by Maggie Price
“That depends on what Grace and I find out today. I’m just not sure.”
“Let’s try to squeeze in time to grab a beer while you’re here.”
“You’re on,” Mark said, then watched Bran head out of the kitchen. He looked back at Grace. The shadow that had crossed her face had settled in her eyes. “I get the distinct impression you’re worried about your brother.”
“I am. He and Tory split up before Thanksgiving. Bran puts up a good front, but inside he isn’t handling things too well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Bran sent me an e-mail to let me know he’d remarried.” Mark paused, thinking about Bran’s shy, unassuming first wife who’d died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. “Is Tory anything like Patience?”
“The exact opposite. Which I suspect is one of the problems with the marriage.” Grace picked up a dish towel, laid it back down. “Bran rented this god-awful apartment. Has electric-blue paint on the walls, green wall-to-wall shag and day-glo orange countertops. He wakes up in that place with a hangover, the glare will kill him. The only furniture he has is a bed, a ratty recliner and a TV.”
“Maybe he’s hoping it’s all temporary. That he and Tory will get back together soon.”
“That’s what we’re all hoping.” Grace raised a shoulder. “I keep an eye on him, try to make sure he eats right, but it’s a losing battle.”
Mark rested his forearms on the counter. “I see you’re still looking out for everyone.”
Her mouth tightened as she stared at the door through which Bran had disappeared. “Not the easiest thing to do when you’re dealing with a man who’s a blockhead.” She pulled a mug out of one of the cabinets, then looked back at Mark. “Coffee?”
“Actually, I’m more into tea these days,” he said as he reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat.
“Tea?” Grace stared at the teabag now dangling from a string clenched between his fingers as if it were an alien life form. “This coming from the man I’ve seen consume a gallon of task-force coffee without a wince.”
“I’ve turned over a new leaf. If you could nuke some water, I’d appreciate it.”
“No problem.” In minutes his tea sat steeping in front of him.
Grace refilled her coffee mug. “In addition to the cinnamon rolls, we’ve got croissants and poppy-seed muffins.”
“All baked by Morgan, I suppose.”
“Correct.” Grace carried her mug around the island and slid onto the stool beside his. “I’m going to miss her when she gets married and moves out.”
“When’s the big event?”
“Valentine’s Day. She’s marrying Alex Blade. Do you know him?”
“Blade.” Mark sipped his tea while reaching into his memory. “When I worked here, he teamed up on a couple of undercover assignments with Sara Rackowitz, one of our female agents.” Mark paused, his mouth curving. “Are you sure Morgan’s old enough to get married? Last time I saw her, she had just gotten her driver’s license. She had a mouthful of braces.”
Grace’s eyes met his over the rim of her mug. “You’ve been gone a long time, Mark.”
“True.” So long that he couldn’t remember anymore what it felt like to go into the same office each day. Sleep in the same bed every night. He took another sip of the tea that was touted to be mild on the stomach, all the time wishing it were coffee.
Leaning in, Grace pinched an anemic-looking leaf off the otherwise thriving poinsettia.
Watching her, Mark felt memories flood over him. At the beginning of their affair, Grace had visited his apartment and been appalled at its bare-bones look. Since he spent most of his time at the office, he’d rented only the basic amount of furniture needed for one person who was rarely home. It sure as hell had never occurred to him to add accessories. Before long, Grace had brought over scented candles, woven throws and colorful pillows. Several potted plants from the landscape business her mother owned had soon followed. He could picture her in that apartment now, clipping leaves off those plants. For the first time, he understood that Grace had created a nest of contentment for him. The only one he’d ever had.
When she shifted back on her stool, the movement sent her light, subtle scent drifting over Mark like a gentle stroke of hands. Soothing. Inviting. He closed his eyes for an instant, wishing he could lose himself in that scent. In that soft voice. In the woman.
“So, Agent Santini, ready to tell me about the case we’ll be working?”
“Ready.” He could wish for a hell of a lot of things, he thought as he opened the cover on the file folder he’d brought with him. Problem was, he’d learned a long time ago that wishes were futile. “Does the name Landon Grayson ring a bell?”
Grace’s brows shot up. “Slightly. He’s only about the most powerful man in the U.S. Senate.”
“The most powerful. Which is why I’m here. The Bureau’s annual budget is at Grayson’s mercy.”
“What would law enforcement be without politics?” Grace asked dryly. She paused. “How is he involved in this case?”
Mark flipped up a page in the file. “Grayson’s daughter died here not long after she’d given birth at a state-run medical clinic. She apparently died of complications associated with the birth.”
Grace narrowed her eyes. “If she wasn’t a victim of a violent crime, why are you here? Why not use an agent from the local office if Grayson wants the death looked into by the FBI?”
“The Bureau did that to begin with.” Mark took a minute to decide the best way to explain things. “I need to back up and walk you through this from the beginning.”
“All right.”
“From all accounts, Grayson’s daughter, Andrea, was a headstrong and stubborn kid. One who apparently gave new meaning to the word rebel. She and the senator never got along.”
“What about her mother?”
“Died when Andrea was an infant. Over the years Andrea ran off a couple of times. The cops always found her and brought her home. By the time she was fifteen she’d figured out how not to get caught. She had a fake ID made in the name of A’lynn Jackson, her mother’s maiden name. The next time Andrea and the senator fought, she walked out of the house and vanished.”
“How long ago was that?”
“About three years.”
“And now she’s dead.”
Nodding, Mark pulled a photo from the file of a smiling girl, full of eager youth. Andrea had a pretty face framed by long auburn hair, and a tall well-shaped build. “This is the most recent picture the senator had of Andrea, taken just before she left home the last time.”
Grace studied the photo. “She looks a lot older than fifteen.”
“She drifted around the country, using her mature looks and the above-average singing voice she inherited from her mother to score gigs with bands in country-western bars. If anyone questioned her age, she had the fake ID that upped her age to legal. She also worked as a waitress in those bars, and gave dance lessons.”
“Did she have any contact with her father during that time?”
“Twice. Right after Andrea left home, Grayson hired a private investigator to find her. Somehow the P.I. figured out she was using her mother’s maiden name, and he picked up her trail in Kansas City. The report in the file doesn’t say how, but Andrea got wind the guy worked for the senator. She called Daddy, told him if he didn’t call off his P.I. she’d disappear from his life forever and never have anything to do with him.”
“I take it the senator is the one who backed down?”
“Yes. Andrea was his only child, and he blamed himself for her rebellious streak.”
“Why?”
“When his wife died, the senator dealt with his grief by burying himself in his work. He hired a series of nannies to raise Andrea.”
“So she basically lost both her mother and father at the same time.”
“That’s the size of it,” Mark agreed. “Fast forward to a month ago. The senator returned from an overseas trip to find a
message from Andrea on his private answering machine. She acknowledged they’d had their differences and a lot of what she called ‘bad stuff’ had happened between them. Said she wanted to call a truce, then added she was pregnant and due any day. After asking if she could bring her baby home, she assured her father she would call back in two days to find out his answer.” Mark took a sip of tea. “Apparently being pregnant changed the way she looked at things.”
“Knowing a baby is on the way can do that.”
Mark glanced up. Grace’s voice had gone soft, taking on an almost elusive sadness. As had her dark eyes. “Something wrong?”
Her eyes cleared as she handed the photo back to him. “Nothing more than the fact that a young girl is dead. In the message, did Andrea say where she was?”
“No, but Grayson got the number off his phone’s caller ID. She didn’t call back when she said she would, so he contacted the Bureau’s assistant director and asked for help in finding out where she’d called from. The number checked to a place called Usher House in Oklahoma City.”
“I know it well.” Grace sat her coffee mug aside. “A woman named Millie Usher established the shelter about five years ago for homeless, pregnant girls. I’ve dealt with several runaway juvies who’ve stayed there.”
“The home is church funded, right?”
“Right, but Millie opens the door to girls from all faiths. Her rules are simple—no drugs, no alcohol, no men allowed.” Grace propped an elbow on the counter. “I take it that’s where the agent from the Bureau’s local office comes in? He went to Usher House to see if Andrea was still there?”
“Yes. The agent didn’t find a record of Andrea Grayson. But when he showed her picture around, several people identified her as A’lynn Jackson and said she’d lived there a short time. When our agent asked about the baby’s father, two girls staying at Usher House told him Andrea didn’t know the guy’s name. Just that he was some trucker passing through the city.” Mark flipped through a few pages in the file. “Millie Usher claimed that when Andrea showed up, she told Millie she had decided to give up her baby for adoption. Andrea’s decision on that was so firm, she’d already had someone at the clinic help her fill out the paperwork to legalize things.”
“She had an ID under a fake name showing she was of legal age,” Grace said. “She probably claimed she had no next of kin and signed an affidavit swearing she didn’t know the identity of the baby’s father.”
“All correct,” Mark said. “Which, according to Oklahoma’s parental consent laws, cleared the way for the state to handle the child’s adoption.”
Grace frowned. “But between the time Andrea arrived at Usher House and when she called her father, she’d changed her mind about giving up her baby.”
“That’s the logical assumption.”
“Did your agent find out what changed her mind?”
“No. Not long after Andrea phoned her father, she showed up at the clinic in labor. According to our agent, she didn’t tell anyone she’d decided to keep the child. Andrea gave birth a couple hours later to a healthy girl, then began hemorrhaging and died of the sudden blood loss.”
“What happened to the baby?”
“Per the papers Andrea had previously signed, the infant was turned over to Loving Arms Adoptions, one of the agencies that has a contract with the state. Since A’lynn Jackson had failed to give the clinic the name and contact information for a next of kin, her body was donated to the state medical school’s cadaver program.”
Grace winced. “How did the senator take that news?”
“Reportedly with a lot of anger fueled by his grief.”
“I can imagine.” Grace pursed her mouth. “So how did Agent Santini wind up with this case in his lap?”
“Through no doing of my own,” Mark returned dryly. “Grayson knew my name because I testified before a committee he chairs. He demanded the assistant director assign me to secure the release of his daughter’s body and investigate the legalities of the adoption.”
“He wants to raise his granddaughter?”
“Yes.” Mark sent Grace a sardonic look. “Probably hoping to make up to Andrea for the crummy job he did with her.”
“You don’t think he’s sincere?”
“Maybe he never laid a hand on Andrea, but he kept his distance for years. Abused her emotionally. That can do as much harm as repeated beatings. The damage just doesn’t show on the outside. Who’s to say he won’t treat his granddaughter the same way?”
Without warning, Mark felt an old hurt and vicious bitterness close in on him. He tightened his grip on the mug. He made a point to keep what happened to him as a child where it belonged—in the past. Always the past. That those old emotions had just risen to the surface left him feeling exposed, a sensation totally foreign to him.
“Mark, did you know Andrea Grayson?”
He looked up to find Grace’s eyes probing his face. She was the only person with whom he’d ever been tempted to share the details of his past. It was just as well that he’d held back. They were colleagues now, with only their jobs in common.
“No, I never met her,” he said evenly. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you sound like there’s something personal about this case.”
His jaw tightened. “I always take it personal when a young person dies. Andrea is dead, and try as he might, the senator can’t take a step back and make things right.” Mark rubbed the back of his neck in an attempt to ease the tension that had settled there. “What Grayson can do is get strings pulled and red tape cut on his behalf. Which is where I come in. And why I spent most of yesterday getting a court order for the release of his daughter’s body from the medical school’s cadaver program.”
“I hope for everyone’s sake you managed to do that.”
“Yes. The med students are out for the holidays, so the body is in the same shape now as it was when the school received it. Grayson had a private plane pick up Andrea’s body last night and fly it to D.C. Since she died with one of the clinic’s doctors in attendance, no autopsy was required. The senator wants to make sure he’s being told the truth about her death, so he hired a private company to perform an autopsy.”
“If there is something suspicious about the death, the fact the body’s already embalmed won’t help.”
Mark nodded. “I understand they’ll have to compare samples of clean embalming fluids with that in the body. Check to see if any foreign elements or compounds are present.” He glanced at the clock over the stove. “The autopsy should just now be getting underway.”
“I take it you and I will be serving the subpoena you mentioned yesterday to Loving Arms Adoptions so we can try to find Andrea’s baby?”
“That’s first on our list.”
“Suppose the autopsy doesn’t turn up anything nefarious? If the adoption records are sealed by the court, they won’t be available to us, despite your subpoena.”
“True, and it’s possible we’ll run into that kind of road block. But it’s also possible the adoption isn’t finalized and Loving Arms isn’t yet under any order by the court. If that’s the case, our subpoena requires them to let us see the records they have on Andrea Grayson’s daughter. If the infant is still under the agency’s care, the senator can send a pack of lawyers to get his granddaughter turned over to him.”
Grace stood, walked around the island and dumped the remainder of her coffee in the sink. Turning, she shook back her hair.
The gesture was so familiar that Mark felt his throat close. A picture rose inside his head of her lying in his bed, her body slick with sweat from their lovemaking, her warm, silky legs tangled with his. They had shared some light comment that had prompted her to prop herself up on one elbow and smile down at him with a smugness that mirrored the same sated contentment he’d felt. Then she’d laughed and shaken back all that glorious hair. He’d slid his fingers into the dark fall, tumbled her onto her back and lost himself in her again.
“So,” Gr
ace began, “if everything goes smooth, your work here might not take long.”
He kept his eyes steady on hers, fighting back both the vision and the erotic sweep of memories that accompanied it. He had been with other women since her, but the relationships had been scattershot with no emotional bonds forged. No other woman had brought him the same sense of completeness as Grace. Had never even gotten close.
“Right,” he agreed, shifting gears smoothly even as remnants of an age-old need clawed in his stomach. “With luck, we could have everything tied up fast.”
He noted her fingers fisting against her thighs, then flexing. “And then you’ll be gone.”
“That’s my plan.”
“Well, Santini, you always did have a plan. And the willpower to stick to it.”
“Things work better that way, McCall.”
“Don’t I know it,” she agreed as she turned and flipped off the light over the sink.
He rose off the stool. “Ready to serve that subpoena?”
“I’ll get my purse and coat, then meet you at the front door.”
“Fine.” Standing there with warm, homey scents hanging in the air, Mark watched her go. As he listened to her footsteps tap against the hallway’s wooden floor, he realized he still wanted her. Mindlessly.
Which was his tough luck.
Chapter 3
Grace didn’t want to think about how natural it had felt to have Mark Santini in her kitchen again. Of how just sitting on the stool beside his had seemed so achingly familiar. Of how empty she’d felt when he acknowledged he would leave.
Again.
Of course Mark would leave. That was what he did. He jumped from city to city, case to case, then he moved on.
She had spent most of the previous night tossing and turning, reminding herself of his gypsy lifestyle. Reminding herself that no matter where he was, Special Agent Santini was on the road to somewhere else. His whereabouts were at the whim of the FBI, and that’s the way he liked things.
Now, as she walked beside him through fluffy, spiraling snowflakes toward the building that housed Loving Arms Adoptions, Grace shoved her gloved hands into the pockets of her coat, then fisted them. She was not going to do this again. Not going to let her crazy hormonal reaction to this hotshot cop with a killer face and fancy suits guide her like she had six years ago. She was smarter, wiser and had received enough hard knocks to know she couldn’t have everything she wanted.
