by Nora Roberts
audience. “What’s the deal?”
“Out of the goodness of his heart, and in consideration of a desperate woman, he’s agreed to come by tonight and discuss our needs in more detail.”
“Very obliging of him.”
“Oh, yes. I may not have your gifts, but I could read his mind well enough. One look at me and he thought, ‘Patsy.’ I could almost hear him calculating his take. Let’s go home.” She slipped an arm around him. “The air around here is really bad.”
“Well?” Linda asked Gumm as they watched Sebastian and Mel walk away.
“Like shooting fish in a barrel.” Pleased with himself, he signaled to a waiter. “They’re so giddy with the idea, they’ll ask the minimum amount of questions and pay the maximum fee. He might be a little more cautious, but he’s so besotted with her he’d do anything to make her happy.”
“Ah, love.” Linda sneered. “It’s the best scam in town. You got the merchandise picked out?”
Gumm ordered drinks then sat back to light a cigarette. “He wants a boy, so I think we’ll oblige him, since he’s paying top dollar. We’ve got a nurse in New Jersey ready to select a healthy male right out of the hospital.”
“Good. You know, I’m fond of Mary Ellen. Maybe I’ll throw her a shower.”
“An excellent idea. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a year or two they’d be in the market again.” He checked his watch. “I’d better call Harriet and tell her she can start pushing buttons.”
“Better you than me,” Linda said with a grimace. “The old bag gives me the creeps.”
“The old bag runs a smooth setup,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, and business is business.” Linda picked up the glass the waiter set in front of her and raised it in a toast. “To the happy mommy-and-daddy-to-be.”
“To an easy twenty-five grand.”
“Better.” Linda touched her glass to his. “Much better.”
* * *
Mel knew her part and was ready when Silbey arrived promptly at seven. Her hand trembled a bit as she accepted his. “I’m so glad you could come.”
“It’s my pleasure.”
She led him into the sprawling living room, chattering brightly. “We’ve only been in the house a couple of weeks. There are still a lot of changes I want to make. There’s a room upstairs that would make a wonderful nursery. I hope … Donovan.” Sebastian stood across the room, pouring a drink. “Mr. Silbey is here.”
Sebastian knew his part, as well. He appeared to be reserved and nervous as he offered Silbey a drink. After a few social inanities, they sat, Sebastian and Mel close together on the sofa, hands linked in mutual support.
All solicitude, Silbey opened his briefcase. “If I could just ask you a few questions? Get to know you a bit?”
They filled in their established backgrounds while Silbey took notes. But it was their body language that told the tale. The quick, hopeful glances exchanged, the touches. Silbey continued the interview, completely unaware that every word he spoke was being transmitted to two federal agents in an upstairs room.
Clearly pleased with the progress he was making, Silbey sent them an encouraging look. “I have to say, in my personal and professional opinion, you would make excellent parents. The selecting of a home for a child is a very delicate matter.”
He pontificated for a while on stability, responsibility, and the special requirements of raising an adopted child. Mel’s stomach turned even as she beamed at him.
“I can see that you’ve both thought this through very seriously, very thoroughly. There is, however, a point you may want to discuss at more length. The expenses. I know it sounds crass, putting a price on something we should consider a miracle. But there is a reality to be accepted. There’s a matter of medical expenses and compensation to the mother, my fee, court costs, and filing—all of which I will handle.”
“We understand,” Sebastian said, wishing he was free to wring Silbey’s neck.
“I’ll require a twenty-five-thousand-dollar retainer, and another hundred and twenty-five thousand at the end of the legalities. This will include all the expenses of the mother.”
Sebastian started to speak. He was, after all, a businessman. But Mel gripped his hand tighter and hit him with a pleading glance.
“The money won’t be a problem,” he said, and touched her cheek.
“All right then.” Silbey smiled, “I have a client. She’s very young, unmarried. She wants very much to finish college, and has come to the difficult decision that raising a child on her own would make this impossible. I’ll be able to provide you with her medical background, and that of the father. She’s quite firm that there be no other information divulged. With your permission, I will tell her about you, and give her my recommendation.”
“Oh.” Mel pressed her fingers to her lips. “Oh, yes.”
“To be frank, you’re exactly the kind of parents she was hoping for. I believe we’ll be able to complete this with everyone’s best interest served.”
“Mr. Silbey.” Mel leaned her head against Sebastian’s shoulder. “When … I mean, how soon would we know? And the child— What can you tell us?”
“I’d say you’d know within forty-eight hours. As far as the child …” He smiled benignly. “My client is due to deliver any day. I have a feeling my call is going to ease her mind tremendously.”
By the time they had walked Silbey to the door, Mel had shed a few more tears. The moment she was alone with Sebastian, fury burned her eyes dry.
“That sonofa—”
“I know.” He put his hands on her shoulders. She was vibrating like a plucked string. “We’ll get them, Mel. We’ll get them all.”
“You’re damn right we will.” She paced to the stairs and back. “You know what this means, don’t you? They’re going to steal a baby, an infant, probably right out of a hospital or clinic.”
“Logical as always,” he murmured, watching her carefully.
“I can’t stand it.” She pressed a hand to her churning stomach. “I can’t bear the idea of some poor woman lying in a hospital bed being told her baby’s been stolen.”
“It won’t take long.” He wanted to slip into her thoughts, to see for himself just what was in her head. But he’d given his word. “We have to play this through.”
“Yeah.” That was just what she was going to do. He wouldn’t approve, she decided. And neither would the feds. But there were times you had to follow your heart. “We’d better make sure the boys upstairs got all of that.” She took a deep breath. “Then I think we should do what any happy, expectant couple would do.”
“Which is?”
“Go out and tell our dearest friends. And celebrate.”
* * *
Mel sat in the lounge at the Silver Palace with a glass of champagne in her hand and a smile on her lips. “To new and valued friends.”
Linda laughed and clinked glasses. “Oh, no, to the happy parents-to-be.”
“We’ll never be able to thank you.” She looked from Linda to Gumm. “Both of you.”
“Nonsense.” Gumm patted her hand. “Linda merely made an inquiry to a friend. We’re both delighted such a small gesture reaped such benefits.”
“We still have to sign papers,” Sebastian pointed out. “And wait for the mother’s approval.”
“We’re not going to worry about any of that.” Linda waved details away. “What we have to do now is plan a baby shower. I’d love to give you one, Mary Ellen, up in the penthouse.”
Though she was getting damned tired of weeping, Mel let her eyes fill. “That’s so …” Tears spilled over as she got to her feet. “Excuse me.” An emotional wreck, she rushed off to the ladies’ room. As she’d hoped, Linda followed her a moment later.
“What an idiot I am.”
“Don’t be silly.” Linda sat beside her, slipped an arm around her. “They say expectant mothers are apt to cry at the drop of a hat.”
With a shaky laugh, Mel dried her ey
es. “I suppose. Would you mind terribly getting me a drink of water before I try to repair the damage?”
“Sit right there.”
Mel figured she had twenty seconds at best, so she moved fast. She flipped open Linda’s beaded evening bag, pushed through past lipstick and perfume and gripped the penthouse key. She was slipping it into the pocket of her evening pants when Linda came back with a cup.
“Thanks.” Mel smiled up at her. “Thanks a lot.”
* * *
The next step was to get away from the group for at least twenty minutes without being detected. She suggested a celebratory dinner, with a little gambling as an appetizer. Always the gracious host, Gumm insisted on making the arrangements in the dining room himself. Marking time, Mel managed to slip away from Sebastian and Linda in the crowd at the crap table.
She took the express elevator, keeping well to the back of the glass walls. The top floor was silent as she stepped out. Mel checked her watch, then fit the key into the lock of the penthouse.
She didn’t need much. With the evidence they already had, she needed only enough to link Gumm and Linda with Silbey or the Breezeports. She judged Gumm as a man who kept records on everything—and kept them cleverly.
Maybe it was rash, she thought as she headed straight for a huge ebony desk. But the idea of them even now plotting to steal a baby fired her blood. She wasn’t going to stand by while someone else went through what Rose and Stan had experienced. Not while there was a chance she could make a difference.
She found nothing in the desk of interest and used up five of her allotted twenty minutes in the search. Undaunted, she moved on, checking tables for false bottoms, locating a wall safe behind a section of books. She would have loved to have the time and the talent to lift that lock, but she had to admit defeat. With less than three minutes to go, she found what she was looking for in plain sight.
The second bedroom of the suite served as a fussily decorated office that Linda used as a convenience. There, on top of her French provincial desk, was a leather-bound account book.
At first glance, it seemed like nothing more than it purported to be, a daily record of deliveries for the hotel shops. Mel had nearly put it down again in disgust when she noted the dates.
Merchandise acquired 1/21. Tampa. Picked up 1/22. Little Rock. Delivered 1/23. Louisville. Accepted COD 1/25. Detroit. Commission 10,000.
Breathing shallowly, Mel flipped pages.
Merchandise acquired 5/5. Monterey. Picked up 5/6. Scuttlefield. 5/7. Delivered 5/8. Lubbock. Accepted COD 5/11. Atlanta. Commission 12,000.
David, she thought, and didn’t bother to hold back a string of oaths. It was right there, all the dates and cities. And more. Babies listed like packages to be shipped and paid for on delivery.
Tight-lipped, she skimmed the pages and let out a hiss between her teeth.
H.B. ordered new blue package, Bloomfield, New Jersey. Pick up between 8/22 and 8/25. Standard route, acceptance and final payment expected by 8/31. Estimated commission 25,000.
“You bitch,” Mel muttered as she closed the book. She struggled against the urge to break something, and scanned the room instead. When she was certain nothing was out of place, she started for the door.
“Oh, she’s probably off having another crying jag,” Linda said as she walked through the main door of the penthouse into the parlor. “He’ll find her.”
Mel took a quick look around and opted for the closet.
“I can’t say I’m looking forward to spending the evening with her,” Gumm said. “I doubt she’ll talk about anything but booties and baby formula.”
“We can take it, lover. Especially for twice our usual fee.” Her voice faded a bit as she walked toward the opposite bedroom. “I think it was a good idea to arrange for dinner up here. The more grateful and emotional they are, the less they’ll think. Once they have the kid, they won’t question anything.”
“Harriet’s thoughts exactly. She already has Ethan putting the wheels in motion. I was surprised when she came down to take a look at them for herself, but she’s a little more cautious since the Frost affair.”
Mel kept her breath slow and even. She pressed her fingers against the stone of her ring. Communication between people who are important to each other, she remembered, and shut her eyes. Well, here’s hoping. Come on, Donovan, get your butt up here and bring the marines.
It was risky, she knew, but she thought the odds were in her favor. Reaching into her bag, she felt the comforting bulk of her weapon. Not that way. She took a deep, bracing breath and put the account book in instead of taking the revolver out. She set her bag on the floor, then opened the closet.
“They’ll pass the merchandise to our contact in Chicago,” Gumm was saying.
“I’d like to pick him up in Albuquerque,” Linda put in. “I could always use an extra couple of thousand for the run.” Her head snapped up as Mel deliberately bumped a chair. “What the hell?”
Gumm was in the room like a shot, twisting the struggling Mel’s arms behind her. “Let me go! Jasper, you’re hurting me.”
“People who break into other people’s homes often get hurt.”
“I—I was just lying down for a while.” She made her eyes dart crazily to make the lie all the more ridiculous. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“What have we got here?” Linda asked.
“A plant. I should have known. I should have smelled it.”
“Cop?” Linda considered.
“Cop?” Eyes wide with alarm, Mel twisted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just resting.”
“How’d she get in?” Jasper demanded, and Mel let the key she was holding slip out of her hands.
“Mine.” Swearing in disgust, Linda bent to pick it up. “She must have palmed it.”
“I don’t know what—” Jasper cut off Mel’s protest with a backhand that left her head ringing. She decided it was time to drop one act for another.
“Okay, okay, you don’t have to play rough.” She shuddered and swallowed audibly. “I’m just doing my job.”
Jasper shoved her into the parlor and onto the sofa. “Which is?”
“Look, I’m just an actress. I took a gig with Donovan. He’s a PI.” Stall, Mel thought. Stall, stall, stall, because he was coming. She knew he was. “I only did what he told me to do. I don’t care what you’re into. And I’ve got an appreciation for a good scam.”
Gumm moved to the desk and took a pistol from the top drawer. “What are you doing in here?”
“Man, you don’t need that,” she said, swallowing. “He said I should get the key and come up to look around. He thought there might be some papers in the desk there.” She gestured toward the ebony desk. “It seemed like a real kick, you know. And he’s paying me five grand for the job.”
“A two-bit actress and a PI,” Linda said furiously. “What the hell do we do now?”
“What we have to do.”
“Look, look, you say the word and I’m out of here. I mean out of the state.” Mel tried for a tawdry kind of charm. “I mean, it was great while it lasted, the clothes and all, but I don’t want any trouble. I didn’t hear anything, I didn’t see anything.”
“You heard plenty,” Gumm countered.
“I got a bad memory.”
“Shut up,” Linda snapped, and Mel shrugged.
“We’ll have to contact Harriet. She’s back in Baltimore seeing to the details of the last job.” Gumm ran his hands through his hair. “She’s going to be very unhappy. She’ll have to call off the nurse. We can’t take a kid without a buyer.”
“Twenty-five thousand down the tubes.” Linda sent Mel a look of avid dislike. “I was actually pretty fond of you, Mary Ellen.” She walked over to lean into Mel’s face, squeezing a hand around her throat. “As it is now, I’m going to get a lot of satisfaction out of letting Jasper take care of you.”
“Hey, listen …”
“Shut up.” She shoved Mel back. “Y
ou’d better arrange for someone to do it tonight. And to pick up the PI, too. I think a little spat in their house, maybe. A nice murder-suicide.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
At the knock on the door, Mel made to scramble up and as expected had Linda clamp a hand over her mouth.
“Room service, Mr. Gumm.”
“The damn dinner,” he muttered. “Take her into the other room and keep her quiet. I’ll handle this.”
“A pleasure.” Linda took the gun Gumm handed her and gestured Mel into the next room.
Smoothing back his hair, Gumm went to the door, then gestured for the waiter to roll in the room-service tray. “Don’t bother to set up. Our guests haven’t arrived yet.”
“Yes, they have.” Sebastian strolled in. “Jasper, I’d like you to meet Special Agent Devereaux. FBI.”
In the next room, Linda swore and Mel grinned. “Excuse me,” she said politely, tramped hard on Linda’s foot and knocked the gun aside.
“Sutherland,” Sebastian said with restrained fury from the doorway. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
“In a minute.” To please herself, she turned and rammed her fist into Linda’s astonished face. “That one was for Rose,” she said.
* * *
He wasn’t happy with her. Sebastian made that abundantly clear through the rest of that evening, through all the explanations. Devereaux wasn’t exactly thrilled himself, though she thought it was small-minded of him, since she’d all but wrapped the evidence in a bow and handed it to him.
Sebastian had a right to be annoyed, she supposed. She’d acted on her own. But she was the professional. Besides, it had worked out exactly as she’d planned, so what was his problem?
She asked him just that several times, as they packed up for the trip home, as they flew back to Monterey, as he dropped her off at her office.
His only answer was one of his long, enigmatic looks. The last thing he said to her left her miserable and silent.
“I kept my word, Mary Ellen. You didn’t. As a matter of trust, it comes down to that.”
That had been two days before, she thought as she brooded at her desk. And there hadn’t been a peep from him since.
She’d even swallowed her pride and called him, only to get his answering machine. It wasn’t that she felt she owed him an apology, exactly. But she did think he deserved another chance to be reasonable.
She toyed with the idea of going to Morgana or Anastasia and asking them to intercede. But that was too weak. All she wanted to do was to put things back on an even keel between them.
No, no, she wanted much more than that, Mel admitted. And that was what was killing her.
Only one way to do it, she told herself, and kicked back from her desk. She would hunt him down, pin him to the wall if necessary, but she would make him listen to her.
All the way along the winding mountain road she practiced what she would say and how she would say it. She tried being tough, experimented with being quiet and solemn, and even took a shot at being penitent. When that didn’t sit well, she opted for aggressive tactics. She’d just march right up to his door and tell him to cut out the silent routine. She was tired of it.
If he wasn’t there, she’d wait.
He was there, all right, she discovered as she reached the top of his lane. But he certainly wasn’t alone. There were three other cars in the drive, including what appeared to be the longest stretch limo in the known world.
She stepped out of her car and stood beside it, wondering what to do next.
“I told you, didn’t I tell you?” Mel looked around and spotted a pretty woman in a flowing tea-length dress. “A green-eyed blonde,” she said, a definite smack of satisfaction in her Irish voice. “I told you something was bothering him.”
“Yes, dear.” The man beside her was tall and gangly, his graying hair receding into a dramatic widow’s peak. He looked rather dashing in jodhpurs and top boots. A Victorian quizzing glass dangled from a string around his neck. “But it was I who told you it was a female.”
“Nevertheless.” The woman glided across the grounds with both plump hands held out to Mel. “Hello, hello, and welcome.”
“Ah, thanks. I’m, ah, looking for …”
“Of course you are,” the woman said with a breezy laugh. “Anyone could see
