LITMIR.BIZ

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after her and the look on his face chilled Chance’s blood. The door swung closed behind them so whatever happened next occurred without Chance witnessing it. And in his gut he knew nothing good was going on inside that house.

      Self-preservation kicked in and he began to wonder where McCord was. If the older man did carry out a cursory patrol of the yard every once in a while, shouldn’t he be showing up soon? And exactly how was he going to get out of this yard when the time came to escape? He found the answer to that when he literally ran into a tree growing close to the tall fence. He could shimmy up the trunk and jump down on the other side.

      Desperate to know what was going on, Chance crept around to the garage side of the house and smelled smoke. The lights were still off, but he stopped short when he saw the glow of a cigarette as someone sucked on it. Squinting, he could just make out the figure of a man leaning against a white car, an acrid pale cloud hanging in the air around him.

      A door opened from the house into a nearby carport. A woman stood framed in the light. “Mr. McCord?” she called with an edge of panic in her voice. She flipped on a weak outside light and McCord pushed himself away from the car and swore.

      “Turn the damn light off,” he said.

      “The little boy is missing! There’s a note and everything. Mr. Block said you should find out how the child was taken or if he’s still on the grounds. And we’re to tell no one about this.”

      “Have you called the cops?” McCord asked as he emerged into the light. He was a stocky man with an almost bald head.

      “Mr. Block insisted no police. He’s furious with me.”

      “What about the kid’s mother?”

      “Is that who she is? He’s furious with her, too. I think he hit her. I better get back inside. Hurry, check the grounds.”

      She ran back inside the house. Chance expected McCord to turn on the outside floodlights if they had them and sure enough, within seconds the yard jumped from black to living color. He moved at once into one of the few remaining shadows but he had the feeling McCord had witnessed the movement. The older man would come looking and chances were he packed a firearm.

      Even more to the point, Lily was apparently trapped inside the house. The maid said Jeremy had hit her. His fists clenched. How badly was she hurt? How could he get her out of there?

      Slinking behind a grape arbor still thankfully covered with drooping yellow leaves he could hide behind, he pulled his gun, but paused to try to think.

      Who in the world had taken Charlie?

      * * *

      LILY GRASPED OVERHEAD for a light cord to pull. She couldn’t find one and there was nothing on the wall. Then she remembered the switch outside the door. The shelves behind her felt like they were covered with office supplies. What could she do when Jeremy returned? Give him a bad paper cut?

      She kicked at the door until her foot hurt. She pounded her fists against the heavy wood panel to no avail. She yelled and shouted and had the horrible feeling no one could hear her or that if they did, they would simply ignore her.

      Who had taken Charlie and what did they want with him? Her stomach clenched into a knot as she pictured his eyes filled with fear. How could Jeremy be so cavalier about his child’s safety? If Jeremy wasn’t blowing smoke, then going to the police might prove deadly for Charlie... How did she chance that her lying, cheating husband might actually be telling the truth for once?

      She swore under her breath.

      A sound on the other side of the door froze her solid for a second and then she frantically started patting the shelves again, feeling for something, anything she could use as a weapon. Her fingers brushed the cool metal of an aerosol can. She grabbed it and another one next to it. She depressed the nozzle sprays and was rewarded with nothing but puffs of air. That’s what they were: compressed gas meant to blow the dust from a computer keyboard. Their contents were useless, but they were heavy enough to buy her a moment or two if she used them as projectiles.

      The lock clicked and she jumped. This was it. Raising the cans to face height, she squinted against the sudden infusion of light and threw the cans as hard as she could. She opened her eyes in time to see one strike a dark head while a tanned hand caught the other.

      “Damn!” Chance said. “Ouch.”

      “Chance! I’m sorry, I thought you were Jeremy!” She threw herself against him and he caught her, hugging her close for a second, then he raised a hand and gently touched the uninjured part of her cheek. “When I get my hands on that man—”

      “Not now,” she said. “How did you get in here?”

      He gestured at the window. The yard beyond was brilliantly illuminated. “But I don’t know how we’re going to escape,” he said. They heard a yell from outside. “I bet they found the ladder over on the far side of the house. Is that how they took Charlie? Through the window?”

      “Yes.” She wasn’t sure how he knew Charlie was missing but now wasn’t the time for conversation.

      “We’ll have to make a dash for that tree over by the fence. Are you up to it?”

      His gaze studied her face and she could imagine what he saw. She knew one eye was swollen because she could feel it with her fingers and she suspected the warm sticky substance on her cheek was blood from Jeremy’s last punch. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “But Chance, if I’m stopped and you’re not, promise me you’ll find Charlie.”

      “Lily...”

      “Promise me.”

      “I promise. Come on.”

      He stuck his head out the window, then turned to look back at her. “The tree is about twenty feet to your right. Can you climb trees?”

      “If I have to.”

      “Then go. I’ll be behind you. I have something to do here.”

      “What?”

      “Lily. Go.” He picked her up, and swung her outside.

      “See if you can find my purse,” she whispered. “It has the car keys.”

      “Will do.” He released her. She dropped to her feet and took off at a dead run. She found the fence and kept going until she got to the tree. Chance showed up earlier than she’d anticipated and hoisted her onto a limb over her head. She scrambled along until she got close to the top of the iron fence and threw herself to the ground on the other side, landing facedown, all but knocking the wind out of her lungs. Chance landed a few seconds after her, but he came down on his feet and absorbed the shock in his legs. He immediately stood and pulled her upright. She saw with relief that he held her purse in one hand.

      They ran across the street, thankful to be out of the light.

      “I don’t know how we avoided being seen,” Chance said as Lily led them to the nature trail.

      “I don’t, either. What did you do in Jeremy’s office besides find my purse?”

      He pressed her bag into her hands. “Wiped my prints away and kicked in the closet door from the inside. I didn’t want your husband knowing you had outside help. You didn’t tell him I was with you, did you?”

      “No,” she said as she extracted the car keys. Would Jeremy believe she was capable of kicking open a door? Maybe, maybe not, but at least he’d wonder.

      Lily took the passenger seat. A few seconds later, Chance directed the car onto the quiet road. “Where’s the nearest police station?” he asked. The moon illuminated the pavement and they drove without lights for several seconds before they’d turned away from Jeremy’s neighborhood and traffic began to appear. The headlights went on and they sped up.

      “We’re not going to the police,” she said.

      “But the man hit you, Lily. He locked you in a closet...”

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