Raising the Stakes

“Yeah,” Dan said. “That was pretty much my reaction, too.”

Keir looked at Coyle. “Where’d you get all this stuff?” He almost tore the page, turning it so he could read the reverse side. “A broken collarbone. Two broken ribs. A concussion…”

“From a little shopping mall clinic in the town she came from, and no, she never reported any of it to the police, just said it was an accident every time. And no again,” Dan said, reading the next question in Keir’s eyes, “you don’t want to know how I came by any of it, not her real name or the medical stuff or anything else. Just take my word for it, Keir. It’s all true.”

“She’s not from Phoenix?”

“Not unless you count the time she spent there in a women’s shelter.”

“She was married to this—this piece of—”

“She still is.”

“And…” Keir looked at the paper in his hands again. “And she has a kid?”

“Yes. A little boy. He’s in a school somewhere outside Vegas.”

“Somewhere outside Vegas covers a lot of territory.”

“I know. I’ve deliberately avoided zeroing in on the kid.” Coyle nodded at Mary. “Your mother and I decided that might spook Dawn, if she got word somebody’d come poking around to get a look at him. Your mother was afraid she’d pick up and run.”

“She would,” Mary said with conviction. “Any woman would. And then she probably wouldn’t be lucky enough to land in a place where people would try to protect her.”

“You don’t know it, Mother. Not for a fact.”

“For as good as a fact,” his mother said coldly.

“How? I mean, Jesus, you know hotels. Casinos. You don’t know—”

“Your father and I had a neighbor years back, in Boston. Lived right next door to us, a sweet little thing with two babies. She was shy. Quiet. Kept to herself, though I’ve often thought how differently things might have turned out if I’d taken the time to try to get to know her…” Mary took a breath. “One night—one perfectly normal summer evening—a man came to her door. When she opened it, he shot her dead. Then he shot her babies. It turned out he was her husband, that she’d fled after years of abuse but she made the mistake of not changing her identity.”

Oh, hell. Keir put his hand on his mother’s arm. “Mother,” he said softly, “Ma—”

“This girl, Dawn, had the presence of mind to change hers. I had a feeling about her, that she was a good person, a decent young woman, and I told Mr. Coyle to seal this report. I haven’t regretted it for a moment.”

“Yeah, but…” Keir ran a hand through his hair. But what? Legally his mother had done the wrong thing. Morally she’d done the right thing. And what the hell had he done? A strange man was in the hotel, someone who called himself Gray Baron, someone who had conveniently turned up just when Dawn needed help.

Something had flashed across Baron’s face when Keir introduced him to Dawn. Shock, maybe. Surprise. That’s what Keir had thought but maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe it had been satisfaction at finally finding her…

“Keir?”

He looked up. Mary was staring at him.

“What’s wrong? What’s this problem with Dawn you wanted to discuss? Does it have anything to do with what you just read?”

Did it? He didn’t think so. What had happened, really? Nothing, when you came down to it. A man had stopped to help Dawn when nobody else had. He’d registered at the hotel where she worked. He’d spotted her and asked to meet her. Dawn hadn’t wanted to meet him; she’d gone from white to pink when Keir had insisted on making the introduction. Normal stuff, all of it. The guy was a Good Sam; Dawn was a shy woman.

Keir put down the file, jammed his hands into his pockets, rocked back on his heels and stared at the skyline visible through the balcony doors. But there had been that one quick moment when he’d seen something in Gray Baron’s eyes. A flash of—of what? Confusion? Distaste?

“Keir?”

Keir looked at his mother. “You haven’t answered me,” she said softly. “What’s the problem that concerns Dawn?” She hesitated. “You don’t think… Do you have reason to believe her husband’s looking for her?”

A thousand questions but no answers. Keir told himself to calm down. The report hadn’t contained much information about Dawn’s husband except that he’d been arrested in the past, that he got pleasure out of beating his wife, and that he lived on an Arizona mountaintop. Could such a man, would such a man, hire someone to find her? Someone like Gray Baron? Looks didn’t mean a thing; this business taught you that. But there was no ignoring the designer watch, the expensive clothes, the soft, well-educated voice.

No, he wouldn’t be her husband’s point man. Besides, the man he’d just read about in that file would surely take pleasure in finding his quarry and dealing with her himself.

“Keir,” his mother said urgently, “is Dawn Carter in danger?”