Hidden. Tara Quinn Taylor
shove the jeans down. Scooting her bottom forward on the chair, he tilted her just enough to fit him and then slid home.
Quickly. Again and again.
Thank God for home. It made life worth living.
“Mama, down!”
Laughing, Tricia leaned down to steady her son in the sand. With one hand wrapped firmly around his small fingers, she glanced up through her sunglasses to stare at her own reflection in Scott’s mirrored lenses. “Seems to be his favorite phrase with me these days,” she told him.
“A guy’s gotta see what he can do for himself,” he told her, bending to take Taylor’s other hand. They were a family, the three of them, laughing and kicking up sand as they strolled barefoot, jeans rolled up their calves, along the Coronado beach line. A moment in time.
That was just about how long it lasted. Taylor tugged at their hands. Tried to run. Laughed when Scott scooped him up, throwing him into the air, and before she knew what was happening, Tricia found herself sitting on the sand, an observer, while Scott and Taylor played a baby version of football with a shell Taylor had picked up.
Mostly the game consisted of Scott letting Taylor “catch” the shell and then chasing after the toddler, whose legs tripped over themselves in the sand, ending in a tickle tackle that had him screaming with glee.
And filled his hair with sand, too, she was sure. Not that she cared. Taylor’s squeals were so joyful they were contagious. She sat there grinning like an idiot when what she needed to do was get to a newspaper. She’d yet to see Saturday’s issue. Turning, looking for a newspaper box, she suddenly noticed the tall man in the distance. Noticed him because his slacks and dress shoes were hardly proper attire for the beach? Or because he didn’t seem to react to Taylor’s joy?
He was staring at the baby, though, and all thought of newspapers, of football games and joy fled Tricia’s mind. Taylor ran several yards up the beach with Scott in mock pursuit. Tricia followed their progress from the stranger’s perspective. He was watching them.
And, she was fairly certain, her as well.
Heart pounding, she stood, cloaked herself with the protective numbness that kept her mind focused and moved slowly up the beach. Had he seen them together? Did he know that she and Taylor were a pair?
If not, she had to keep it that way. Anyone looking for her would be looking for a woman with an eighteen-month-old boy. Not a woman wistfully watching a man with one.
And if he’d seen them together?
Then her walking off alone would at least throw him. Taylor was safe with Scott. Would be safest with him if something happened. She had to go. Separate herself from them. Be a woman on her own, unencumbered, unknown, spending a quiet Saturday alone in Coronado.
A brunette who’d lost twenty pounds in the past fifteen months wearing store-bought clothes and big plastic sunglasses.
Up the beach a couple of yards was a road access. Tricia took it, not once looking back. She didn’t know that man and child, had never seen them before in her life. Leaving them was nothing to her.
God, let me escape before Taylor sees me. Calls out to me. Let me go before Scott notices….
She didn’t breathe until she made it to the street—and then almost passed out with dizziness. She walked on. Half a mile. Maybe more. Unhurried, glancing at the flowering bushes, the palm trees lining the road. The resorts in the distance. Maybe she was on vacation. Or perhaps she was there on business.
Maybe her folks had a condo on Coronado Island.
Yeah, that was it. A condo. She could play that role. Had to play a role in her mind if she was to give the appearance of being someone else. A woman on the run looked like a woman on the run—a woman whose body was so filled with fear it hurt her muscles to move.
Tricia was a woman visiting her parents’ condo. Appearances were everything. They had to be. Without them, she and Taylor would’ve been dead two years ago.
A car passed. A light-blue Toyota. Going too fast. Probably because a high-school-age boy was driving. He had a young girl in the passenger seat.
No sign of the man. She couldn’t be sure he wasn’t behind her, though. She didn’t hear footsteps. Didn’t see shadows.
Pulling her bag over her shoulder while she walked, Tricia took out a tissue, dropping the pack in the gravel. Bending to pick it up, she looked back between her legs. And saw the dress slacks. He’d stopped, too. Was leaning against a lamppost, lighting up a cigarette. His hair was blond. And too long. He needed a shave. And he should lose about thirty pounds.
Mouth dry, Tricia was sweating beneath the sun as though it were midsummer rather than a balmy April day.
Scott and Taylor would have noticed her missing by now. Scott would be worried. She’d have to come up with something damn good to explain this. An urgent need for a bathroom might do it. Guys didn’t usually ask questions when a woman needed to take care of personal matters.
The man was still there, facing in her direction.
If she had to, she could always meet up with Scott at the house later. He’d return there eventually. It would be better, though, if she could get to a phone and call his cell. He always had it with him in case of an emergency at the station. The bathroom excuse would be more credible if she called him.
If she had a chance. She was away from Taylor now. It might be the perfect time to get her. After all, she was the commodity; the baby had been unnecessary baggage.
She walked on. She could feel the man following behind her. Was he merely visiting relatives on the island? Stopping for a smoke because he had the time and nothing better to do? Still, she’d spent countless hours on Coronado Beach since arriving in San Diego and she hadn’t seen many vacationers there in dress slacks and shoes.
None that she could remember.
Maybe she was overreacting. It wouldn’t be the first time since this nightmare had consumed what had once been a satisfying life.
And yet, what if she didn’t react? What if she grew complacent, quit watching, quit taking action—and was found?
Tricia turned onto the next major street, strolling slowly—and watching. The possible price if she relaxed her vigilance was too high to pay.
She was a woman on vacation at her parents’ condo. She’d go to her grave with that story if she had to. If it meant Taylor lived.
5
“H i, it’s me.”
“Trish? Oh, my God. Thank God.” He’d picked up his cell phone on the first ring. “Where are you? What happened? Are you okay?”
It was worse than she’d thought. He was more upset than she realized he’d be. After all, it wasn’t as if they had any kind of commitment to each other. Or expectations. She was just a woman he’d picked up in a bar, slept with, shacked up with, no strings attached. She’d only been gone half an hour. And he had to have known she’d come back for Taylor.
Which meant he was just plain concerned.
And that wasn’t good.
“I’m fine,” she said, her chest still tight with tension as she peered around her from the pay phone on the patio at the Coronado Del—one of the island’s plushest resorts. Tricia’s favorite, not that she had anyone in her life she could share that with.
“Where are you?” She could hear Taylor babbling happily in the background. The baby’s chatter made it easier to take the note of anger edging into Scott’s voice.
“At the Hotel Del. My stomach was upset and I had to find a bathroom, fast.” Not at all sexy or glorious. But, as it turned out, the truth. And better yet, a truth that would work as a perfect cover now that the danger, if there’d been any, had apparently passed.
When