Chapter 3
He was here! Kendall took his hand and pulled him to the closest room and closed the door. “You came.”
“Of course I did.” His gaze roamed around the room. “This is Olivia’s room?”
“Yes.” She’d never expected to see him again, much less have him in her home, in Livie’s room. It was surreal to have him standing in front of her, but if he could find Livie, she’d owe this man, a stranger to her now, more than she could ever repay.
He smiled as he took in Livie’s room. “She likes pink.”
“It’s her favorite color, but we don’t have time to talk about that. We have to find her.”
“We will.” He took her hand, clasping it between both of his. “I promise. What do you know? How did she disappear?”
His touch calmed her, and the why of that was something she’d think about later.
When she had her little girl back. There was something she had to say before she answered his questions.
“I need you to know that you are Livie’s father.
I would have told you I was pregnant if I knew how to find you. I swear on that.”
“I believe you, but how did you find me?”
“The article about The Phoenix Three. I recognized you in the photo. After I saw it, I was going to call you and tell you about Livie. Then this happened before I could. Thank you for believing me.”
“We’ll do DNA testing later so it’s official, but for now that doesn’t matter. What does matter is finding our daughter.”
“Thank you.” He’d said our daughter, and he had no idea how much that meant to her.
She’d been afraid that he wouldn’t believe her, and the relief that he was here and trusting her was so great that the tears she’d been holding back since he’d arrived streamed down her face. “I’m sorry.” She swiped at her cheeks.
“Hey, hey.” He pulled her in for another hug. “You don’t need to be sorry. I feel like crying, too.”
She could feel his strength as he held her, and that gave her hope that this man could find her daughter. That and his expertise at finding lost children. For the first time since Livie went missing, she had hope that she’d have her little girl home soon.
“Tell me what you know.”
“Not much, and that scares me. I had an early evening adult reading class to teach, which I do every Tuesday night. Amanda, Livie’s babysitter, picks her up from preschool on Tuesdays and stays with her here until I get home.
” She squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to imagine a stranger taking her baby.
“Where was Livie taken? From here?”
“No, at the grocery store. This has always been my greatest fear, that someone would kidnap her, and now it’s happened.”
“Why would that be your greatest fear? Has someone been bothering you? Stalking you? Paying too much attention to Olivia and it made you suspicious?”
“No, nothing like that. I was kidnapped when I was seven, so it’s always been a fear of mine.
” She saw the shock on his face at hearing that, but she couldn’t talk about that time in her life right now.
“That’s a conversation for another day. Amanda doesn’t know what happened.
She was putting Livie in her car seat when someone hit her from behind.
When she woke up, she was on the floor of her car and Livie was…
She was gone.” She swiped at her eyes. “I thought I was done crying. I keep thinking of her out there somewhere with a stranger. Scared and begging for me.”
“Where is Amanda now?”
“Home. She has a mild concussion, but she doesn’t know anything.”
“She might not think she does, but I still want to talk to her. Does the grocery store have video of the parking lot?”
“Yes, the police have it.”
“I want to see it.”
The door opened, and a frowning Detective Rossi strode in. Kendall frowned right back at him. This was her home. Did he think he had the right to just walk in without knocking? She was already growing unhappy with him for shutting her out of his investigation.
He’d stopped to see her earlier after she’d called him to ask if he had any leads.
He’d patted her hand and told her that he couldn’t share any details with her.
When she’d protested, telling him she was Livie’s mother and had a right to know, he’d had the gall to say, “You just need to stop questioning me and let me do my job, Ms. Hart.”
“Is this the father?” he said as he narrowed his eyes at Cooper.
“I am.”
“He is,” she confirmed.
“Where were you this afternoon between three thirty and four?”
“He didn’t take—”
“It’s okay,” Cooper said. “He has to ask me that.” He put his arm around her. “I was in Myrtle Beach when Kendall called me to tell me our daughter was missing. I can give you proof of that.”
The detective’s gaze shifted to her. “You didn’t tell me the father was in the picture.”
“I would imagine all she was thinking about was finding Livie.” Cooper smiled at her.
“You didn’t ask,” she said. Taking a clue from Cooper, she didn’t offer that she’d only recently learned who Livie’s father was.
“So, you two are together?”
Kendall didn’t like the detective’s suspicious tone, but she wasn’t sure how to answer.
“It’s complicated,” Cooper said. “But our complicated doesn’t have anything to do with our daughter being missing. I’d like an update on what you know so far.”
“You need to leave the investigation to the police, Mr… .”
Oh, she hadn’t introduced them. “This is Cooper Devlin. Cooper, Detective Rossi.”
Cooper held out his hand, and, she thought, the detective reluctantly shook his hand. “Sorry we’re meeting under this circumstance, Detective. I’d like to see the video from the grocery store.”
“This is police business, Mr. Devlin. You need to leave this to us.”
“No, this is a daughter missing. Our daughter. We have a right to know what you do.”
“Cooper finds missing children,” Kendall said. “He’s good at it.”
“Kendall’s right. My team and I are one of the best at finding missing children. We have resources you probably only dream about. We can work together, Detective, or I’ll go it alone. Don’t care either way, but I will find my daughter with or without you.”
“I don’t appreciate your attitude,” the detective said. “You interfere with my investigation, I’ll throw you in a cell.”
“You can try.”
“Stop it.” Kendall stepped between the two men before they decided fighting it out was the thing to do.
“This isn’t helping.” She glared at the detective.
“Why wouldn’t you want the help of someone who specializes in finding missing children?
Go look up The Phoenix Three, then come tell me you don’t want to utilize his expertise.
” She turned to Cooper. “This isn’t helping. ”
His smile and his eyes turned soft. “You’re right. But I won’t stand by and do nothing.”
“Of course not, but the two of you fighting isn’t going to find Livie.”
The detective made a phone call. “It’s me. Check out an outfit called The Phoenix Three, then call me back.” He slipped his phone back in his pocket. “You have a card?”
Cooper took one from his wallet and handed it to the detective. “My cell phone is the second number. I want to see the video from the grocery store.”
Detective Rossi stuck the card in his shirt pocket. “When I hear back with a report on you and your company, I’ll call you.” He nodded at her as he walked out.
“What now?” she said. “I don’t think I can handle just waiting around for something to happen.”
“Me either. If Olivia should find a way to call you, will it be on your landline or your cell phone? Does she even know your number?”
“Yes, I made her memorize it, and I don’t have a landline, so it will be my cell.”
“Good. That means you don’t have to stay here and wait by the phone. Do you think your babysitter is up to talking to us?”
“I’ll call her now.” She was prepared to fight to be involved in finding her daughter, so it was a relief that he was including her. While she talked to Amanda, he roamed around the room, touching Livie’s things, picking some up, then carefully setting them back down.
“I missed so much of her life,” he said when she finished her phone call. He gently trailed a finger down a doll’s face. “Her first smile, first word, seeing her take her first steps.”
He sounded so sad, and her heart broke for him. All those things he’d missed, she’d been right there, sharing it all with their daughter. “I have her baby book and videos you can watch.”
“Thank you, I’d love that. Is your babysitter up to seeing us?”
“Yes. We can go over now.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
She expected to find the officer still in her living room, but he’d apparently left with Detective Rossi. Cooper took her keys from her when she fumbled with locking the door. They took his rental since she was wrecked and had no business behind the wheel of a car.
Amanda only lived ten minutes away, and for the first five minutes of the drive, they each were lost in their own thoughts and didn’t talk. Her thoughts swirled around Cooper missing almost five years of Livie’s life.
She glanced at him, struck again by how beautiful he was.
She didn’t think men liked to be thought of as beautiful, but facts were facts, and he was.
Livie had his chocolate brown eyes and full lips.
She didn’t have his sun-streaked chestnut hair that women paid top dollar for, which was too bad.
Livie had her black hair, but it was only fair that her daughter had something from her.
Five years ago, he’d been a hot soldier with haunted eyes on the barstool next to her.
He’d helped her put aside the dark places in her mind—on an anniversary she wished to God she didn’t have—without asking questions.
She hadn’t asked what put the haunt in his eyes.
They’d needed each other that night for reasons they hadn’t shared, never imagining they’d see each other again.
Now, he was the father of her child, a man who’d dropped everything to come to her the minute she’d called him. She was filled with regrets. Not because they’d met and spent an amazing night together, but because she hadn’t let him tell her his name.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He glanced at her with those dark eyes she’d once gotten lost in and probably could again if she wasn’t careful. “For what?”
“That I didn’t let you tell me your name. That you missed so much of Livie’s life.”
Surprising her, he reached over the console and took her hand. “You couldn’t know you’d get pregnant. We used a condom. Guess it failed.” He softly smiled. “I’m weirdly okay with that.”
“What if we can’t find her?” She’d been doing missing children podcasts for several years now, and she knew all too well that some children disappeared into thin air, never to be seen again.
What if Livie was one of those children?
“I’m sorry,” she said when tears fell down her cheeks again. She turned her face toward the window.
“Hey, you have absolutely nothing to be sorry about.” He squeezed her hand. “Look at me, Kendall.”
“Do I have to?”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but I want you to look in my eyes and believe that I’ll do everything in my power to find our daughter.”
“I believe you.” And she truly did. It seemed like there was so much more they needed to say, but she honestly couldn’t handle any more confessions or sorrys. “Turn right at the next street. Amanda’s house is the second one on your right.”
“Give me a quick summary of her.”
“Amanda’s in her late fifties, widowed, is financially okay, and her two children live out of state, one in Orlando and one in Chicago.
They only come home at Christmas. I met her at my book club.
When she learned that I was looking for someone to pick Livie up on Tuesdays and stay with her until I get home from my adult reading class, she wanted to do it. Said she was lonely. Livie adores her.”
“Then she played no part in—”
“Oh, no way. Why would you even think that?”
He stopped the car in Amanda’s driveway.
“Because every possibility has to be considered. I’ve had cases where the last person I thought would harm or take a child was the guilty party.
You say Amanda had no part in Livie’s disappearance, then I believe you.
I trust you to know in whose hands you put our daughter, Kendall.
” He opened his door. “Let’s go talk to her. ”
“Please be nice to her. She’s very upset about this and blames herself.”
“I promise to be gentle with her. Does she know who I am?”
“No.”
“Let’s leave it that way for now. Just tell her I’m an investigator you’ve brought into this.”
Did he want to keep it secret that Livie was his daughter?