Operation Bassinet

by Joyce Sullivan

  Mitch took notes. The chances of finding Tony alive were growing slimmer and slimmer—unless he’d gone into hiding. “What date did he fail to show up for work?”

  “July eighteenth.”

  Mitch heard Stef’s tiny gasp. He was sure Rolston did, too. July eighteenth was the day after Brad had died. “Did he work a shift on the seventeenth?”

  “I’ll have to check another source for that.” Rolston flipped through a box of computer diskettes. “I employ about one hundred and twenty security officers at any given time.” He selected a disk from the box and slid it into the computer. “Okay, here’s the schedule for July seventeenth. Conklin was off that day. It was a Tuesday and he normally had Tuesdays and Thursdays off.”

  Mitch’s stomach tightened as he caught Stef’s gaze. So Tony could have gone climbing with Brad that day. “What about May ninth—the night Riana Collingwood was kidnapped?”

  Rolston typed the date into the computer. He frowned at the screen, then pressed more buttons. “The ninth was a Wednesday—Conklin called in sick. In fact, he didn’t report for work until the following Monday—the fourteenth.”

  Stef looked as if she’d swallowed a bubble. She was thinking what he was; that Conklin hadn’t been sick, he’d been pulling off a kidnapping. Mitch scribbled furiously in his notebook. The pieces were fitting together and falling into place. The Collingwoods had received the first ransom demand on Saturday the twelfth, three days after the kidnapping. He drew a question mark in his notebook. What the hell had gone wrong?

  And who had hired Conklin?

  Sable was the obvious choice because she’d been in the bar with Brad minutes before Tony had conveniently shown up, but Mitch wasn’t ruling out other suspects. G.D. had a list of people who’d wanted revenge against Ross Collingwood, and any one of them might stoop to kidnapping a baby. They had to keep digging.

  He asked Rolston if he could have a look at the background check the company had done on Conklin before they’d hired him.

  Rolston passed him the file. “It’s all here—help yourself. I’ll have the receptionist make photocopies of whatever you want.”

  Mitch skimmed Tony Conklin’s personal information—date of birth, social security number. An F. Conklin was listed as his emergency contact person. No accompanying address was given, but the area code might be a clue to the right region. Maybe Tony had inadvertently inverted two numerals in the phone number.

  He’d done a stint in the army as an infantryman. There were some gaps in his work history, but he was more likely to have been unemployed than incarcerated. If a conviction had shown up in his criminal record check he would never have been hired as a security guard.

  Mitch frowned. “Any idea where he was from?”

  “I can talk to his supervisor. He should be in around six tonight. I’ll call you if he comes up with something.”

  “I’d appreciate that. Conklin might have gone back to his hood.” Mitch requested copies of several pages in the file.

  A light drizzle had started to fall by the time they made their way back to the limo.

  “Disappointed?” Mitch asked Stef.

  She gave him a fierce smile and wiped the rain from her face. Mitch hadn’t lied to the doctor last night. Even bruised and scarred, Stef was incredibly beautiful. “No. Never. We’re going to find him.”

  Mitch called The Guardian to brief him.

  “I’ll have to send some business Rolston’s way,” G.D. said after Mitch had finished. “F.Y.I., Conklin’s criminal records check came back clean. We know he’s not currently in prison. But he hasn’t made a payment on any of his credit cards since before Riana’s kidnapping—not that he made them regularly before that. And he hasn’t applied for a change of address on his driver’s license.”

  Stef tugged on Mitch’s arm. “What’s he saying?”

  Mitch told her, then went back to his call. “So Tony’s either dead and we’ll be dealing with an unknown party or Tony’s hiding with the child and using an alias.” Mitch spun out the theory that Tony was still alive. “If Tony Conklin attacked Stef and Keely yesterday, he may have someone bankrolling him—maybe someone in the Collingwood Corporation. Like Sable.”

  “Or Annette.”

  “Absolutely. Annette could have funded the kidnapping and it may never have been about the money. That may be why the first ransom attempt was aborted.”

  “So, why the second ransom demand?” G.D. asked.

  “Circumstances have changed. Annette’s in prison. She needs serious money for legal fees and she wants to cast doubt on the charges against her. The only thing I can say with certainty at this point is that whoever we’re dealing with now wants money. That’s why they risked abducting Keely yesterday. They need the real Riana.”

  Mitch could visualize the gears in G.D.’s brain digesting all this information.

  “They won’t get anywhere near Keely again,” G.D. said with iron-hard resolve. “I’ll assign some operatives to check out Conklin’s previous addresses and the phone number you have for F. Conklin.”

  “Good enough. I’m dropping Stef off at the apartment, then I’m going to squeeze in more interviews as Evan Mitchell.” Mitch disconnected the call with a sigh, anticipating a battle.

  Stef rounded on him, her eyes accusing. Mitch steeled himself, grateful he’d figured out how to raise the privacy screen in the limo so the chauffeur wouldn’t be a witness to what was about to happen.

  “I’m not going back to the apartment,” Stef stated mulishly. “I’m staying with you.”

  Mitch tried to be patient. He’d spent most of the day with her, tormented and distracted by her beauty and her intelligence and the sexual tension simmering below the surface of their exchanged glances, exchanged touches. He was drawing the line. “Evan Mitchell is conducting the interviews. Not Evan Mitchell and Stephanie Shelton.”

  “I’ll wait in the car, then.” Stef folded her arms across her chest, calling Mitch’s attention to the tantalizing swell of her breasts beneath the soft black knit sweater. His pulse quickened at the thought that she was probably wearing a black lace bra beneath that sweater.

  “No, you’re going back to the apartment to rest if I have to tuck you in bed myself.” His voice charged with the reined-in frustration he’d been living under all day, matched the increasing drum of the rain on the limo’s roof. Even now he could feel a driving urge to kiss her—just to grant himself a moment’s release from the tension.

  “Why?” she retorted.

  His fingers clenched at his sides. “Because you’re distracting the hell out of me, and I can’t think straight. Is that a good enough reason?”

  And then, to soften the harsh blow of his words, he yielded to temptation and kissed her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mitch meant the kiss to be a reprieve from the tension. A gentle passionate joining because she was so determined to be brave and strong and because her poor face was bruised and sore. But hell, everything between him and Stef was explosive and reckless. Mitch felt his control ruthlessly strip away as she parted her sweet lips and greedily welcomed the thrust of his tongue.

  It was a homecoming he’d never before experienced.

  His ears deafened to everything around him except the soft sigh of Stef’s moans. His hands skimmed over her shoulders and down her arms as he reassured himself that her firm, soft body wasn’t a dream. This was a place he could stay forever. And Mitch would have stayed, drowning in desire and need for this brave vulnerable woman and throwing caution to the wind, but the limo braked abruptly for a red light, throwing them apart.

  Mitch was breathing harder than a teenager caught making out with his girlfriend behind the bleachers. He caught a handful of Stef’s silken hair. How could he have forgotten his purpose? He wasn’t here to indulge himself in fantasies that could never come true. It was to save an abandoned child. “That’s why you can’t come with me,” he said with self-loathing. “Right now, instead of wondering how to beat To
ny Conklin out from whatever rock he’s hiding under, I’m fantasizing about the color of your bra.”

  He shuddered as a wall of unfamiliar emotion rose in him, stronger than anything he’d ever known. His heart wrenched at the thought of what the future could hold for her. He had to bring her daughter home alive!

  She put her fingers over his mouth as if to stop him from saying more, but he pulled her fingers away. “Listen to me, Stef. Really listen. The last kidnapping case I worked on a little girl died because I let myself get too involved in her family situation. She had a wonderful grandmother. Strong lady, she reminded me of my grandfather who raised me after my mother dumped me on his doorstep. I knew how much her granddaughter meant to her. And I was too late to save Carmen. I failed them.”

  Stef gripped his chin, her eyes softening into velvet puddles. But her voice though gentle, was feminine-coated steel. “I am so sorry, Mitch. I’m sorry that Carmen died. It breaks my heart that her grandmother lost her precious grandchild. But you listen to me, Mitch Halloran. I don’t believe for one second that you failed Carmen or her grandmother. I know you. You cared about that little girl and her grandmother and I know you gave that case everything you had. From the moment I met you, you’ve done everything humanly possible to find my biological daughter.” She gave a short, pain-filled laugh that made him reach for her. “People have failed me in my life, Mitch. But you are not one of them.”

  He tenderly cradled her face between his palms, wondering if what she really meant was that Brad had failed her. Failed their child. “I’m afraid, Stef.” So terribly afraid we will find a grave and that it will destroy you.

  “That’s makes two of us.” She swallowed hard as if she could read in his eyes the words he couldn’t say. “Okay, I’ll stay at the apartment. But just so you don’t get any more distracted, my bra’s pink. Flamingo pink. And one more thing before you go—I feel sorry for your mother. She didn’t know what she was missing.”

  Mitch kissed her again, cursing under his breath. This was no way to conduct a kidnapping investigation.

  SABLE’S PHONE had been ringing all afternoon. It was impossible to get any work done. When the phone rang yet again, she snatched the receiver from the cradle in frustration. She’d just tell Ruth to hold her calls.

  A hesitant young female voice whispered over the line. “Ms. Holden? It’s Phoebe—from the Rock School.”

  Sable pictured the personable climbing instructor. “I’m very busy, Phoebe. Why are you whispering?”

  “Something weird happened today. A man was here talking to the owner about you. Asking a lot of questions.”

  Sable told herself not to show any sign of panic. “What kind of questions?”

  “I didn’t hear everything they said because they were in the back office, but they came out to the front desk and printed something off the computer. Vito also checked the log and gave the man the dates you’d been climbing. They went pretty far back.”

  Fear crept over Sable’s body like a shadow. “Any idea what they printed?”

  Sable heard a pause as if Phoebe were checking to make sure no one was listening to her call. “I looked up the last file viewed after they’d finished. It was a list about the company party you booked here a couple years ago.”

  Why would somebody want that list? Sable’s temper rose as the suspicion that Evan Mitchell might not be who he claimed to be seeded itself in her mind. Damn it!

  “What did the man look like?”

  “Old.”

  Sable laughed. “What are you, twenty-two? Everybody looks old. It might have been someone from my office. What color was his hair? Was he hot or a dweeb?”

  “Neither. Just old—like somebody’s couch potato dad. I thought he might be a cop. He wore a seriously uptight raincoat.”

  Or a private investigator. Sable wondered if The Guardian was nosing around in her business. Had Stef found something and gone to him? Is that why she’d suddenly dropped by asking questions about Brad’s death?

  Sable had gained too much since Ross Collingwood’s death to lose it now. She was being granted more decision-making power and her contribution to Office Outfitter’s success was finally being acknowledged. She struggled to keep her voice warm and effusive. “I appreciate the heads up, Phoebe. Next time I’m in, I’ll bring you something to show my appreciation.”

  “That’s really not necessary. You’re such a nice lady. It creeped me out to hear that guy talking about you.”

  “Have a nice day, Phoebe.” Sable slowly hung up the phone. It was time to do some damage control.

  FLAMINGO PINK. The color glowed like a neon sign in Mitch’s mind the rest of the afternoon as he conducted three interviews as Evan Mitchell.

  His attempt to create distance between him and Stef by telling her about Carmen had backfired. To his dismay, she’d tried to make him sound like some kind of hero and it had pulled him inexorably closer to her.

  His first interview was with Pasquale Pedroncelli, the manager of the midtown Office Outfitters store, who’d allegedly informed Sable about Brad’s death.

  Pedroncelli had a can-do attitude that Mitch warmed to immediately. He allowed Mitch to accompany him as he walked through the warehouse store. He confirmed that he had called Sable around 8:00 p.m. to notify her of Brad’s death. “I knew she’d want to know,” Pedroncelli explained. “Brad was part of the team for a long time.”

  Mitch looked up from the notes he was taking. “How’d you find out?”

  “Stef called me. She asked me to spread the news. It was a huge shock. Everybody liked Brad. He was enthusiastic. He instigated a lot of friendly sales wars between the stores—and he set up softball tournaments to encourage team spirit. He was the regional manager and he would make a point of introducing himself to the new staff in every store he visited, asking how they liked their jobs. Did they get enough training? Could they play first base?” Pedroncelli nodded at the clerks working the checkout counters. “It’s not the same now. We have one regional manager who covers three states and sales are slipping.”

  Mitch’s second interview was with Yvette Lisgard, a tough-talking, iron-haired lady who worked as a cashier at the uptown store. Yvette had five children and thirteen grandchildren. She talked Mitch’s ear off about Brad, who’d secured one of her sons a job at another store. Mitch could understand why Brad had taken his job loss so hard. He’d earned the praise and respect of the people he worked with. He probably hadn’t felt he deserved to be canned. Maybe that was why he’d gone along with whatever game Sable had been playing.

  Mitch grabbed a couple slices of pizza from an Italian deli and wolfed them down as the limo crawled through rush-hour traffic to the Bronx store. The rain was still coming down. His energy was starting to flag, but he had to keep pushing it. The kidnapper might be more edgy than ever after the failed abduction attempt yesterday. Mitch hoped Stef was sleeping, gathering her strength. The days ahead would be tough.

  He tracked down the shipping clerk named Al Bielac with trepidation. Al was forty pounds overweight with a sweat gland problem. He was on his dinner break in the employee lounge, eating meat loaf and mashed potatoes from a plastic container. He bought Mitch a cola and regaled him with a tale of how Brad had personally presented him and the night security guard with framed certificates and a five-hundred-dollar reward each for fingering an employee who was pilfering inventory from the stockroom during closing.

  “You should have seen the wife when I brought home that reward. She wanted new curtains for the living room, but it was my reward. I bought a big TV. Bigger than my brother Harry’s. He’s a plumber. Always braggin’ about how much money he makes.” Al sighed over his mashed potatoes and gravy. “Yeah, me and Tony hit it big that day.”

  Mitch nearly choked on his slug of soda. “Tony?”

  “Yeah, the guard. You write his name down. It was Tony Conklin, Rolston Security.”

  Mitch cursed silently. Al had just thrown him a curve. His assumption that Tony ha
d been hired to strike up a chance meeting with Brad in a bar or on the street went up in flames, and a new picture emerged in the ashes. Pete O’Shay and Mike Lipetzky both described Tony as Brad’s friend. Everything Mitch was learning about Brad indicated that he made a point of learning the names of the people who worked for Office Outfitters. Brad had obviously hit it off with the security guard he’d presented an award to for nabbing a thief.

  Mitch jotted down Tony’s name. How deep had Brad and Tony’s friendship run? Had they pulled off the kidnapping together and had a falling out?

  “AM I INTERRUPTING YOU?”

  “Hmm?” Hunter Sinclair glanced up from the report he was reviewing of the nursery staff employed at the hospital in Queens where Stephanie Shelton had given birth to her daughter. He felt a loosening in the tension in his neck as he smiled at his beautiful wife. “Yes, but you’re a most welcome interruption.”

  “I won’t stay long, I promise,” Juliana said as she slipped into the study and closed the door behind her. “I convinced Stef to take a nap, and Keely is helping Valentina in the kitchen. I thought I’d steal a few moments alone with my sexy husband.”

  “Continue speaking to me like that, and I’ll gladly give you more than a few moments.”

  Smiling, Juliana circled behind him and played her hands over his shoulders, massaging the tense muscles. It was one of the hundreds of thoughtful and loving things she did that made Hunter wonder how he’d ever lived without her.

  “I still can’t believe we have Riana back. She’s such a darling little missy—she reminds me of Ross. I can visualize her running the Collingwood empire.”