Silently, she willed him not to fight the men. Just hold on until she could bring him home. A sob caught in her throat but she forced it away. She couldn’t afford to break down. She had to be strong for Griff.
“Reese should be back soon,” Gran said, pulling Kenzie’s mind out of the dark place it had wandered.
She set the bag of frozen peas on the table. “Maybe Reese decided he doesn’t want to get any more deeply involved. Maybe he figured we’ve brought him enough trouble already.”
One of her grandmother’s silver eyebrows arched up. “You think he’d abandon you?”
Her throat tightened. She couldn’t believe she had said the words out loud. “No. Reese wouldn’t do that.”
“I know he wouldn’t. The man has real feelings for you, honey. It’s in his eyes every time he looks at you.”
Kenzie leaned back in her chair, her body aching, every muscle moving as if she were wrapped in chains. “Even if he cares for me, he’s not interested in a long-term relationship. A couple of months, then he’ll be looking for someone new and he’ll want us to just go back to being colleagues.”
Which his other women seemed able to do, but not Kenzie. She was in too deep. Her days as his assistant were limited. But she trusted him to help her get settled somewhere else. The thought sent fresh pain into her already battered heart.
“You don’t know that’s what’s going to happen,” her grandmother said.
“I’m his assistant, Gran. I know how he thinks. For heaven’s sake, I arranged his dates for him.”
Her mind flashed back to Arial Kaplan and the list of beautiful women Reese had dated. None of them had lasted long. At the moment, thoughts of losing Reese where wildly overshadowed by worry for her son. What was happening to Griff? Where had they taken him?
An insistent knock came at the door, and nerves shot up her spine. Would the men come back? Would they be bold enough to knock on her front door?
“It’s probably Reese,” Gran said, reading her fear. “I’ll be sure and check before I let him in.”
He appeared in the kitchen a few seconds later, tall and imposing, like a man who could conquer the world. He was carrying a black canvas satchel, which he set on the counter, then he bent down and gently kissed her lips.
“How are you holding up?”
Her throat constricted. “I feel like my world has collapsed around me.”
“He’s going to be okay. You have to believe that.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“No phone calls?”
“Not yet.”
He unzipped the bag and set a disposable cell phone on the table in front of her. “From now on, any calls you make, use this phone. Yours has been set up to track incoming calls. With any luck we can figure out where they’re coming from. Mine’s set up the same way.”
“Your friend Tabby?”
“That’s right. She’ll help us any way she can.”
“You think they want money?”
“Most likely.”
“I don’t have the kind of money they’re going to want.” She glanced up. “Maybe they know about the life insurance policy. The three million dollars coming to Griff.”
“It’s possible.”
“Oh, God, if that’s what they’re after, it won’t work. I went to see Lee’s attorney on my lunch hour yesterday. The money belongs to Griff, but not until he turns eighteen. In the meantime, I have to submit a monthly budget. There’s no way I can get the full amount even in an emergency.”
“Griff’s grandfather owns half of Black Sand Oil and Gas. Maybe they figure you can get the money from him.”
She pressed her lips together. “I don’t know if Arthur would be willing to pay. It would probably depend on how much they want.” She looked up at him. “Should I call him? Maybe I should call him.”
“You aren’t calling Arthur. He’ll want to take control and you can’t let that happen.”
Kenzie raked back her hair. Her hands were shaking. She clamped them between her knees under the table. “I wish they’d call. Why don’t they call?”
Reese caught her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “Listen to me, honey. Getting the ransom money isn’t a problem. I can take care of it. The problem is that even if we pay them, they might not let Griff go.”
She straightened. “What do you mean?”
“We need to find Griff ourselves. That’s the only way we can be sure he’ll get home safely.”
She started shaking her head. “No. No, no, no, no, no. We have to give the kidnappers what they want. Then they’ll let Griff go.”
Reese just stared at her, those piercing blue eyes willing her to understand. She wanted to put her head down on the table and weep. She wanted to scream out her terror. Instead she steeled herself. “You really believe they might...they might kill him?”
“If he sees their faces, he’ll be able to identify them. Even if he doesn’t, letting him go poses all sorts of problems.”
“What...what are we going to do?”
“Do you trust me?”
With everything but her heart. “You know I do.”
“Then we’ll work together to bring him home, figure things out as we go. In the meantime, I’m going upstairs, see what kind of evidence those two scumbags left behind.”
She stood up from the chair. “I need to do something. Let me help.”
Reese reached out and took her hand, wrapped his warm fingers around it. “All right. It’s going to take both of us to make this work. Let’s go.”
TWENTY-SIX
Reese knew how to use a fingerprint kit. You didn’t have brothers, uncles, aunts, and friends all in law enforcement and not know the basics of how things like that worked. But Kenzie was sure the men had worn latex gloves, so their best hope was blood DNA.
His smile turned wolfish. There was blood on her keys and on the carpet, blood on her robe. She’d made them hurt and good for her. Unfortunately, Kenzie had showered off the blood and skin under her fingernails. His jaw hardened. She had fought them hard. Reese wanted to send both the bastards straight to hell.
Instead, he swabbed blood samples and bagged them, bagged the robe Kenzie had been wearing, then they went outside to see what else they could find.
“They must have carried the ladder in through the back gate and left the same way,” Kenzie said, her gaze going around the small enclosed patio.