Page 5

Mason clenched his fists as he remembered their final confrontation. Her tears, Daniel’s guilty flush. Mason’s unwillingness to look at her, much less listen to anything she had to say. Because she’d done what he’d expected all along. Betrayed him. Just like his mother had betrayed his father and her entire family.
“All right, look.” His brain struggled to adjust to all the information it had just been bombarded with. Life-changing information. “You said Bethany is missing. Let’s put the past aside and focus on her.”
A daughter,his mind echoed. He had a daughter.
Maybe.
Ifshe was really his.
But what if she was?
He couldn’t help wondering what she looked like. What did she think about him? Why would Lacey tell him he was the father, if he wasn’t? Then again, this was the girl he’d caught in his best friend’s arms and she’d denied what was before his very eyes. He didn’t know what to believe, but if the possibility that their one-time intimate prom night encounter resulted in a child…
He had to know.
“I agree,” she said, interrupting the endless questions he suddenly had. Relief written clearly on her strained features, she also looked grateful. “Please.”
“But this issue is far from resolved.”
“I know,” she whispered and looked away.
Mason stood, rotated his healing shoulder, wincing at the pinch and slight stiffness, then realized his resolve to do whatever it took to get it back into tip-top shape before he returned to work just fell to second place on his priority list.
Finding his daughter had just careened its way to the top spot.
Running a hand through the hair he’d just washed before finding Lacey on his doorstep, he said, “All right, first things first. We need find out who saw her last. And if you think her disappearance has something to do with the car accident, then we need to revisit that, too.”
Lacey rubbed her nose. “I’m sure Georgia knows something. I’ve called her several times and she swears she doesn’t know where Bethany is, but I think she’s hiding something.” She clenched a fist and smacked her thigh. “I just can’t get her to tell me anything. And the police refuse—” She broke off again and Mason could tell she was having a hard time keeping it together. She was obviously exhausted.
He had a feeling a few sleepless nights were in his immediate future, too. “Grab your stuff. Let’s go talk to Georgia.”
Gathering her bag and the picture, she stood. “She’s probably in school.”
“Then let’s get her out of class.”
“What do we do after that?”
“Visit the police station and see what we can find out about the wreck.”
* * *
Stepping outside his home, headed for the car, Lacey did her best to shove the hurt down. Old memories threatened to overwhelm her. The fear of finding out she was pregnant. Mason’s rejection…
As Mason circled the car to open the passenger door, he paused.
The sudden tense set of his shoulders set off her internal alarms. “What is it?”
His arm reached across the windshield to pull something out from under the wiper blade. “This.” He held it by the very edge of one corner.
Stepping around him to look at the object in his hand, she gasped. “Another picture? Of us? That’s from the yearbook, too! What’s going on? How did someone know I’d be coming here?”
“Get in the car.”
Eyes peeled behind him for any movement or suspicious person, he opened the door and practically shoved her in. Then he bolted around to the driver’s side. He set the picture on the dash and got on the phone as he pulled out of the driveway.
Lacey listened to him bark orders and ask questions of an unidentified person as she watched the familiar scenery whiz by, but her brain didn’t process it. She was too busy begging God for her daughter’s life. And thanking Him that Mason had agreed to help her.
And he’d agreed before he’d found the picture on his car. Who was doing this? Was the person following them even now?