Page 61 of Rush

It was all her fault.

Sophie was gone and it was all her fault.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, on the hard floor. Long enough for her ass to go numb and for Linc to arrive home.He came in through the garage still in his gym clothes with the t-shirt he wore still damp with sweat. bypassing the kitchen, he went straight to the front door. She heard a commotion—voices, radio squawks, boot clomps. The police had arrived too.

Pulling herself up off the floor she clutched at the counter as two officers and one detective came into the kitchen, led by Linc.

He didn’t even look at her when he asked, “Where’s the note?”

That hurt. But she put her feelings aside, plucking the note off the counter and holding it out.

He snatched it from her fingers, read it, then handed it off to one of the officers.

“Can you run through what happened, ma’am?” The detective pulled out a notebook and pen from the inside coat pocket of his jacket. The only thing Nora noticed about the man was he was middle-aged, had brown hair, and had kind eyes. It was those she concentrated on and not Linc while she recounted the events not wanting to see the anger and disappointment on his face.

She didn’t get far into her retelling when the detective interrupted, “What did the man look like?”

“Older. Somewhere in his sixties, maybe. Gray hair, thinning on top. About five-ten or eleven, I think. Oh!” She remembered something else. “He had a mole beside his left ear.”

“Son of a bitch,” Link spat.

“Mr. Scott? Do you think you know who did this?” the detective asked, turning his gaze on Linc.

“That description fits Sophie’s paternal grandfather.”

Nora didn’t hold back her gasp.

All eyes shot to her. All except Linc’s.

The knife in her chest twisted.

“We’re in the middle of a custody suit. They’re losing,” Linc explained.

“Names?”

“Sidney and Megan Parker. From San Antonio, Texas. I don’t know any more than that but my lawyer did a background check and has more information.”

The detective nodded. “Why don’t you give the number to Officer Hernandez while I finish questioning Ms.…”

“Olson,” Nora supplied. “Nora Olson.”

Linc stepped over to the officer and pulled out his phone.

“What happened next, Ms. Olson?”

Nora turned her attention back to the detective. “Well, he knocked on the door and when I looked through the window, he held a clipboard up like I needed to sign it or something, so I opened the door.” Nora could feel Linc’s gaze boring into her. “He showed me a work order to spray under the kitchen sink. It looked legitimate. I would have never let him in otherwise.”

“I understand,” the detective soothed. “Go on.”

“The rest is a little fuzzy. As soon as we got to the kitchen, he struck me with the clipboard. It was one of those big, square aluminum ones. The kind that holds papers inside,” she stressed, not wanting the officer to think she was a wuss, struck down by a thin piece of particleboard.

Linc spoke to her for the first time. Well, more like, barked. “He hit you?”

His incredulous tone made her snap, “Of course, he hit me.” Tired of Linc victim blaming her, she demanded, “Do you actually think I would let him walk out of the house with Sophie otherwise?”

“We’re getting off track,” the detective cut in, forestalling the argument. “Please continue, Ms. Olson.”

“Um.” It took a second for her to switch gears, as she watched Linc take a seat at the kitchen table and make a phone call, but then she picked up where she left off. “I fell to the floor, hit my head on the tile. I must have blacked out because it seemed like only a second had passed before I heard the front door slam. At that point I didn’t know it was Sophie he was after. It wasn’t until I went looking for her and saw the juice box on the carpet that it clicked.”

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