LITMIR.BIZ

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are you?” she asked, something dark and unsettling churning in her stomach.

      “Friendlies,” Quinn said, as if he’d sensed her fear.

      “We just want to help,” Hayley said. She glanced at Quinn, such pride in her face that it went a long way toward soothing Kayla’s nerves. “It’s what we do.”

      “You can’t help. Nobody can.”

      Bitterness spiked through Kayla. She’d accepted the lost years, the thrown-away money, but Dane…. Losing Dane was—

      She cut her own thoughts off.

      “This is beyond anyone’s help,” she said. “It’s a lost cause.”

      “Well, now,” Hayley said, “isn’t that convenient? Lost causes are our specialty.”

       Chapter 2

      Dane Burdette paced the width of his home office, turned, made the return journey, then turned again. Although the apartment was large enough, this den was a small space, one that overflowed with equipment that now also filled the adjoining dining area.

      A sound from outside brought him out of the reverie he’d slipped into and back to reality. A reality that, for the first time in more than a decade, didn’t have Kayla in it.

      His jaw tightened. He rubbed at the back of his neck, trying not to think about Kayla doing the same, as she so often did when he’d been working too many hours. And he barely managed not to look for the hundredth time this morning at the photograph on his desk, the picture he’d taken at the Washington coast last year, catching her at her most beautiful, happy, smiling, looking almost carefree. It was clear to even the most casual observer that the love and warmth in her eyes was aimed at the person behind the camera.

      It nearly ripped his heart out every time he looked at it. He’d done the right thing. Finally. He’d meant what he’d said—he couldn’t go on like this. Ten years was enough.

      Too bad knowing that didn’t stop the urge to give in, to go to her and patch things up. Again.

      But he’d meant it this time. He’d spent too long living with her obsession. She’d idolized her big brother, believed completely in his innocence and had never given up trying to find him. She’d traveled thousands of miles, going every time one of those damn notes arrived, chasing postmarks. And every time it came to nothing. She’d spent time, money and much of her energy on the quest, and there was no end in sight.

      He glanced at the heavy dive watch Kayla had given him for his twenty-fifth birthday. She’d be at the post office even now; she went every Friday to pick up the mail for her counseling group, but in truth she was both hoping for and dreading the arrival of another communication from her brother. Dane himself was long past hoping; he was firmly in the dread category.

      He needed to quit wearing the watch, he thought. Even though he liked the solid weight of it on his wrist, that Kayla had chosen it and given it to him—and the passionate night that had followed—was not something he wanted to be reminded of at every move.

      “I had to do it,” he muttered under his breath, as if actually saying the words would be more convincing to a heart and mind that felt as if something vital had been torn away.

      At this point, Chad Tucker’s guilt or innocence didn’t matter much to him. What mattered was that Kayla couldn’t seem to move on. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand—he did. He’d been there that night, in the bloody, awful aftermath. He’d been the one to hear her scream, the one to run to her, to pull her out of the room that held the nightmare. To this day he couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for the teenage girl to walk into that hell.

      That it was a girl he cared about made even thinking about it difficult. And he had cared about Kayla since the first day he’d seen her, a slight, fragile-looking fourteen, sitting on a limb high up in the old tree between their houses. She had been staring downward, turning her head this way and that, and he’d realized after a moment what was going on.

      “Stuck?” he’d called to her.

      “Not yet,” she’d answered, making him laugh.

      She’d been in his life one way or another ever since that day. Until now. Until he’d had to leave her, had to walk away. Even though it was like leaving a part of himself behind. But he knew—

      “Dane?”

      He spun around, a little embarrassed that he hadn’t realized his roommate and business partner Sergei was standing there. He needed to get his head back in the game.

      “I need to go if I’m going to make it on time. Don’t want to speed out of here because our downstairs neighbor the cop is out washing his car. Is what you sent last night the final cut?”

      “Yes.”

      “I’ll be on my way then,” his partner said.

      But he stopped in the doorway and looked back. He and Sergei Kesic had built their small, digital video promotion company from nothing to a going concern, thanks to Dane’s knack for tailoring the product to individual customer needs and Sergei’s no-nonsense, bottom-line sales approach that appealed to companies in a belt-tightening era.

      “You sent it at 3:00 a.m.,” Sergei said.

      “Did I?”

      “You’re keeping some pretty long hours, buddy.”

      “Don’t be late,” Dane said. The last thing he wanted was to get dragged into discussing the reasons behind his late nights and lack of sleep. Sergei hadn’t asked why he’d suddenly taken to sleeping here instead of at Kayla’s, and he didn’t want that conversation to start now.

      He had to put it out of his mind, he told himself as Sergei shrugged and left. There were decisions to make, plans to go over.

      A sour laugh escaped him. Plans. Yes, indeed, plans. He’d had a lot of those.

      He yanked the watch off his wrist, opened a desk drawer, shoved it in the back and slammed the drawer shut. One more step, he thought. And he should do it now, when he knew where she’d be, at the post office checking for another one of those damned notes. He would go over to Kayla’s and pick up the last of his stuff.

      And leave his key.

      He winced at the thought but shored up his determination and grabbed his key ring from the desk. He pried the ring open and worked the gold key off, fighting memories of the night she’d given it to him.

      He shoved the key in the watch pocket of his jeans.

      With a final glance at the photograph, he headed for the door. That picture was going, he told himself firmly. As soon as he got back.

      This was crazy.

      Kayla stared at the business card in her hand. It looked official enough, but anybody could churn out a good-looking business card. And there was no indication on the card of exactly what the “Foxworth Foundation” did.

      They had walked across the street to the small city park and were seated on the stone wall that surrounded the kid’s play area, deserted now at this morning hour. The dog that had started all this was sprawled in the grass, basking in the morning sun and looking decidedly smug.

      “Does he do this often?” she asked.

      “Cutter?” Hayley said.

      “Yes. Does he drag total strangers with a problem to you?”

      “As a matter of fact, yes.”

      Kayla blinked. Hayley smiled.

      “He has a knack,” she said. “I don’t know how he does it, but he seems to know when people are troubled.”

      “And he brings them to you?”

      “It’s not usually as…neatly as today,” Quinn said with a wry smile.

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