by Maggie Price
“We think so.”
“How long did the entire project take?”
“A couple of months,” Grace answered. “Granddad and Gran oversaw things. They doled out assignments like they were drill sergeants. Everyone pitched in, carried their weight, except for…”
Mark gave her a puzzled look when her voice trailed off. “Except for?”
“It was right after Ryan died. Then I got sick…the flu.” And with her system so vulnerable, her resistance so weakened, she’d lost their baby, her final physical link with Ryan.
“Grace—”
“Anyway, I love this house,” she said, determined to force back the memories. “So do Carrie and Morgan. Having had the family’s help in breathing life back into the place makes it even more special.”
Her appetite gone, Grace set her bowl aside and squared her shoulders. “Ready to brainstorm our case?”
Mark watched her for a beat, then pushed his bowl out of the way. “Ready,” he said, while opening the file folder. “Here’s what we know so far. Nearly a year ago a fifteen-year-old girl named DeeDee Wyman gave birth to a son. The birth was without complications, the baby healthy. Wyman suddenly began hemorrhaging and died. Six months later, Andrea Grayson walked into the same clinic and became a carbon copy of Wyman, with the exception that she had a different doctor and gave birth to a daughter.”
Grace nodded. “From our checks with all three adoption agencies that have contracts with the clinic, we know none of them handled either infant, although the clinic’s records show differently.”
“Records filled out by Iris Davenport, the nurse in attendance during both births,” Mark added. “Records with the same forged signature of a former child services caseworker.”
“At this point, Iris Davenport—presently in Kansas City taking care of her ill sister—seems to be the solid link between both deaths,” Grace said. “And the two babies who have seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.”
“They’re somewhere,” Mark stated, checking his watch. “The background checks we requested on Davenport and Dr. Odgers should come through on your fax soon. And I ought to hear back anytime from the pathologist with the tox results of Grayson’s autopsy.”
“So we wait.” Grace gathered up their dishes, then headed to the sink. She rinsed the bowls, turned and ran into a wall of solid muscle.
“Sorry,” Mark said, gripping her upper arm to steady her.
“I…didn’t hear you behind me.”
“Just doing my part to help clean up.” He sat the wicker bread basket beside the sink, but made no move to put space between them.
Grace caught the faint whiff of his familiar spicy cologne, and felt her insides tighten. “Always…nice to have a helper in the kitchen,” she managed. Knowing she was between two seemingly immovable forces of granite-topped counter and muscled male had her skin heating.
Mark gazed down at her with concerned intensity. “Grace, I didn’t mean to upset you before. Mentioning the house. Bran told me Morgan and Carrie bought it about the same time Ryan was killed. I just didn’t think before I brought up the subject. I’m sorry.”
“It’s…okay.”
“From the look I saw in your eyes, it clearly isn’t okay. Ryan Fox was a lucky man to have found you.”
“I’m the lucky one,” she said, her voice an unsteady whisper. She had forgotten how easily Mark’s voice could take on that soft intimate tone. They were talking about her husband’s death, yet her blood was heating over her ex-lover’s voice.
The knowledge of how quickly memories of the way she used to feel for Mark consumed her had panic flaring in her stomach. It was almost as if they weren’t memories at all.
That jolting revelation had her taking a step sideways. Then another. Good Lord, what if he touched her? Was she sure—absolutely sure—she could resist him?
His eyes stayed locked with hers. “I’m sure the past three years have been hard for you. There’s nothing more difficult than to lose people you love and need.”
As she stared up at him, it occurred to her she had no idea if he was speaking in generalities or making a personal observation. How could she know? They’d been lovers for months, yet Mark Santini had never opened up enough to tell her about his background. His family. Never once told her how he felt about her. About them.
Which, she conceded, hadn’t mattered at the time. Mark hadn’t needed to tell her anything in order to keep her in his bed.
But now, for some reason she couldn’t explain, it mattered very much.
She wrapped her arms around her waist. “Tell me something, Mark. How do you know losing someone is difficult?”
His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “What?”
“Have you lost someone? Someone you loved and needed? I have to ask, since you’ve never mentioned your family to me. I don’t know anything about you. I never knew anything about you.”
“You’re wrong, Grace. You knew me better than anyone.”
What she knew was that his first and only love was, and always would be, the job. She didn’t bother to point that out. Pointing it out wouldn’t change the past, alter the present or impact the future.
Just then a telephone rang in the distance.
“The fax machine,” Grace said, glancing toward the hallway. “That should be the background information on Odgers and Davenport.” She’d no sooner gotten the words out than Mark’s cell phone chimed.
He unclipped the phone off his belt as Grace headed out of the kitchen into the hallway. She stepped into the small, cozy room she and her sisters had converted into an office. The fax machine was humming, rolling out pages.
When she returned to the kitchen, Mark was still on the phone. She knew instantly from his comments and questions that his caller was the pathologist who’d performed the autopsy on Andrea Grayson. Grace slid onto a stool at the island and separated the pages on Dr. Odgers’s background from those on Iris Davenport. While Grace scanned the info on the nurse, she was aware that Mark’s expression grew grimmer with each passing minute.
When he clicked off the phone, his shoulders were stiff beneath his white dress shirt.
“Bad news?” she asked.
“The pathologist found traces of an anticoagulant drug in tissue samples taken from Andrea Grayson. It wasn’t a fluke she bled to death. Someone wanted her dead.”
“So they could take her baby,” Grace theorized. “Mark, I’ve got a bad feeling DeeDee Wyman was injected with the same drug. Murdered for her child.”
“I’m thinking the same, which solidly makes Davenport our prime suspect since she was present at both births.” Mark moved to peer over her shoulder. “Anything interesting on her?”
“She got a parking-trespass violation for leaving her car in a fire zone.”
“How is that interesting?”
“The address on the citation is Remington Park Racetrack.”
“Okay, so Davenport likes to play the ponies. That takes money.”
Grace continued to scan the pages. “She lied to Dr. Odgers when she told him she’d be in Kansas City taking care of her ill sister. That would be hard to do, since Iris doesn’t have a sister.”
“Did the credit card trace get a hit on where she is?”
“Las Vegas,” Grace answered, thumbing through the pages. “Iris checked into the Gold Palace a couple of days ago. Looks like she’s planning to stay at least another week.”
“The Gold Palace is one of the high-dollar places on the strip. Betting on horses,” Mark murmured. “Casino gambling. All takes money.”
“Interesting that a nurse working at a state-run clinic has the means to fund a ritzy vacation.” Grace continued shuffling the faxed pages. “It’s going to take us time to go through this, but it looks like she was drowning in debt up until about a year ago. Then she came into some money. She took a trip to Tahoe. Stayed at a resort hotel-casino.”
“That was right after DeeDee Wyman died and her baby went missing. Th
en Andrea Grayson dies, her baby disappears, and Nurse Nancy takes another trip to a city where she can gamble.”
Grace looked up. “I imagine we’re thinking the same thing. Davenport kills pregnant runaways no one is likely to miss, then sells their babies to fund those trips.”
Mark settled onto the stool beside Grace’s. “Too bad we can’t prove any of that. Dr. Odgers said all clinic personnel have access to the delivery room. And the newborns.”
“And where the paperwork’s concerned, Davenport can say someone using the name of the former social worker showed up with the right credentials and took each baby. That’s stretching it, but it’ll be up to us to prove otherwise. Right now we can’t.”
“First thing we need to do is find out what happened to DeeDee Wyman,” Mark said. “If her body wasn’t cremated or donated to the cadaver program like Andrea Grayson’s, we’ll need an exhumation order and a fast autopsy. If we get the body, I have a feeling we’ll find traces of the same anticoagulant drug in her.”
“Even if we can’t get Davenport on the murders, she’d be nuts to confess to taking the infants. Each kidnap would be a long-term felony charge. If she keeps her mouth shut, we might never find those babies. Or Davenport’s accomplices, if they exist.”
“You’re right.” Mark pursed his mouth. “So, at this point, we don’t approach Davenport as cops.”
Grace frowned. “Too bad that’s what we are.”
“Davenport doesn’t know that. And it’s the last thing she’d suspect if we meet her by chance in Vegas.”
“In Vegas?” Grace asked carefully. She could almost see Mark’s mind working in the dark depths of his eyes.
“We hook up with Davenport, presenting ourselves as a well-to-do married couple. A couple desperate to have a child.”
Just the thought of parading as Mark’s wife, sharing a hotel room with him, tightened the knots already in Grace’s stomach.
“Aren’t you a little too high profile to work undercover?”
“I’m known in law enforcement circles. But as a precaution, I’ll change my hair color. Make my brows straighter.”
“Since you prefer to work with local law enforcement, maybe you’d better contact the Las Vegas PD,” Grace persisted. “Make arrangements for one of their female cops to work with you while you’re there. Meantime, I can stay here, dig through the background info on Odgers and Davenport.”
“No. If we charge either of them, they’ll be filed on and tried here, the jurisdiction where the crimes were committed.” Mark paused. He might as well have been sitting at a poker table for all Grace could tell from his expression. “You have a problem working with me, say so. I’ll arrange to have another female OCPD cop assigned to the case.”
“I like to finish what I start.” With stubbornness stiffening her neck, Grace stared at the faxed pages. “I want to find those babies. They were kidnapped out of the womb. I want to make sure they’re safe.”
“Then you’ll have to work the case, start to finish. Your choice, Grace. In or out?”
The fist of tension she didn’t want to acknowledge held firm in the pit of her stomach. She had thought she was over him. Over the hurt she had harbored over his keeping a part of his life closed off to her. The way she’d reacted a few minutes ago proved that was still an issue. She hated knowing that, despite the passage of six years, this man could make her feel like a jumbled mess on the inside.
And now she was going to Vegas to parade as his wife!
It was the goal that was important, she reminded herself. Find the babies. She had worked undercover numerous times. It was all pretense. Acting. This assignment would be no different. As long as she kept her mind on the job, the goal, she could handle working with Mark.
Handle it when he walked away.
Again.
“I’m in,” she said quietly.
Chapter 4
Rarely had Mark seen an investigation involving multiple law enforcement agencies, shifts in geographical locations and the planning and financing of an elaborate undercover op move with such smooth swiftness.
He knew the efficient slicing of red tape by all involved parties was not because traces of the same anticoagulant drug discovered in Andrea Grayson’s body had been found in DeeDee Wyman’s hurriedly exhumed remains. Granted, two young women murdered right after giving birth at the same state-run clinic was cause for an intense investigation. As was the fact the infant born to each young woman had seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. Further, the prime suspect was the nurse who assisted in both deliveries. Those basic details, however, were not the reason the case had been tagged a red ball—cop lingo for the homicide of a prominent official or celebrity. This time, one of the victims was the daughter of a rich, powerful man.
Mark could almost feel the strings being pulled all the way from Washington, D.C., by Senator Landon Grayson. His only child had been murdered, his granddaughter kidnapped. Grayson chaired the committee that controlled the Bureau’s funding. Every citizen was deemed to be equal under the law; in truth, though, due process came swifter to the rich and powerful.
Which was why, barely two days after Mark and Grace got their first whiff that their case was a homicide and their prime suspect was in Las Vegas, they were on a plane. A short limo ride later, they checked in to the luxury suite that had been reserved in their undercover names.
Now, standing in the living room of that elegant suite, Mark slipped a folded bill to the bellman who had over-seen the delivery of their luggage.
“Thank you, Mr. Calhoun.” The fifty-something attendant, dressed in the Gold Palace’s spotless amber-colored uniform coat and black trousers, was too experienced to even glance at the bill before pocketing it.
Mark settled his briefcase on an end table polished to a mirrorlike finish. He knew that gamblers on hot streaks gave heart-stopping tips to staff members of the hotels in which they stayed. But the undercover persona the FBI had created for him was not one of a high-rolling risk taker. Anyone running a background check on Mark Calhoun would discover the Houston, Texas, native held major interests in a number of profitable oil and gas companies and the burgeoning field of wind energy production.
Despite his substantial wealth, the fictional Mark Calhoun was not a man who tossed chips into the center of a green felt-covered table, crossed his fingers, then rolled the dice. When he did splurge, it was on homes, vehicles and vacations that provided diversions from the stresses and disappointments of everyday life. This trip was intended to be one of those diversions to help buoy up the fictional Calhouns who had received word that their third attempt at in-vitro fertilization had failed.
“There’s an ice machine in the minibar,” the bellman said, nodding toward the glossy black wet bar on the far side of the suite. “We’ve stocked the refrigerator and cabinets according to the preferences your assistant faxed to our concierge.”
“Good.” In truth, Grace had compiled the list, which, Mark had noted, contained several boxes of the stomach-soothing tea he habitually consumed. Even in undercover mode, she saw to the comfort of those around her.
As if checking for any small detail left undone, the bellman swept his circumspect gaze around the spacious living room done in sapphires and emeralds, accented with mahogany wood and lush arrangements of flowers. “Is there anything else you or Mrs. Calhoun require at the moment?”
“Where is the safe?”
The bellman inclined his head toward the alcove arranged into an office area with a dark wood desk inlaid with intricate marquetry. Behind the desk sat a trim, matching console. “The safe is in the closet beside the console. You create the combination you desire, then clear it on your final use.”
“Fine.” Mark slipped his key card into the inside pocket of his black suit coat. The safe would be used to store his and Grace’s law enforcement credentials and weapons during their stay. As an extra level of security, Mark would attach a small device that required the entering of three separate
combinations before the safe’s door would open.
Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, he glanced sideways as Grace stepped out of the double-wide doors that led to the bedroom.
“Darling,” he said. Sending her a husband’s intimate smile, he extended a hand her way. “Do the other rooms meet with your satisfaction?”
Mark studied Grace as she crossed the ocean of Oriental carpet that separated them. Just as he had done by a subtle change to his hair color and brows, she, too, had altered her appearance. Instead of the sweaters and man-tailored slacks she favored, she now wore a figure-skimming silver silk pantsuit and matching high-heeled boots. Her hair, usually clipped back, hung loose, falling like soft, black rain to her shoulders. She’d shaded her brown eyes with copper highlights that lent them a slightly exotic look and applied a darker blush, emphasizing her fine-boned cheeks. A slick of coral covered her lips, making her mouth look glossy and luminous and far too tempting to a man who knew exactly how that mouth tasted.
A man who was well aware that her new look in no way made her a different person from the woman he’d known so intimately. She had merely transformed herself into a different type of person on the surface.
Just as he had the day he watched her walk into her boss’s office after a separation of six years, Mark felt something stir deep inside him. Something no other woman had ever been able to touch.
Even as her hand slid into his, he reminded himself that, although he and Grace had shared something special, they had chosen to walk away and let it die. The logical part of Mark’s brain theorized that whatever it was that now moved inside him was merely an echo of the searing need and passion he had once felt for Grace.
And regret, he conceded.
How many times over the years had he replayed their relationship in his mind, adjusting the elemental needs and desires they both felt in order to get a different outcome? More times than he would like to admit.
Since it appeared their basic needs had not changed, Mark knew he should have the good sense to leave well enough alone. But at this instant, standing beside her with his hand circling hers and the warmth of her flesh seeping into his, temptation lured him like a seductive smile. And the force of the regret he still carried for what might have been nudged him from behind.
