Lost Hart, page 10
He wanted to tell her so she understood him better. Understood why he couldn’t see them having a “normal” future together, why he couldn’t give her more children if she wanted them. But he was also terrified of how she would react. That she might realize what he figured all along—Rex was the better, more mentally stable man for her.
“Haven’t found a way to yet,” he said, sucking in a breath through thinly parted lips. “She keeps asking. Can’t figure out how to word it all.”
“And not scare her the fuck away,” Heath finished.
He pointed at his youngest brother. “Yep.”
“Look, man,” Rex started, “not being able to have kids doesn’t make you any less of a man, if that’s what you’re worried about. And I doubt Stacey would fucking care. She has two kids already, and those kids fucking love you, and you love them, right?”
Like they were his own.
Even if they weren’t.
“Don’t see her caring that you’re shooting blanks,” Heath said. “Save money on condoms and shit.” He cracked a half-smile, but it didn’t stick around, his gaze suddenly turning serious again. “You don’t think we think any less of you, do you?”
Chase tipped his gaze up to his brothers, leveling it on each of them individually.
Yeah, that was another one of his fears.
Brock didn’t even have to try. He looked at Krista the right way and she got preggers. Both babies had been oopsies. Zoe was the result of a drunk one-night stand between Brock and Krista. They hadn’t even gotten along at first.
“You should fucking know us better than that, dipshit,” Brock said, real, genuine anger in his tone. “You want Stacey, you want those kids, they want you, then they’re yours. Blood doesn’t mean shit if you’re the dad and man they need.”
“That why you took off the way you did?” Rex asked. The unspoken words were also there. Saw yourself as less of a man next to me?
Chase nodded. “Yeah. Just a lot to process. Didn’t think I was good enough for Stacey. Still don’t.”
“Fuck, and you think I’m good enough for Krista?” Brock asked, still angry. “That woman is leagues above me. But I try my damnedest every fucking day to be worthy of her.”
“I’m sorry for trying to move in on Stacey,” Rex said. “Didn’t know you two had the connection that you did—that you do. Didn’t know you’d been together or that you loved her. Never meant to come between you guys or for it to come between us.” He reached forward and offered Chase his hand. “Know that I love you, brother, and am always here if you need to talk.”
Chase took his hand and shook it, grateful to have his strained relationship with Rex be one less thing weighing him down.
“We’re all here if you need to talk,” Heath said. “Or if you’d rather not talk and just go a couple rounds on the punching bag. Either-or, bro.”
Chase nodded and thanked his brothers.
They all tipped their beers up and drank in silence, pivoting their attention to the screen.
“Volume up?” Rex asked.
Brock grunted. Heath turned around fully, and Chase said, “Yes.”
Then the four Hart brothers, together once again after over almost six months apart, watched a recorded hockey game and drank beer together. Just like old times.
Chapter 11
It was Saturday afternoon, and Joy had offered to watch Thea while Stacey took Connor to his swimming lessons. Joy often watched Thea on Saturdays for a few hours so Stacey and her little boy could have some one-on-one time. Although he was a truly tremendous kid with the patience of a saint and the most cheerful disposition, he was only four, and if Thea was demanding too much of Stacey, Connor started to act out. So she was trying her hardest to give her son the one-on-one mummy time he needed.
His hair was damp from swimming, his cheeks ruddy and eyes bright as she swung into the parking lot of the dollar store. Emma had told her about the mittens she’d bought for the twins there, so Stacey was going to go see if she could find Thea some. Up until now, she’d just been putting socks on Thea’s hands when they were outdoors, but the baby would suck on them and her hands would get cold anyway.
“We’re just going to pop in here quick, okay?” she said to Connor, as he took her hand and joyfully skipped beside her through the dollar store parking lot. “I have to see if they have something.”
“Okay, Mama,” Connor said happily. “Are we having dinner at Nana Joy’s tonight?”
“That’s the plan, Stan. Already dropped off my dip.”
“Will Zoe and Zane be there?”
She opened the door to the store and let him go in ahead of her. “I think so. I texted Auntie Krista yesterday, and she said they’re planning to go.”
“Yay!” he cheered, motioning to her to pick up a wire basket.
Stacey shook her head. “We’re not getting much. I don’t think we’ll need one.”
Connor shrugged and took her hand again as they started wandering up and down the aisles.
Unlike when Joy had mentioned the dinner that first day when Chase returned and Stacey had thought of a million reasons and ways to cancel, now that she and Chase were “back together,” she was actually really looking forward to a big Hart family dinner.
Eventually, they found the mittens, and because children were notorious for losing mittens, socks and anything with a mate, she bought five pairs. Not bad for a buck a pair. She also grabbed a couple of next-size-up mittens for Connor as well, and by the time they were in line for the checkout she was wishing she had gotten a basket.
“Are you helping Mommy shop?” a lady two people up in the queue asked, bending down to speak directly to Connor.
Connor nodded. “We need gloves. Some are for me. Some are for my sister.”
“Well, aren’t you a big helper.” Her eyes were dark, which was quite the stark contrast to her fair complexion and light blonde hair.
Pride radiated off the little boy, and he nodded again.
The woman, who was probably not much older than Stacey’s thirty-three, smiled and turned to the impulse buys that lined the checkout area. “Can you recommend some snacks?”
Connor’s eyes lit up, and he pointed at the root veggie chips, the Cheetos and the popcorn. The woman threw all three in her basket.
“What else?” she asked.
Connor proceeded to point to some chocolate bars Stacey sure as hell hoped her kid had never tried, and then finally some apple juice in one of the fridges. The woman proceeded to grab everything he pointed at. She’d only had like three items—all kids’ toys—in her basket, and now it was loaded. It struck Stacey as odd, but she didn’t let the thought consume her. The woman probably had kids or nieces or nephews, maybe Connor’s age, who she was buying for, so it made sense to seek the opinion of someone of a similar age.
She thanked Connor and stepped up to the checkout. Before long, she was gone, waving at Connor with a big smile.
Stacey and Connor waited their turn behind another customer before finally getting up to the checkout to pay.
It felt like a lot longer than it probably was, but by the time they emerged outside again, it was growing dark. She hated how it started to get dark so early. Spring could not come soon enough. Wracking her brain about whether she should stop and get more bread for her dip, she was startled by Connor’s question.
“What’s that?” He was pointing at the back window of her SUV.
“What’s what, buddy?”
He pointed again. “That!”
Her brows scrunched as she took in the numbers and letters scrawled in white on the back window of her Santa Fe.
1 F
1MC
What the hell did that mean?
Hitting the fob for her car, she plopped Connor in his car seat. He could get himself into the straps—she’d just have to double-check the tightness—so while he did that, she was going to go about trying to remove the weird writing.
Setting the dollar store bag on the floor of the back seat, she reached into her purse for her pack of baby wipes. She never left home without them.
She’d parked under a street lamp in the parking lot, so it would be easy enough to see what she was doing as she wiped it off. She took a picture of it first, planning to show Krista, the cop, and the Hart brothers the image when she got to Joy’s. Maybe they would know what it meant.
Connor was singing some Disney song as he fought with his straps and she started to wipe the window. It was on there more than she thought, so she really had to scrub. She was using her nail to scrape it off when she felt a sharp prick on the side of her neck.
“What the?” She spun around just in time to see the woman from the dollar store holding her up from behind. Stacey’s head began to feel fuzzy, and her limbs felt like overcooked spaghetti. She slumped into the woman’s arms.
She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t.
The woman dragged Stacey to the front seat of her SUV and pushed her in behind the steering wheel before shutting the door.
Her last thought before the world went black was about Connor and how much she loved him.
Her neck ached, and her head pounded.
Her eyelids felt like cinder blocks, and her tongue felt too big and cumbersome in her mouth.
A ringing was off in the distance, growing more and more demanding, more and more intense.
Mumbling, she rolled her head side to side, and her hands fumbled in the dark. She still hadn’t opened her eyes, but based on what she was feeling, she wasn’t at home in bed.
The ringing was getting louder.
“Gah!” she cried out, forcing her lids open only to find herself in the dark front seat of her Santa Fe and her phone going crazy in her pocket.
With movements that were slow and awkward, she retrieved the phone from her coat, somehow managed to unlock it and put it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Stacey!” It was Joy. “Where are you, sweetheart? We’ve all been so worried. It’s nearly seven o’clock.”
Seven o’clock?
She blinked a bunch of times and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger.
And then it hit her.
Connor!
“Connor!”
She spun around in her seat but didn’t see him.
She couldn’t feel him in the vehicle.
Since the day she brought him home from the hospital, she’d always had an acute awareness of his presence. He was an old soul with a big heart, and she could feel those things in the air around her.
She didn’t feel a damn thing.
“Connor!”
Flinging her door open, she scrambled out of the front seat on wobbly legs.
Her vision was still spotty and blurry, but even blind as a bat, she would know—because a mother always knows—that her little boy was not in his seat.
Every molecule of air fled her lungs. She struggled to breathe. Her body shook. Her eyes darted everywhere; her brain began to short-circuit. This was not happening.
How did this happen?
Where was her son?
Where was her child?
Where was her baby?
Someone had taken her baby!
“Honey, what’s wrong?” Joy asked, concern coloring her tone. “Where are you guys?”
“I need to … oh my God … he’s … they took … she took him.”
“Who took who?” Joy asked. Whispers and murmurs in the background sounded more like white noise.
Bile rose up in Stacey’s throat, and she cupped her hand to her mouth. “She took Connor! Oh my God! They took my son!”
She started to scream.
Chase nodded at the police officer, who he recognized as one of Krista’s coworkers. The whole parking lot was a sea of blue and flashing lights as he, Brock, Rex and Heath all made their way toward Stacey.
When his mother told them that Connor had been taken, all Chase saw was red. He still saw it now, and it would be the only shade he would see until Stacey had her son back and the fuckers who took that little boy were six feet under.
“We’ve put out an AMBER Alert, stalled all ferry sailing and did a sweep of all the ones en route, both domestic and international. So far, nothing,” a male cop Chase didn’t recognize said as Chase and his brothers sidled up to where Stacey was sitting in the popped trunk of her SUV. She was being looked at by a paramedic as well, because apparently, she’d been injected with some kind of sedative.
Chances are they’d need to get her to a hospital for a tox screen.
“Why?” she asked, looking smaller and more scared than he’d ever seen her. “Why did they take my baby?”
Once the paramedic stepped away, Chase went to her, taking her in his arms immediately. Her fear and panic didn’t transfer to him. He just absorbed it and felt it seep into his body. He kissed the top of her head. “We’ll get him back. I will get him back.”
“It’s what a few child trafficking rings do,” the male cop said. “That thing you showed us on your phone, it means One Female, One Male Child. You were marked, probably by whoever took your son or a bigger syndicate, we don’t know.”
“Child trafficking …” Stacey began to shake, and Chase hugged her tighter, whispering things to her as she began to hyperventilate.
“I want access to the parking lot’s surveillance,” Chase said, his chest aching as he held Stacey and she began to sob against him. “Let’s get a look at who we’re dealing with. See if we can get some facial recognition, see where they’re headed.” He didn’t want to say it out loud, but the first forty-eight hours of a child abduction—of any kind of abduction—were the most critical. After that, the chances of finding Connor reduced significantly almost by the hour.
“Who the hell are you?” the cop asked, giving Chase a look like he was just some random civilian coming in and demanding to be let in beyond the red tape. Which in some ways he was. But he was also a former Joint Task Force 2 operative with years of training in the Navy and a master’s degree in computer science and programming. He could hack into just about anything. He didn’t need to be given access to the security cameras to get access, but he’d found that asking for something rather than just taking it seemed to piss people off less.
“Harty Boys security and surveillance,” Brock said, stepping forward with a card. “Ms. Saunders and her little boy are family. We are at her and the police department’s disposal. Anything we can do to help, just let us know.”
Chase knew this spiel from Brock was just a courtesy to the good men and women in blue. The Harty Boys weren’t above the law, but they did what needed to get done, and sometimes that meant keeping the cops in the dark.
The male officer, whose nametag read Cowen, glanced at the card before stowing it in his pocket. “We’ve got it under control, guys, but it’s good to know you’re around if we need you.”
Chase and his brothers exchanged looks.
An entire conversation without a word said.
They’d find Connor, and they’d do it without the help of the West Shore police.
Brock stepped back and whispered to Chase, “Need to get you home so you can hack into the footage.”
Chase grunted.
“Look at all cameras for all ports. No harbor is too small.”
Chase grunted again and this time added a nod.
Brock glanced at Heath. “Stay here, find out what you can from the cops.” He turned back to Chase, who was still holding Stacey up while she unraveled. “You get her back to Mum’s. We’ll reconvene there in twenty.” He glanced at one of the paramedics. “Unless you think she needs a tox screen?”
The paramedics were muttering with their heads together.
“Probably best, yeah,” the male paramedic said.
Chase nodded and gently pried Stacey out of his arms and steered her toward his truck. Her SUV was a crime scene now, so she couldn’t take it. They also had no idea what kind of a sedative she was given, and her son had just been abducted, so she was in absolutely no state to drive.
Rex and Brock were already talking more to the cop.
He helped her into the front seat of his truck and buckled her in.
She was shaking, and the tears streamed down her face unchecked. The vacant expression on her face frightened the shit out of him.
He needed to get her out of there.
He needed to find her son.
The doctor determined that Stacey had been given a small but potent dose of ketamine to knock her out. The side effects would be minimal. They did more tests though, such as an HIV test, considering they’d used a needle they’d gotten from only God knows where, but those results wouldn’t come back as quickly. She’d also have to get tested later as well, as HIV wasn’t always detected in the initial test.
He helped her back into his truck in the hospital parking lot, only this time, she mumbled that she wanted to sit in the back seat.
He obliged, albeit reluctantly.
She was quiet on the drive.
He kept a close eye on her in the rearview mirror, worried that she was going to retreat inside herself completely and shut down.
Not that he could blame her.
She was worrying herself sick. As were the rest of them.
Chase was having a tough time keeping the rage shakes from sending him off the deep end. And if he did that, then he’d be of little use to anyone, particularly Stacey and Connor.
Who would take such a sweet, wonderful kid like Connor?
There was only one logical, disgusting answer to that question.
A dead man.
Or at least he or she would be dead when Chase finally got his hands on them.
People who stole children, who traded them like baseball cards, were the scum of the Earth and didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as the children they traded.
And Chase would see to it that they weren’t breathing for much longer.
He fought back the tears and the growing tightness in his throat as he drove through the dark city streets. It was closing in on nine thirty. According to Stacey, they’d taken Connor around four.
They could be just about anywhere by now.
