Kat Martin - Against the Edge

It was the last time he had seen her.

He looked over at the woman sitting across the table. He needed to get moving, take some kind of action. Do something to find his son. But he needed information first. Without it, his efforts would be useless.

He called on his years of training and self-control and forced himself to sit back down. “Exactly who are you?”

She kept her fingers wrapped around her coffee mug. He thought that she was more nervous than she wanted him to guess.

“As I said, my name is Claire Chastain. I’m a social worker in Los Angeles County. I worked with Laura and Sam a few years back. They became more than a case to me. Laura and I were friends.”

He thought of the woman he had loved. Blonde and beautiful. Sparkling. That was Laura. Everyone adored her. But she was never what she seemed.

“You think this guy Bridger took him. Why would he do that?”

“To get even with Laura. He knew how much Sam meant to her. He was furious when she kicked him out.”

There was something in her eyes, the way they couldn’t quite meet his. “Laura’s dead,” he said. “I don’t see how taking my kid is going to hurt her. What aren’t you telling me?”

She returned her eyes to his face. “There’s a good chance he’s also trying to punish me. I disapproved strongly of Laura’s relationship with Troy. I think he blames me for the breakup. And he knows how much I care about Sam.”

“What kind of a man is he?”

“Not the sort you would want Sam to have for a father. He’s an alcoholic. He gets mean when he drinks. I never knew what Laura saw in him. Maybe his tough-guy persona appealed to her.” She looked up at him. “She loved you, and you were a SEAL. Troy Bridger looked a little like you. Maybe he reminded her of you in some way.”

“She never loved me. I was just an amusement to her.”

He could tell she wanted to argue. Instead she took a sip of her coffee. “Laura was trying to get sober, but Bridger was a drunk and he pulled her back to the bottle. She ended the relationship when she started getting sick.”

“How long did she live with him?”

“Only a couple of months. I can’t imagine why she stayed even that long.”

“He isn’t some kind of pervert? Some guy on the sex offender’s list?”

“The police checked. They said he wasn’t on the list. At least not under that name. The few times I talked to him, he never seemed inclined in that direction.”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

He didn’t miss the guilt that moved across her features. “No, I don’t know for sure. But my guess is his motive was more about revenge against Laura.”

“And you.”

The guilty look returned. “That’s right.”

“Because she dumped him and he blames you.”

“Yes. And Troy has this men-are-superior thing. He doesn’t value women very highly, and Sam’s a boy. He would go on and on about boys becoming men...real men. As if he could make it happen for Sam.”

Ben’s insides were churning. How could Laura have brought this kind of loser into her house? But he hadn’t seen Laura in years, and if she had been drinking the way Claire said... “How long have you known I was Sam’s father?”

“Laura told me two years ago. She wasn’t drinking then. She begged me not to tell you unless there was no other choice. She said you lived a life of adventure, that it was the life you wanted. She said you wouldn’t want to be tied down with a kid.”

He felt like punching something. The woman across from him was his closest target. Too bad he had a rule against hitting women.

She was watching him, sizing him up. Did she really think he would shirk his duties as a father? Did Laura really think that? “Just proves how little she knew me.”

He took a drink of his coffee, but his adrenaline was pumping and he no longer needed the caffeine. “Los Angeles was the last place Sam was seen?”

“That’s right.”

“You headed back there?”

“So you’ve decided to help me?”

“I’m going to find my son. It doesn’t matter if he’s run away or if this guy Bridger took him. The minute I saw that picture, I had no other choice.”

Two

Claire felt those pale eyes boring into her like twin laser beams. When she had come to Houston, she hadn’t been sure Ben Slocum would help her. But then she saw his face as he looked at his son for the very first time, and she had believed nothing would stop him from finding the boy.

“What other information can you give me?” Ben asked, shifting restlessly in his chair.

“I left my briefcase in the car. I have copies of Laura’s file. She wouldn’t want me to show it to you, but’”

“I don’t give a fuck what Laura would want. She kept my son from me. She should have come to me years ago. Now her silence has put him in danger. I need to know every damn thing the woman did since the day Sam was born.”

Claire’s fingers tightened around the coffee mug. She wasn’t afraid of him’well, not exactly’but she didn’t doubt he was a dangerous man.

“I don’t know everything. Just what’s gone on since she filed for financial assistance and I was assigned her case three years ago. And what I know as her friend.”

“What about Bridger?”

“I was able to get a copy of the police report. They looked into finding him. Came up with nothing.”

“Why not?”

“The police think the name Troy Bridger is an alias.”

Ben leaned back in his chair. “You’re kidding me, right? You’re telling me the cops don’t have a damned thing on the guy who may have abducted my son?”

“They don’t know who he really is, and they don’t know where he’s gone. They know his address before he left town because Laura knew where he moved after they broke up. I was able to give them the information. Laura also told me he worked as a crane operator for a big construction company, but the police talked to his supervisor and he said Troy quit a couple of weeks ago.”

“What about fingerprints? There had to be some in his apartment.”

“They didn’t find a match. I’m sorry. I wish I knew more, but I don’t.”

“Why are you so sure Bridger has Sam?”

“Troy drove a beat-up Chevy pickup. Sam’s foster parents said he came to the house to see Sam a couple of times. I talked to the neighbors. One of them saw his truck in the area the day Sam went missing.”

“You got a plate number?”

“No.”

“Have the cops got a BOLO out on the guy?”

“Yes. They’re looking for him as a person of interest, but so far they haven’t found any trace or him or Sam.”

Tension rippled across those wide shoulders. “So there’s nothing under Bridger’s name, no driver’s license, no registration, no plate number. Nothing.”

“The police say his driver’s license was a forgery. There’s no real proof Troy Bridger ever existed.”

Ben raked a hand through his thick black hair. His now-cold coffee sat nearly untouched in front of him. “You think this guy Bridger took him, but the police and Sam’s foster parents think he ran away. Why would he do that?”

She wished she didn’t have to tell him. She wished it weren’t true. “Sam was wildly unhappy in the Roberson house. I promised him he wouldn’t have to stay there forever. I tried very hard to get custody myself, but the judge thought Sam would be better off with a couple. I told Sam I was going to keep trying. If that didn’t work, I’d make sure he got moved to a family he liked.”

“But Sam didn’t want to wait,” Ben guessed.

“That’s right.” Just thinking about the betrayal she had seen in Sam’s eyes made her heart hurt. “He threatened to run away a couple of times, but I don’t think he really would have. He was just so impatient. You know how kids can be’or maybe you don’t remember.”