Lullabies and Lies - By Mallory Kane Page 0,65
You sound like Bess. It’s based on nothing. Kids aren’t good for anything. They’re whiny and helpless and always in the way.”
Jane’s words came from somewhere outside of herself. They were awful, hateful, damaging words. In a flash of insight, Sunny understood. Jane had heard those words—probably from before she could talk.
“Bess didn’t tell you that.”
“No. Bess is a sucker for kids.”
“So it was your mother.”
Jane’s face went red with anger. “You shut up! Unless you want to die right here, right now, and never see your daughter again.”
Chapter Ten
Griff listened to the canned voice telling him the cellular customer he was trying to reach was unavailable.
“Damn it, Sunny!” He shot up out of the chair and punched Redial. A sick crawling in his gut told him something had happened to her.
Captain Sparks gathered up the photographs of cigarette butts and tire tracks. “So CSU has ID’d the tires as consistent with a late-model Lexus, and Trace is working on lifting DNA from the cigarette butts.”
Only half hearing him, Griff listened to the phone ring and ring. “There’s something wrong.”
“Maybe she’s talking to Bess Raymond. My detective is on her way over to the hospital. She’ll check on her.”
Griff snapped his phone shut and cursed.
“Now, son,” the older man said, “the hospital’s got a rule about using cell phones inside the building.”
“She’d answer.” Griff rubbed his chest, where apprehension burned. “I’ve got to get over there.”
Sparks was already on the phone. He spoke for a moment, then hung up. “The officer guarding Ms. Raymond hasn’t seen her. The detective just got there.”
“Tell the officer to page her. Talk to hospital personnel and families. Find out who saw her last. Tell him to ask if anybody noticed anything unusual.”
Sparks nodded, a wry sympathetic amusement showing in his face. “The officer knows what to ask.”
“Right. Sorry sir. I’ve got to go.”
Griff knew he wasn’t acting like an FBI agent. He didn’t feel like one. He was losing it. He felt as he’d felt at fourteen—terrified, helpless and horribly afraid he had lost the one person he loved most in the world.
Aw hell. The raw burning in his chest spread out through his entire body. His hand shook as he grabbed his jacket. He had to find her. Now.
Lost in tormented thought, Griff followed Sparks out to his car.
He didn’t want to love Sunny. He didn’t want to love anybody—ever again. He’d learned too young how awful losing a loved one was.
By the time Sparks pulled into the hospital parking lot, Griff had reached a heartbreaking realization. He couldn’t make himself stop loving Sunny. No more than he could forget Marianne.
It was hopeless, a love built on shared pain, shared tragedy. Griff knew that if he couldn’t give Sunny back her child, there would be no happy ending for either of them.
She had needed something that night, something he’d been able to supply, at least for a while. His body stirred at the memory of her beneath him, moaning with passion, clinging to him as she took him deep inside her, as she cried out with fulfillment.
But the need to feel alive, to feel safe and cherished, wasn’t enough to build a life on. Another lesson he’d learned. Using someone else to ease your pain didn’t work for very long. It was why he had made up his mind long ago not to love anyone.
But now he’d even failed in that.
He loved her. He’d just have to deal with it.
Captain Sparks led the way to the intensive care unit and flashed his badge. The nurse nodded and opened the automatic door into the large circular room surrounded by glass-enclosed cubicles.
She pointed toward one of the rooms. Griff could see the detective inside.
“Has Sunny Loveless been in to see Ms. Raymond?” Griff asked.
The nurse shook her head. “The policewoman already asked about her.”
Tense with worry and torn between what he wanted to do and what he needed to do, Griff thanked her and turned to Sparks.
“Captain—”
Sparks nodded. “The officer knows we’re here. He’ll let us know if they find her.”
Fear still engulfed Griff. Sunny wasn’t here. He knew it. Something had happened.
“I know you’re worried about her, son. She can’t have gone far.”
As they stepped inside the monitored room, the young detective stood. Griff nodded at her.
The only light in the room was the blue from the monitors surrounding the bed. Bess Raymond’s gray hair looked dingy against the clean white sheets. She looked small and old, her face wrinkled and pale.
A nurse was