Her Detective's Secret Intent

Chapter 4

The thing about having a kid was that you couldn’t just make up your mind about something and count on having it happen. When Ethan was a baby, Miranda was in charge. Or at least she’d felt she was. From the twos on, though, he’d been pretty adamant about having his own say in anything and everything, and she’d had to rethink her approach. A process that seemed to happen every day since. She had to foster his independence. And above all, keep him safe. So her mantra had become that if it didn’t involve his safety or health, he could decide—which, in their world, meant he could have his way.

If it did have any kind of impact on his well-being, they did it her way. The line used to be clearly delineated. At least in her mind. And her boy had been good about accepting her decisions once she explained them to him.

That Saturday after dinner with Tad, Ethan woke up talking about Zoo Attack, about a new animal kingdom he was going to create and then show Tad. He’d said he’d come to their house and so, to Ethan, that meant he was coming.

Her moment to object to that idea had already gone.

Tad’s, too, apparently, at least according to her son.

And Miranda was left with the task of explaining to her son that sometimes adults said things they didn’t really mean.

A concept he wasn’t willing to accept.

“Call him, Mom, he’ll come, you’ll see,” Ethan said for the umpteenth time that morning. Standing in a pile of dark clothes on the kitchen floor by the laundry room, he kicked up a sock to emphasize his point.

She threw the last pair of white underwear in the dryer and bent to pick up their darks before he kicked them any farther.

“He’s a grown man, Ethan,” she told her son. “I’m sure he’s got more important things to do than play video games this weekend.”

As soon as she heard the words, she wanted to retract them. Implying that her son’s engagements weren’t important wasn’t what she’d intended to say.

“He said he wanted to,” Ethan insisted.

But she didn’t want him in her home. Hadn’t let any man visit since she’d made the first home for her and Ethan.

Their little rented cottage was her haven. She didn’t have to be as careful there to hide her secrets. Or to worry that someone might be watching her. Looking for her. Or him. Keeping their home private was paramount to her peace of mind, to her belief that she could keep them safe.

None of which she could explain to her son.

“Call him, Mom, please? You’ll see, he’ll come.”

She took her time loading the washing machine. Pouring the soap. Filling the little ball dispenser with fabric softener and dropping that in. What should she tell Ethan?

She’d promised herself that Ethan wasn’t going to grow up in fear. Jeff had trusted her with his son.

Turning, she saw him still standing there, his big blue eyes imploring her.

“Okay,” she heard herself say. “You go put the clean sheets on your bed like I showed you, and I’ll call him.”

“Yes!” Ethan jumped up in the air and he was off.

Miranda had a knot in her gut as she pulled her cell out of her pocket. Tad was in her contacts, as were all the High Risk Team members.

She’d told Ethan she’d call.

“Miranda?” He picked up on the first ring. “Everything okay?”

“Of course,” she lied, listening to the washer fill with water, the clinking of a metal button on a pair of white pants in the dryer. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Just making sure.” He didn’t really sound worried and she figured he was merely being polite—not reading her mind.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I told Ethan I’d call. He hasn’t let up on me all morning about that Attack game.”

“He’s going to give me my key to the animals.”

“You were being nice to him, and I appreciate that, but I’ll get you out of it. The thing is, he wasn’t going to take no for an answer until I called.” So she did. Because she didn’t have a logical reason to give Ethan that he’d understand.

“I don’t want out of it.” His response sent her heart thudding. “I meant to solidify something before we split up last night and forgot.”

“You don’t have to come here and play video games with my kid,” she told him, hoping her chuckle sounded genuinely unconcerned. Although it wasn’t.

“I want to...unless you have some reason for not wanting me to?”

What was it with these two guys? It was like they were plotting together against her. One she loved with all her being, and the other...she really liked Tad.

She was intrigued. Curious. She wanted to explore further.

Her life didn’t support that choice.

At least not long-term.

“I mean, I know you’re busy and—”

“I’m on leave,” he reminded her with a laconic drawl. “In a town where I know very few people. Other than my daily exercises, High Risk Team meetings and checking on Danny, my day is free.”

Looking around at the fairly large but still cozy living and kitchen area—all open so she didn’t have to worry about anyone lurking in a corner—she tried to figure out what to do. This was why she didn’t let people get too close, why the only “friends” she had were at work or The Lemonade Stand.

Not only did it keep life manageable, safe, but she’d also realized that if she ever had to run again, having no one close, in any sense, would make it easier. Less complicated.

“Or we can do it another time,” Tad said, his tone as relaxed as always. Hard to believe this laid-back guy was a decorated detective. In her experience with law enforcement personnel—and she had a lot of it growing up with her fire chief father—first responders were an intense bunch. Work hard, play hard.

Get mad just as hard, at least in her father’s case.

“I’m cleaning house this morning,” she said. What was she going to say? What reason could she give for not having him over that didn’t make her sound crazy?

She’d been told, during her identity-change counseling, to stick to the truth as much as possible to avoid mistakes. But the truth was, there was no real reason she couldn’t have people over. Her counselors had also told her to live life as normally as possible.

She was...scared.

“But it’s not a big place,” she continued. Hallway, bath and the two bedrooms left to sweep and mop. “If... How does one sound?”

He offered to bring lunch.

She tried to demur, but failed. He offered Mexican. She and Ethan loved Mexican.

Clicking off her phone after giving him their order, she didn’t feel hungry at all. In fact, she felt nauseous.

She pushed through the sensation. Picked up her broom. Took nice, even strokes down the hall.

She’d invited Tad Newberry further into their lives.

She was doing this for Ethan.

Who better than a man who was already protecting another little boy from domestic abuse to have around her son? To help fill the male void she’d been noticing. He’d been talking about Jimmy’s father a lot.

The decision to have Tad around, just for a short time, was a good one for Ethan, she told herself as she finished with their small bathroom and moved into her bedroom, listening to her son sing a goofy rendition of a kid’s song blaring from the player she’d given him for Christmas.

But she could only have Tad around if she made absolutely sure that Ethan understood that the detective was only in town for a while. And kept herself constantly apprised of that fact, as well.

* * *

Tad barely had a few seconds inside the quaint little cottage not far from the beach. The front door opened to him and he was whisked through a living area and out to a back patio before he’d even had a chance to say hello.

The place smelled like disinfectant mixed with lavender. The brown leather sectional had a patched spot on one arm; the recliner and coffee and end tables were dust-free but mismatched. Wall art, generic. Floors, ceramic tile with throw rugs. Nothing out of place. Kitchen off to the left, complete with a top-of-the-cupboard microwave and built-in dishwasher. All spotless.

“Hey, Mr. Newberry! Mom says we can play on my Windows tablet, which is so cool ’cause we can pass it back and forth, instead of the computer where I usually have to play.” From a too-big chair at an outdoor table for four, the blue-eyed boy stared up at him, his brown hair shaggy and cute, not quite long enough to hang in his eyes. As before, he was in blue jeans and a T-shirt.

“That’s Detective Newberry,” Miranda said from right behind Tad. “What would you like to drink?”

Ethan had a glass half filled with red liquid in front of him, and a hint of pink mustache to go with it.

“I’ve got tea, bottled water or punch.”

He chose the tea and, taking a seat on the eight-by-eight tiled patio, dug into the bag of food he’d brought, dispensing items according to the orders placed—burrito minus the sauce for Ethan, taco salad with sour cream for his mother. From the family-run taco joint down by the beach.

Tad went with the house specialty. Tacos.

“That’s Mom’s seat.” Ethan’s voice was softer than normal as he unwrapped his burrito.

Tad’s fingers slowed on his own paper-covered food. “What?”

“You’re in Mom’s seat. She always sits there, and if I do, she makes me move.”

He’d taken the seat with his back to the wall of the house. He could see the door to the living area, and the small, nicely manicured, walled-in yard, too.

That was probably why she’d chosen it as her own. A woman who’d been scared enough to take on a new identity could experience a need to keep her back to the wall.

As quickly as possible, he moved, managing to resettle himself before Miranda returned.

Maybe what he was doing—ingratiating himself into their worlds—was duplicitous. Making him untrustworthy. He liked Miranda. Really liked her. More than he could remember ever liking a woman in such a short time. He couldn’t tell her the truth about his mission, not yet, anyway. Not until he knew that his news wouldn’t ruin her life again, upend her and cause her to start all over. From scratch. With a six-year-old child.

On the contrary, his goal was to make her life better. To take away her fear. To let her know she could live safely, free of the past.

He just wasn’t at liberty to do that yet.

And didn’t even want to think about it until he knew for certain that her ex-husband was dead. If he believed her, the man had been dead for years, but it wasn’t like she was going to tell the truth. She’d told him the rehearsed story attached to her assumed identity. But as much as he trusted her father—his current employer—he wasn’t a man who relied on the word of others. You never knew if someone had been given falsified proof.

He’d seen enough twists and turns in his career to make him wary. As recently as his last case—a man putting his own daughter’s life at stake, preparing to kill the child while she stood there in his arms, crying...

“You need to watch me do this, Mr. Newberry,” Ethan’s young voice brought Tad fully back to the moment just as Miranda came outside with their drinks. “That way you’ll learn for when you do your own and our animals can fight sometimes, too.”

“Sorry, I had to brew more tea,” Miranda said on the tail end of Ethan’s words. “I added extra ice.”

Which was quickly melting.

“And it’s Detective Newberry, Ethan,” she said again, sitting in her chair, unfolding a napkin and dropping it in her son’s lap.

“I’d prefer Tad, if that’s okay with you,” he told her. Who knew if he was going to stay on as a detective when his leave was through?

Although he couldn’t see himself being happy doing anything else.

“Is it okay, Mom? Can I call him Tad?”

Looking over the boy’s head, Tad smiled at her.

She smiled back.

And lunch was good.

Chapter 5

It clearly wasn’t Tad Newberry’s first video game.

Nor had it seemed in any way a hardship for him to have his time engaged with Ethan’s Zoo Attack. Miranda had lunch cleared away, the laundry finished, the dishwasher emptied, and brownies made before either of them seemed to notice that she’d left the table on the patio.

She only had one Saturday off a month and had to make it count—couldn’t just sit and watch the “boys” play—but she caught herself smiling a few times as she heard the deep male voice coinciding with her son’s little-boy enthusiasm. And heard the friendly dissension as they disagreed and ended up in battle. She was grinning from ear to ear as her son, with compassion in his voice, claimed victory.

She wasn’t smiling so much that evening, though, when Ethan hit her up with a request to take his training wheels off his bike the next day.

“I’m done being a baby, Mom,” he told her, his brow furrowed as he gazed at her with those big blue eyes. Jeff’s eyes. She’d never been able to resist Jeff’s pleading. And the man definitely lived on in his son. “I’m the only kid in first grade with training wheels.”

The fact that she’d known it was time didn’t make her acquiescence any easier. Training wheels were a safety net. Miranda was already living more boldly than was comfortable for her. More risks weren’t on her agenda.

You didn’t get to choose when life handed you challenges. Jeff had certainly been proof of that. He’d been her best friend. The only person on earth who knew about the beatings. He’d been her rock. And when life had turned on him, she’d been his rock, too.

Which was why, at nine o’clock Sunday morning, after breakfast and dishes and making beds and washing up—and anything else she could come up with to stall—she was outside on the driveway of her rented haven, a screwdriver in hand, granting Jeff’s son’s request.

Jeff couldn’t do it, so she had to.

Somehow. She’d had the wheels put on at the store two years earlier when she’d bought Ethan the bike for Christmas. They must have used a frickin’ machine.

“Can’t you do it, Mom?” Ethan asked, squatting down beside her and pushing his glasses up on his nose, as though staring at her incompetence would somehow get the baby wheels off his bike.

“Of course I can,” she told him. “I just need some oil.” Or some of whatever it was that helped loosen bolts. She’d read about it...

“Maybe you could call Tad,” he said. “Or I can if you gimme the phone.”

She wished it was the first—or even the fifth—time she’d heard the detective’s name since he’d left the day before. But no...all afternoon, all night long, even that morning, Ethan had been talking about him.

Warning bells had been sounding so loudly in her head, it was a wonder she’d even heard her son’s request—let alone finished the grocery and necessary-item shopping and then managed a trip to the movie theater with her son, followed by the fried chicken that he loved.

Trying to get his mind off Tad Newberry.

Didn’t help that even when Ethan wasn’t mentioning the guy, Miranda’s mind was jabbering on about him.

Bike on its side, with the back wheel lodged between her feet, Miranda sat in the driveway and pulled on the wrench with all her might. It slipped off the bolt and slammed her in the knee.

She didn’t swear out loud. Nor did she give up. She couldn’t afford to do that. She stood. “Let’s go.” She got her keys and headed over to her car. Driver’s license and credit card were already in the back pocket of her jeans.

She never stepped outside without the means to run, to take Ethan and disappear, if she had to.

“We going to take the bike back?” Ethan asked as she wheeled the bike out of their way.

“Nope, we’re going to the store to find something to help us with the bolts.” She’d look up on her phone what she needed when they got to the hardware store.

“Or we could just call Tad,” Ethan said, under his breath and with a touch of belligerence.

She let that go, choosing her battles. “Tad’s only going to be in town for a while, Ethan. I told you that already. We can be friends with him, but we can’t ask for his help with stuff.”

How did you explain life’s hideous complications to a six-year-old?

“You could date him and then maybe he’d stay around.”

“No, he wouldn’t.” Make no mistake about that, little man. Because she couldn’t let him stay.

“He has an important job to go back to as soon as he’s healed enough. Remember?”

Looking out the window he could barely see over, Ethan crossed his arms and harrumphed. “He doesn’t act like he’s hurt.”

“Well, he is.”

“How do you know?” She could feel those blue eyes turned on her.

“I’m a doctor’s assistant. I’m trained to know.” She almost mentioned having seen Tad’s scars, but thought better of it. Remembering Danny’s reaction, she couldn’t take a chance that Ethan would share the seven-year-old’s seeming fascination and ask to see for himself.

“But we can be friends,” he said.

“Yep.” Somewhere over the past six weeks, maybe even during the past twenty-four hours, she’d made that choice.

More like, it had been made for her.

“But we just can’t need him, like, to fix my bike, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay. Cool.”

* * *

Tad had been burning with anger after he watched Miranda and Ethan drive away from their house. Livid with a man who’d father a child and then beat that boy’s mother to the point that she’d feared for her life and run away from everyone she’d ever known or loved just to keep the two of them safe.

Anyone she’d have called to help when she couldn’t get the training wheels off her son’s bike had been left behind in North Carolina.

He hoped to God that Miranda’s husband really was dead, as the chief had testified. For Miranda and Ethan’s safety, first and foremost. And, he had to admit, so he wasn’t tempted to go for the man’s throat himself.

Out of his car, he was halfway between it and the bike leaning up against Miranda’s little house, intending to get those training wheels off and be out of sight before she got back, when he stopped.

He was still a newcomer to the world of domestic violence, but after six weeks as an honorary member of the High Risk Team, in addition to all the reading he’d been doing since agreeing to work for Brian O’Connor, he knew he shouldn’t fix that bike. A woman in Miranda’s position, a woman who’d lived with daily fear, would be more likely to panic at the idea that someone had been on her property, messing with her stuff. The fact that this person knew she’d been struggling to get training wheels off her son’s bike would tell her he’d been spying on her. Chances were she wouldn’t see her benefactor as a Good Samaritan, but rather, someone who’d found her and intended to control her again. Someone who was letting her know he was stronger than she was. That she needed him.

If the panic was too intense, that act, something as simple as fixing a bike, could even prompt her to run again.

He was being paid to keep Miranda and Ethan in sight. To keep them safe. Not to fix bikes.

Back in his older-model SUV, he drove away before he had any other stupid ideas.

* * *

Miranda saw Danny again on Monday. She’d removed his stitches on Friday and Marie was worried about a puffy redness on one end of the incision that had been made during the surgery, which was done to repair the muscle tear he’d sustained during his fall.

“I’m fine,” Danny said, when Miranda asked him how he was doing.

As soon as she had a look at the incision site she knew what the problem was.

Fear. Marie’s fear.

Not infection. Or further physical damage. The scar area was pink, not red. A healthy pink.

Asking a nurse to come and stay with Danny in the exam room, and giving the boy a handheld learning-game device with the permission of his mother, Miranda led Marie down the hall to her office, closing the door behind them.

“What’s wrong? Is it infected or is the injury worse than we thought? Does he need more surgery? Should Dr. Bennet take a look at him?”

Max Bennet, the pediatrician who’d hired Miranda as his PA even before she’d completed her training, would be a good person for Marie to talk to. But not about her son’s leg.