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  A STRANGER’S TOUCH

  All rights reserved

  Copyright 2012 Roxy Boroughs

  This ebook is licensed for your personal reading enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with others, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Publisher: Baucis & Philemon

  Cover Design: April Martinez at Graphicfantastic.com

  Layout: WriteAdvice Consulting

  ISBN: 978-0-9878565-2-4

  A STRANGER’S TOUCH – overview

  Winner of the Writer’s Voice Award.

  Single mom, MAGGIE HOLMES, is a by-the-book Calgary cop, until her seven-year-old asthmatic son, Davie, is kidnapped. Frantically grasping at any hope, she turns to STAFFORD WEBB, a psychic who retrieves information through his sense of touch.

  Stafford is reluctant. Unbeknownst to Maggie, he helped with the Tommy Hutchinson kidnapping case six months earlier, but didn’t get to the child in time. Haunted by images of the boy, Stafford retreats inward and focuses on his other private obsession: finding the killer, James Ryan Morley – the man who also murdered Stafford’s older sister when she was sixteen.

  But the desperation in Maggie’s eyes is too great for Stafford to ignore. Following his visions, they set off on a journey through the rugged terrain of the Northwest Territories – and along the jagged line between faith and reason.

  61,000-word Romantic Suspense. Adult language, some violence, sexual situations.

  For B

  You still make my heart go pitter-pat.

  A special thank you to Judith Duncan for pointing me in the right direction. And to Brenda Collins and Suzanne Stengl for going the distance, all the way to the Northwest Territories.

  Thanks to my critique partners, Lecia Cornwall, Pamela Yaye, and Sherile Reilly. And to all the beta readers who’ve contributed so much along the way, especially Michelle Beattie.

  A big call out to Tawny Stokes, Vivi Anna, and my fellow Banditos at Bandit Creek Books who have been so supportive and inspirational.

  Most importantly, thanks to you, Dear Reader, for coming along on this journey with me.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author Roxy Boroughs

  Excerpt from A Stranger’s Kiss

  CHAPTER ONE

  Maggie Holmes honked her horn and cursed the driver in front of her. “It’s the long, skinny pedal, buddy. Give it a try.”

  Up ahead the school’s maple leaf flag waved to her, mocking her inertia. Plodding drivers, road construction, a series of red lights and a two-car pile-up on the highway – today, Murphy’s Law thrived.

  She massaged her temples, her fingers itching to release the pins that held her hair captive. A bubble of tension wedged up against her breastbone, gripping her like the first jolt of an elevator’s descent. She glanced at the clock radio.

  Damn. Ten minutes late.

  The man upfront inched his SUV forward, left indicator light flashing. Maggie followed close behind. Her car shuddered as a rush of wind struck the passenger side.

  “Go, go, go,” she urged, her voice a harsh whisper.

  Maggie could have chased down and cuffed a thief in less time than it took her to cross the intersection on the SUV’s tail. She yanked on the wheel and parked alongside the empty curb near the hedge. She sounded the horn again – one long blast, three short ones. Their special signal.

  When Davie didn’t appear, Maggie rolled down the window and scanned the area for him. She killed the ignition, her favorite oldies station cutting out mid-crescendo.

  A lone yellow bus opened its door and swallowed up a line of students. A few stragglers still lingered in the schoolyard, but most had apparently left.

  “Davie?”

  The wind snatched the name and flung it back. Nearby, four boys, wide-eyed and slack-faced, gawked at her. The tallest one, who would have dwarfed Davie by a full head and shoulders, mouthed an obscenity, one Maggie hadn’t learned until her twenties.

  She opened the door and pulled herself out of the car. The big boy stared up at her and sobered. Amazing what a cop’s uniform could do for a woman.

  Maggie turned away from the kids and looked around the hedge, walking along its edge, calling for her son. It wasn’t like him to wander off.

  A clammy film spread across her forehead. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and turned to ask the boys if they’d seen Davie. She searched the field for their thin denim jackets and spied the last member of the wiry quartet pushing his way into the waiting bus.

  She jogged toward the hulking, yellow vehicle. Just then it lurched forward. Dirt and gravel shot into the air as it ambled down the street, leaving her alone, grit between her teeth.

  A moment before, the schoolyard rang with the sound of children’s laughter and idling engines. Now, an eerie silence replaced the din. Even the wind forgot to howl.

  Maggie looked at her watch. Ten more minutes. Gone.

  She checked both sides of the hedge, again, determined to fight the sick feeling that slithered around in her stomach. There had to be a simple, logical explanation why Davie wasn’t here.

  Maybe he’d stopped to talk to his teacher. Or maybe he’d gone to the office to call her cell. She pulled out her phone and checked for messages. There were none.

  As she jammed her phone into her pocket, she noticed a dark object lying on the side of the road in front of her car. She rushed toward it.

  A horrible, cold fear crawled up the back of her neck. Her throat went dry as her heart began to pound. The object, a tire mark running across it, was Davie’s crushed knapsack. The jagged edges of his broken thermos poked through the material. Liquid from it seeped out, pooling onto the asphalt like blood.

  She went to grab the pack and had to stop herself from touching what might now be evidence.

  “David! David!” This time she didn’t call her son’s name. She screamed it.

  * * *

  Maggie sat alone in the Police Inspector’s office – the room that, up until three years ago, had belonged to her father.

  She clutched the arm of the leather sofa with both hands, trying to keep from exploding. She felt hot, stifled, trapped inside her uniform, but her fingers were numb from cold. The smell of stale coffee wafted by and she almost retched. She was quietly losing her mind, yet, all around her, the downtown Calgary police station functioned normally.

  She looked out of the narrow windows that framed Owens’ office on either side of the door. Officers were busy at their jobs, people were talking, some even laughing. Their lives were going on, while hers had...

  Died.

  She blocked out the word. She wouldn’t think about it. Couldn’t let herself. She had to hang on. Stay in control. Fight against the weight of fear pressing on her chest as it slowly squeezed the life from her.

  Time raced forward. Everything blurred – the traffic outside, the officers in the
hall, the terrors of her mind. She needed it all to slow down. Stop. If she could just have a moment to catch her breath, regroup, she’d be able to make sense of it. Somehow.

  But the hands on her watch kept moving, counting out another five minutes. Five minutes on top of the six hours since her baby had disappeared.

  Somewhere down the hall, a phone rang and she jerked upright, senses alert, heart torn between hope and dread. Was the call about Davie? Was he safe?

  She needed to believe it. He’d probably wandered off or gone to a friend’s house. Any minute now, her cell phone would ring and he’d be on the other end, asking her to pick him up, suggesting a stop at McDonald’s on the way home.

  Even as she tried to console herself with such thoughts, she realized how utterly hopeless they were. Davie wasn’t the type to roam around the neighborhood. Apart from his asthma, he was a low-maintenance kid – predictable, obedient.

  Obedient enough to get into a stranger’s car if someone asked him to?

  Maggie fought back another wave of nausea and reached for her phone. She punched in the first four numbers of Davie’s sitter and stopped herself. She couldn’t keep calling her neighbor. The lines had to stay open. She’d already call forwarded her home number to her cell. If Davie did phone, it would be to either her or Mrs. Ertl’s house. She buried the phone back in her pocket, her fingers lingering on the plastic case.

  Ring, damn it.

  She stood and walked the length of Owens’ desk and back again, her legs a pair of rickety stilts beneath her. She retraced her steps. Up and down, over and over.

  She remembered seeing animals at the zoo pacing the glass side of their cages. Now she knew how they felt. When she’d been in motion – actively searching for her son, checking and re-checking the schoolyard, phoning the hospitals, calling in on his favorite spots – she’d felt as though she could make a difference, as though she had some control. Sitting still made her realize how powerless she truly was. She sent up a silent prayer of gratitude when Owens finally walked through the door.

  The man she’d grown up calling Uncle Dale stepped around his desk, looking as hardy and capable as he had in her childhood. At fifty-eight, his biceps were still bigger than her thighs.

  “Nothing yet,” he told her, peering over his glasses and across a pile of hastily made posters featuring a color photo of Davie. The same picture she’d popped into the metal pendant dangling from her car’s rearview mirror. With his light brown hair, her son’s coloring resembled his father’s, but his lopsided grin was a replica of her own. Except for those missing front teeth. The tooth fairy had claimed them at five bucks apiece.

  Davie looked younger than his seven years, his eyes full of trust. Maggie’s own eyes stung at the thought of betraying that faith.

  “Officers are proceeding with the door-to-door canvass. We’ve got a couple of men who are going through the school’s student list with the principal. They’ll contact the other kids in David’s class, and anyone else he knows, in case one of them saw or heard something.” Owens’ mouth curved slightly. “It’s possible he just went to a friend’s house to play.”

  Maggie looked into his eyes. She could tell he thought the scenario was as unlikely as she did. He knew Davie. Owens and his wife were Davie’s godparents.

  “I’m okay,” she told him, holding herself stiff to keep from crumbling. “Tell me what you’ve got.”

  He lowered his chin, surveying her for a moment. He gestured to the sofa she’d just left and waited for her to sit before he spoke.

  “If we go with kidnapping as a scenario, we’ve gotta rule out ransom as a motive. And revenge. You haven’t been with the force long enough to make enemies ... and the only way a cop’s going to get wealthy is to win the lottery.” His usual quip suffered from a cheerless delivery. Neither of them cracked a smile.

  “He doesn’t have his inhaler with him.” Maggie trapped her upper lip between her teeth to keep it from trembling. As the hours passed, the chances of finding Davie alive and unharmed grew slimmer. The inhaler wouldn’t protect her son from a child abductor, a...

  She swallowed hard against the bile rising in her throat and the flood of guilt that followed.

  She’d intended to be early for Davie, but that plan died after lunch, alongside a murdered gang member. Although she wasn’t directly involved in the case, almost every officer in the station had felt its repercussions. She’d had the exciting task of directing traffic away from the scene, feeling more like a weathervane than a cop.

  Why had that job seemed so important, so crucial that she couldn’t have left a few minutes sooner to pick up her son? If she’d been on time, Davie would be safe at home, playing with his hockey cards.

  “About that knapsack...” Owens shook his head. “We’ll send it off to the lab. There’s a clear tire tread, but I doubt we’ll get much else. David probably dropped it when he was ... when he disappeared.” He looked down for a second, then back up at Maggie. “Doesn’t look like it came into contact with anyone else.”

  Her stomach did another spin. Owens’ euphemisms hid nothing. Disappeared meant kidnapped. Anyone meant the abductor.

  “And the Amber Alert?” Maggie didn’t recognize the pinched whisper that came out of her mouth. Amber Hagerman, abducted in Texas in the mid-1990s, didn’t get the opportunity to mature beyond the age of nine, but she grew into a chance of survival for other missing children. Maggie never dreamed she’d one day share a kinship with the girl’s mother. She cleared her throat and asked the question again.

  “We’ve sent a bulletin out to the media. We’re doing everything we can on our end. What we need now is a lead.”

  “Did you find him?” The words came from behind Maggie. She turned to see her ex-husband, his face haggard, his skin pasty. He looked as frantic as she felt.

  “Not yet,” Owens replied as he moved around to the front of his desk. “But we need to ask you a few questions.”

  Ron’s lips pulled tight across his usual movie-star smile – a trapped animal baring its teeth. “I just spent the last two hours being harassed by your people at my house. My parents are worried sick. My neighbors think I’m a criminal...”

  His gaze went to Maggie, then back to Owens. “You think I kidnapped my own son, is that it? You think I have him hidden in a closet somewhere?”

  Maggie wished he had. Most of the missing children in Canada were taken by a parent. Stranger abductions were uncommon. Only three had occurred the previous year. And all three children had been found. Dead.

  She dug her nails into her palms, hoping the pain would stop the tears pricking her nose. She’d always put her faith in the police. She had to now. The force she so loved and admired would help her find Davie. They had to.

  Owens’ voice remained calm. “No, Ron, I don’t think you’ve taken David. But you might be able to give us some insights into where he could be – friends he had, adults he trusted.”

  Ron nodded, his chin sinking further and further toward his chest. “Okay. Okay, I understand. Of course, I want to help. Any way I can. I just want my son back.”

  “That’s what we want, too.” Owens clasped a hand on Ron’s shoulder. “If you’ll follow Detective Fisecki, he’ll ask you a few questions, see if we can uncover something useful.”

  Ron made a move toward the door, stopped, and turned to face Maggie, his eyes rimmed with red. Seeing him so raw and in such pain, Maggie stood and reached for her child’s father, longing to cling to him in their shared grief. But Ron’s next words slammed into her, keeping her at arm’s length.

  “It all comes back to you, doesn’t it? You were late again, weren’t you? If you’d been focused on Davie–”

  “I asked you to pick him up today,” she spat back, eager to dump her guilt on someone else, only to have it ricochet and hack into her even deeper.

  “You’re his mother. It’s your job to pick him up. I had a house showing. I have to make a living, you know.”

  Her disg
race turned to indignation. Hot blood rushed to her neck and cheeks. Her head felt like the top of a thermometer, ready to blow. “And I don’t?”

  “You were the one who wanted the divorce. You were the one who wanted to be a cop. I wish to God your father was still alive. That was the start of it, wasn’t it? You were happy being at home with David until–”

  “This isn’t the time for recriminations,” Owens said, his voice low. He stepped in front of Ron, forming a physical barrier between Maggie and her ex. “Let’s focus on finding David.” He gestured toward the detective waiting patiently in the hall.

  Ron shifted, placing himself in Maggie’s sightline. “We’ll talk about this later,” he told her.

  Maggie kept her head up. She refused to cry. She was a police officer, damn it. And she would act like one.