Moving silently, he circled Iris’s house, then Robin’s rental. Nothing. At nearly nine o’clock, everybody in the neighborhood seemed to be tucked in to stay. He hadn’t heard a car engine since he’d come outside, only a few clangs of metal inside that open garage.
Still restless, glad for the cool night air and the distance from a woman he hungered for but couldn’t allow himself to touch, Seth wasn’t eager to go back inside. Robin might start to worry if he didn’t reappear, however. He hoped she’d go to bed soon and get some sleep before their planned getaway. Four a.m. There shouldn’t be so much as a mouse astir, and no hint of dawn yet, either.
He’d quietly let himself in and locked the new dead bolt on the back door when he heard a phone ring. Had to be Robin’s. Strange, when nobody had called all day. The only time she’d been on her phone was to talk to Iris once she was home.
Not wanting to scare her, he called, “It’s me,” and stopped to pour a glass of cold water from the pitcher in the refrigerator.
“Seth?” She was suddenly there, clutching her phone. “It’s a strange number.”
This was probably innocent: a sales call, a family member using a burner. But threats...those might be next. He set the glass down on the counter. “Answer.”
Eyes locked on his, Robin answered after the fifth ring. “Hello?”
All Seth could hear was a man’s voice, but her outraged expression told him who this caller was.
“How did you get my phone number? And what do you want?”
The man talked. Seth thought she might crack the phone case, the way her hand had tightened. He had to fight the desire to snatch it out of her grip and tell the son of a bitch what he thought about men who terrorized women.
But she was already talking again. “You’re crazy,” she said scathingly, stunned disbelief showing, too. “Oh, why am I surprised? Of course you are.” The man’s voice cut like a whip, but over the top of it, Robin talked right over him, gaining volume as she went. “The answer is no. I already know you don’t keep promises. More to the point—” she was almost yelling now “—I would never give up my child to anyone, and especially not you.”
Seth didn’t think he’d ever heard so much loathing in anyone’s voice.
Apparently having cut the creep off, she dropped the phone onto the table and paced the length of the kitchen and back. “How dare he call me? Did he think for a minute that I’d just hand over Jacob? Or was he only goading me?”
When she started past him again, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Tell me what he said.”
“That he’d let me go if I gave him his son. Signed a note conceding custody to him.”
“That’s brazen.”
“He thinks he’s untouchable. Who would believe me if I told them what he’d done to me? What he’s really like?”
“I do,” Seth said simply.
Her lips parted. She blinked. “I... How can you?”
A little shocked to have said that—no, to believe in her so absolutely—he shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I wish I could have recorded that call, though. He all but admitted he was responsible for the attempted abduction.”
“Yes.” Her shoulders slumped. “I hate him.”
“Yeah.” He sounded hoarse to his ears. He wanted to gather her into his arms, as he had for those brief moments on the couch, but knew he needed to keep his distance. She’d passed the point of being a suspect in his eyes, but starting anything with her was highly inappropriate. No matter what, he couldn’t put her in a position of feeling coerced, not when she needed to be able to depend on him. As for him, whatever his gut insisted was truth, he’d be smart to see some proof before he gave Robin Hollis–Helen Boyd–Megan Cobb his entire faith—and maybe the something more that formed a tight knot under his breastbone.
* * *
ROBIN’S HEAD KEPT TURNING, although she couldn’t make much out in the dark. Beside her in the alley, Seth carried Jacob, who was still half-asleep. A duffel hung over his opposite shoulder, while she carried a box and one of the big black plastic sacks full of clothes.