door. “What is it? Are you all right?”
She stood there, in a pink tank top and drawstring pajama pants, her hair caught up with a clip, and tears overflowing her eyes.
She was clutching something in her hands. “I’m sorry, Griff, but I couldn’t stand it anymore. I called the number.”
“Damn it!” He slapped his palm against the wall. “What’d you do that for? Didn’t I explain—?”
“Yes. Intellectually I knew it was a bad idea. But I’m having a really hard time listening to my logical side right now.” A tiny laugh escaped her lips as her eyes glowed with tears. “It doesn’t matter anyway. There was no answer. She’s gone. She took Emily and ran.”
“Hey.” Griff held out his arms and she walked right into them, still clutching the cell phone in front of her.
Silent sobs erupted like little earthquakes through her body. “I’m sorry. I should be stronger,” she whispered.
“You’re doing great,” he whispered, his heart breaking for her. It had taken him weeks to realize Marianne was never coming back. At fourteen, hope had lasted much longer.
“Emily is fine. She has to be.” He pulled her over to the bed and sat down with her. He pulled her into his arms, clenching his jaw against the feel of her soft skin against his bare chest and shoulders. “Didn’t you tell me the woman sounded kind and loving?”
God, what was he doing? He was lying to her, breaking his own code of honor. He’d never lied to a family, never given them false hope. He’d always been kind, gentle, but realistic.
He had no idea whether they would find Emily, or what might have happened to her. But suddenly, the most important thing to him was Sunny. He had to find Emily. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let Sunny down.
But he had a problem. A big one.
No matter how many times he went over the evidence, he still couldn’t make the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
He was counting on the woman who’d called Sunny to fill in the missing pieces.
He gently took the cell phone from her unresisting fingers.
“I screwed up, didn’t I?”
“I should have taken your phone away from you yesterday.” He was the one who had screwed up. It was a critical error on his part. Now the woman was warned. She knew Sunny was here.
A tiny, ironic laugh escaped Sunny’s lips. “That wouldn’t have stopped me. There’s a phone in my room.”
Griff berated himself silently. Of course. The only way he could have stopped her from making the call was to stay in the same room with her and watch her constantly. But he hadn’t wanted to suffer through another night lying next to her, unable to touch her.
“You need to sleep. We’re going to have a busy day tomorrow. No matter where the woman is, as soon as Natasha has an ID from that cell phone number, we’ll find her.”
“What if we don’t? What if the woman is just some crank? What if this is a wild-goose chase?” Sunny buried her face in her hands. “I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I keep seeing Emily alone, hungry, sick. What if they’re hurting her? What if she’s in the hands of some sick—” She stopped.
“Sunny—”
“What if she’s already dead?”
Griff could have recited all the what-ifs right along with her. He’d heard them all. Hell, he’d said them all. And he knew, too, that the more time that went by, the more real the what-ifs became.
He wrapped his fingers carefully around her arms and set her a little away from him, then lifted her chin with a finger. “Listen to me. You have to stop thinking like that. You have to sleep and eat. You have to be strong, because when we find Emily, she’s going to need her mother.”
Her eyes implored him. “Tell me I’ll see her again.”
He pulled the covers back and patted the pillow. “Come on, get into bed. I’ll turn the lights out.”
With a wary look at him, Sunny obeyed. She climbed under the covers and lay down. Her deep, shaky sigh told him how exhausted she was.
He turned off the lamp, leaving the room in darkness, except for the pale blue glow of his laptop screen. He powered it down and closed it.
“Griff?”
“Yeah?”
“Tell me.”
A lump rose in his throat. The urge to promise her she’d see her baby tomorrow was overwhelming, but he bit his tongue.
No more empty lies. Hadn’t he learned to hate the smooth-talking FBI