Chapter 10
Cooper would give anything to be able to run away and not have to question Livie about the bad man, but it was unavoidable. “I think it would be best if you asked the questions. I’ve made a list of some I know the police will ask.”
“I hate this.” She went to the living room, where Livie was watching a movie with talking fish.
He was going to have to brush up on kid movies.
Livie grinned at seeing them. “Are you going to watch Nemo with me?”
“No, honey, we want to talk to you a minute.” Kendall sat next to her, then turned off the movie.
No longer banished to the end of the couch, he settled on the other side of his daughter. He took out his phone, went to the list of questions he’d made, then handed his phone to Kendall. He held up her phone that he’d picked up from the kitchen island. “I’m going to record this.”
“Okay.” She scanned the screen, closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. “We need to talk to you about the man who took—”
“No, Mommy! No talk about bad man.” She put her hands over her ears.
Cooper gently pulled a hand from her ear. “Princesses are brave, right?” The look of suspicion she aimed his way wasn’t encouraging. “You’re a very brave princess. You can do this. We just need you to answer a few questions for Mommy. You like baseball, right?”
“I love baseball.”
“So do I. After you tell us what happened, a policeman is coming to talk to you. Then after he leaves, you know what?”
“What?”
“You and I will go outside and play some baseball. I’m a very good baseball player, and I can teach you how to be a good baseball player, too.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. So, can you be a brave princess and answer some questions for Mommy?” This little girl owned his heart, had him wrapped around her finger, and there was no place he’d rather be. He couldn’t wait to tell her he was her father. Would she be happy about that? Would she call him Daddy?
“Okay.” She looked at her mother. “You can ask me questions ’cause I’m a brave princess.”
Kendall smiled, first at Livie, then at him, and he wanted to wrap both these girls in a protective shield and fiercely guard them so that nothing bad ever happened to them again.
He would protect them with his life if it came to that.
He held her phone out to her so she could face activate it, then he set it to Record.
“Very brave,” Kendall said. “Here’s the first question. Can you tell us what the man looked like?”
“He was fat.”
“Very good. What color were his eyes?”
Livie stared up at the ceiling. “Um. Black.” She lowered her gaze to Kendall. “His eyes scared me.”
“Why was that?”
“They were…” Her gaze went to the ceiling again. “Crazy eyes.”
Cooper was surprised that at almost five years old, she could comprehend crazy eyes. She was answering the questions, so he stayed quiet, afraid if he spoke, she might clam up.
“He was stinky, too,” Livie said.
“Stinky how?”
“He smelled like Mikey.”
“Like cigarettes?”
“Yes!”
Who the devil was Mikey?
“Mikey mows our yard, and he does smell like smoke,” Kendall said. She glanced at the phone. “Did the man say anything to you?”
“He told me I was pretty like my mama. He said we would all be a family one day. What did he mean?”
Like hell. His jaw ticked in anger, and it took every ounce of his control to swallow the growl that threatened to escape. Anger was in Kendall’s eyes, too.
“I don’t know, sweetie. Did he say anything else?”
“He yelled at me when I cried and told him I wanted my mommy.”
Kendall cleared her throat. “Did he hurt you at all?”
“He said he would spank me if I didn’t stop crying. I tried to stop, Mommy, but I didn’t. He got mad and put me in a room. I was glad when he closed the door. I got on the bed and got under the covers where he couldn’t see me.”
Cooper shared a glance with Kendall, and he knew they both were raging inside.
She eyed the phone again. “Is there anything else you can remember that you want to tell me about the man?”
“No. I don’t want to talk about the bad man anymore.”
“That’s enough,” Cooper said.
Kendall blew out a breath. “Thank you. I don’t think I could keep going without breaking something.”
“You did really good, Livie,” he said. “You really are a brave princess.”
Livie grinned. “I really was.” She patted his arm. “Cooper, can we play baseball now?”
“Yes, we can. Your mommy told me you have a glove.”
“I do. You wanna see it?”
“Yes. Get it and your ball, okay?”
She clapped her hands. “Yay!” She ran to her room.
“Detective Rossi should be here any minute,” Kendall said. “What should I tell him?”
“That Livie won’t talk to him, but that you have a recording he can listen to.”
“What if he insists on talking to her?”
“Bring him outside if he won’t take no for an answer. I need to speak with him anyway.” He glanced down the hallway to make sure Livie wasn’t on her way back. She wasn’t, and he traced her bottom lip with his thumb. “I fell asleep last night thinking about how much I wanted to kiss you.”
“Funny, I fell asleep thinking the same thing.”
He’d thought she might still be attracted to him. “Maybe instead of just thinking about it, we should—”
“I’m ready, Cooper,” Livie yelled as she ran down the hallway.
“We’ll finish this conversation later,” he said.
She smiled. “I’d like that.”
“Hoped you would.” He turned to Livie. “All right, Princess, let’s see what kind of ballplayer you are.”
“I’m the best!” She had a glove on her hand, a softball in the other and a pint-sized bat.
“Let me carry your bat for you.” At Livie’s age, Emmie had been all about dolls. He thought it was crazy cool that his daughter was all about baseball. After handing him the bat, she skipped to the back door, and he followed.
Outside, he grinned when he saw the miniature baseball field. There was a home plate and three bases in the far corner of the yard. Where in a normal baseball field there were ninety feet between bases, he estimated that there were only fifteen feet between bases.
“This is cool, Livie. Did your mommy do this for you?”
“No, Papaw did.” She took the bat from him, then handed him the ball. “I’m the batter, so you pitch to me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“No, you say, ‘Yes, Princess.’”
“My apologies, Princess.” She was adorable, and she was his. How about that. He took his place on a spot bare of grass where he thought her Papaw stood to pitch to her. It was only about ten feet from her batter’s box.
If things had gone as he’d planned before he’d been kidnapped, she could have watched him pitch for the Braves. Although if that had happened, there probably wouldn’t be an adorable princess in his life.
“You ready, slugger?”
“What’s a slugger?”
“A ballplayer who is really good hitting a ball.”
She grinned. “I’m a slugger princess.”
“Yes, you are.” He’d never believed in insta love, but he’d been wrong because he already loved this little girl. “Ready?”
“Play ball,” she yelled.
He slow-pitched the ball underhanded, right across the plate. She swung and missed. “Strike one.”
“That didn’t count. I was just practicing.”
“Of course. I forgot the batter has to practice first.” He’d watched where she swung the bat, and he put the next ball in that small space.
Her bat connected with the ball, and the ball rolled along the grass toward him.
She dropped the bat and took off for first base.
He guessed that he was supposed to pick it up and race her to the base, so he did, but slowly, getting there a few steps behind her.
“Safe!” she yelled.
He wanted to laugh. She was something else. “Yes, you are. Now what, slugger?”
She put her little hands on her hips. “Well, we don’t have more people, so I bat again.”
“I see. When do I get to bat?”
“When you get me out, but that’s hard ’cause I’m too good.”
“You sure are.” She jogged back to home base and picked up her bat.
With a little help from him pitching the ball where he knew she could hit it, she didn’t strike out.
He slowed down on trying to get her out even more when she did hit it and twice, she reached second base.
Each time she reached a base, she beamed with pride, and damn, was he ever proud of his little girl.
He couldn’t remember when he’d had this much fun.
It had been a long time since he’d played baseball, and now he wondered why.
Well, he knew why. It had been a dream that had been stolen from him, and it had hurt to even watch a game on TV.
But he was over that now. His life was a good one, better than he’d thought possible back then.
He should join a local amateur league if there was one in Myrtle Beach, and he bet Livie would love T-ball.
She was old enough to join. He’d look into that when all this was over.
The back door opened, and Kendall came out with Detective Rossi. At seeing him, Livie hid behind Cooper. “Is he a bad man?” she whispered.
“No, honey, he’s a policeman.”
She didn’t come out from behind him, though, and his protectiveness came out in full force. Rossi had a job to do, and he understood that, but Livie had been traumatized enough.
“Detective,” Cooper said.
He nodded as he tried to see around Cooper. “She seems to be doing okay.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
“All right, I guess you’d know better than me since you haven’t let me talk to her.”
Livie wrapped her arms around his leg as if afraid she’d be snatched away, and Cooper wanted to pick her up and take her away. Instead, he said, “Kendall, why don’t you take Livie inside and let me talk to the detective.”
“I need to talk to her, Devlin.”
“No.” He squatted down in front of his daughter. “Go inside with Mommy, okay?”
Her gaze darted over his shoulder to the detective, and fear was in her eyes. “Okay.” She took off running for the house.
After she and Kendall were inside, he faced Rossi.
“If she was willing to talk to you, I’d have no problem with that.
But she’s afraid of you because you’re a man, and all she’ll do is cry if I make her sit down with you.
That’s why Kendall and I went ahead and questioned her.
To get you the answers you need. What’s on that recording is all she can tell us. ”
“I can have one of my female detectives talk to her.”
“Again, no. She’s been through enough. Yesterday, she was close to a meltdown.
Like children are inclined to do, she’s already bouncing back.
If you try to send her back to that nightmare, the progress she’s made will be lost. I won’t allow my daughter to be more traumatized than she already is.
” It was amazing how easily he was claiming Livie as his.
“I don’t like it.”
“Don’t care. Have you talked to those boys that saw Livie’s kidnapper yet?”
“Yes. They don’t know any more than what they told you yesterday. And before you ask, the camera you told me about isn’t a working one. It’s just for show.”
“Damn, I was hoping you might get a license plate number. I do have something for you. There was a note pinned to Livie’s shirt. We didn’t touch it, so maybe there are prints on it.” Not that he thought they’d get that lucky.
The man looked tired, and no doubt like most detectives, he was overworked.
Now that Livie was back home and safe, she was no longer a high priority on Rossi’s list. Cooper got that, but the man who took her was still out there, and if you believed his note, he wasn’t going away.
Cooper believed him. The reason he was taking Kendall and Livie to a safer place.
“You should know that I’m taking them back to Myrtle Beach with me for a while.”
“Not acceptable. Kendall did good on getting her to answer the questions, but I still need to talk to Olivia.”
“Is Livie under arrest?”
“That’s a ridiculous question.”
“Yes or no?”
“Of course not.”
“Then she’s free to go to Myrtle Beach. We’re leaving in the morning.” He took a card out of his wallet, handing it to the detective. “Those are the numbers you can reach me at any time of the day or night. If The Phoenix Three can assist you in any way, all you have to do is ask.”
The girls weren’t in sight when he brought Rossi in to give him the note. He was sure the police would do what they could to find the man who’d kidnapped Livie, but The Phoenix Three had the time and resources the police didn’t. He and his brothers would do their own investigating.