Free One Scream Away by Kate Brady Page A

girl. And Christ, she seemed fragile and small just now. It touched him in a place he’d thought was long gone.
    “Maybe you should talk to her,” he said, pulling out his phone. He dialed and asked for Abby, then handed the phone to Denison.
    “Honey? Are you all right?” she asked.
    Silence.
    “I’m coming to get you, sweetie, right now. I’ll be there soon.” Beat. “What?” Denison looked stricken. “No. I’ll see you in a little while. I love you, baby.”
    She handed the phone back to Neil, looking perplexed.
    “Something wrong?” he asked.
    “She’s mad I’m coming. She wants to stay longer.”
    Neil chuckled. “See? Nothing to worry about.” She was finally calm. “So, I’ll make you a deal. Forget the cab, come with me, and in thirty minutes, you’ll have her back.”
    She gave him a skeptical look. “What’s my part?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “You said it was a deal. What will it cost me?”
    Neil looked at her. He could ask anything of her right now, and she’d do it. Anything for her daughter. “I misspoke,” he said, finding his voice a little stuck. “There’s no deal; some things are just wrong, that’s all. A mother shouldn’t be separated from her child.”
    She looked at him with open shock.
    “Come on. I won’t even grill you about the phone calls along the way.” When she still hesitated, he drew an X over his chest. “Hope to die.”
    They rode in a rental car—a sporty Dodge about ten cuts above your standard rental car. Beth tipped her head back against the leather seat, a mixture of exhaustion and emotion making lucid thought nearly impossible. Two more days until Cheryl and Jeff got home and could take Abby, and meanwhile, Beth could almost feel Bankes getting closer. Pray God, it would take him another few days to get here; pray God that when he did, it would be as important to him to keep their secret as it was to Beth. Maybe she could get him to leave them alone. She had money to bribe him, and she had Adele Lochner to threaten him. She had a place to hide Abby. She had the financial solvency to run if necessary, and if he followed, she had her Glock…
    “Are you cold?” Sheridan’s voice was oddly quiet. “I can turn on the heat.”
    Lord, she was shivering again. Damned chills. “I’m fine.”
    He turned on the heat anyway. Five minutes passed before he turned it off and spoke again. “Are you in love with him?”
    He meant Bankes, of course. “What happened to ‘hope to die’?”
    “I said I wouldn’t grill you about the calls. This is… personal.” She gawked at him and he shrugged. “So sue me for finding you attractive.”
    A tingle raced across Beth’s skin for no good reason. She clutched her arms over her chest.
    “Are you in love with him?” he repeated.
    “No.”
    He wheeled around a corner, pulled up to a light, and stopped. “Then I have another question. Personal, that is.” He looked right at her, eyes like blue crystals. “Have you got a thing going with Evan Foster?”
    Beth shook her head. “No.”
    “And if I asked him, would he give the same answer?”
    She looked at her lap.
    “Uh-huh, that’s what I thought,” he said, going back to the road. He rolled through the intersection, his wrist dangling over the top of the steering wheel, a pose so casual he might be discussing the weather rather than something so intimate as Beth’s love life. She chanced a glance at the side of his face, her emotional barriers dangerously flimsy. She had the strange feeling that if he chose to, he could simply reach inside and help himself to a slice of her soul. “So, seven years after your husband died, you’re still wearing your wedding ring, you haven’t given any other man the time of day, and your social life consists of T-ball games and PTA meetings.”
    “I don’t see that it’s any of your business,” she said.
    His big shoulders moved a little. “It just seems like a long time to be alone, that’s all.”
    Alone.
She