LITMIR.BIZ

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the horrors people could inflict on children.

      Memories she had previously refused to think about inundated her with the suddenness of a summer thunderstorm sweeping in from the Gulf of Mexico. She couldn’t hold them at bay. Legs quivering, she slid down the front of the desk to the hardwood floor.

      I let someone else down and he died. Please don’t let it be happening again. A tear slipped from one eye and rolled down her cheek. She swiped it away, determined not to revisit her past. But the images of the lost child—and of her friend Leah—haunted her.

      ONE

      Several hours later, Jocelyn dropped her pen, her hand aching from writing up her clients’ notes in their files. Glancing toward the window, she saw the patrol car still in front of the pawnshop. She stood, stretching her arms above her and rolling her head to ease the tension in her neck.

      A knock sounded and sent her whirling around toward the door. She stared at it, not moving an inch. This time someone pounded against the wood, prodding her forward. She hurried from her office into the reception area and peered out the peephole. The sight of Sam Pierce stunned her. She hadn’t seen him in months—not since she’d worked that child kidnapping in New Orleans with him. It hadn’t ended well, and they hadn’t parted on good terms.

      Sam pivoted to leave. Quickly Jocelyn unlatched the lock and pulled the door open.

      Halting, the over six-foot FBI agent glanced back at her. Dressed in a black suit with a red tie, dark hair cut short, he fixed her with his intense stare, his tanned features making a mockery of the cool January weather.

      “Jocelyn, it’s good to see you again.”

      The formality in his voice made her wonder if he was only trying to be polite.

      “I’d like to have a word with you. Sheriff Reed said that Leah Farley left a message on your answering machine. I’d like to listen to it.”

      “The FBI is working Leah’s disappearance?”

      “Yes.” He took a step forward, forcing her to move to the side to allow him into the office.

      “Really. I got the impression from the sheriff that he didn’t think Leah had met with foul play. I’m surprised he requested your assistance.”

      “The mayor did. I don’t believe the sheriff was too happy, but he’s cooperating.”

      “Good, because I don’t think Leah would run away and leave her daughter behind. She adores her.”

      “So you knew her well. Professionally or personally?” He wore a no-nonsense facade as if they hadn’t dated for four months right before she had moved to Loomis. As if he hadn’t saved her life once.

      Jocelyn waved Sam toward the chair in front of her desk in her office. She sat in hers behind it, biding her time while she gathered her composure. As a psychologist, she’d learned to suppress any emotions she might experience in order to deal with a client’s problem. His presence strained that skill.

      “Personally. We’re neighbors.” She knew she was stating the obvious, but Sam’s intense stare unnerved her, as though he remembered their time together but not fondly. He was one of the reasons she had come to Loomis nine months ago to open a private practice and teach a few classes at Loomis College.

      Grinning, Sam threw a glance at the pawnshop across the street and said in a teasing tone, “Yes, I can see.” Then as though he realized he’d slipped too quickly into a casual, friendliness toward her, he stiffened, the smile gone.

      His sudden change pricked her curiosity. He didn’t like this any more than she did. That realization made getting through the interview a little easier. She relaxed the tensed set of her shoulders.

      When she had started seeing Sam in New Orleans, she had known it wasn’t wise to date someone she had to work with from time to time in volatile, intense situations. Being a consultant on kidnapping cases where children were involved had thrown them together over the course of the year he’d been in the Big Easy.

      Jocelyn gripped the edge of her desk. “Look, I’m happy to let you hear the recording, and I’ll help in any other way I can, but I insist on us putting our former relationship in the past where it belongs.” Their relationship started when Sam rescued her from a patient’s father who tried to kill her, and it fell apart when they worked together on a kidnapping case that ended violently. Brutality had surrounded her in New Orleans. She thought she’d escaped it by coming to Loomis.

      “Do you mean it? You’ll help with this case? Because I was thinking we need someone with your experience.” His frosty gaze melted a few degrees.

      Although she now worked with all ages, in missing-persons cases she’d dealt only with the children involved. “Well, yes. I’ll help. But since children are my specialty, I’m not sure how…” She drew in a deep breath. “Sarah. You want me to work with Leah’s daughter?”

      Sam nodded. “I think the key to Leah’s disappearance may be wrapped up in her husband’s suicide, so I’ll be looking into that, too. Were you aware that Sarah might have witnessed her father’s death?”

      Leah’s heartbeat quickened. Poor little Sarah!

      Leah swallowed and said, “I hadn’t heard that before I had to leave or I wouldn’t have left. I thought Sarah was asleep upstairs in her bedroom. Earl shot himself downstairs in his office in the store.”

      “Apparently Leah’s brother told the sheriff his sister was beginning to think that Sarah might have seen or heard something from a couple of things the child said to her mother.”

      “What?”

      “Clint didn’t know. Leah left Sarah with him before he could question her further about it.”

      “That poor child.”

      “I need to know what she knows.”

      “She’s only three. It may be very little. Have you talked with Clint? The sheriff said that Sarah is staying with him.”

      “No, but I’m heading out to his house to interview him after I leave here. I want you to come along and assess Sarah.”

      Just like old times—unpleasant ones. Don’t go there. Why, Lord, are you doing this? “Do you want to hear the message?”

      “Yes.”

      “I’d give you the tape, but I use an answering service.” The second time she heard it Jocelyn was even more convinced Leah was in trouble. Was it due to her husband’s suicide or something else? Where did Sarah fit into this? Had the child heard or seen something she shouldn’t have?

      “Why would she call you? Isn’t Shelby Mason her closest friend?”

      “My, you have been busy. How long have you been in town?”

      “A few hours.” He captured her gaze, intensity pouring off of him. “You aren’t seeing Leah professionally, are you?”

      Clenching her teeth, she curled her hand around her pen until it dug into her palm. “No. We’re friends, but lately she has used me more and more as a sounding board when something’s bothering her.”

      “What was she bothered by, and don’t tell me it’s confidential because she isn’t a client.”

      “Her marriage. She and Earl were having trouble.”

      “The kind that could drive her to kill her husband and leave her child?”

      “I told you I can’t see Leah doing anything like that.”

      “Leave her child or murder her husband?”

      “Both.” Before she snapped her pen in half, Jocelyn placed it on top of the folder she was working on.

      “You, better than most, know that when people are pushed too far, they are capable of doing something you’d

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