CHAPTER 4

Twenty minutes later, John—clad in his usual work attire: light blue button down shirt, pressed dark blue cotton trousers, sheriff's badge clearly visible on his belt—strode briskly into the dining room where his parents and siblings had gathered loosely around Rayna and Maddie. A few steps into the room, he stopped short as he got his first glimpse of the country star sitting under the chandelier. John wasn't a country music fan—classic rock was more his speed—and while he had a vague sense that he had heard Rayna's name on the radio or tv now and again, he didn't think he would have been able to point her out in a celebrity line-up. But now that he was seeing her here, in the freckled, milky flesh, with her enormous blue eyes and unspeakably sexy windblown hair, he realized what a mistake his indifference to both country music and celebrity journalism had been.

He recovered himself quickly and made his way to the table in a few long steps. "Ms. Jaymes?" his gravely voice conveyed concern and confidence as he reached his hand out to her. She took it in hers, and shook it firmly.

This had the potential to become a missing persons case, and Rayna Jaymes was a distraught mother he needed to help. So John knew that the frisson of both sexual energy and déjà vu that sparked between them as she met his eyes was completely inappropriate and unaccountable, but it caught him up short nonetheless. He'd never met her before, and yet he immediately felt connected to her, felt like he had known her intimately in another time and place. She held his gaze for a long moment, and he cleared his throat, willing himself to focus on the case in front of them. He reluctantly let go of her hand, pulled out the chair next to her, turned it to face her directly, and sat down, all the while his gaze never leaving hers, concern etched in his face.

Rayna, for her part, was impatient to get John up to speed so he could launch an all-out police search for her baby girl. But as he lowered himself into the chair in front of her and their eyes were locked on each other, a small sense of relief crept in beside the worry and fear. She didn't know why, but she trusted this man. It was crazy—probably just adrenaline working over her capacity for reason, she thought—but there was something about his mere presence that made her put her faith in him, made her feel like she had an ally and a friend, someone who would take care of her and her daughters.

John continued to hold Rayna's gaze as he propped his right elbow on the dining room table and began questioning her: When was the last time you saw your daughter? Has she done anything like this before? Had she been talking to anyone in particular whom she might have gone off with? Was she mad about something? Have you talked to her father? Has he heard from her?... So many questions, and he wanted answers quickly. He was a devoted father himself, and he took missing children cases especially personally. Time was of the essence.

Rayna knew he had to ask these things, but she was anxious. She met each question with a polite, but brief, response. She didn't want him to be in here talking; she wanted the police out there finding her daughter. No, Daphne had never done anything like this; she was her compliant one. No, she wasn't mad about anything in particular, but of course she hadn't wanted Rayna to leave today, and she was upset about the wedding being called off, but she was an ebullient, optimistic child. She'd shown no real signs of distress. And yes, she said, in fact she had called Teddy after she and Maddie had come up empty in their search of the beach. He was ready to charter a plane to Florida instantly, but Rayna held him off. If Daphne was upset with her for leaving today, or with Maddie for running off with Davis, she might call Teddy, and he needed to be near a phone, not on a plane. They had agreed that if Daphne wasn't back by lunch tomorrow, Teddy would fly down and together they'd hire private investigators to find her.

"You mentioned a recent break up as part of the reason you had to go to Miami. Is there any chance your fiancé took Daphne?" In John's view, in any missing children's case, you always start with the family. Especially the angry men in it.

"Ex-fiancé," Rayna shot at John, her voice dropping an octave. "But no. Luke wouldn't do that." And while Rayna firmly believed that, she was still pissed at Luke. If he hadn't pulled this publicity stunt, Rayna wouldn't have had to leave today, and Daphne would be here singing and laughing with her mom and sister well into the night.

"Any stalkers?" Now that Rayna had mentioned her breakup, John was vaguely remembering that he'd seen something on the covers of the magazines in the grocery store check-out about the "King and Queen of Country Music and the Royal Wedding that Wasn't" or some such nonsense. Rayna had been in a slinky silver gown, and some redneck in a black cowboy hat was down on one knee, obviously proposing. Given the size the of the stage they were on, and the ring he was holding, he gathered Rayna was more than just a little famous.

"Oh good Lord, no," Rayna said quickly. Country music fans just weren't like that. Sure, she'd gotten her share of creepy letters from guys with filthy minds and terrible grammar, but country fans' misbehavior tended more toward drunken shouts of "show us your boobs!" than kidnapping for ransom. John wasn't convinced, but let it go for now.

Having quickly gathered what information he could from Rayna, John squeezed her hand in a gesture of reassurance he didn't usually offer, but that she very much appreciated. Then he turned to Maddie. She was the same age as his Janie, and he recognized the look of a teenager trying to be grown up but feeling young and vulnerable. "Good," John thought to himself. She'd be less likely to lie to him. Or so he hoped even as his own, lie-filled teenage interview with the police after Sarah's death flashed in front of him. He glanced over at Danny, their eyes locking for a pregnant few seconds, before turning to Maddie and getting her side of the story. She told him everything she thought relevant, from the time Davis had sat down with them on the hammock to the time she got back and saw her mom. She left out the kissing part.

Given how badly she came out looking in her version, John didn't think Maddie was lying, or at least not very much. So at least he had a clear timeline and a possible motive for the younger girl walking off. She'd had a disagreement with her sister. She was feeling rejected, maybe even invisible. At nine years old, she would be just starting to have fits of tweenaged pique. He guessed Daphne had done what melodramatic girls have done forever: decided "fine, if I'm that unimportant to you, we'll see how you feel once I'm really gone," and stalked off. She'd probably intended to come back in an hour or two, and certainly by nightfall, though. That's the part that worried John. Between the tides, the alligators, and the damn pythons people insisted on smuggling into the U.S. and then releasing into the everglades, a lot of bad things could happen to a kid in those mangroves. And that's before you factored in South Florida's drug addicts, sex deviants, and other assorted n'er do wells.

Leaving out the litany of dangers lurking in the mangroves so as not to upset Rayna even more, John ran his theory about Daphne's motives by the country star, along with his concerns that her understandable minor rebellion was lasting so late into the night.

"That doesn't sound like my Daphne at all," she drawled, shaking her head slightly.

"It is our best possibility, though," John said reassuringly. "And at nine years old, she's going to start acting out and testing boundaries. Not only does it make the most sense, it's also the one that has her in the least amount of actual danger." Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Danny staring at him. He could tell Danny was thinking about when he was trying to pull Sarah loose from the rocks she'd gotten caught in after falling out of the boat. John's jaw tightened as he briefly returned Danny's stare, but he couldn't afford to think about Sarah right now.

No, right now he stood up, pulled out his cell phone, and called a friend at the Coast Guard to alert them to be on the look out for the 9 year old, giving a description and telling them he'd get a picture faxed to them as soon as he could. Then he rang his partner Marco, and told him to start organizing the search and rescue boats.

Having set the search in motion, he turned back to Rayna. "You wait here in case she comes back." He pulled out a business card, scrawled his home number next to the pre-printed mobile one, and handed it to her. He wanted Rayna to have both direct lines to him, and not to have to go through his parents and siblings to reach him. "If you hear anything, call me immediately. Until then, stay put. We're going to start looking tonight, but obviously it'll be easier once the sun's up."

Rayna couldn't imagine not getting her daughter back before morning. "That's it? One boat and a phone call to another guy out on the water? My little girl has been gone for hours. It's dark. She doesn't know where she is. She could have drowned, or been bitten by something. You need to find her! And you need to let me help! There has to be more that you can do! More that I can do!" Rayna was full-on yelling at John. This wasn't the deliciously calm "taking-Jeff-Fordham-down-six-pegs Rayna." She had officially lost her cool. It didn't happen often, and it wasn't pretty.

John covered half the distance between them as he took a sharp breath in. "You don't know where you are either. Out there, you'll just be in the way. If she comes back to the Inn, you need to be here. We know what we're doing!" He paused. "And it's two boats plus the Coast Guard!"

Rayna shook her head and flung her hands out to her side. She turned away from John for a few seconds, and then slowly brought herself back around to face him, some of the rigidity falling away as she did so. "Sorry," she said shortly, but not insincerely. "Diva dip." She smiled ruefully. Unlike her occasional unprofessional stage "diva moments," she felt she'd earned this one. But she still regretted it.

John was making his way back to her side. He took her gently, but confidently, by the elbow and led her out onto the porch, away from his family and their interrogating eyes. Once they were outside and out of earshot, he let go of her elbow and leaned his head closer to the side of hers, his deep, confident voice barely above a whisper in her ear: "you need to stay strong for your daughter—for both of your daughters—right now. And you need to trust me to do my job." He was looking at her as intently as any person ever had. It wasn't unkind; indeed, the stare drew her in with its concern.

Rayna turned to face him, her eyes wide and a bit damp from unshed tears. "I'm sorry," she sighed. "Daphne's my baby, and I'm scared. And I need you to find her."

John lightly grasped each of her arms just below the shoulder to emphasize his words. "I'm going to find your daughter."

Slowly, Rayna nodded. She believed him. She doesn't know why, but she has complete faith in him. And it's the first thing that's felt like hope in hours.