Needed: One Convenient Husband(29)

When he hung up, he remembered the note, which was written on the back  of an envelope. Walking back to the hall, he found it and reread it then  turned it over. All the hairs at the base of his neck lifted when he  noted that the address on the used envelope was for a PI.

Walking through to his study, he found his laptop, Googled the PI and  found that Zachary Hastings specialized in locating missing persons and  covering domestic situations. Certain he was close to discovering  exactly what was going on in Eva's life, he checked the time. Hastings's  office wouldn't be open for an hour. Frustrated, he forced himself to  make coffee while he tried to phone Eva again. When she refused to pick  up, he left a message, asking her to call him.

He made one more call to the young detective, Hicks, who had been  investigating the break-in at Eva's house. The information that Hicks  provided, that they had a suspect and that Eva had made a statement to  the effect that the same suspect had been harassing her, made his jaw  compress.

Hicks wouldn't provide him with the name of the person they were  investigating, because all of the paperwork was under Eva's name, but  Kyle was willing to bet it was the stepfather. It was just another  example of how Eva, with the self-sufficient streak she had, out of  necessity, acquired as a child-and which he had seen as a hard, brassy  confidence-was used to managing on her own.

* * *

Gabriel was grim faced as they stepped into the sterile vault that  housed their safe deposit boxes. He produced the two keys required, and  Kyle opened the box, which was filled with family jewelry and documents.  Kyle found the adoption papers with Eva's birth name and those of her  parents. He made a note of all three names and their birth dates. He  flipped through the documents, which were mostly investment portfolios.  At the bottom of the box, he found an envelope addressed to Mario. It  was filled with Eva's medical reports.

"Bingo," he said softly.

Suddenly, he was beginning to have a glimmer of what Mario had meant  all those years ago by Eva needing "protection." Eva had a genetic  disorder. He didn't know what the implications of the disorder meant,  exactly, but by the end of the day he would.

In amongst the paperwork was a psychologist's report. Apparently, after  years of trying to fix the dysfunction in her family, Eva had, at age  fourteen, chosen to walk away from her mother and her latest husband, a  petty conman, choosing foster care and survival, instead of  hopelessness.                       
       
           



       

Kyle's chest tightened as he began to see Eva's abandonment of their  marriage in its correct context. She wasn't a quitter. She was strong  and resolute and she had thrown everything she could into their marriage  in an attempt to get him to love her back.

For Eva to leave meant she had given up on him.

If he got her back at all, it would be a miracle.

* * *

An hour later, Kyle sat down opposite Hastings in a small, neat office  on the North Shore. When Hastings refused to divulge what, exactly, he  was doing for Eva, Kyle applied a little judicious pressure. Eva was his  wife and she had disappeared. If Hastings wanted his bill paid, then he  needed to give the report to Kyle.

With the report in hand and the addresses he needed, Kyle started  searching for Eva. Two weeks later, after a series of dead ends, he  abandoned trying to find Eva through her past connections.

Although, he would find her, it was just a matter of time. Eva was  pregnant with his child, which meant she needed medical appointments.  More important, within the next few weeks, she would most probably be  having tests to determine whether or not the baby was affected by the  disorder. It wasn't the avenue he would have chosen to find Eva, but it  was the only one she had left him.





Fifteen

Two months later, Eva dressed in a soft cotton shift dress and a light  jacket, both of which were comfortable to wear, given that her waistline  was gently expanding. After locking the tiny cottage she had rented in a  remote coastal village miles north of Dolphin Bay, she drove to a  specialist appointment in Auckland.

As she drove, she noticed the same silver sedan had been behind her  ever since she had left the small village and turned onto the main  highway. An odd tension gripped her at the thought that Kyle had somehow  located her and was keeping tabs on her, although she almost  immediately dismissed the thought. For Kyle to go to the effort of  finding her and having her followed would mean that he cared, and she  did not think that was the case. Besides, she was on State Highway 1,  heading toward Auckland, New Zealand's largest city. Most of the traffic  in front and behind would be heading toward the same destination.

Thirty minutes later, her small car was swallowed up in city traffic. A  small jolt of adrenaline went through her when she noticed that there  was still a silver sedan two cars behind her at a traffic light, but as  she accelerated across an intersection with light-colored cars  stretching in several directions, she dismissed the thought that she was  being followed.

Minutes later, she parked her car and took an elevator up to the  specialist clinic where she had booked her appointment. She had tossed  up whether or not to have her baby tested while it was still in the  womb. There was a small risk of miscarriage, but she had decided that  she needed to know sooner rather than later. Regardless of the outcome,  she would love this child with all her heart. If the news was bad, it  would tear her to pieces, but she would cherish each day: she would  cope.

As she sat in the upmarket clinic, the classical background music that  was playing changed to a soft, lilting tune. It was the waltz by Strauss  that she and Kyle had danced to at their wedding, just weeks ago.  Nerves already stretched thin, she searched for a tissue and blew her  nose, relieved when the tune finally changed to a light and airy piece  by Bach.

She checked her watch. Abruptly nervous about the long wait, she got up  to get a foam cup of chilled water from the dispenser in the corner of  the waiting room. The sooner she had the procedure done, the sooner she  could get out of Auckland and minimize the risk that she might  accidentally bump into Kyle or someone else she knew.

She drank the small amount of water she'd dispensed, grimacing at the  fine tremor of her hands, a sure sign of stress. The sound of the glass  door at reception sliding open attracted her attention. Shock  reverberated through her when she saw Kyle, dressed in a dark suit with a  snowy-white shirt and blue tie, walking toward her.

She was suddenly glad that, evidently, she was the first appointment  after lunch, so no one else was in the waiting area. "How did you know  I'd be here?"

"I know you're pregnant and that you would need a specialist  appointment, so I hired a security firm to find out where and when."

And that wasn't all. "You had me followed!"

"That, too. It took me long enough to locate you, and once I did, I  wasn't taking any risks." He came to a halt beside her, and she noticed  the dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn't been sleeping, and that  his hair was ruffled as if he'd dragged his fingers through it  repeatedly. "I know why you ran."

She crumpled the cup and dropped it in the nearby trash can as she  desperately tried to work out how much Kyle did know. She tried for a  smooth, professional smile. "I am pregnant. And if you'll remember, you  expressly stated that you didn't want children."                       
       
           



       

"I said a lot of things I regret, especially that. Will you hear me out?"

Tensing against the too-rapid pounding of her heart and the one thing  she had not seen coming, that maybe, just maybe, Kyle wanted to try  again, she sat and listened.

In terse sentences, Kyle outlined the raw details of the grief and  guilt that had consumed him, almost to the point of losing her. "You  know how much I wanted you. It practically drove me crazy, but I  couldn't seem to change the way I was wired until I lost you." He  grimaced. "Gabriel probably thinks I went crazy. It certainly felt like  it."

Grimly, he outlined how he and Gabriel had accessed Mario's safe  deposit box and found her medical reports. That Kyle had even rung Hicks  and found that she was having Sheldon Ferris investigated for  harassment. He had also found Hastings and pressured him into supplying a  copy of the investigation she had commissioned into her stepfather.

"You know about the disorder."

"And that we could lose our child."

Our child. She met his gaze fiercely. "I don't understand. You didn't  want a pregnancy. You can't stand the thought of having a child, let  alone one that could die."