Free Hidden by Tara Taylor Quinn Page B

she got out of the car to go into the Madison Building, the senator answered simply, “no.” Restaurant sources confirm that the couple had a table for breakfast and that Ms. Montgomery was wearing a yellow pantsuit. According to waitress Tina Bellows, the couple appeared to be engaged in an intense conversation.
    Forensics physician Adam Foster reports that the blood from Senator Whitehead’s car could be menstrual blood. There is no way to distinguish between a woman’s cyclic bleeding andblood from other parts of the body. Foster was also unable to determine exactly how long the blood had been in Whitehead’s car, but based on coagulation, suspected it had been there for several days. Ms. Montgomery has been missing since Monday.
    A search of the senator’s house, offices and two other vehicles earlier in the week produced no reported evidence. Detectives Kyle Gregory and Warren Stanton, who are heading the investigation, refused to comment, but one police source told the Gazette that the Miata’s search was delayed because Whitehead had lent the expensive sports car to Ronald Atler, an attorney at his firm who’d eloped on Wednesday. County marriage records confirm that the marriage took place. Atler was unavailable for questioning.
    The dirt under the swing set was clean, processed. Tricia liked the natural grass surrounding it, and the yellow flowering weeds springing up all over the ground. That something so fragile-looking could live so abundantly meant that life endured.
    Or at least weeds did.
    Holding her baby to her chest with both arms wrapped around his body and the swing’s chains, Leah pushed off, keeping the swing in motion. Taylor squealed, his tiny fingers grasping hold of her white sweater and a few stray strands of hair. She hardly noticed the pain. Didn’t care about anything so unimportant.
    Leah would survive. She was strong. Resilient. Determined.
    â€œDid Mommy ever tell you about the time she and her friend Leah were riding double on Leah’s horse and the saddle broke?” She leaned her face down to Taylor’s neck, soaking in his clean baby scent.
    â€œHorsey! Horsey!” With his little legs straddling her waist, Taylor bobbed up and down. “Mommy, horsey!”
    â€œYes, Mommy’s kind of like a horsey today, isn’t she?”
    God, she loved this kid.
    And she’d loved Leah, too. Her entire life.
    That day on Cocoa, it had been the middle of August the summer before their senior year of high school. They’d been seventeen, too sure of themselves, maybe. Feeling invincible the way teenagers do. They’d taken the horse at breakneck speed, galloping over country roads and fields outside San Francisco, intent on nothing except getting as far away as they could, to someplace unreachable by motor vehicle. Someplace hidden from anyone looking for them. Someplace private, secret, for only the two of them. A place either of them could run to, where only the other would know where to find her.
    Up in the mountains, after a couple of hours’ riding, while they were galloping down a hill, Cocoa’s expensive English saddle broke. Sitting behind the saddle, herarms around Leah, Tricia had felt the cinch straps give, saw the seat move. And knew they were goners.
    Not Leah. No, holding on to the reins, her friend had slipped her boots from the stirrups, slid behind the saddle, half on Tricia’s lap, and shoved the broken equipment off the horse. They’d continued on, riding bareback on the saddle blanket, as though nothing had happened.
    Leah looked danger in the face and didn’t look away. She stared it down and won.
    Taylor laid his head against her chest, fingers still clutching her sweater. His eyes were closed against the wind, but he was wearing a huge grin. Tricia pushed off again. And again.
    She should have told Leah.
    Yes, and at what risk? Taylor’s life? Your own?
    She pushed higher. The baby