The Baby Quest

by Pat Warren

  Jack saw it coming, grabbed her arm and did what any sane man would do to stop a woman out of control. He kissed her.

  And not just a simple kiss, either. He used the arm he’d grabbed to pull her across the console and into his arms, his mouth taking hers in a fast and furious kiss, since he was as angry as she. Caught off guard, Rachel let out a small sound of protest, but he ground her mouth with his, wanting to get to her, needing to get her to listen and stop overreacting. His other hand slipped up and into her hair, holding her head firmly in place so his mouth could have free reign.

  Too stunned to have stopped him, too constrained to break free, Rachel tried moving her head to slip out of his hold, but he held her fast. Just when she thought she might be gaining, her traitorous body began to respond despite her best efforts to stay in control. Suddenly the world seemed to recede, to be very far away, to move into a hazy mist.

  She hardly realized when her hands that should have been pushing him away bunched in the soft leather of his jacket and urged him closer, when her mouth softened under his, when her groans of protest became moans of passion. She’d been kissed before, she was certain of it. But not like this. Good Lord, not at all like this.

  He was devouring her, consuming her, exhausting her. And the ridiculous part of it was that she was enjoying every second of it. Until the knocking on the passenger window jolted her out of the sensuous fog.

  Turning, disoriented, Rachel stared out the window, blinking to clear her vision. It took her several moments to make out Sloan Ravencrest’s tall frame. Fumbling, she hit the button to let down the window.

  Looking a shade embarrassed, Sloan held up her leather handbag. “You left this in my office,” he told her as he handed it through the window.

  “Thanks,” Rachel managed to say as she felt her cheeks flame. Whatever must Sloan think of her, necking in the middle of town with a man she’d met only yesterday.

  With a final glance at Jack, Sloan walked back inside.

  Had that been a smirk on Sloan’s face? Rachel wondered as she sank into the deep leather of the seat and groaned out loud. “There goes my reputation in this town, such as it is.”

  Jack saw that his hands were trembling and hurriedly stuffed them in his jacket pockets. When was the last time a woman had made him tremble? He wasn’t certain one ever had.

  He cleared his throat. “Hey, it was just a little kiss. What’s the problem?” Just a little kiss. There was the understatement of the year.

  “You obviously don’t know small towns.”

  “Sloan doesn’t strike me as a gossip. Besides, you’re over the age of consent, and we’re both single. What’s to tell?”

  They apparently lived in different worlds, Rachel decided. Jack thought it perfectly okay to use his connections and computer ability to investigate anyone he wanted to and he saw nothing wrong with necking in broad daylight on a busy public street. He was also the man who’d just turned her mind to mush and her knees to water with just one kiss.

  She finally looked over at him and was pleased to see he looked as shaken as she still felt. “Look, I don’t think this is going to work. We’re on separate wavelengths. Or, as they say today, we’re not on the same page. Why don’t you bill me for your expenses so far and we’ll call it a day?” What in hell she’d do for an encore, Rachel wasn’t sure, but she’d think of something.

  “Oh? So you feel eminently qualified to find out what happened to your sister and her baby on your own now?”

  A bit of the old anger resurfaced. “Why not? She’s my sister.”

  “And because the two of you were so close, you know all her friends, her habits, her likes and dislikes, so you can reconstruct her last few months. Even though you were a thousand miles away and the last time you saw her was—correct me if I’m wrong—a year ago come Christmas. And, of course, you’ve taken into consideration that this person who killed Christina might not want that fact known and if you get too close, he might in fact decide the world would be better off without you, too, right?”

  “Damn you!” Crossing her arms over her chest, she glared straight ahead. “You aren’t the only private investigator, you know.”

  “No, but I am the best.” Gazing in her direction, he flashed her his most charming smile.

  “Don’t think that works with me.”

  “We could try another kiss?”

  She shifted away toward the door. “Back off, bud.” Rachel sighed, feeling weary to the bone. “All right, we’ll try again, mostly because I don’t want to start all over from scratch with some new God’s-gift-to-womankind macho man.”

  “No, honey,” he said, shifting gears, “that was Richard, not me.”

  That arrow hit the mark. Maybe they were all like that, Rachel decided as the Lincoln pulled away from the curb. “And don’t call me honey!”

  Three

  Matt Hanley pumped gas at the Whitehorn Texaco Station on Route 191 on the outskirts of the city. He was tall and thin, with a feathery dark mustache that didn’t go with his dyed-blond hair worn quite long. It was a slow day so he told them he didn’t mind answering questions as he strained the back legs of a rickety chair in the cramped little station and lit a cigarette. Some guy from the sheriff’s department had already been out, Matt told them. He gave Rachel the impression he was still basking in his fifteen minutes of fame.

  He was twenty-one, a year younger than Christina.

  He was number four on their checklist of names.

  Trying to be open-minded and non-judgmental, Rachel stood back and listened as Jack questioned the boy. She couldn’t in all honesty classify him as a man since he looked as if he was just beginning to shave that baby face.

  “We were just friends, you know,” he told Jack, blowing smoke toward the ceiling. “Good friends, if you know what I mean.” He smiled, revealing teeth already tobacco-stained. “Christina liked a good time and so do I. I was real sorry to hear she was dead.” He dragged deeply on his unfiltered cigarette and shot a glance toward Rachel.

  Ducking the smoke, Jack frowned. “Those things’ll kill you,” he commented.

  “Yeah, well, we all gotta go sometime, you know.” Another long drag.

  “When did you last see Christina?” Jack asked, wanting to hurry this up. He was fairly certain this young kid wasn’t a killer.

  Leaning back precariously, Hanley studied the splotchy ceiling, narrowing his brown eyes. “Last spring, we went to a concert in Bozeman. Great weekend.”

  “Why’d you stop seeing her?”

  “I didn’t want to quit, man. But Chris, she liked to play the field. She told me that up front. ‘Course, I see other chicks, too. Gotta kiss a lot of frogs before you find that princess, you know.” Matt grinned at his own garbled joke.

  “I suppose so. Did you ever double-date?”

  “Nah. I got a souped-up Chevy with a big engine. We liked to go up into the mountains in summer, camp out under the stars, you know. Chris was real smart. She could name all them constellations, the Big Dipper, all that.”

  Something else she didn’t know about her sister, Rachel thought even as she wondered how a beautiful girl like Christina could be interested in this punk. So much for not judging.

  “Do you know who else Christina might have been seeing?”

  Matt grunted, then grinned. “Lots of guys. She was a party girl.”

  “Did you know she was pregnant last spring when you went to that concert?”

  The chair slammed down on all fours. “Hey, man, you can’t pin that one on me. No, sir. If she was knocked up, it wasn’t by me. I practice safe sex.” He paused briefly, scratched his head. “She sure didn’t look pregnant.”

  Jack was getting fed up with this little creep. “One last question, do you know of anyone special she might have been seeing on a regular basis, say around last Christmas?”

  “I didn’t keep track of her friends.” Moving from chatty to cool, there was relief in his face when a car drove up. “That’s
it. I gotta get to work.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Jack took Rachel’s elbow, guided her back to the Lincoln and inside. Shutting his door, he let out a frustrated sigh. “I think we can cross him off the list.”

  Rachel stared at the boy pumping gas and flirting with the young girl behind the wheel. “She wasn’t very choosy, was she?”

  They’d already questioned three others. The first had been Terry Harper, a twenty-nine-year-old divorced insurance salesman and father of two who’d been nervously cooperative, claiming he’d been out of town the week of Christina’s disappearance. Next, they’d looked up Rod Calabro, a twenty-four-year-old grocery clerk who fancied himself a top-notch line dancer and said Christina and he used to enter competitions at several area taverns. Though seemingly without ambition, Rod was clean-cut and appeared genuinely sorry about Christina’s untimely death.

  The third man they’d talked with was Jerry Fisher, a lanky itinerant cowboy who’d worked on several of the nearby ranches and was saving to buy his own spread. He’d answered Jack’s questions curtly, his expression impassive. Yet as they were leaving, he confessed that he’d asked Christina to marry him. When Rachel had asked what her sister’s reaction had been, Jerry said she’d told him she’d think about it and walked away. He’d never seen her again.

  “My gut instinct tells me none of these four had anything to do with her death, but I’m going to check out their alibis all the same. And I imagine Sloan is, too.” He turned to study Rachel and saw the sadness on her face. “How do you feel about things so far?”

  “Discouraged, disgusted, depressed.” She brushed back her hair with two hands and sighed. “I wonder what she was looking for, going out with such an assortment of men. No two alike, yet they all seemed fond of her.”

  “Some women take more pleasure in the chase than the catch. Maybe she went after these guys, but grew bored with them the minute they were hooked.”

  “I suppose that’s possible. A woman I work with at Kaleidoscope is something like that. In the three years I’ve known her, I’ll bet she’s told me about a dozen men she was interested in, yet she’s still alone, still on the prowl. It’s hard for me to understand that sort of person.”

  Jack started the car for the heat, but he didn’t drive away just yet. “I think I understand. Christina perhaps was like a lot of men. They enjoy the opposite sex, like to have a good time, but basically they don’t want marriage, a mortgage, kids, all that.”

  Rachel turned to look at him. “Does that describe you?”

  “Probably. Me and thousands of other guys.”

  She shook her head. “I doubt Christina was like that. I think she was searching for something and never found it. Maybe it’s tied in with Dad never being around and Max, so much older, not paying much attention to her. I believe she was looking for someone to love her, someone she could make a home with and a family. I never heard her mention wanting kids, yet she had a child.”

  “Which could have been an accident.”

  “I don’t think so. A woman who’s been with all those men, she knew how to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. I think she fell in love with her baby’s father and something went wrong. If only we could discover who he is. He’s the key.”

  “We will.” He glanced at his watch. “Listen, it’s almost five and we haven’t eaten since breakfast. You want to try the Hip Hop again? My treat.”

  “On the expense account I’m providing, right?”

  “You bet.” He gave her that killer smile and drove away from the service station.

  “It sure gets dark early in winter,” Jack commented, gazing out the picture window of the Hip Hop after finishing a steak sandwich and fries. “Between the darkness and cold weather, didn’t you find it depressing when you lived here?”

  “I used to, but I’m not sure the weather was the cause.” Rachel finished her glass of milk, which she’d ordered because she’d been having stomach pains much of the day. Undoubtedly due to stress, but she didn’t want to add to it by drinking more coffee.

  “You were—what, eighteen?—when you last lived here. What would a beautiful young girl have to be depressed about?” He smiled at her, but his question was serious. Rachel puzzled him and he’d always loved solving puzzles.

  Rachel toyed with her spoon thoughtfully. Beautiful. She’d certainly never thought of herself as beautiful. Christina was beautiful. Had been, she reminded herself.

  “Depression is easy to sink into, if your life isn’t all you wish it to be. A job lost, a relationship turned sour, an indifferent family, the dreariness of the long winter ahead, holidays to be faced alone or with people who don’t care enough.” She’d struggled through it all, both as a teenager in Montana and as a grown woman in Chicago. She’d fought to keep herself from being overcome by those feelings and usually won the battle. But there were times when she’d ached with loneliness, the longing for someone special to love, a family of her own.

  Not for the first time in their short acquaintance, Jack wondered if she knew how much her expressive face revealed of her emotions. Rachel Montgomery was far more complex than she appeared at first meeting. “Are you depressed now?”

  She forced a smile and was about to answer him when the door to the Hip Hop opened and Winona Cobbs blew in with a gust of wind, her billowy dress swirling around her ankles. She nodded to Janie and walked slowly to the far booth she usually occupied. Rachel watched her sit and saw Emma Stover, one of the waitresses, hurry over to take her order.

  Noticing her distraction, Jack glanced over his shoulder. “What is it?”

  “Winona just came in.” She met his eyes. “Listen, I know you’re beyond skeptical about this woman’s visions, but I think we can use any form of help available. I’d like us to go talk with her.”

  “You think she can help find Christina’s baby, don’t you?”

  “And you think I’m crazy for thinking that. Well, maybe she can and maybe she can’t. But I need to try everything available to me.”

  “All right, let’s go.” He scooted out of the booth and followed her over.

  Winona was stirring cream into her coffee as Rachel approached her. Didn’t the woman ever eat solid food? Rachel wondered as she smiled a greeting. “Winona, I’d like you to meet Jack Henderson. He’s a private investigator I’ve hired to try to find my sister’s child. Have you got a minute to talk with us?”

  “Sit, sit.” Winona poured two packets of sugar into her cup, then lifted her bright blue eyes to Jack as the two of them slid into the seat opposite her. “You’re a handsome one, aren’t you?”

  “It’s good to meet you, Ms. Cobbs,” Jack said, thinking formality might throw her off.

  It didn’t. “You like Los Angeles? I think it’s hot and crowded.”

  Someone had told her he lived in L.A., Jack told himself. She surely wasn’t having visions about him. “It’s not hot and crowded here, is it?”

  Growing impatient, Rachel cleared her throat to get Winona’s attention. “Do you have anything more to tell me about Christina, Winona?”

  The old woman’s merry eyes turned sad as she dug around in the carpetbag satchel she carried everywhere with her. It took her some time, but finally she pulled out a scarf with several bright colors blended on the silken fabric. “Do you recognize this?”

  Rachel shook her head. “Should I?”

  “Janie told me that Christina left it behind last summer on one of her visits here.” She fingered the soft material, drawing it through her age-marked hands. She closed her eyes a moment, then looked at Rachel. “I hear Christina weeping every time I touch this.”

  Rachel looked shocked, then blinked back a rush of tears. “Are you sure it’s Christina’s?” she whispered.

  “Yes, very.” Winona held out the scarf. “Would you like to have it?”

  Rachel reached over, took the scarf and smoothed its silken surface. But she heard nothing, felt no vibes whatsoever, not that she’d expected to. “Is that all you can te
ll me?” she asked.

  “Yes, child. I’m sorry.” Winona picked up her cup and sipped.

  There was nothing more to say. Rachel thanked the old woman and they said goodbye. Looking neither to the right nor left, she made her way to the door while Jack paid their check. She stepped out into the brisk evening air and took in a deep breath, willing herself to not cry. It had been a very trying day.

  Jack exited the Hip Hop and hurried over to the Lincoln, where Rachel was standing waiting. “Are you all right?”

  “Terrific.” She waited for him to unlock the doors, then climbed in.

  Jack walked around the hood slowly, wondering whether or not to put any credence in the old woman’s ramblings. He’d never believed in psychics per se, though he supposed there were a few people on the planet that actually could predict things. But for every legitimate one, there were hundreds of fakes. The trouble came in separating them. He knew there were documented cases and many respected people believed in the phenomenon. He just wasn’t one of them. He was the doubting Thomas who needed proof.

  Taking his seat beside her, he saw she looked beat. “What do you say we call it a day?”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Any place you’d like to go, to relax, unwind?”

  Slowly her head turned toward him. “In this town? Let me outline our choices. Other than the Hip Hop, there’s Neela’s, owned by a Cheyenne chef named Neela Tallbear who claims to have been trained in Paris. They specialize in beef—what a surprise—and the place is usually quite crowded, especially on weekends. The third and final one is the Branding Iron where you can eat or drink, play pool or dance, Western style, of course. Any of those appeal to you after the day we’ve had?”

  “Not really, but they do sound interesting, for another night.”

  “Okay, then, home it is. And if you don’t feel like going back to that luxurious suite at the Whitehorn Motel, I can put on a pot of coffee. Or perhaps there’s even some liquor in the house. I can say with some assurance that Daddy Dearest won’t be home. I don’t know where he goes every night—or every day, for that matter—but sometime around midnight, he comes home, goes directly to his room and is gone by early morning. I don’t know if he’s avoiding me because we disagree about hiring you or if this is his routine even when I’m not here.”