Husband by Choice. Tara Taylor Quinn
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business—always. Family before business—always. But now the business was finding Meri.
Which was why, at ten o’clock Friday night, he and Chantel were still sitting at the kitchen table.
She’d used her password-protected account to search crime databases and found seven Steve Smiths in the Las Vegas area who’d been charged with counts of domestic violence during the years Meri would have lived there.
And was trying to connect any of them to the Steve Smith on Meri’s Las Vegas marriage and divorce records.
There were one hundred and twenty Steve Smiths just in the North Las Vegas area.
“None of the seven charged Smiths match up,” she said as soon as he finally got Caleb asleep two hours past his bedtime.
It was the first they’d been able to speak freely since he’d arrived home. Caleb might not understand the significance of words, but he could very well remember them, and he wasn’t going to risk his son being adversely affected. Caleb was already showing signs of anxiety, just having Meri gone, without a bunch of adult-type talk involving police searches confusing him further. It wasn’t so much the words, Max knew, but the serious tone of their voices that would alarm him.
“Two are in jail. One is dead. Three are still married to their spouses and living and working in Las Vegas. And a seventh moved to Massachusetts and is remarried. None of them were cops. Do you have any idea how old Meri’s ex is?”
“Six years older than she, which would make him thirty-eight.”
“None of these guys are thirty-eight.”
Then they weren’t looking in the right place.
“Are you sure she pressed charges against him?”
Was he? He’d assumed she had. But had she actually said so? “She said that turning him in hadn’t helped,” he said, trying to remember her exact words. It wasn’t as though he and Meri sat around and discussed the abusive past that she was trying to leave behind.
She’d been through counseling. And said that her best course was just to move forward. If she ever hoped to have a normal life she had to move on from being a victim.
Or something like that. Those conversations had been more than four years ago. He’d taken away the pertinent facts and left the rest.
Chantel changed screens. Typed.
“I’m looking up restraining orders with any of her names on them.” He’d given her Meri’s aliases the night before. “If she filed something we can make an educated guess that the man she filed it against is Steve.” Chantel’s screen went blank before lists of green writing popped up. “I’m assuming she only had one abuser?”
“That’s correct.” No doubt in his mind about that one. “And she did file a restraining order,” he said, remembering. “More than four years ago.” Steve Smith had been a curse in Meri’s life. And a threat to his life with Meri from the very beginning.
One thing was certain, when they found the guy, he was going to pay.
Even if he wasn’t immediately responsible for Meri’s disappearance, and he hoped to God he wasn’t, he was most definitely peripherally to blame. If not for Steve’s years of abuse and later hunting her down like an animal, Meri wouldn’t suffer from such paralyzing paranoia.
“I’ve got it.” Highlighting a record, Chantel opened it up. Clicked to bring up an official looking document. “It was filed almost five years ago and was granted for one year,” she said slowly, reading. He tried to see by leaning over from where he was sitting, but couldn’t make out the fine print on the PDF form.
“Five years ago he was working as a P.I.”
He hadn’t known that.
“Steve had written to her via the last shelter she’d been in, using her newest assumed name. The letter was the basis for the order....”
He was trying desperately to remember things he’d only wanted to forget.
“Private investigators have to be fingerprinted to get a license to practice in Nevada,” she said. “So I ran a search, matching the Steve Smith named on Meri’s restraining order with a Steve Smith in the fingerprint database under the same address. It came up a positive match.”
“So he was a private investigator.” Not great news, but not the end of the world either. “I’m guessing Meri didn’t think that was nearly as frightening or noteworthy as him having been a cop. It was his police connections that scared her. And he had to do something when he left the force.”
“Do you know why he left?”
“Meri was certain he left so he could pursue her exclusively.”
Frustrated at his lack of knowledge, Max waited while Chantel continued to type and read. Steve Smith had been a ghost in their lives—one who’d left a lot of fear.
“The restraining order was reinstated in California when she moved here. It’s good for five years.”
He’d known it was good in California. He hadn’t known about the reinstatement part.
“Steve was a detective with the Las Vegas police for ten years.”
“I told you he was a cop.”
Chantel continued to read whatever private database she had access to. “I didn’t realize he was this decorated. The man would have contacts, Max. And there are a lot of loyal men on the force....”
He’d heard stories from Jill about how fellow officers overlooked claims of domestic violence against their own, understanding that a bit of aggression came with the territory.
Believing, too, that a man who risked his life every day to save others wouldn’t cross the line and hit a member of his own family.
If there were allegations, the force recommended counseling. They watched over him. Made sure there were support facilities available to him and to the members of his family.
“He retired from the force without a blemish. I find it hard to believe this is the same man that would behave as Meredith told you he had.”
Chantel knew police work. She knew Jill. She didn’t know Meri.
“Talking about Steve upset Meri,” he said with confidence while, inside, he was running scared as hell. “He hadn’t been around since she left Arizona and I was certain he’d moved on. He didn’t follow her to California. Either he got the message to leave her alone, met someone else and let Meri go, or was in jail. Didn’t much matter which it was as long as he stayed out of our lives.
“I assumed Meri didn’t know and didn’t want to know what he was doing. I honestly didn’t think he was still a threat, because of the order and because he’d gone so long without bothering her. In my mind, the problem wasn’t so much his showing up again, as it was the effect his years of abuse had had on her. I tried to play down her past to help her move on.”
“Restraining orders are enforceable in all states. And she could have filed for one in California, had her hearing, without him ever having to attend. He would’ve known that.”
Chantel continued to scroll. And he needed her to understand.
“When I first met Meri she was always looking over her shoulder. Not afraid of her shadow so much as being in constant preparation for a hit from behind. It was as if she didn’t think she was allowed to live a normal life and be happy.”
“Sounds like a woman used to keeping secrets.”
Her words seemed to be a direct threat to his marriage.
“I’m not saying that she’d betray your trust or anything, but that maybe keeping secrets had become a matter of survival to her.”
Chantel’s big brown eyes were filled with compassion.
Max