cheek like a silken scarf. Her skin radiated wholesomeness, like the petals of a delicately hued rose.
Dark smudges marred the skin under her eyes—evidence of her worry and exhaustion. And the nasty bruises on her arms had grown to the size of half-dollars.
He should have gone with his first instinct and cold-cocked Means for hurting her. He had the most uncharacteristic urge to lean over and kiss away the tiny frown between her brows, to brush his lips across her injured skin.
Who was he kidding? What he’d really like would be to pull her sleep-warmed body into his arms, and see those emerald eyes gleam with something other than sadness and suspicion.
He didn’t know how to deal with the strong sexual attraction she evoked in him. He’d never felt anything but compassion and a secret kinship with the other people he’d helped. If someone had suggested three days ago that he would be lusting after a kidnapped baby’s mother, he would have told them they were nuts.
Yet here he was, lying beside her in a shabby motel room, faintly disgusted at the direction his thoughts were taking, and yet at the same time growing more and more uncomfortable in his snug jeans.
Groaning silently, he eased out of bed. Quietly, he opened his leather computer case and retrieved his notebook computer. He set it on the minuscule desk and turned it on.
He’d check his e-mail and quickly run through the major news stories, in case there had been another kidnapping, or in case someone had already discovered he and Sunny were gone.
He glanced over at Sunny to be sure he hadn’t awakened her, then slipped into the bathroom.
A hot shower and a quick shave made him feel much better. He pulled on his jeans—not easy over his damp skin—and exited the bathroom.
Sunny was sitting at the tiny desk, staring at his computer. She turned her gaze on him, and he flinched at the furious glint in her eyes. “Sunny—”
“What is it?” Her voice cracked, and shock deepened the lines between her brows. Her gaze never wavered as she pushed her fingers through her sleep-tousled hair.
She’d opened the icon on his desktop labeled Missing Children.
“That’s official business. You shouldn’t—”
“What is this?” Her voice was as fragile as an old newspaper.
“It’s a database. I use it—”
“What kind of a database?”
Griff swallowed. No one had ever seen his files before. Not even his boss, Decker. This was his private obsession. He’d kept information on every missing child case he’d ever heard of from the time he was fourteen—since his sister had disappeared. He’d started with notes jotted in a spiral notebook, then later on the computer.
“Never mind. It’s obvious what it is. It’s a list of child kidnappings.” She tried to laugh, but her breath caught in the middle. “And look. Here’s your latest entry. Date of disappearance—June 20, city—Nashville, abductee’s name—Em-Emily Rose Loveless, age—six months.” She rattled off the fields he’d set up, her voice becoming more and more brittle.
His face burned with shame. He should have been more careful. How awful for her to be confronted with her beloved child’s name on a cold, impersonal computer screen.
His heart ached. How could she ever understand his need to catalog the dozens of successes and failures—not only his but others? His obsession with the methods and details of each case, in the hope that one day, he’d come across a case with enough similarities to his sister’s disappearance that he could trace her whereabouts.
So he could finally find some closure.
“Oh, God—” Sunny’s voice cracked like glass. “Disposition—recovered alive, recovered deceased, unsolved.”
“Sunny, don’t—”
“Emily’s disposition is blank.” She turned her haunted eyes on him. “You know, don’t you?”
He shook his head. “Sunny, let me—”
“You know what will go in that space. Tell me. How long do you leave it blank? How long before you enter unsolved in that space?”
Griff swallowed. “Usually eight to twelve weeks.”
He watched the color drain from her face. “That doesn’t mean the case is closed,” he said quickly. “We never close a missing child case. You’re looking at a working file I use to check on similarities, patterns. It was never meant to be seen by the families.”
Sunny’s eyes filled with tears. “I can see why,” she said on a harsh little laugh. “Is this what you meant when you said it was just a job to you?”
Griff shook his head. He couldn’t even put a name to all the turmoil inside him. It shattered him to watch her pain, to know