The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

fear that grabbed him by the throat, making it almost impossible to talk, grabbed him in a tight band around his chest and made it hard to breathe.
    He couldn't imagine his life without Rachel.
    He could start calling her family and tell them she was gone, but they'd want an explanation, more of one than he'd given her father a few nights ago. He could call the sheriff. Not because he thought someone had grabbed her or hurt her, but because the deputies would keep an eye out for her. They were certain to spot her before long. But again, there'd be explanations to give, and he didn't know what he'd say.
    He was afraid Rachel was upset because of what Zach said. They'd both stood there, frozen with guilt for wanting these children so badly while Zach told Santa that all he really wanted for Christmas was to have his mother back.
    Maybe that's what Sam needed to give the boy, too.
    Frowning, Sam looked at the clock once more and then his gaze caught on the road map on the table in the corner. He'd been sitting here staring at the map, looking for a clue, when Rachel had run out of the house.
    And now there it was. Right in front of him.
    It was as if the name leaped out at him.
    Shepherdsville.
    Zach said the town had a funny name. Like a dog. That must have been the one he was talking about. Shepherdsville was just across the border in Indiana, about forty-five miles from here. Emma said when her mother left, she promised to be back that day. She should have been able to make the trip there and back in a day with no problem. Except she hadn't come back.
    Sam had found it easy to blame her for that at first, to think she must be scum to leave her children that way. But these were good children. Well behaved, well mannered, self-assured. Obviously someone had taken good care of them, at least at some point as they were growing up.
    So, if she was a good mother, running away from an abusive husband, but she had to go back there for some reason.... Could she have left them, thinking they were safer here in a motel with Emma than in Shepherdsville with a man who beat her?
    Sam stared down at the map and frowned.
    He'd never been particularly good at taking care of the people he loved, and he had to do something.
    He'd had enough experience with the social services system not to trust it to take care of the kids. Maybe that wasn't fair, because he knew Miriam, knew she worked hard and that she cared as much as she could about everyone she tried to help, as much as she could without going nuts doing the job. And he knew it was a hard job. He hadn't been fair to her over Will. It wasn't her fault. He was sure she'd done all she could. But he didn't trust the system.
    Shepherdsville was only forty-five minutes away, and it wasn't a very big town. It was up to him, he thought. It wouldn't be that hard to spend the day there and see what he could find out. He didn't have to tell anyone what he was doing. If it was a dead end, it was a dead end. If he found the kids' mother and she had a good explanation for what she'd done, maybe he'd tell her where she could find her children. If their father was there and he'd done the things Emma believed, Sam didn't know what he'd do to the man. Likely get himself arrested.
    No, he thought. He wouldn't. Because that would lead the man right to his children, and Sam wasn't going to be the one who did that.
    He'd made up his mind—he was going to that town to see what he could find out—when he heard the back door closing softly and hurried to it, expecting to find Rachel there. She wasn't. And there was no way anyone had slipped past him and gone upstairs.
    Which meant... Someone had gone outside. At this hour?
    Sam pulled open the door and saw someone disappearing around the side of the house and it didn't look like his wife.
    "Emma?" he called out.
    She turned for a moment, a lost little girl wrapped up in her new coat and with her new boots on her feet, something he couldn't make out clutched in her hand. What in the world?
    Sam waited, thinking she'd come back. But he'd made that mistake once already tonight. He grabbed his coat off the peg on the laundry room wall and took off after her.
    "Emma!" he said again as he came to the front of the house and found her standing on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. She just looked at him, all sad eyes and what he suspected were big tears. Was every female he knew crying tonight?
    Sam was afraid she'd make him chase her, but she