Vicki Pettersson - The Taken

But she wasn’t surprised to feel his eyes on her from the doorway as she strode through the house. I could get used to being looked at like that, she thought. To being looked after like that.

The thought worried her, so she pushed it aside and put a smile on her face as she returned to the bedroom, bag in hand. “I found something after leaving my former in-laws’ house. I didn’t want to go anywhere public, but I didn’t want to be alone, either. So I drove.”

The wide, empty streets of a Vegas night always calmed her. She could order events in her mind while driving, as if they, too, were on a map.

“It’s strange, but it’s the old landmarks, the ones with the most inconsequential memories-Laundromats and burger joints and theaters-streets I haven’t been down in years, stores I’ve never even been in, but have seen a million times…” She looked at him. “These calm me the most. They’ve outlasted… lives.”

Grif placed a hand on her arm when she swallowed hard. She gave him a watery smile. Yes, she could easily get used to this. “Anyway, I was driving by this pizzeria I used to go to with Paul-greasiest pie ever, I swear-and, of course, I was thinking of him, the good and the bad, when I remembered something else that was just plain strange.”

“What?”

“The night of Nic’s wake, when he stopped by to tell us about the gala. I was so irritated with him that I wasn’t listening to half of what he said, but I remember one thing. He said Chambers lavished his ‘woman’ with jewelry. But when we saw Anabelle Chambers at the gala-”

“She looked like a nun,” Grif said, sitting straighter in bed.

Kit nodded. “Same thing when I talked to her upstairs. There was no jewelry chest in sight, no perfume bottles. Nothing…”

“Fussy?” Grif provided, as she searched for the word.

“Pretty,” Kit corrected, and made a show of fluffing her hair. They shared a brief smile. “So I thought, what if the rumors are true? What if Chambers really has half a dozen wives, and what if one of them is pissed about it? I mean, it can’t be a good feeling to share your wedded husband with other women, right?”

“You think one of Caleb Chambers’s other wives anonymously gave you and Nicole that list in order to get back at him for, what, not being his favorite spouse?”

“It’s a theory,” she said, shrugging. “A woman scorned and all that.”

“Maybe it’s Anabelle,” he reasoned. “Maybe she found out about the parties and girls downstairs. She could tolerate him having his own personal harem, but not mistresses.”

“No,” Kit said, shaking her head after thinking about it for a moment. “You didn’t see her. I like the other wife scenario better.” She lifted a finger, holding off his scowl. “So I went to the office and got on dear Auntie Marin’s precious private computer.”

“The family archives?”

“The very same.” Kit smiled, seeing she had his interest. “Turns out the illustrious Chambers clan can trace their ancestry all the way back to Joseph Smith and his fancy spectacles.”

“His what?”

She waved his question away. “The point is, Mormons are fastidious about their family histories. One of their core tenets is that the dead can be baptized into the faith so that the whole family can exist together in the afterlife. Therefore they’re the best collectors in the world of all things genealogy. Good thing for us, too.”

Kit reached into her bag and pulled out a black-and-white photocopy of a girl with limp pigtails and a freckle-spattered nose. “Because otherwise we’d never get the chance to meet one of Caleb Chambers’s daughters.”

”We already met one of Chambers’s daughters.”

“Yes. But this is his eldest. Ms. Bridget Chambers,” Kit said and waited. Even recovering from a bump on the noggin, it didn’t take long. “Yep. That Bridget.”

Grif took the photo and studied it closer.

“Use your imagination. Erase the freckles and bleach the hair into chopped layers. Then drop a veil of distrust over that schoolgirl gaze.”

“Bridget Moore.”

“Funny,” Kit said, curling into his side. “But she didn’t mention the family connection when I was getting my nails done.”

“Seems neither of them want to.” Grif absently placed a palm on her thigh. “So what leads a nice Mormon girl into the world’s oldest profession?”

“Maybe an early influence,” Kit said in a way that suggested probability rather than possibility. “Maybe Daddy.”

“I can see the man running hookers. But his own daughter?”

“He didn’t exactly appear to be overly solicitous of women,” Kit replied wryly. “And Bridget was clearly afraid, though that could have been because of Schmidt.”

“So you think Bridget sent the list. It was the lure, Schmidt the catch.”

Lips pursed, Kit shook her head. “No. It’s her father. He’s family, so it’s more personal.”

Grif nodded after another moment. “So now we have our connection between Chambers and street hookers.”

“But still no clear evidence linking him to the Wayfarer.”

Grif’s hand returned to her head, stroking her hair before fisting around it, tugging so her head was forced back. “You’re right. Tomorrow.”

“So we’re not leaving tonight?” She grinned to show she wasn’t afraid, and voluntarily opened to him further. His eyes flared with heat, and he tightened his grip while his other hand traced her collarbone.

“There’s something you and I still need to discuss.”

“Discuss, is it?”

“It’s about your attitude problem.” He trailed his index finger down her cheek.

“Oh, that’s right. I’m… what was the word?”

“Cavalier.”

“Right.” She smiled as his palms moved lower. “About sex.”

“And danger.”

She lifted her hips. “Am I in danger now?”

He accepted the invitation. “Absolutely.”

Who’s cavalier now, she thought, smiling as his mouth found hers.

Whereas there’d been no thought before, just movement and need, Kit honed in on this moment, noting his gentleness with the precision of her reporter’s mind. It was almost as if he’d been a line drawing before-a very good, complicated one-but still sketched in black and white, single dimension, and as untouchable as a painting on the wall. But now, with his touch and desire funneling into her, he was a riot of color. The boldest thing she never knew she wanted.

Wanting, needing, to drop deeper into his warm flesh and raw strength, and away from the horrors of the entire week, Kit shifted closer. His heart beat strong as she slid her palm across his chest, and she noted that his earlier solemnity was gone. Whatever haunted him had been shut out of this room. Here there was just the two of them. Just life, not death. Strength, not weakness.

Hope, and none of the despair that lay outside this home and this moment and these arms. And then, just as her eyes were slipping shut, she saw his wings flare. She gasped, blinked, and they were gone. Who’s crazy now? she thought, relaxing again.

“I feel like I’m underwater. Not drowning, but immersed.” Biting her lip, she recalled what Tony had said about his home. “Submerged in this old fishbowl.”

“Everyone needs a fishbowl.” And, gaze fastened on her mouth, breath steady, Grif took them deeper. Warmer, wetter, one eight-limbed creature instead of two separate beings. Kit wrapped her limbs around him, and when he entered her again, driving deep, she gasped, then gave a little laugh. “Wings,” she said, on a rasping breath.

“Brains,” he said, chuckling, too.

And then, aligned in the unblemished moment, despite all those that lay so imperfectly outside of it, they rolled, comfortable in each other’s skin, if not their own. Together, Kit thought. And, joined, they were perfect in their deformities.