Mother by Fate. Tara Taylor Quinn

told me about Toby.” Maddie frowned again. “And that she was pregnant before him, too. With a girl, like Greta. And her husband hit her until she couldn’t keep the baby inside her so that she wouldn’t have a girl. He said he told her that he was only going to be a dad to boy babies.”

      Shaking inside, Sara used all of the skills at her disposal to keep a noncommittal, kind expression. Anything else Maddie would take personally and be waylaid.

      “He’s not a nice man,” Lynn said. The nurse practitioner continued to hold her sister-in-law’s hand.

      Nicole was out there in the dark. At Trevor’s mercy. “What was the last thing she said to you?” Sara asked Maddie. “You said you went with her to the thrift store...”

      “I said she asked me to go,” Maddie corrected quite seriously. “I didn’t say yet that I did go.”

      Leaning forward, Sara tried to hold Maddie’s gaze for more than the two or three seconds the other woman usually allowed. “Did you go?”

      “Yes, I did.”

      “And what was the last thing that she said to you? Do you remember?”

      “Yes, I do.”

      “Can you tell me?”

      “She said, ‘I have to go.’”

      “Go where? Why? Did she say why?”

      Maddie’s face started to crumble and Sara gave herself an inner shake. She’d confused the slow-witted woman, and that was the last thing she’d ever want to do—whether someone else was in danger or not.

      “Maddie,” she said, sliding to her knees in front of her. “I’m sorry. I’m scared for Nicole and it’s not your fault. It’s just...I need you right now. Okay?”

      Sitting up straight, puffing out her chest, Maddie reached out a hand and patted Sara on the head. “Of course, Sara. You know I will do anything for you.”

      Tears pricked the backs of her eyelids, a testament to her weakened state. “I know. So...if you could just tell me what happened at the thrift store to make Nicole have to leave...”

      “It wasn’t at the thrift store, exactly...”

      “Okay, was it before you went to the store with her that something happened?”

      “No. We were in the thrift store, but he wasn’t.”

      “He? Who’s he?”

      Lynn’s gaze darted to Sara, but she didn’t interrupt.

      “I didn’t see him. But she did. She said he was staring at us. And she said we should go to another part of the store and when we did she said that he moved, too, so he could see us. And then she said she had to go. But she didn’t go right away. She stood at the side door for a while and then she jumped on the side of a truck and rode away like in a movie.”

      Sara had to get to Lila. To the police officer waiting for her.

      “Did she say anything else to you?” she asked as she stood and glanced at Lynn, apologizing silently for running out and possibly upsetting Maddie, but she had to go.

      “Just that I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone or her baby would get hurt, but then Lynn said that Nicole was confused and I had to tell to save her baby and...”

      Sara lost Maddie’s words as she ran down the hall.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      THE DRIVER OF bus twelve didn’t notice when a skinny blonde white woman got off his bus. Michael showed the guy a picture. He couldn’t remember her. He drove the beach route. Skinny blondes were a dime a dozen to him.

      Michael didn’t know if Nicole had managed to convince the guy that she was a victim, to play the innocent female needing protection—as she’d obviously managed to do at the women’s shelter—or if she’d merely been that unremarkable. Perhaps the bus driver really was as oblivious as he’d said after driving the same route day in and day out, letting people on and off the bus.

      Either way, he couldn’t do a damn thing about the man’s statement. It was what it was.

      Neither could he rest with Nicole Kramer so close by. And on the run.

      Hailing a cab to get him back to his car, he hit the first number on his speed dial.

      “Don’t worry, she’s already had dinner and her bath and is reading a story to the dogs before bedtime,” Ashleigh drawled over the line.

      “I wasn’t worried,” he said. His mom would have checked in by now, too. They knew he was on a job. “I just want to tell her good-night.”

      “Mar?” Ashleigh’s tone was soft.

      “Tell him I’m busy.” He heard the little-girl voice, complete with the lisp.

      Not waiting for his sister to relay the message, he said, “Tell her I said to come to the phone.” There wasn’t time for games that night.

      He heard his sister’s voice... More important, her tone of voice. A quick scramble sounded, and then Mari said, “Hi, Daddy. I guess it’s not done yet, huh?”

      She knew he caught bad guys—like the one who’d killed her mother. She didn’t need to know anything else. Their deal was he’d tell her when it was over. And that any time he could, he’d call to tell her good-night.

      “Nope, not yet.”

      “It’s dark.”

      “I know.”

      But her daddy was like Superman. He had special powers. And men with special powers had to get the bad guys so little girls and their mothers could sleep safely in their beds at night.

      Reality was a part of Mari’s life.

      Because reality was that Mari’s mother had been raped and murdered in their home while Mari had been sleeping in her bed down the hall. Not that the little girl knew any of the details. Only that Mommy had been killed. Not where. Or when.

      “Hurry up and get done so you can come home,” she said now. The vulnerability in her voice only meant she was tired.

      “I will. I love you, punkin.”

      “I know. I love you, too, Daddy.”

      “’Kay—” He was ready to tell her goodbye when she interrupted.

      “Daddy?”

      “Yeah?”

      “Did you eat your supper?”

      Did he lie to her? Or make her worry? Life was filled with hard choices.

      “Yep.” He had eaten it. The night before. And the night before that.

      “I love you, Daddy. Please come home for breakfast if you’re done.”

      As if he’d be anyplace else.

      Michael hung up just as the cab was turning onto the street with the thrift shop. Was it only a few hours since he’d been there? Seemed like days to him.

      And he was no closer to catching his perp.

      She was out there someplace. Desperate enough to break into someone’s home? To hurt them in order to get money for drugs?

      Or would she head straight back to LA and the little boy she’d tried twice now to steal away from the father who loved him? Who worked as a shift manager at a reputable company and could provide a stable and loving home for the boy.

      A father who didn’t do drugs.

      Standing at the door to the SUV, he glanced over to the thrift shop. There had to be access to the women’s shelter somewhere on that street. It made sense. But he couldn’t find