Free Living on the Edge by Susan Mallery Page A

correspondence, setting up schedules, her appointment calendar and e-mail.
    He found that she’d told the truth about her work. She really did help kids with facial deformities. In her document files there were folders for each child she’d dealt with. The older files contained everything from copies of applications to travel arrangements and letters, including e-mails sent back and forth. There were also medical notes, follow-up reports and her own personal log of the child’s time in Los Angeles.
    He clicked on a file at random and scrolled through various documents. He stopped on an e-mail titled Big Fat Kissy Thank You.
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    Dear Madison—You have been more wonderful than I can ever say. I mean, the dress was so huge of you, but then to have Miss Cissy come and do my hair and everything. Wow! Mom says she’s getting the pictures developed this weekend and we’ll send you some.
    I can’t believe I finally got to go to my first ever dance. Brice was really cool and he brought me a corsage and it was so romantic. He even kissed me good-night.
    Before, when I met you, I never thought a boy could ever like me. I was too ugly. But you said my life would change. You said I would be beautiful and you were right.
    I love you so much and I don’t know how to say thank you for what you’ve done. You’re the best. I hope you have lots of kids of your own so you can love them just as much as you love me.
    Your friend, Kristen.
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    Tanner stared at the screen for several seconds before closing the file. There was a response from Madison, but he didn’t read it—he didn’t need to. From what he’d seen so far, she was the genuine article. Someone who cared.
    How was that possible? How could someone like her—rich, privileged, spoiled—ever look past her own small life into someone else’s? She’d told him the storyof seeing the woman and her child crying on a bus bench, but so what? How many other people had simply hurried by?
    He turned in his chair to stare at the security screen. The dot that represented Madison sat motionless in the center of her room. No doubt she’d already logged on to the Internet to collect her e-mail.
    In the past thirty-six hours, he’d pushed her, bullied her and threatened her. She’d taken it all and had come back for more. He’d yet to catch her in a lie. Maybe, just maybe, she was exactly who and what she said.
    He wouldn’t have thought it was possible. Beauty, brains and integrity?
    His computer beeped. He glanced at the screen and saw a flag for outgoing mail. He’d already warned Madison that he would be monitoring her e-mail and he’d meant it. Now he clicked on the icon, then opened the file and scanned the letter she’d sent to her boss at the charity.
    The text was innocuous. Madison claimed an ongoing family emergency kept her from her work, although she would be in touch via e-mail. She attached several open case files, asking for updates and offering to help in any way she could from home.
    He read the e-mail twice before sending it on. There was a second letter to her assistant, asking for information on a burned toddler who had been brought out here for surgery.
    Tanner sent that one on, as well, then continued his check of Madison’s hard drive. At this point, he didn’t expect to find anything, but he believed in being thorough.
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    Madison felt her spirits rise with each keystroke. After nearly two weeks of being out of touch, she felt great to finally connect with her kids and her staff.
    She sat propped up on the bed as she dashed off a couple of e-mails explaining that she would continue to be away from the office for a while. One of the pluses of not being a paid employee was that her boss couldn’t actually complain if she, Madison, had to be gone. Madison figured it was better to keep the story vague than to explain she’d been kidnapped.
    Next she went