“Good. That means you don’t have to stay here and wait by the phone. Do you think your babysitter is up to talking to us?”
“I’ll call her now.” She was prepared to fight to be involved in finding her daughter, so it was a relief that he was including her. While she talked to Amanda, he roamed around the room, touching Livie’s things, picking some up, then carefully setting them back down.
“I missed so much of her life,” he said when she finished her phone call. He gently trailed a finger down a doll’s face. “Her first smile, first word, seeing her take her first steps.”
He sounded so sad, and her heart broke for him. All those things he’d missed, she’d been right there, sharing it all with their daughter. “I have her baby book and videos you can watch.”
“Thank you, I’d love that. Is your babysitter up to seeing us?”
“Yes. We can go over now.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
She expected to find the officer still in her living room, but he’d apparently left with Detective Rossi. Cooper took her keys from her when she fumbled with locking the door. They took his rental since she was wrecked and had no business behind the wheel of a car.
Amanda only lived ten minutes away, and for the first five minutes of the drive, they each were lost in their own thoughts and didn’t talk. Her thoughts swirled around Cooper missing almost five years of Livie’s life.
She glanced at him, struck again by how beautiful he was. She didn’t think men liked to be thought of as beautiful, but facts were facts, and he was. Livie had his chocolate brown eyes and full lips. She didn’t have his sun-streaked chestnut hair that women paid top dollar for, which was too bad. Livie had her black hair, but it was only fair that her daughter had something from her.
Five years ago, he’d been a hot soldier with haunted eyes on the barstool next to her. He’d helped her put aside the dark places in her mind—on an anniversary she wished to God she didn’t have—without asking questions. She hadn’t asked what put the haunt in his eyes. They’d needed each other that night for reasons they hadn’t shared, never imagining they’d see each other again.
Now, he was the father of her child, a man who’d dropped everything to come to her the minute she’d called him. She was filled with regrets. Not because they’d met and spent an amazing night together, but because she hadn’t let him tell her his name.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He glanced at her with those dark eyes she’d once gotten lost in and probably could again if she wasn’t careful. “For what?”
“That I didn’t let you tell me your name. That you missed so much of Livie’s life.”
Surprising her, he reached over the console and took her hand. “You couldn’t know you’d get pregnant. We used a condom. Guess it failed.” He softly smiled. “I’m weirdly okay with that.”
“What if we can’t find her?” She’d been doing missing children podcasts for several years now, and she knew all too well that some children disappeared into thin air, never to be seen again. What if Livie was one of those children? “I’m sorry,” she said when tears fell down her cheeks again. She turned her face toward the window.
“Hey, you have absolutely nothing to be sorry about.” He squeezed her hand. “Look at me, Kendall.”
“Do I have to?”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but I want you to look in my eyes and believe that I’ll do everything in my power to find our daughter.”
“I believe you.” And she truly did. It seemed like there was so much more they needed to say, but she honestly couldn’t handle any more confessions or sorrys. “Turn right at the next street. Amanda’s house is the second one on your right.”
“Give me a quick summary of her.”
“Amanda’s in her late fifties, widowed, is financially okay, and her two children live out of state, one in Orlando and one in Chicago. They only come home at Christmas. I met her at my book club. When she learned that I was looking for someone to pick Livie up on Tuesdays and stay with her until I get home from my adult reading class, she wanted to do it. Said she was lonely. Livie adores her.”
“Then she played no part in—”
“Oh, no way. Why would you even think that?”
He stopped the car in Amanda’s driveway. “Because every possibility has to be considered. I’ve had cases where the last person I thought would harm or take a child was the guilty party. You say Amanda had no part in Livie’s disappearance, then I believe you. I trust you to know in whose hands you put our daughter, Kendall.” He opened his door. “Let’s go talk to her.”
“Please be nice to her. She’s very upset about this and blames herself.”
“I promise to be gentle with her. Does she know who I am?”
“No.”
“Let’s leave it that way for now. Just tell her I’m an investigator you’ve brought into this.”