Operation Bassinet

by Joyce Sullivan

  He and G.D. headed for the lobby in unison, where the doorman informed them that Mrs. Shelton had entered the building briefly, then turned around and announced she was going for a walk.

  Something was wrong. Mitch could feel it.

  Damn it, Stef. Where are you? He palmed the back of his neck. “What do you think, G.D.?”

  The Guardian frowned. “Do you think she went to check out Sable’s family’s place in the Catskills on her own?”

  “Possibly. She’d do anything to get her daughter back. I can see her talking her way into Sable’s aunt’s house.”

  “I’ll call the chopper.”

  Mitch hoped they were right.

  HER LITTLE GIRL was adorable. Stef felt a lump of joy melt in her throat at the shy little girl who approached her with big solemn eyes as she clung to her grandmother’s gnarled hand.

  Stef smiled, even though her heart was shuddering with terror. Darren scrutinized her every movement. She brushed away real tears. She didn’t have to pretend to be excited to meet Emma.

  “Hello, Emma. I’m Stef. I’m so happy to meet you! You’re such a big girl.” She turned to Helen Conklin, who moved with the slowness of arthritic limbs. “She’s about the same age as my daughter, Keely. I’m sorry I showed up on the spur of the moment. But once I saw Emma’s picture I knew I had to come and bring her home.” Stef perched on the edge of the sofa so she was eye to eye with Emma, aware her bruises and her bandage must be a scary sight. “Do you like stories, Emma?”

  Emma nodded, the traces of a smile touching her lips. “What happened to your head?”

  Stef resisted the urge to hug her as tightly as she wanted. She told herself there would be time for all that once they were safe. She told Emma a silly story about how she’d fallen and bumped her head. “I also know stories about your mommy when she was a little girl like you. And you have other grandparents, too.”

  “Really?” Helen Conklin asked, smoothing the bangs from Emma’s bright eyes with a loving hand. “Listen to that, Emma. You have another grandma and grandpa.”

  “Yes, and they like to be called Nana and Pops. They have a big trailer that they go camping in, and we toast marshmallows and drink hot chocolate. And Nana knows the stories the birds tell when they sing.”

  Emma’s eyes shone with curiosity. “I like birds.”

  “So do I, love. Nana and Pops are looking forward to meeting you.”

  “And what about your sister?” Helen asked. “Do you hear from her?”

  Stef shook her head. “Lori doesn’t stay in touch.”

  Helen exchanged a look with her husband, Fred, a skinny man with stooped shoulders and a shock of snowy hair. “We know how that can be.”

  Stef felt Darren’s unblinking hazel eyes on her. Nausea stirred in her stomach knowing that Fred and Helen’s son Tony would never come home. What would Darren do to her and Emma once they left the house?

  Helen offered Stef a cup of tea. Stef coaxed Emma into joining them at the table in the kitchen. Emma munched on a cookie and played with an animal puzzle at the table, stealing curious peeks up at Stef while Helen plied Stef with questions. “What does your husband do?”

  “He’s a pilot, which means we’ll be able to arrange frequent visits. I know you don’t want to lose touch.”

  Stef answered Helen’s other questions while Darren and Fred hunted for a suitcase to pack Emma’s belongings. Darren had told the Conklins that Stef had a flight from Newark to Seattle early the next morning.

  After their tea, Stef helped Helen check Emma’s bag, listening to her instructions regarding Emma’s favorite foods and her bedtime. Stef’s heart filled with gratitude that Emma had been raised by this kind, gentle woman. “She’s a good girl, but you’ve got to keep a close eye on her. She’s either quacking like a duck and climbing on something or quiet as a mouse getting into some type of mischief. I’m going to miss her terribly.”

  Stef hugged the frail elderly woman. “Thank you for taking her in. I promise I’ll treat her like my own child.”

  Emma let Stef take her hand as they walked out of the farmhouse toward Darren’s car, but Stef saw the uncertainty in her daughter’s eyes as she looked back over her shoulder at the elderly couple stifling tears and waving goodbye from the porch. Emma didn’t cry or fuss, but she kept a tight hold on her brown stuffed rabbit.

  Stef experienced a glimpse of how stoic Mitch must have been when his mother had left him with his grandfather all those years ago. She held her baby’s hand and promised herself that Emma would spend a happy life with her.

  “Where are we going now?” she asked Darren once they were driving down the lane.

  “You’ll see.”

  Stef wasn’t reassured. She stroked Emma’s hair, talking to her softly, learning that she liked animals and had a real bunny named Snowflake at Gamma and Pappy’s. They passed through two towns called Mahopac and Croton Falls.

  Then Emma fell asleep in her carrier seat and Darren ordered Stef to cover herself with the blanket so that she couldn’t see the last leg of their journey.

  She reluctantly complied. When the sedan slowed and began to bounce over an uneven road, Stef was petrified that she and Emma were about to be shot and their bodies dumped in a ditch. But when Darren told her she could remove the blanket, she saw they’d arrived at a cottage.

  Stef nearly drowned in panic. Mitch was never going to find them here! She kissed Emma’s head as Darren got out of the car, the gun in one hand.

  Stef expected Darren to break into the cottage, but he crouched beside the screened porch and removed a key hidden underneath the skirt board. He opened the door and came back to the car, taking a flashlight from the glove compartment. “Bring Emma inside.”

  She carefully removed her sleeping daughter from the carrier. Even in her terror, her body took comfort from the miracle of having Emma’s warm weight snug in her arms.

  The cottage was tiny and smelled of disuse. In the sweeping narrow beam of the flashlight she saw a galley kitchen that opened onto a main room and two doors that led into dark caves. There was a thick coat of dust on the floor and the evidence of mouse droppings on the furnishings.

  Darren led her toward one of the doors. “You can sleep on the bed in here.” The flashlight beam played over a double bed and a dresser crammed into a narrow room. “The window’s boarded up from the outside, so don’t even think about escaping.” He gave her just long enough to lay Emma on the bed, then he closed the door, leaving Stef standing in the dark. She let her eyes grow accustomed to the dark, wondering if she should try to jump Darren when he entered the room next. No, he had a gun and the stun gun, both of which could render her unable to protect Emma.

  She could hear Darren doing something to the door, probably tying it closed. She squeezed into the passage between the bed and the window and lifted the heavy musty-smelling curtains. Darren hadn’t lied, she could see the horizontal strips of boards covering the window.

  Stef eased onto the bed and curled her body protectively around Emma. There was no escape.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mitch was frantic. The words “too late, too late,” screeching in his mind. It was 3:00 a.m. and Stef had been missing for eight and a half hours without a word. The woman he’d made love to, whom he’d let inside his heart, was missing and he was helpless to find her. He’d flown to Windham and back in the chopper, hoping to find Stef camped out in the shrubbery. He’d spoken to Sable’s aunt, who’d allowed him to search the house, but Stef wasn’t there.

  Stef had literally walked out the door of the apartment building and disappeared. The fear that Tony Conklin had abducted her was eating away at him. Making him crazy. It also occurred to him that Riana’s legal guardian would be saved the trouble of a custody fight if Stef suddenly turned up dead, so he surfed the Internet for information about Brook Sinclair while G.D. made phone calls trying to find out what the hold up was on Tony Conklin’s military records.

  Mitch was so intent
on reading about Brook Sinclair’s third marriage and divorce that he wasn’t aware G.D. had come up behind him.

  “What are you doing?”

  Mitch swiveled around in the chair to face him. “I’m investigating the possibility that someone other than Tony snatched Stef—someone like Riana’s legal guardian, who’d benefit if Stef turned up dead. It’s interesting that Brook and Juliana are so tight. Why is that?”

  Anger banked in G.D.’s eyes. “You’re way off base, Mitch. And very close to finding your way out of a job.”

  Mitch’s jaw hardened. “Am I? Then tell me who Keely’s guardian is and let me judge for myself.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  “Are you willing to stake Stef’s life on that answer?”

  G.D. was saved from saying anything further by the ringing of his cell phone. “What?” He reached for a pen and started writing on a notepad. “Thank you!”

  He thrust the pad at Mitch. “There’s Tony Conklin’s parents’ address. Take the chopper. We’ll continue this conversation after we find Stef.”

  Mitch’s arrival at their farmhouse by helicopter roused Fred and Helen Conklin from their beds. Fred Conklin held a rifle on Mitch and threatened to call the police until Mitch explained he wanted to talk to them about their son.

  Helen Conklin invited Mitch and the pilot in for tea. As she put the kettle on, Helen told Mitch that she hadn’t seen her son in two and a half years.

  A part of Mitch curled up and died. He’d reached another dead end.

  DARREN WOKE UP Stef and Emma just before 4:00 a.m. He made them use the bathroom. While Stef was in the bathroom, he told Emma he had a surprise for her and he slipped the snug-fitting brightly colored vest he’d made for Riana over Emma’s shoulders. He smiled at Stef’s cry of horror when she came out of the bathroom and spotted the stick of dynamite attached to the back of the yellow vest.

  He pointed to the daisies he’d painted on the vest around the word bomb. “Isn’t it pretty, Emma?”

  Emma, in her innocence, patted the pretty flowers.

  Stef Shelton’s eyes pleaded with him. “Please, you can’t be serious…she’s just a baby.”

  “Oh, I am deadly serious. Tomorrow morning Annette will be making an appearance at the Essex County Courthouse for a motion for further discovery by the defense. She’ll be leaving the courtroom with me, and Keely, who will have this lovely vest strapped around her shoulders. I rather doubt the police are going to prevent our escape and risk having the lost Collingwood heir be blown to bits in front of the network news cameras. Now, if you don’t want Emma to go boom, you are going to tell me which Park Terrace apartment Keely is in, who else is staying in the apartment and the security measures in force.”

  He removed a small remote control from the pocket of his polar fleece coat and held it so Stef could see it in the glow of the oil lamp he’d lit on the table. “Before you consider misleading me, be aware that this red button activates the bomb. If I’m stopped, I simply push this button and Emma goes boom.”

  “Boom!” Emma repeated with a giggle.

  From the whiteness of her face, Darren could see that Stef had gotten the message. She told him everything he needed to know.

  He locked them in the bedroom, leaving them the child’s potty, the box of cereal and containers of juice that he’d bought in readiness for holding Keely here.

  “By the way, Mrs. Shelton,” he called through the door. “I wouldn’t try to remove the vest or let Emma exert herself too strenuously. The vest is fitted with a pressure sensor. Try to remove it and Emma goes boom.”

  Stef clutched Emma’s hand in the darkened room, her body taut with nausea and terror. Darren had put a bomb on her baby! Stef needed Mitch more than she’d ever needed anyone in her life. She had to save both her daughters. Somehow she had to get help before Darren reached the apartment in New York City.

  MITCH WAS LEARNING a lot about Tony Conklin from the man’s parents, but nothing that would help him find Stef—until he realized that the shiny yellow object hanging from the hook by the back door was a tiny child’s raincoat.

  “Do you have grandchildren?” he asked the Conklins.

  “Only the one—Tony’s daughter, Emma,” Helen said. “She’s a lamb. She’s been living with us until recently.”

  Stef’s daughter? Mitch felt dread scrape the pit of his stomach. Was he too late again? “How recently?”

  Worry creased Helen’s worn face. “Just last night. Darren, our nephew, finally located Emma’s aunt and brought her by to pick up Emma. She’s taking her back to Seattle.”

  Darren? Mitch finally saw the big picture. “Is your nephew Darren Black?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Emma’s aunt have a bandage on her face?”

  Helen nodded, her gnarled hand pressed to her heart. “I think perhaps you’d better tell us what you’re really doing here, Mr. Halloran, or I will call the police.”

  Mitch reached for his cell phone. “Don’t bother. I’m calling the police. Then I’ll tell you what I know.”

  STEF TRIED EVERYTHING to get out of that room. She yanked on the door, hoping the rope would fray. She searched fruitlessly through the dresser drawers in the predawn darkness for something she could use to pop the pins out of the door hinges, all the while telling Emma a wild story about this being a game. Poor Emma huddled on the bed hugging her bunny, watching her with solemn eyes.

  Stef ripped the curtains from the wooden rod. “Okay, baby, Mommy’s scrapping the door plan. We’re going out the window.” She fumbled with the clasp on the double-hung windows, but it wouldn’t budge. Warning Emma to cover her ears, she broke the glass with the curtain rod. Cold fresh air flooded through the window.

  “Yea, Mommy,” Emma said, bouncing on the mattress.

  Fear lanced Stef’s heart that she might accidentally set off the bomb. “No, Emma, sweetie. You stay nice and quiet on the bed with your bunny. When Mommy has the boards off the window we’ll climb out.”

  Stef pushed her hair out of her face and tried using the curtain rod as a hammer, but the darn rod was too long to wield with the force necessary.

  She checked her watch, calculating the time it would take Darren to drive to New York City. It was almost six o’clock. He could be there soon. She didn’t have much time. “Okay, Emma, don’t try this at home.” She grabbed a drawer from the dresser and used it as a battering ram against the boards. She actually felt something give!

  Twenty minutes and several additional bruises later, one of the boards actually fell off. Light was just beginning to streak the sky. Stef’s hands and arms were screaming with pain and Emma was whimpering, her tiny hands covering her ears, but Stef couldn’t give up.

  She was battering away at the boards when she became aware of a buzzing sound. It grew louder and louder until she realized it was overhead. It was a helicopter!

  And it was setting down somewhere nearby.

  Mitch! Stef knew, as surely as she knew that the sun would come up, that Mitch was in that helicopter. Relief flooded her heart on a wave of love.

  “Mitch!” Stef started screaming and banged at the last boards with the drawer. She had to get his attention. The bomb could go off at any time. “We’re here! Help!”

  Miraculously she heard the splintering of wood as the door to the cottage was kicked open and Mitch was calling her name. “Stef! I’m coming!”

  And then Mitch was standing in the bedroom doorway, blond and ferocious. And Stef loved him more than she ever thought she could love a man.

  Panic and fear streaked her voice. “Mitch! He put a bomb on Emma! It could go off at any second!”

  A BOMB! Mitch swore under his breath as he took charge. He made swift sense of Stef’s incoherent story that Darren was headed for the apartment to kidnap Keely and would set the bomb off at any second if he was challenged.

  Trying to calm both Emma and Stef, Mitch simultaneously called G.D. to alert him to what was happening. G.D. t
old him he’d be waiting for Darren and he’d get a bomb tech on the line with Mitch stat.

  “Stef, leave the room,” Mitch ordered her.

  Stef didn’t budge from Emma’s side. “No, she’s my baby. I’m not leaving her.”

  “Keely needs you, too,” he reminded her.

  Stef kissed Emma’s hair. “It’s okay, Em, Mommy’s here. Everything’s going to be fine. Mitch will help us.”

  Mitch couldn’t find the words to tell her he’d just as soon she not get blown to bits. “You are so stubborn—”

  His cell phone rang. “Halloran, here.”

  “New York State Police. Let’s get a look at the bomb, Halloran. Tell me what you see.”

  Mitch described the vest and the battery and detonator attached to the stick of dynamite. “The witness was told it’s rigged with a pressure sensor.”

  “That’s what we’ve got to find first. Look at the dynamite. There will be a wire that leads from the dynamite to the pressure sensor. Can you find it?”

  Mitch’s heart swelled with fear as he bent over the child to examine the bomb. Emma’s solemn eyes were stamped with fear. “I’m not going to hurt you, Emma,” he told her as he searched for the wire. “Okay, found it.”

  “Follow that wire to see where it ends. Look for a very small bump. That will be the sensor.”

  Mitch traced the wire to a small bump located just below the armhole of the vest. “Got it.”

  “Now slide something between the little girl’s body and the bump and apply steady pressure to the bump while you remove the vest. Once you apply pressure you can’t let go.”

  Sweat dampened Mitch’s body as he folded a business card in two. He gave Stef a quick, searching glance, committing her beautiful face to memory. “Just in case I don’t get a chance to say this again, I love you.”

  A tear slipped onto her cheek. “I love you, too.”

  He flashed her a cocky grin that belied the shaking of his fingers. “Those are the sexiest words I’ve ever heard. We’re going to make it through this, babe. You, me and Emma. Failure is not an option.” Holding his breath, Mitch slid the card into place, squeezing the bump between his thumb and index finger. “Okay, let’s get it off her.”