The Deadly Series Boxed Set

by Jaycee Clark

  “Her hands are like ice.”

  She saw it all, the way the moon shimmered on the snow, glitter across the pale blue. She’d always loved the snow under a full moon.

  And what else would they bury other than a body?

  She had told no one. But she stopped sleeping, stopped eating, just went through the motions until she tried to leave.

  “I know they do good in some lives, but someone there takes advantage of those they think no one will miss or if they’re daring, just don’t care.”

  Sabino’s dark gaze pierced her to the chair. “Did you tell Jareaux this?”

  “I tried. He blew me off before I even got through it all. He always asked for proof. There was no proof. They said it didn’t happen like I remembered it. Someone went through my things because the camera’s SD card was blank and I’d had photos on it. Normal ones, nothing he’d consider proof, but it was blank. I know they looked through my things. If anyone had bothered to look in her room, you’d have found traces of blood in her condition, so what? That would have proved nothing. And did I actually see them bury a body? No, I saw them dump something in a hole behind the courtyard, in the center of all the roses. They claimed I hit my head when I passed out, that with my high blood pressure and the concussion, I was disoriented. I was confused on what really happened.”

  Landry took a deep breath. “You should have called the police at least.”

  Whether she believed that, she didn’t know. “Really? Because I was under the mistaken impression the feds were law enforcement as well. I tried calling Jareaux several times. He was always busy, always short.”

  “In his defense, we do have many other responsibilities, other cases too. I’m sorry this happened to you. It shouldn’t have. He put you in a bad position and didn’t follow through.”

  She just looked at Sabino. “No, it shouldn’t have, but it shouldn’t have happened to the others either.”

  “You’re sure what you saw?”

  She laughed, but it was hardly amused. “I’m not sure of anything anymore. Sometimes I look back and I don’t know if something really happened or if it was a dream. For weeks I thought I was imagining things, or going crazy, but knew deep down they were going to take my baby and if I wasn’t careful there would be nothing I could do about it. I knew if they got my baby, I was as good as dead.” She looked at the tabletop. “Guess I was right. Lisa showed up and . . . well, you guys know the rest.” She glanced to Quinlan. “I told her we made up on the phone and you were heading out here. I’d been charging my phone and she picked it up. I should have had it on me.”

  “I doubt it would have mattered, sweetie,” Ian said. “She’d have found a way. I told her, by the way,” he said to Sabino.

  “Told her what?” Quin asked.

  Sabino frowned at Ian. “We found Lisa earlier this morning, well, late last night, actually. Someone called . . . Looks like a suicide. She asked you to forgive her.”

  “But . . . the baby. Where’s my baby? Did she say anything, leave anything? Are you sure?” Panic crawled through her again. “Please, she has to have left something.”

  “Mrs. Kinncaid, we’re looking. We called Mr. Kinncaid, Ian, when we verified who she was.”

  Quinlan shifted and asked his brother, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Ian shrugged. “I told her this morning before she decked me. She was, at least to Ella’s thoughts, a friend. I figured she should know. I didn’t tell you because technically there wasn’t anything to tell you yet.”

  “The woman who took our child is dead and you don’t think that’s anything to tell me?” Quin stood.

  She grabbed his hand. “Was there anything other than the note?”

  “Well, the apartment where she was found is owned by a dummy corporation or what appears to be a dummy corporation. The feds are taking her place in Taos apart again to see what else they can find.”

  Her baby. Where was her baby? She shook her head. “I don’t believe she committed suicide. That wasn’t Lisa’s style.”

  “Honey,” Quin said, “you’ve been all over the news, maybe she couldn’t live with—”

  She shook her head again. “No, no, I know I shouldn’t have trusted her, but she was not the suicidal type. A note? She wrote a note?”

  “Typed,” Sabino said. “Did you know she had another apartment here in Albuquerque?”

  “No, no. Oh God.” Her hands trembled. “How will we ever find . . . How . . .”

  “Well, we did find a flash drive hidden at her place, encrypted, and we’re working on that now. My techie called just as we arrived and he thinks he’s close to cracking it. Looks like accounts, he said, transactions.”

  “Babies,” she muttered.

  “Maybe,” someone said.

  “Transactions?” Quin said. “You mean babies? Other babies? Babies are bought and sold, aren’t they?”

  Transactions . . . Transactions, the word danced in her brain.

  “For a quarter of a million, I’d imagine so.”

  “What?” several asked at once.

  She blinked.

  “What do you mean, a quarter of a million?” Quinlan asked her.

  She sighed and frowned, rubbed her forehead. “Transactions. It’s one of the foggy images. Sharp and foggy all at once, the between time. When I was . . . was there . . . I heard. I know I heard her say, ‘a quarter of a million and change, little girl, that’s what you’re worth.’” She swallowed and swallowed again, but it didn’t do any good. Shoving away from the table, she hurried to the bathroom and was sick. She heaved and heaved until there was nothing there, the wonderful breakfast a complete waste. “Oh God.” She shuddered and sat on the tiled floor.

  A cool cloth washed her face. “It’s okay, it’ll be okay.”

  She let him bathe her face. “Quinlan, they sold her, they sold our baby girl. How will that be okay? How can that ever be okay?”

  “We have a trail to follow, honey,” he told her.

  “Money. You follow the money,” Ian said from the doorway.

  • • •

  A place to start. Quin breathed a sigh of relief. He checked his watch. “Come on, babe. We need to get you cleaned up so you don’t miss the doctor’s appointment.”

  “I don’t want to go,” she whispered. “I hate the damned doctors. Clearly, they can’t be trusted.”

  “I think Dr. Forrester is trustworthy,” he answered her. So strong, and so scared. He’d caught glimpses of the woman he’d fallen in love with this morning at breakfast. What he’d seen before with Ian, that still pissed him off. He still had questions, and there were still things to do. Things that mattered more right now than them having the damned heart-to-heart they needed.

  Scooping her up, he leaned against the wall.

  “You can’t carry me. Your leg,” she muttered, though her arms wrapped around him. She was small and curvaceous, and weighed almost nothing. Shouldn’t she weigh more if she’d given birth just a few days ago?

  “I can carry my wife, thank you very much, or have you forgotten?” he whispered.

  “No, I didn’t forget. I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  He breathed deep and smelled his shampoo in her hair. Something about that wrapped inside him and unfurled part of the fear and whatever else had tightened in his chest.

  They were going to get through this. He had no idea how, really, but by God, they were going to get through this if he had to drag them through it.

  In the quiet of their room, he set her on her feet and watched as she went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth and washed her face. She tossed the towel on the counter and then joined him, sitting on the bed.

  “What happened to us?” he asked her, brushing his thumb over her cheek.

  She shrugged. “You wanted the Cleaver family and I got scared.”

  He smiled. “And I was mad and stupid and proud and let you walk away.”

  He leaned down and stared into her eyes. �
��I’m warning you now, Ella Kinncaid, never again. I’m never letting you walk away again. I’m never walking away again. I should have come after you when I heard you moved, but I was angry and so I let you be. If I hadn’t . . .”

  “If you hadn’t, who knows. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does on so many different levels.”

  She leaned up and brushed her lips quickly across his. “I’m sorry.”

  He sighed. “I am too. I am sort of getting tired of us both saying it though. Instead of ‘I’m sorry,’ how about ‘I love you’?”

  She smiled at him. “Quinlan Kinncaid, I love you.”

  He had no idea how much he’d needed to hear those words until she said them. And she probably felt the same. He kissed her lips softly. “I love you, Mrs. Kinncaid,” he whispered. “God, I love you.”

  She smiled, her dimples deepening. “We can see who can outlove who.”

  He chuckled. “Good try, but you’re not getting out of going to the doctor. You want to change?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m good. I’m ready as I’m going to be.” She sat and looked at him. “Please don’t make me go. I hate hospitals. I hate the smell. I hate . . .”

  “I know. But we need to know you’re getting well and that nothing else is going on. If you get sick or land back in the hospital, you won’t be able to help,” he tried.

  “Think you’re smart, don’t you?” she whispered.

  “It’s something I’ve tried to tell everyone for years, but no one listens.”

  She chuckled. “I love you, Quinlan. I always have.”

  He took a deep breath and another. He simply laid his head on hers and pulled her close. “I love you, too.” Then he reached for her hand and laced their fingers together. “From here on, together, Ella. Everything’s together. No more of one us doing it all. Got it?”

  He felt her nod against his shoulder. “Together.”

  Chapter 34

  Ian stood outside in the courtyard wondering if he was going off on a wild-goose chase. He’d told Brody already to get papers ready in regards to Quin’s daughter. They really needed to name the poor girl. After all, if he was right, he didn’t want to keep the parents from the baby longer than necessary. He’d also mentioned his suspicions to Sabino yesterday. She’d said they were still waiting for a court order from the judge.

  He’d called and spoken to Mr. DeSaro Monday, when he found out they were still here in Albuquerque. He’d sent Johnno over to watch them as well on Tuesday when it looked like he wasn’t needed at the hotel for guard duty. Mr. DeSaro had in fact recommended the Nursery of Dreams, since they had been able to obtain what he and his wife were looking for and had gotten around complications that other agencies had issues with. He did, however, caution Ian on meeting with them as he felt they might be in trouble.

  “Perhaps a more private venue, yes?” he’d said. “I would hate to see a young man from such a good family get in trouble for wanting to give joy to his wife.”

  Sure.

  He’d thanked the man and had promised to pass the hello on to his father.

  A girl. They’d adopted a girl.

  But if what he suspected were true, they were going to have hell on their hands.

  “You think it’s her, don’t you?” Rori asked, coming out to stand beside him.

  He shrugged and took a drink of the coffee that was too bitter for his liking. It worked though.

  “Possibly.”

  “You know we could just sneak in, take the kid and bring it back here.”

  He had no idea what it said that he’d actually first thought the same thing—but that family. He understood the DeSaros. There was no way they’d just give up a child, any more than a Kinncaid would.

  “Can’t do that.” He turned and sat in an iron chair. “You know that.”

  “Why the bloody hell not?” she asked, coming to sit on his lap. The courtyard was cool and chilly this morning with a hint of snow on the air.

  “Because when little nameless Kinncaid comes home, I’m not leaving any legal loopholes for anyone to take her away again. I don’t think her parents would deal well in that case. And, the DeSaros are a family not unlike our own, love, and if someone were to try and take any of our kids away, especially from either you or me after we’d adopted them . . .”

  A fire flickered in her green eyes. “They might think they’d gotten away with it, but I’d hunt them down and more than likely kill them. Slowly.”

  He cupped her jaw and kissed her. “I’d love to, you’d want to, but with the heat that could bring down . . . we probably wouldn’t.” Damn, he was getting soft, wasn’t he? Shaking off the absurd thought, he continued, “The point is that we will need all evidence before they will willingly hand over that little girl, and even then, I highly doubt it’ll be willingly.”

  He bit down and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “A quarter of a million and change more than likely.”

  She took his coffee and sipped, grimaced. “Piss off, that’s foul.”

  He grinned. “Yes, darling, I know, which is why I didn’t offer you a drink as usual.”

  She thought for a minute. “A quarter mil and change off this baby. And I’d stake my rep there are more. Many more. They’ve done this before. So . . . where are the others? She’d have died easily if she hadn’t gotten away. And why they let her get away is beyond me. I mean if it were me, I’d have killed her and gotten rid of the body.”

  “I believe they meant to. Fate, God himself, helped her get away.”

  “I always figured God’s too busy, He sends angels. When He thinks about it.”

  He stopped his train of thought. Hers was so . . . unlike her. “You think God’s too . . . Angels?”

  “You know, like guardian. Patron saints and all that stuff.”

  A grin pulled at his mouth. “I thought you didn’t believe in all that stuff?”

  She shrugged. “Mum and Da—with my brothers, you know, they sent us to a school. And mass and all that. But after, back in the system, it strips the belief away. It was only after that that I didn’t. ’Course Nikko’s Catholic and a firm believer, so he was rather strict on some things, lax on others. Me, I saw too much to really believe for a long time.”

  “Didn’t believe or still don’t?”

  She just looked at him and then shrugged. “Things have changed a lot since . . .”

  “Since?”

  “Since I watched you rescue a little girl from hell.”

  He cocked a brow, could feel her muscles tensing as they did when she was uncomfortable. He’d let it go. “Angels, huh? Well, fine, with some people I can see where it’s the only explanation. Though it’s more than likely, with Ella, they just thought she was too weak and didn’t bother to restrain her again. Or they thought she was already close enough they cut the zip ties. If they had to do stuff with the baby and the mother died . . . that could have made things harder. Who knows the whys. Angels are as good an explanation as any.” His contrary wife believed in guardian angels. He smiled. “Whichever. She’s alive and they found the house, got all the info from it they could. She doesn’t remember much, has no idea how far she wandered. At least she hasn’t said thus far, maybe no one’s told her.”

  “You pushed her really hard. I seriously thought Quinlan was going to go around with you.”

  “Might let him yet. He’s got too much anger to focus effectively,” he said, sliding her off his lap and standing. He supposed he ought to apologize. Again. Quin might not get it, but in Ian’s experience, it was easier to be mad and productive than to wallow and wilt and hope for production. On the other hand, too much anger made you too rash. Quin’s anger burned hot, bright.

  Ella’s.

  Ella’s anger he could use. And he would. Hers was beyond hot. Beyond burning. Hers was ice cold. That type he knew and understood all too well.

  He’d seen the difference in her when she’d come back into the living room.

  Sighing, he sto
od and said, “I should go talk to him.”

  “I doubt he wants to talk to you.”

  “Yes, but he has to.” His phone rang. Aiden. “What?”

  “Thought you’d want to know. Mom and Dad are on their way.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where are you?”

  “Out getting a bite to eat at this little hole-in-the-wall place. Huevos and pollo verde enchiladas or something. Great food. We’ll have to eat here some other time. Two blocks west of the hotel. Maria’s is the name of the joint.”

  He checked his watch. “When will they be here?”

  “Not sure. Gavin just phoned and then Bray phoned and then Jesslyn. Anyway, Mom and Pops are on their way. If you’re there, tell Quin and I guess Ella.”

  “Will do.”

  He hung up and looked at the woman who’d stolen his heart, a heart he’d thought dead and buried in more ways than one.

  “Who’s coming?” she asked him, tilting her head and stretching.

  “Mom and Pops.”

  “Ian, I want to go home. I know you might need me here and I’ll stay if you want me to, but I miss the kids and I don’t like leaving them this long.”

  He didn’t either, truth be known. His kids were safe though; his brother’s family, not so much. He couldn’t just go home . . .

  “I’m not asking you to come with me,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I would stay with you, but I know our daughter. She’ll worry herself sick and into not eating if both of us are gone any longer. We’ve been gone days already. And Sebella mentioned the boys having nightmares.”

  He knew she was right. Didn’t stop him from wishing she could stay. “I wish I could go with you.”

  “But you can’t, so suck it up, bring her home to her parents and then come home yourself. Besides, I’ve a feeling it won’t be much longer. Itchy near the end, you know?”

  He nodded. “I love you. Thanks for going to check the adoption place out with me. And the apartment in the middle of the night. That was fun.”

  “You too. And of course I went with you. People like us have to play some or we get rusty, and if we get rusty—”