Нора Робертс - Hideaway

“We’ll have it ready.” Hugh passed Cate back to her father, got to his feet to shake Red’s hand. Then he walked to Dillon, did the same. “Thank you for doing everything right.”

“Oh, that’s okay.”

“It’s more than okay. Thank you all. I’d like to come back again in a day or two.”

“Anytime,” Julia told him.

“We’re just going to give you a police escort home.” Red winked at Cate. “No sirens, but how about we run the lights?”

She grinned at that. “Okay.”

Outside, Red got behind the wheel, waited for Michaela to get in beside him. Hit the lights.

He headed down the ranch road behind the fancy sedan. “We’ve got us an inside job, Mic.”

“Michaela,” she muttered, then blew out a breath. “Yes, sir, we sure do.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Snuggled in her father’s arms, Cate fell asleep before they reached the end of the ranch road.

“She’s exhausted,” Aidan murmured. “I want to have a doctor look her over, but…”

“She can sleep first. I can get Ben to come to the house. He’d do it for us.”

“I was afraid … I know she’s only ten, but I was afraid he—they—might—”

Reaching over, Hugh squeezed his arm. “So was I. But that didn’t happen, they didn’t touch her that way. She’s safe now.”

“She was close all the time. Just a few miles away. God, Dad, she was so brave, so damn clever and brave. She saved herself, that’s what she did. My fearless little girl saved herself. And now I’m afraid to let her out of my sight.”

Hugh slowed when they approached the gates securing the peninsula, waited until they opened for him. “They had to have a way in and out. They couldn’t have done it without the security code, or clearance. All the people coming and going today of all days.”

Lights bloomed along the road winding up, winding away from the sea toward the multileveled house on the rise.

A house, Hugh thought, his parents had built as a sanctuary for themselves, their family. Today, on the day they’d honored his father, someone had invaded that sanctuary, despoiled it, and stolen his grandchild.

The sanctuary would be his now, and he would do whatever he could do to make certain no one ever marred it again.

“Let me get your door,” Hugh began as he pulled up, but family already streamed out of the house. While his wife, his sister, his brother-in-law rushed to the car, Hugh walked to where his mother stood, at the entrance portico.

She looked so frail, so tired.

He caught her face in his hands, used his thumbs to brush away tears. “She’s safe, Ma. She’s sleeping.”

“Where—”

“I’ll tell you inside. Let’s go inside, and let Aidan get her upstairs to bed. Our girl’s had a hell of a time, but she’s safe, Ma, and she’s not hurt. Some scrapes and bruises, nothing more.”

“My legs are shaking. It’s always after my legs start shaking. Give me a hand.”

He helped her inside, into her favorite winter chair by the fire, with the view of the sea beyond the wide window.

When Aidan carried her in, Cate’s head on his shoulder, her body loose in that rag-doll way of a sleeping child, Rosemary pressed a hand to her lips.

“I want to put her to bed,” Aidan said quietly. “I need to stay with her in case she wakes up. I don’t want her to be alone when she wakes up.”

“I’ll bring up some tea, some food,” Maureen told him. “I’ll look in on Charlotte to make sure she’s still asleep. If she’s awake, I’ll bring her right in.”

“Let me help you get her settled, Aidan. I’ll turn the bed down—and I’ll check on Charlotte, Mo, while you see Aidan gets some food.” Lily hurried to the stairs and up ahead of Aidan.

“We’ll wait until Lily and Maureen are back,” Rosemary decreed. “Then I think we need to hear the story from Hugh before we try to get some sleep.”

“It’s a hell of a story. I just want to let everyone know the police are on it—and they’ll be here to talk to us in a few hours. So yeah, we’ll need to try to get some sleep.”

While Aidan slipped off Cate’s sneakers, Red and Michaela drove up another steep road on the hillside.

“You have to figure, if she hit the field, the fence, the cows coming out of the trees, she was likely coming from south of the Cooper place.”

“Or she got turned around, circled around, even ran down from higher up.”

“All possible,” he agreed. “But up this road? There’s a high-class, two-story cabin. Not much else for another mile south, and the Cooper place about three miles north. It’s worth swinging by.”

“You know the owners, who lives there?”

“When you work this area, it pays to know who’s who. Just like I know the people who live there are in Hawaii right now.”

Michaela shifted in her seat, looked up the snaking road. “So it’s unoccupied. That would be damn handy.”

“That’s my thought on it. I don’t see any outside lights on, and right there’s a little buzz. They’d have left the security light on.”

He slowed, silhouetting the cabin in the headlights.

“Looks like a light on in the back. There’s a truck under that carport on the north side. Theirs?”

“One of them. They’ve got an SUV. Probably drove that to the airport. Keep your weapon handy, Mic.”

She unsnapped the safety on her holster as they got out of either side of the car.

“Let’s do a little circle around first. The kid said they had her in a room in the back, facing the hills.”

“And she could see taillights when he left. The way the cabin’s situated, the switchback down to Highway 1? Yeah, she could’ve seen taillights.”

“If this is the place, they’re likely long gone, but…”

Red paused, looked up at the white cloth rope hanging out of the window above. “Looks like this is the place. Christ on a crutch, Mic, look at what that kid pulled off.”

Shaking his head, he approached the back door. “Unlocked. Let’s clear it.”

Weapons drawn now, they went in the door, one heading right, the other left.

She noted an open bag of Doritos—Cool Ranch—a cardboard box holding some empty beer bottles. She smelled weed in the air as she cleared a laundry room, a powder room, a kind of hobby room before she crossed with Red again in the living area.

They went upstairs, cleared the front-facing master suite with its big walk-in closet, its really big en suite. A guest room—with its own bath. A second guest room, then the last.

“Smallest of them,” Red observed, “facing the back. They aren’t completely stupid.”

“And long gone.” Michaela checked the windows. “They took off as soon as they realized she got out. One window here’s still nailed shut.” She pointed to the floor. “And there’s the one she pried out, with the spoon. Spoon’s bent and scratched. She worked at it.”

Red holstered his weapon, looked out the window at the drop. “If that kid was of legal age, I’d buy her a beer. Hell, I’d buy her a goddamn keg. That’s guts right there, Mic. Let’s do her proud and catch these fuckers.”

“I’m on board with that.”

While Aidan dozed in the chair beside the bed, the sun crept through the window. And Cate tossed in her sleep, began to whimper.

He woke with a jolt, struggled through the layers of fatigue that weighed down on his mind, his body. He rose quickly, sat on the side of the bed to take Cate’s hand, to stroke her hair.

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay now. Daddy’s right here.”

Her eyes flew open, wide and blind for a moment. On a little sob she lunged into his arms.

“I had a bad dream. I had a scary bad dream.”

“I’m right here.”