“I talked to him.” Behind Sanders, only the flickering television screen lit the nondescript motel room as another day dissolved into darkness and defeat. “He was only interested in the reward. He didn’t know anything.”
Derrick swore loudly. “I won’t rest until I find my son.”
His son? Sanders felt a chill. Derrick had no way of knowing if Kit had given birth to a boy. His brother’s obsession with having a son scared him—just as it had Kit. Was that why she’d taken off?
“Someone has to have seen her,” Derrick said. “Maybe she’s cut her hair or dyed it.”
Sanders couldn’t imagine Kit doing either. But then, he couldn’t imagine her taking off like she’d done, at nine months’ pregnant. Hadn’t she known Derrick would never stop looking for her? Especially with her carrying his baby?
Sanders had tracked her from the Bozeman, Montana bus station, where she’d abandoned Derrick’s truck, as far as the Dallas, Texas bus station. After that, she had vanished.
He’d checked every bus, train and airplane. And all the hospitals within a two-hundred-mile radius. No Kit Bannack Killhorn had given birth. At least not under her real name. Nor had anyone matching her description.
He’d also checked birth certificates for a two-month period. No Bannack. No Killhorn. Even the private investigator his brother had hired had come up empty-handed.
Sanders had grown weary of looking for his sister-in-law and wanted more than anything to return home to Montana. Especially with Christmas just days away.
“Something has to have happened to her,” Derrick was saying. “Maybe she was in an accident and can’t remember—”
The rest of his brother’s words were lost as Sanders caught a familiar image out of the corner of his eye. He turned to stare at the television screen.
Kit’s face stared back.
* * *
IN A MOTEL ROOM across from Sanders’s room, Luke stared at the same newscast, the same face on the TV screen, the same woman he’d also been chasing for seven months.
Just moments before, Luke had been electronically eavesdropping on Sanders’s conversation with Derrick Killhorn and calling himself a fool. All this time, he’d been shadowing Sanders, hoping the man and his resources would lead him to Kit. But he was beginning to doubt even the great Killhorns could find the woman. And even if they did, Luke couldn’t be sure she had the answers he so desperately needed.
He was ready to give up, admit he’d been wrong. He was sick of motel rooms, rental cars and eating out of foam containers. He was sick of tailing Sanders, and he damned sure hadn’t done any good finding Kit on his own.
When her face flashed on the television screen, Luke gaped in disbelief, adrenaline singing through his veins. I was right. Dammit, I was right. He felt a jolt of satisfaction, followed quickly by fear and regret so strong that he could taste it. Dear God, I was right.
He kicked up the volume on the TV.
“…after an arsonist started a fire that destroyed the small private Galveston hospital last June.”
Kit sat wrapped in a hospital blanket, the blazing building behind her. Her eyes caught the camera; her hand went up to shield her face from view. The image lasted only a few seconds, then was gone.
Luke cursed as he realized the newscast wasn’t about Kit, but about a woman whose kidnapped baby had been returned to her.
What did any of that have to do with Kit?
A doctor came on the screen. Dr. Bernard explained that three women had given birth on June third at the Galveston hospital just before the fire broke out. The mothers and their babies had been evacuated separately. It wasn’t until later that authorities realized one of the babies had been kidnapped. The arson was still under investigation.
Luke felt his breath rush out of him. Kit. She had to be one of the mothers who’d given birth that night. That’s why her face had been on the old file tape about the hospital fire back in June.
Luke shook his head in amazement. No wonder he and Sanders hadn’t been able to find her. A hospital fire. That explained why no one at the area hospitals remembered Kit Killhorn.
Luke turned off the TV and stared at the empty screen, his heart pounding. He couldn’t get the image of Kit out of his head. The stark terror in her eyes. The way she’d tried to hide from the camera. This lady was running scared. But what was she fleeing from? What had sent her hightailing it out of Montana? He couldn’t wait to ask her.
* * *
ACROSS TOWN, Kit leaned over her son’s crib and lovingly pulled the soft blanket up to Andy’s dimpled chin. With warm fingers, she brushed his blond hair back from his angelic face and smiled down at him. She loved looking at him, and spent hours doing just that.
He’d had a big day today and she knew he must be exhausted. She was, after following him in all his explorations. It amazed her how quickly he learned, how quickly he changed. Over the last six and a half months she’d watched him grow, marveling at it all from his first smile and laugh to the first time he’d rolled over and crawled.
She’d named him Andrew, after her father. Unfortunately, she’d been unable to give him her father’s last name, Bannack. Nor had she used Killhorn. Either name would only have led Derrick to them. So she’d lied, providing fake names for the birth certificate to keep her baby safe.
Kit turned on the television in the room she shared with her son, hoping to catch the news and see if the predicted storm off the gulf had materialized.
But when the news came on, she found herself staring in confusion at the screen. Her face. What was she doing on TV? Old footage from the night of the fire! She remembered her terror that night when she’d seen the television news crew. Surely they hadn’t ever shown this particular news clip before, or Derrick would have found her.
Her heart thudded. Why in God’s name were they showing it now? Had the arsonist been found? Or was this about that poor woman whose baby had been kidnapped?
“After almost seven long months, Nina Fairchild and her son Dustin have been reunited,” the newscaster said.
Kit felt a wave of relief. She’d silently feared that the kidnapper had taken the wrong baby the night of the fire—that Derrick had tracked her and Andy, and mistakenly stolen Nina’s son.
Now the Fairchild baby was safe. Kit felt such gratitude that she hadn’t caused the poor woman’s pain. But at the same time, the newscast shattered any illusion that Kit could evade her past.
All these months, she’d hidden, terrified that Derrick would find her and Andy. As she’d watched her son grow and flourish, she’d convinced herself she’d done the right thing. Including lying to Dr. Bernard to get her job as a nanny. And lying to Tim Anderson so he’d pay her cash and there’d be no record of her employment.
But the moment she saw her face on TV, she knew she hadn’t hidden well enough. She couldn’t take the chance that Derrick hadn’t seen the newscast somehow. Or at least hadn’t heard about it.
She looked down at her son sleeping peacefully in his crib. Her heart thrummed with the sound of his rhythmic breathing. Tears welled in her eyes—tears of fear, anger and regret. She wiped at them, filled with another emotion, this one stronger than all the others put together: the need to protect her son. It felt almost primitive. She would give her life for Andy’s.
She covered her son with a blanket and wondered if she would ever be able to find a place where they would be safe. As she began to pack, the answer chilled in her heart, filling her with terror.
As long as Derrick Killhorn was after her, no safe place existed.