A Father's Desperate Rescue (Man on a Mission 5)

* * *

Mei-li watched Dirk on the drive back to the Peninsula Hotel. The stiff way he held himself worried her. That, and the fact he hadn’t uttered a single word since he’d said they were both crying in a voice that had hurt her to hear. Now he sat all the way on the far side of the backseat, his sunglasses securely in place, his face turned away from her. Surrounded by a fortress of solitude. Staring out at...nothing, she imagined. Lost in his thoughts. Lost in his pain.

A vibration from her purse distracted her, and she pulled out her smartphone. She’d turned the ringer off this morning, right after Patrick had called her to say he was waiting downstairs, not wanting any calls to disrupt the ransom drop. But she hadn’t turned her phone off completely. She was expecting a call...or a text.

Dirk never turned to see what she was doing, and Mei-li was grateful when she saw who the text was from.

No dice, the text said. Where next?

She wouldn’t let herself be disappointed. It had always been a long shot, but sometimes long shots paid off. She texted back, Don’t know, because she knew the question was referring to the next ransom drop, not their immediate destination. Her thumbs flew as she typed, Hotel. Instructions there. 2nd pckg. Will let you know soonest. She thought a moment, then typed. Cell phone?

Dead end, was the response. Piggyback.

Damn! Mei-li didn’t often curse, not even mentally, but right now damn! exactly expressed her emotions. When she’d seen last night that the kidnapper was using an iPhone to take pictures, she’d hoped he was using it for calls, too, and not some cheap, disposable cell. If that were the case, they’d be able to find out who he was by whatever cell phone plan he was using. To that end, she’d placed a tiny, high-tech device on Dirk’s iPhone this morning when he wasn’t looking. Totally illegal...but able to track incoming phone numbers even when they were blocked.

But that was a dead end. Piggyback meant that the kidnapper was making calls by illegally using someone else’s cell phone line. He couldn’t receive incoming calls that way. But he could make any outgoing calls he wanted by tricking the phone company’s computers into thinking his phone was the legitimate thing, and no one would be able to track him. Eventually the owner of the phone number might spot the illegal usage on his bill and have the number turned off. But that was at least a month away, if then—not everyone bothered to review the detailed phone logs on their phone bills.

She hadn’t told Dirk up front because she hadn’t wanted to raise his hopes only to have them dashed...as they would have been, knowing what she knew now.

Thanks anyway, she typed back.

Good idea. Worth a shot. Keep me posted.

Will do.

She put her phone away, and when she did she saw Dirk’s smartphone in her purse, where she’d dropped it earlier. Using that as an excuse to try to break through the wall of silence he had surrounded himself with, she leaned over and nudged his arm with the phone. “Dirk?” When he didn’t respond, she did it again. “Dirk?”

He turned then. “What?”

“Your phone.” She held it up for him to take. “I put it in my purse, remember? But you should have it in case...”

“In case the kidnappers call me again. Yeah. Thanks.” He slid the phone into his pocket, then returned to staring out the window in solitude. Returned to his contemplation of...nothing.

It made absolutely no sense, but that was the moment Mei-li toppled right over the edge of a precipice. She’d been teetering on the brink since yesterday—okay, she’d been dangerously close to the edge since that first night—but the tsunami of emotions that washed through her now obliterated any doubts she might have had. She loved Dirk. Loved him. How could she not love a man who cared this much about his children? Who was devastated by their tearful pleas?

The amount of time she’d known him had nothing to do with it. Neither did the knowledge that when this was all over, when Linden and Laurel were safely home with their father where they belonged, she might never see him again. That didn’t matter. All that mattered was knowing that if she could have spared him the pain ravaging him now by taking it on herself, she would have done it. In a heartbeat.

That’s what love is, she remembered her mother telling her many years ago. Caring more for someone else than you do for yourself.

That’s how her mother felt about Mei-li’s father. And how he felt about Mei-li’s mother. Their love had set the bar for her. In all the years since Sean’s death, she’d never met a man who aroused the mother lioness in her. Not that what she felt for Dirk was motherly...far from it. But the protectiveness, the fierce desire to shield him from every hurt, those were the emotions she’d longed to feel again the way she’d felt them with Sean...and now she did.