Doranna Durgin - Survival Instinct

There was Longsford, leaning over to talk to a small boy. Karin turned the pages of the date book, tearing paper in her haste. There. The discussion with Dave Hunter…dated only a week before these photos were developed. Too bad the picture itself didn’t bear a digital time stamp; there was no telling the exact date of the event.

But what if that little boy was Terry Williams?

Dave would know.

No. She couldn’t show it to Dave. Not just yet. He’d have questions she couldn’t answer…and it wouldn’t bring him any closer to finding Rashawn Little.

The photo trembled in her hand. God, she didn’t need to show it to Dave. She knew. Why else would Ellen have pulled this photo? Why else would she have planned to call Dave? Karin didn’t know if Ellen had realized the photo’s exact significance, but she’d clearly put two and two together.

Dave was right. Longsford was his man. And while Longsford’s willingness to let his errand boys push her around-and then leave her on a cliff to die-had been pretty damning, they spoke only of the man’s ruthlessness. Not of his guilt in the kidnapping and murder of little boys. This photo…

This photo drove it home.

Longsford was a predator.

Ellen would have been able to help nail the bastard.

But Karin…all Karin could do was hand over this photo and shrug. Somewhere out there Rashawn Little was sitting on a figurative cliff, helpless. Waiting for someone to drop him some tire chains. To give him that wondrous feeling Dave had given Karin…that for one moment, she wasn’t alone in the world.

As Ellen, she couldn’t help at all.

But Karin had resources Ellen had never even imagined.

Dewey warned Karin out of her deep contemplation by lifting his head from his paws and then stalking out. By the time Dave got there, she was waiting for him-still sitting cross-legged, still holding the clues Ellen had left. Things that had meant nothing to her when she’d packed them up but now suddenly meant everything.

Dave waited in the doorway, as if sensing this was her most private space. More private, even, than the bedroom.

Not that she’d had visitors to either.

“Hey,” he said, leaning against the door frame, a casual posture for someone who couldn’t possibly feel casual inside. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but…we need to talk.”

“Hey,” she said. Odd to see him there, draped in the doorway with all his innate grace and still wearing his sweatshirt as though it were designer goods. She could feel his presence from here…a baffling awareness. What was she supposed to do with that?

Enjoy it.

She blinked at the unexpected little voice in her head.

Huh.

He rubbed that spot below his lip, just above the cleft in his chin. Not a Kirk Douglas dimple, a more subtle thing at the bottom of an angled jaw. It balanced his nose-a strong nose, at that-and somehow always drew her eyes to his mouth.

At least it did when he hadn’t already caught her gaze, holding it in silence as he so often did. Like now. Then that mouth went wryly crooked. “I know you’ve been through a lot, Ellen, but…I’m running out of time. Rashawn is running out of time. I’ve got to go back…and I want you to come.”

She gave her next line on cue…the line that would make sense if she was who she’d told him she was. “You still think I’ll remember something?”

Dave gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t know. But it’s not safe for you to stay here by yourself. Not now. And that’s my fault.”

“Yes,” she murmured. “We’ve established that.” Not that he had any true idea of the potential ramifications. Of course, he was so damned honest that if he had even an inkling of her warrant, he’d probably put her on a plane to California himself.

That’s not fair, said her pesky little voice. He might believe you didn’t do whatever Rumsey claims you did. He might even help you.

As if she could take the chance.

She was hardly the innocent. She might not have done what the warrant claimed, but she’d done plenty. The long-term scams were her specialty, but she’d pulled plenty of high-pressure investment scams. She’d muled for Rumsey, she’d picked pockets when she was younger…she’d done plenty. She’d done it to survive and she felt no particular guilt even though she’d been ready to leave it behind.

That, she suspected, would bother Dave most of all.

She savored the physical tension between them. If he wasn’t leaving until tomorrow, then there was the rest of the afternoon…the evening…

Take what you can get.

It had always been a motto of sorts.

Her glance fell upon the items in her hand. She looked over at him, gestured with them.

He took the invitation, coming in to kneel beside her when he saw the nature of what she had, exhaling with the surprise of it. She offered the photo; he took it, holding it out at a distance.

“Need those glasses?” she asked.

He shook his head, his mouth gone tight. “Do you know who this is?”

“Longsford,” she said, her inflection saying isn’t it obvious? even if her words didn’t.

His finger-abraded and bruised from the cliffhanger antics-stabbed at the picture. “No. The boy. Terry Williams.”

Karin looked away. “Crap.” And then, still looking away, said, “Check the date book.”

He did. Something like wonder came into his voice. “You were going to call me.” It changed to demand. “Why the hell didn’t you?”

Karin pointed at the next day. “There,” she said. “My sister reached me. She…was in trouble. She lived with my stepfather. But my stepfather isn’t a nice man, and she finally needed a way out. I left that day to get her.” So odd to talk about herself in that way…but somehow also a relief. She could tell him of herself without truly revealing anything at all. Her finger then traveled across the page, stopping at the day Ellen had died. “Here. The accident. By the time I got back home, that note meant nothing to me. ‘Hi, is this Dave Hunter? Who are you, and do you know why I was going to call you?’”

Dave ran his finger over the photograph. “Damn,” he said softly.

“Isn’t that photo enough? Won’t it help?”

He stilled, thinking about it, and then shifted beside her, settling into a cross-legged position like her own. He didn’t need to shake his head for Karin to know the answer. “Someone else, we might pull in for questioning with evidence like this. Longsford is too highly connected. When we go for him, we’ve got to have the case already made. But this is one more piece.” He flipped the photo over, checking for notes, and then gestured with it. “Can I take it?”

“It’s all yours.”

He nodded his thanks. “If I’d had any doubts about him…”

That surprised her. “Did you?”

His smile was grim and weary. “No. But I’m the only one. There’s a reason they didn’t officially bring me in to consult.”

She realized for the first time that he was doing this on his own time. Scraping around without Bureau resources, trying to find Rashawn before it was too late.

He looked over at her-caught her eye in that way he had. “You’ll come with me?”

She hesitated. She didn’t need his help…she could easily wait until he left and then do what she’d planned in the first place, hide out as someone else until the threat was over.

But if Longsford wasn’t caught, then the threat would never end. Not now, once he’d decided she was a threat. Especially not if he wanted to continue his little hobby.

She was going to have to tell Dave. To offer him the help Ellen couldn’t give him.

And when he learned who she really was, what she’d really done with her life, this man who now sat so comfortably beside her, who’d offered her his warmth and his kisses…then he’d look at her in an entirely different way.