maddie’s tongue seemed to trip over her teeth more than usual.

      The minutes were ticking by and Sara’s nerves were ready to split. “It was very nice of you to go with her, Maddie. That helped her. But you already know that.”

      “Yes,” Maddie said, frowning. “I do know that I was helping her. Greta was asleep and Darin was there if she woke up and he always texts me as soon as she does so I can feed her after he changes her diaper. We’re using disposables because they’re easier for us to fasten.”

      “Everyone uses disposable diapers these days.” Lynn sent Sara another apologetic glance as she spoke.

      “Not everyone.” Maddie’s reply was unusually staunch. “Nicole’s husband won’t let her use them. He says that a woman’s job is to keep up with her child’s laundry and every man deserves fresh soft cotton protecting his genitals.”

      “What