“Such as?”
She blushed, recalling the satisfaction he’d given her the night before. Pretending nonchalance, she leaned over the banister and peered through the open door of the family room. Amanda was sleeping peacefully in her playpen, nestled against a stuffed bunny.
Devon advanced up the stairs with her back to him. “Let’s see,” she said, beginning to tick items on her fingertips. “You’re very good at lifting and toting heavy loads, sawing, hammering and nailing”
He stopped beside her on the second floor, reached for the handle that lowered the attic stairs and flashed her a grin. “I’m good at nailing?”
She ignored his leer and climbed toward the attic, talking over her shoulder. “But I’ve forgotten to mention your greatest talent.”
At the head of the attic stairs, he reached up and yanked the cord on the exposed lightbulb, flooding the dusty room with dim light. “I was beginning to think you didn’t appreciate me. What have you recognized as my greatest skill?”
She crossed her arms and considered him with her most serious expression. “After a great deal of thought, I must admit it’s the way you—”
“Yes?” He moved toward her with his eyes glowing dangerously.
“The way you handle a paintbrush.” She stepped behind Auilt Bessie’s dress form to avoid his grasp.
He reached behind the buxom shape and pulled her toward him. “A paintbrush, eh? Now you’re giving me ideas.”
She swallowed hard at his innuendo and pointed beneath the rafters. “There they are, the boxes marked Xmas.”
“We’ll save the paintbrushes for another time,” he said with a mocking sigh. He turned toward the boxes she’d indicated and arched his eyebrows over disbelieving eyes. “There’re nine of them.”
She ignored her pounding heart and shrugged. “Christmas in this house is serious business.”
“Then we’d better get started.” He handed her the smallest box, then tucked one under each of his arms and sidled down the attic stairs.
After three more trips, all nine boxes were stacked in the living room, ready to be unpacked.
“You have enough stuff here to decorate three houses,” he observed. “Where do you expect to put it all?”
“Most of it goes on the tree. The tree!” she said with a sense of rising alarm. “ Where are we going to find a Christmas tree this time of year?”
He hauled her into his arms. “To prove to you I’m more than just a bundle of muscles, I’m about to dazzle you with my amazing network of friends.”
She studied the cherished angles of his face as she leaned back in his arms and joined in the play. “I think I can take it. Dazzle me.”
“My old high school pal, Duane Thomas, owns a farm outside of Brooksville that includes a few acres of Florida pines. We can drive up there this morning and cut one.”
“That’ll be fun,” she said. “Amanda loves to ride. Maybe it will take her mind off her teething.”
Amanda. Suddenly, the dread she’d experienced earlier at the sight of the green Buick surged back, and a cold premonition of disaster trickled down her spine.
“I’d better check on Amanda,” she said. “She’s been awfully quiet.”
Propelled by fear, she raced to the family room and the playpen.
Her scream reverberated through the old Victorian. “She’s gone. Amanda’s gone!”
Chapter Twelve
Be prepared for the fact that the pain your child will bring you is proportional to the joy. The more you love your baby, the greater your distress if your child is injured or ill, but at such times, you must remain calm and think clearly for your baby’s sake.
Amanda Donovan, Bringing Up Baby
Tears clung to Devon’s long lashes and stained her pale cheeks as she mumbled incoherently in her sleep and thrashed her head against the pillow. Colin hoped she wouldn’t awaken soon from the first rest she’d had in two days. He removed an afghan from the back of the sofa, adjusted the living room blinds against the late-afternoon sun and tiptoed quietly from the room.
His father and Betsy looked up from the table in the breakfast nook when Colin entered the family room.
“Is she asleep?” his father asked.
Colin nodded, trying to ignore the bone-wracking fatigue seeping through his body. He’d had only a couple hours sleep himself since Amanda had disappeared, and he was running now on caffeine and rage. He filled a mug with coffee and joined them at the table.
“Poor Devon.” Betsy, who looked more like his mother with every passing year, patted his arm as his mother used to. “She’s hardly slept at all—and neither have you. It’s been two days and still no word.”
Colin combed his fingers through his hair and rolled his head from side to side in an attempt to ease the tension in his shoulders. It seemed like two years, not two days, since he’d heard Devon’s scream and rushed into the family room to find Amanda’s playpen empty and the back door banging in the breeze.
“Any ransom request yet?” Betsy asked.
“No,” Colin said. “No note or phone call.”
The baby’s laughing face, her big dark eyes, chubby cheeks and one-toothed grin filled his mind and twisted his heart with searing pain.
She’d been gone two days—and the more time that passed, the worse the prospects of ever seeing her alive, according to FBI special agent Stephen Wilcox, who’d set up shop in the dining room to monitor all incoming calls.
As if on cue, Wilcox, a slender young man in a suit and starched shirt, appeared in the doorway.
“Join us.” Betsy waved him toward a seat at the table. “I’ll pour you some coffee.”
“Anything new?” Colin asked as he passed Wilcox the sugar bowl.
Wilcox accepted a mug of steaming coffee with a grateful smile and stirred in two heaping spoons of sugar. “’Just got a call from our office in Kansas City. They’ve tracked down Ernest Potts and his wife.”
“And?” Mike leaned forward, his blue eyes blazing.
“He owns a green Buick,” Wilcox said.
Mike slapped the tabletop with his palm. “Then he’s the one. For two cents, I’d bash his ugly face.”
“Easy, Dad. Remember your heart.” Colin recalled rushing out the back door when Devon discovered Amanda missing, but had found no sign of the child or the green Buick parked down the block earlier.
“Potts and his wife,” Wilcox continued, “claim they haven’t left Missouri during the past week. They were supercooperative, even insisted the agents search their house.”
“Did they?” Colin asked.
“Yep.” Wilcox drained his cup and set it aside. “They came up with nada.”
Colin’s heart ached for tiny Amanda and for Devon, prostrate with grief. “What now?”
Wilcox glanced toward the living room and lowered his voice. “I won’t lie to you. The more time passes, the less the chance we’ll find the baby—alive.”
With a fist to her lips, Betsy stifled a sob.
“We’re doing all we can.” Taking his coffee cup, Wilcox rose to his feet. “I’d better get back to the phones.”
Mike, looking gray and haggard, watched him go. “We’re going to need a miracle to find that little sweetheart.”
A miracle. An idea exploded in Colin’s mind. “Dad, you’re a genius.”
His father threw him a puzzled look, and Betsy studied him through tear-glazed eyes, while Colin rummaged in the drawer beneath the telephone for the phone book, flipped it open and located the number for the Courier.
“What are you up to?” his father demanded.
“I’m asking for a media miracle.” Colin punched the newspaper’s number into the phone. “I’m calling Jake Blalock, Devon’s former editor. If we can get Amanda’s photograph in every newspaper in the country, maybe some reader will call in with a lead.”
Betsy shook her head. “I don’t mean to sound jaded, but children disappear every day all over the country. You’ll be lucky to ge
t a small write-up in the local paper—and maybe sooner or later a picture on a milk carton.”
Colin covered the mouthpiece and grinned at his sister. “You forget that Amanda is the daughter of nationally syndicated baby expert, Amanda Donovan, whose column is carried by over four hundred newspapers in major cities all over the United States. If her baby is missing, that’s major news for every one of those papers.”
Mike rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It’s a long shot.”
Colin’s grin faded. “It’s the only shot we have.”
COLIN SAT IN THE DARKNESS, staring at the silhouette of the sofa where Devon was sleeping. Betsy and his father had gone home to supper an hour ago, and Wilcox dozed by the extension phone in the dining room.
“What time is it?” Devon’s voice, hoarse with tears, broke through the darkness.
He reached beside him and clicked on a table lamp that flooded the room with soft light. “Eight o’clock. Are you hungry?”
She shook her head, and her face took on a pinched expression that told him she was trying hard not to cry.
“You need to eat, to keep up your strength.” He wanted to take her in his arms, make the burt go away, and see her hazel eyes sparkle with laughter once again. Silently, he cursed his helplessness. “Mrs. Kaplan brought some homemade soup. Let me heat you some.”
“I couldn’t swallow.” She glanced at the closed pocket doors of the dining room across the hall. “Has Wilcox—”
“Not a word—except that Potts is in Missouri, and Amanda isn’t with him.” He levered himself from his chair, crossed the room and sat beside her. He wanted to console her, to draw her into his embrace and share her hurt, but every muscle of her body, taut with grief, repelled his touch. He attempted to reassure her. “We may hear something soon. I talked with Jake Blalock, and he’s sending the story and Amanda’s picture to the wire services.”
A glimmer of hope flickered across her face. “Surely someone’s seen her. She couldn’t have just vanished from the face of the earth.” Horror replaced hope. “Unless—”
“We’ll find her.” He sounded more confident than he felt. “And she’ll be fine.”
“I never thought a house could feel so empty.” She surveyed the room with a blank, forlorn stare. “She never made much noise—except when she needed changing or feeding, but the whole house echoes with silence now, as if she’s filled it to the top with her presence.”
He pulled her against his chest and stroked her hair, letting her talk, hoping words would ease her agony.
“I find myself listening for her babbling on the monitor.” She nestled closer in his embrace, and he sensed a slight lessening of the tension in her body. “I look to her playpen or her crib, anticipating how her face lights up when she sees me. Every move I make draws my thoughts to her.”
He pressed his lips against the smooth skin of her forehead. “That’s because you love her.”
She drew away and considered him, her eyes swimming with tears. “You’re right. I never realized how much until now.”
He stood and pulled her to her feet. “You haven’t been out of the house in two days. Let’s go get something to eat, even if it’s only takeout to bring back with us.”
She shook her head slowly, as if the simple movement was too much effort. “I have to stay here in case someone calls.”
He observed her with a mixture of admiration and pain. “If I call Betsy to come answer the phone…”
Her head snapped up and her eyes lost their dull glaze. “If Potts isn’t the one who took Amanda, it has to be someone in the city. Ask Betsy to stay here while you and I search for the green Buick.”
He hadn’t the heart to remind her the police and FBI had been canvassing the city for the past two days. The important thing was to get her out of the house, cajole her into eating something and possibly take her mind off Amanda’s absence for a few minutes.
“I’ll make a deal,” he offered. “You eat something, and I’ll drive you wherever you want to go.”
She set her mouth in a tight line, but her lower lip trembled. Inwardly, he raged against his uselessness, his inability to staunch her pain, to rescue Amanda, to protect the two he loved like his own family.
At first, he’d doubted her love for the child and pegged Devon as just another selfish woman like Felicia. Why had it taken a tragedy to convince him otherwise? All the love he had to give wouldn’t be enough to ease her heartache if Amanda was never found. But he could try. As he observed Devon’s suffering, he was prepared to risk his own life if only she could be happy again.
He gave himself a mental shake to rid himself of his Irish fatalism. The best he could do was help Devon search for Amanda, because they couldn’t live with themselves if they didn’t do everything possible to recover the child.
After Betsy and his father returned to man the telephone with Wilcox, Colin wrapped a sweater around Devon’s shoulders and walked her to his truck.
At the drive-in, she declined a sandwich, but he persuaded her to try a chocolate shake, which she sipped as they drove through the nearly deserted streets.
“We’ll start on the beach,” he suggested, “and check the motel parking lots. Will you recognize the car if you see it?”
She nodded. “It’s etched in my mind. I keep seeing it over and over, along with Amanda’s empty playpen.”
He cruised from one motel lot to another, easing slowly down each block so Devon could examine every parked car. They had about as much chance of finding the car as locating the proverbial needle in the haystack, but the process of searching had brought Devon out of her escalating depression. If he had to drive all night to keep her busy and her spirits up, he’d do it.
When their survey of the beach motels produced no results, he turned back toward the mainland.
“Where to now?” he asked.
She cradled her head in her hands as if her slender neck was too tired to support it. “I don’t know. What kind of neighborhood does a kidnapper live in?”
He wanted to take her home and put her to bed where she belonged, but he knew she’d fight him. Better to keep her occupied until they heard something. “Maybe we should begin at the north end of town, near your house, then work south.”
They scoured every block in her neighborhood, examined every parted car and every driveway before moving on to the next subdivision.
A little after midnight by the dashboard clock, she grabbed his arm. “Stop! I see it!”
He slammed on the brakes. “Where?”
“Back up. The driveway on the right.”
He shifted into reverse and eased down the empty street. The dark hulk of an older-model Buick sat in the driveway of the house Devon indicated.
“That’s it. That’s the model.” Her voice trembled with excitement and hope.
But when he turned into the driveway behind the car, his headlights illuminated the Buick’s black paint.
“It looked green in the dark.” Devon choked back a sob.
He backed onto the street, pulled the truck against the curb and reached over to massage the back of her neck. “You’re all done in. Want to call it a night?”
She shook her head so fiercely she broke his hold on her. “I’ll sleep when Amanda’s found and not before.”
“You’re the boss.” He switched on the radio to an easy-listening station, pressed the accelerator and resumed their search.
They had just picked up coffee at a McDonald’s drive-through when the radio announcer began the hourly news broadcast. “The baby daughter of Amanda Donovan, nationally known child-care expert, was kidnapped two days ago from her home in the Tampa Bay area.”
The newscaster continued with a description of Amanda and a number to call with information.
Devon’s hands shook until her coffee sloshed onto her jeans. “The station must have taken the story off the wire services. Jake did as he promised.”
“That’s good. Now maybe the FBI will pick up some leads.�
�
“Or the kidnapper will feel threatened and—”
“Stop it!” he lashed at her. “We’re going to find Amanda and she’s going to be fine.”
“Do you really think so?” She turned toward him, and the sorrow in her eyes made him want to scream in frustration.
“Damn right. No doubt about it,” he lied.
She attempted a brave smile that stabbed through him like a blade. “The sooner we get back to our search, the sooner we’ll find her.”
For another hour, they combed the streets while the city slept. They passed three green-and-white city police cars, a couple of winos huddled in an office doorway, a street sweeper with its lights flashing, several stray cats and an old man walking his dog. If the green Buick had been in town, it seemed to have vanished into thin air.
“Even if the car’s still here, it could be parked in a garage,” Colin said. “You need some rest. We can start again at first light.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “We have to keep searching. We don’t have a minute to waste—”
She went rigid with fright when his cell phone rang.
He flipped it open, never taking his eyes from her terrified gaze. When the call ended, he made a quick U-turn in the middle of the deserted street.
“We’re going home.” He reached across the wide seat and grasped her shoulder. “They’ve found her, and she’s okay.”
Chapter Thirteen
Being a mother demands unselfishness. Your child relies on you completely for his or her safety and well-being, and often you must give up what you want most to fulfill your obligation to your baby’s security and happiness.
Amanda Donovan, Bringing Up Baby
Devon drew a blanket over Amanda, sleeping peacefully in her portable crib, sucking her thumb.
Guilt welled within her afresh, bubbling over and searing her with the reminder that Amanda wouldn’t have been kidnapped if Devon hadn’t been flirting with Colin in the attic. She’d proved herself to be the ultimate incompetent mother, one who’d allowed her child to be snatched from beneath her nose, not once, but three times.
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