Ann Peterson - A Cop In Her Stocking

“I think you should sit down.”

Sit down? Like hell. “What happened?” Panic shrieked inside her, but her voice became quieter the louder her fear.

He paused, searching for words or still waiting for her to take a seat, she didn’t know.

Clearly something had happened. Something she hadn’t seen coming. Something she’d missed. “Tell me, Ty. Please.”

He gave a slow nod. “I’m so sorry, Megan.”

Her lungs contracted. She couldn’t breathe. “My mother?”

“It’s Connor. He was abducted from the store.”

She shook her head. It didn’t make sense. “But he was with you.”

He flinched ever so slightly, as if the statement caused him pain. “The entire department is looking for him. Store security, too. We’ll find him, Megan. We’re going to find him.”

“No. No.” She couldn’t stop shaking her head. She hadn’t seen this coming, all right. She hadn’t seen it, because it was impossible. “He was with you. This can’t happen.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She swayed. Her knees felt like they were going to buckle, but she willed herself to stand on her own. This couldn’t be happening. There had to be some kind of explanation. Some kind of sick joke. She waited for him to tell her that he was kidding, to take it all back, to…something, but she knew deep inside that something wasn’t going to come.

Her baby was gone.

Ty didn’t know how much Megan was absorbing. She stared at him, green eyes wide and a little glassy. And although she nodded at the appropriate times, there was a blankness to her expression that felt hard and brittle at the same time, like the face of a porcelain doll.

“Doug.”

“Officers are trying to reach him.”

“Could he…could he have taken Connor?”

“We’re looking into it. Believe me.” Ty wanted to go question the bastard himself, but the lieutenant wouldn’t allow it. Probably a good idea. If Doug did sneak Connor out of the store under Ty’s nose, Ty wasn’t sure he could leave the interview without beating the tar out of him.

Still, compared to the alternative, Doug being the kidnapper would be a huge relief. “You can help us determine if Doug took him.”

“How?”

He motioned to Baker. Even though the detective was supposed to be in charge of this notification and interview, he’d hung back and let Ty take the reins. Todd Baker was a good guy.

Baker set up his laptop on the coffee table and recalled the pictures they had downloaded from the security footage. The first image of the kidnapper came on the screen, a shot of the parka-clad man approaching Connor. Ty was also visible just a few feet away.

Megan gasped.

“You recognize him?”

She shook her head. “No. Not really. I mean, it could be Doug, but…” Her eyebrows pulled low over worried eyes. Her chin trembled. “I can’t really tell.”

“We have a few different angles.” Ty glanced at Baker.

He rolled the snips of video and magnified the kidnapper. “Better?”

Megan shook her head. Tears wound down her cheeks, but she didn’t make a sound.

Baker stopped the video on an image. A sliver of the kidnapper’s cheek peeked from beneath the hood. “That’s as good a shot of his face as we could come up with.”

It was strange, Ty had to admit. In each bit of video, the kidnapper had averted his face at just the right angle and pulled up his hood in just the right amount to avoid security cameras.

Megan shook her head. “I don’t know. It could be Doug. It also could be almost anyone.”

Ty stared at the image, comparing it to his memories of Doug Burke’s face. She was right. It could be almost anyone.

“You lost him…how did you lose him? You’re right there.” Her voice was only a whisper, yet it cut into him like a whip crack.

He met her eyes. They glistened in the muted light of the window. A few tears spiked her lashes and escaped down her cheeks.

He could understand her frustration, understand her fear. Scratch that. He couldn’t truly understand. But he could imagine it. And if he were in her place right now, he imagined he would be furious. One thing was certain. He more than deserved her fury. “I’m so sorry, Meg.”

She didn’t answer. She looked back at the image on the computer.

“The department is working on finding him,” Baker said in a steady voice. “We are searching every inch of the mall. We’ve contacted the FBI, in case we need their help. We are prepared to issue an Amber Alert. Everyone is on this.”

Ty had already told her all this, but he was grateful for Baker’s calm, reliable recitation. Maybe Leo was right. Maybe Baker should have broken the news to Megan instead of him. He had a steady influence Ty couldn’t come close to matching. But the thought of not being there when Megan needed him wasn’t acceptable. Not again.

“How did it happen? What were you thinking? What were you doing that you weren’t watching him?” She hadn’t looked up, but it was clear she was talking to him.

He opened his mouth, then shut it tight. What could he say? That he was looking at lingerie? That he was fantasizing about how she’d look in it? Imagining taking it off her? “I was…shopping. I only took my eye off him for a moment.” He decided not to mention the Giftinator. Megan would only think he’d been flirting instead of paying attention to her son. It hadn’t been like that, not at all. But he wouldn’t be able to convince her.

Not that it mattered. He’d been absorbed in his own world, his own concerns. He hadn’t been focused on her son. He deserved all the blame she could heap on him.

“A moment…” She buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders jerked, a silent sob shuddering through her body.

He wanted to touch her, soothe her, promise it would be okay. But he doubted she would accept his touch, and right now even he had trouble believing that promise.

“I want to go to the mall. I have to go to the mall.” She pushed herself up from her chair. “I need to find him.”

He stood and reached out. But instead of grasping her arm, he let his hand hover in the air.

Baker stood, as well. “We have officers all over the store. People from our department. From the sheriff’s department. Store security. They are professionals. Let them handle this.”

She shook her head. For a moment, Ty thought she might bolt for the door, then she focused on him. Her eyes shifted back and forth as if she didn’t know where to look.

If Ty knew anything about Megan, even after all these years, it was that she was not good at accepting anything from anyone. Not help, not reassurance, not promises—regardless of whether those promises were likely to be kept. But she was comfortable doing. “There’s nothing you can do there that they can’t. But here, there’s a lot only you can do here.”

“Only me…like what?”

“First, you need to stay by the phone.”

“You think there might be a phone call? Like a ransom call?”

“Maybe. Or someone might find Connor or see him and give you a call. You need to be here to answer.”

She stared past him, focusing on the twinkle lights and colorful jumble of decorations covering her Christmas tree, her eyes unseeing, her expression blank.

“There’s more, more you can do.”

She returned her gaze to his.

“We need recent pictures of Connor to release to the media and use in the search. Can you compile some?”

“Of course.” Taking a deep breath, she turned away from him and half ran toward the bedroom. A few moments later, she came back with a wad of photos cradled in her hands. “I have a lot of them. I printed them out to make a collage for my mom as a Christmas present.”