He was vaguely aware that Jason was doing the same thing to the other kidnapper, then speaking into some kind of radio transmitter in Cantonese. But the vagueness vanished when he knelt in front of his daughters and removed the duct tape from their mouths as gently as he could. Linden moaned and Laurel sobbed, and tears slid silently down Dirk’s cheeks. The tears he hadn’t been able to cry at Bree’s funeral. The tears he hadn’t been able to cry when his daughters had been kidnapped.
With Mei-li’s help, he unwrapped the tape from his little girls’ wrists, wincing when he saw the raw, red skin beneath. And despite his blackened face they knew him. Tiny arms throttled his neck as his arms closed around both of them, hugging them as if he’d never let them go.
“Daddy!” they cried almost simultaneously. “You came to get us. You did. You did!”
His eyes met Mei-li’s over his daughters’ heads and saw the tears glistening on her cheeks above the black greasepaint. He couldn’t say anything—his heart was too full at that moment—but there was so much he wanted to say.
She reached up and smoothed away the tears from his face. “I know, tim sum,” she said, smiling through her tears. “I know. But now is not the time. Let’s get your daughters out of here.”
* * *
A towel and a jar of cold cream removed most of the blacking from Dirk’s face as the RMM boat slid quietly through the water toward the shore. Mei-li had used them first, then, when Dirk refused to let go of his daughters, she’d used them on him since his hands weren’t free.
“Hold still,” she’d whispered, and he’d done as she asked, letting her rub the cold cream in and massage it off with the towel. “That’s the best I can do,” she admitted finally before dabbing at the backs of her hands with the now-dirty towel.
Dirk held a sleeping daughter cuddled on each knee, smiling a little to himself as he remembered his dream about rescuing them. His daughters didn’t smell like baby powder. In fact, they smelled worse than the harbor around them. But he didn’t give a damn about that.
He never wanted to let them out of his sight again. A part of him knew it was unreasonable—that eventually he’d have to trust someone else to look after them—but that was how he felt at this moment. As he gazed down into his daughters’ faces, he couldn’t help but think of their mother. “I didn’t let you down, Bree,” he whispered under his breath. And in his mind’s eye he saw her smile. The one that said she believed in him and always would. The same way Mei-li smiled at him. A man would dare anything for that smile.
Jason’s men had stayed on the other boat, guarding the kidnappers Dirk and Jason had bound, waiting for the police Jason would contact once they were on shore. Dirk had left the gun behind at Jason’s insistence, and he was glad he had when the other man told him, “We’re going to have to be interrogated—no escaping that. And your daughters, too, although I doubt they’ll be able to add much. But we’d better get our stories straight.”
“In what way?”
“I’d just as soon you don’t mention anything about RMM. Mei-li’s a licensed private investigator you hired to help recover your kidnapped daughters. I’m her brother. She asked for my help. I gave it. End of story.”
It wasn’t quite that easy, of course. But by the time they docked at the pier, they had everything worked out except, “What about your men out on the boat?” Dirk asked. “How am I supposed to explain them?”
Jason flashed a smile as he leaped onto the dock and looped the docking rope around a piling. “You don’t. You know nothing about them.”
Dirk laughed under his breath. “Well, that’s true. I don’t.”
“All you know is they’re friends of mine. I’ll take care of it from there.” He laid the plank and held his hand out to his sister. “Come on. The sooner we call the police, the sooner you’ll be able to get some sleep.”
“Let me take her,” Mei-li said, removing Laurel from Dirk’s unresisting grasp.
Jason said, “Watch your step,” to both Mei-li and Dirk. Then, when they were both standing on the pier, he told Dirk, “I need you to do one more thing before we call the police.”
“What’s that?”
“I need you to pose for a picture. With your daughters.”
Dirk shook his head. “No way.”
“It’s important.”