by Julie Miller
“I knew that murderer was nothin’ but trouble.” Stinky Pete added his own whine. “He’s been a liability from day one.”
“I’d be careful tossing around words like murderer.” The boss was mad—way beyond mad. Katie could tell because his voice had dropped in volume and he was articulating like nobody’s business. “You’re telling me this maiden aunt shot and killed a convicted murderer who broke into her house?”
“Why not? You’ve seen how much trouble the niece is. She had to get that from somewhere. If Auntie Em knows where the baby is, we’re gonna have to find another way to get to her.”
“That’s right, boss. There’s just too much bad blood between Rinaldi and these women. When things get personal like that, it’s bad for business.”
“I’ll tell you what’s bad for business. Expecting you morons to carry out simple instructions. Now instead of Rinaldi bringing us the baby and taking the heat, I have nothing to show for it. Nothing!” The boss’s voice carried clearly through the walls of the clinic. “I am not losing a quarter of a million dollars because of those two women. If I have to contact her myself, I will.”
“But you said we couldn’t afford any direct—”
The voices were arguing next door. In the clinic’s posh office. Katie remembered that now. There was the office, the hidden room behind the janitor’s closet, where she was kept, the nursery and then Whitney’s room.
The elephant sitting on Katie’s head had taken a vacation for a few hours, leaving her more alert and able to think than she’d been for a couple of weeks. Or however long she’d been kept prisoner in this state-of-the-art hellhole.
A snippet of memory flashed through her brain. The boss had wanted her awake enough to understand the threat that had come to visit her. Daddy. A free man. Walking around the city in spite of what he’d done to her mother.
The memory wasn’t a pleasant one. After her protests had fallen on unsympathetic ears, the midwife had given her a shot of something to counteract the sedatives in her system, leaving her flying high enough to transform Joe Rinaldi’s appearance into a surrealistic nightmare. He knew where Aunt Maddie lived, he’d said. If she wasn’t a good little girl and told him what she’d done with Tyler, then Aunt Maddie would have to pay the consequences.
But Katie had lied. She’d given her son to Whitney, she’d said. To replace the daughter the clinic had stolen from her. What Whitney had done with the child was anyone’s guess. She and Whitney had been found together, hitching a ride to Truman Medical Center because her friend was bleeding internally again. But there was no baby. And Whitney was too ill to answer questions.
The lie had fooled her father. Had fooled the boss. There was no reason to hurt Aunt Maddie—she didn’t know where the baby was, and Katie had told them all she knew.
She reached down and stroked her shrinking abdomen. Tyler was safe with Mr. Powers, wasn’t he? Unfortunately, alertness allowed her to feel the fear again, too.
Katie rolled over in bed and took stock of her surroundings in the dim light, fighting to recall more of the past few days of her life.
She was ravenously hungry but didn’t feel ill beyond the lingering disorientation. She traced the line of her IV up to the bag of fluids hanging beside the bed and wondered what all the chemical symbols meant. Maybe they were feeding her that way. Certainly, they were keeping her hydrated.
They.
A remembered feeling of dread shivered across her skin. Fitz and Morales. The hulkster and Stinky Pete. Her keepers. The men who’d captured her and Whitney on their way to find a real hospital and dragged them back here to the boss. That was the three of them now, arguing behind closed doors.
Katie pushed herself up to a sitting position, but it wasn’t easy. By the time she’d rediscovered the plastic cuffs that bound her wrists together and the throbbing inside her head had receded to a dull headache, the argument had faded into a conversation that she could only catch snatches of.
“Rinaldi was a loose cannon from day one.”
“He diverted the cops’ attention away from us, didn’t he?”
“For a few hours. Do you think he tipped the aunt about us before she shot him? I say we cut our losses and move on.”
“I say when we move on. And any losses will be cut directly from your share of the profits.”
Katie frowned. Did she understand them right? Her father had gone after Aunt Maddie? Joe was dead? She felt no remorse. She felt no sense of relief, either.
“That ain’t fair. We’re the ones doing all the dirty work while you prance around makin’ nice with folks.”
“I’m crying. Now go back there and get me some answers. If you have to, bring the aunt here. That’ll make the girl talk.”
Katie’s own rusty voice scratched through her throat. “No.”
They knew about Maddie and where she lived. These men were as great a threat as her father. Katie plucked the IV from her arm and dropped her legs over the side of the bed. She needed to find a way to call Maddie. To warn her. If it wasn’t already too late.
Katie swayed on her feet when they hit the icy floor and took her weight. She grabbed the steel guardrail on the bed and held on until she could stand on her own. Once the room stopped spinning, she stumbled toward the door. There was no reason to lock it. With Fitz and Morales on patrol, they assumed she had nowhere to go.
She opened the door into the black hole of the janitor’s closet. Here, the pungent odors of ammonia and pinescented cleaner bit through her sinuses and cleared away the last of the leaden cobwebs in her head.
With her outstretched hands leading the way, she found the outer door and turned the knob. The bright light from the hallway burned through her retinas and she drew back inside. She reached inside her collar for the comfort of her mother’s ring and nearly cried out when she remembered it was gone. Daddy had it. According to his twisted way of thinking, if it had belonged to her mother, it belonged to him.
But Katie had learned some of Maddie’s practical ways. A ring she could live without. Her son and her aunt she could not.
Moving at a slower pace, Katie let her eyes adjust to a crack of light and listened for signs that someone might be approaching. But other than the boss barking orders to Fitz and Morales, no one was around.
Using the same blend of caution and daring that had helped her escape the first time, Katie slipped out and tiptoed down the hall. She couldn’t resist stopping a moment to look through the glass windows of the nursery. There were no babies inside, but two plastic bassinets had been prepared to receive a boy and a girl. Her initial excitement at the prospect of welcoming two new babies into the world was quickly tempered by the lies she knew the expectant mothers had been told. Here’s a lot of money. Give us your baby and we’ll send him or her to a nice home with a loving family.
They left out the part about not being able to change your mind. About never being able to have contact with your child, even when he or she turned eighteen. They preyed on the desperation of women with too little money or too much shame, said nothing about the whole process being illegal or that you could be charged with a crime for taking part.
They neglected to say that to keep you from breathing a word they’d fry your brain with drugs. And if you were still tempted to talk, then they would use more permanent means to silence you.
Whitney had changed her mind. Fearing her family’s reaction to becoming a criminal on top of being pregnant, she’d turned to her friend for help. Katie, knowing the precious gift of having someone to depend on no matter what, had been there for her.
Katie had come to Whitney’s aid. Now she had to help her aunt.
Steeling her resolve to find a phone if she couldn’t get out of the building, Katie crept down the hallway. When she came to Whitney’s room, she had to find out if her friend was okay.
She slipped inside the dimly-lit room. “Hey, Whit. You awake?”
A fluorescent light over the bed clicked on. Katie shielded her eyes and squinted into
the brightness.
“Who are you?”
Forcing her eyes to focus, Katie looked across the room at a pregnant girl with long blond hair. Katie shrank back against the door. This wasn’t right. Did she have the wrong room? “Where’s Whitney?”
The blond girl stuffed pillows behind her back and sat up. “My name’s April. I don’t know any Whitney.”
Katie searched for a second bed, a hidden door, anything to help this make sense. But her head was clear. She knew what she was doing. She hadn’t made a mistake. “This is her room.”
“I’ve been in this room for two weeks.”
That meant… Katie lifted her hands in a beseeching position and charged the bed. “Are you sure it’s been two weeks?”
April flinched and reached for something beside her in the bed. “Yes.”
“You haven’t changed rooms?”
“No.”
Katie saw it now. April had pressed the call button to summon help to the room. “Don’t do that.” She reached across the bed to snatch the button from April’s hand.
April covered her swollen belly in a protective gesture. Her eyes were riveted on the plastic bands around Katie’s wrists. “Is there a crazy wing in this place?”
Katie shook her head. Tears stung her eyes. Whitney was gone. She hadn’t saved anyone, after all. Tyler. Maddie. She’d endangered them all. For nothing. “These people aren’t who they say. You’re in danger here.”
“They’re going to help me have my baby. I can’t afford it on my own.”
“No. They’ll destroy you. They destroyed my friend.” She pulled back April’s covers. “You have to come with me.”
April snatched them back. “No, I don’t.”
“Please.”
“Get out of here.” She pushed the call button again.
“You’re making a mistake. A huge mistake.” Katie backed toward the door. They were coming. She had to get to a phone. She had to escape.
With the whole idea of stealth blown by April’s panic, Katie swung open the door and ran into the hall.
“There she is!”
She didn’t get far before a rough set of hands wrapped around her from behind and picked her clear off the floor. “No!”
Katie screamed and kicked. But the foul odor of stale breath laughed in her ear. “Damn, you’re a lot of trouble, girl. Give us the boy and I’ll put us both out of our misery.”
“Get the box,” the boss ordered. “Sedate her while I calm this one down.”
“Right.” Fitz grabbed her flailing legs and helped Morales wrestle her to the floor.
“No! You can’t do this! You killed Whitney!”
She got a glimpse of the boss in the bright light of the hallway before the tip of the needle pricked her arm. He looked about as normal and unassuming as a man could be. His refined clean-cut image didn’t jibe with the ruthless orders or the lack of conscience in his eyes.
As her arms and legs started to numb and her brain began to fog over, she thought of how her father had had the same kind of eyes. “You were supposed to help me. I trusted you.”
The man squatted down beside her. “That’s the whole idea.”
MADDIE PACED HER ROOM at three in the morning, unable to relax. She’d fed Tyler an hour ago and had rocked him to sleep. She was weary to the bone. The nerves that Dwight had praised were fried. The storm had passed and they had survived.
Joe Rinaldi was dead. Shot by an unknown suspect driving away in a black Impala.
She should be feeling relief. Instead, she was plagued by the notion that the real nightmare was just beginning. Had Joe been nothing more than a dangerous diversion to keep the police from focusing on the bigger picture? Had they aided his escape so that he could wield his personalized brand of terror against Maddie—or Katie herself—in a desperate effort to retrieve what they wanted most.
Tyler.
How could one precious life be the cause of so much pain and death?
“You couldn’t sleep, either?”
Maddie caught her breath in a slight start at the low-pitched rumble of Dwight’s voice behind her. She hugged her arms around her middle, self-consciously aware that she wore the old gown he’d asked her to keep covered up. She reached for the robe he’d loaned her, slipped it on over her shoulders and cinched it around her waist.
Her breath caught again, deeper this time, when she turned to face him. He filled her doorway, wearing nothing but blue pajama pants and the gauze bandage that wrapped the twenty-three stitches along his right forearm.
“I’m sorry if we woke you,” she apologized.
“You didn’t. Seems we both have a lot on our minds.” He invited himself in a couple of steps, and the muted light from the lamp beside her bed caught in the golden shimmer of his hair and beard stubble, emphasizing the purple shiner beneath his left eye. He inclined his head toward the bassinet without drawing any closer. “Everything all right?”
“Dr. Grant in the ER said he was fine. She said you needed your rest.”
“Actually, she recommended I stay the night for observation.” A deep sigh lifted his chest. “I needed to be here.”
“Joe could have killed you.” Maddie had never appreciated timing the way she had when she saw Dwight breaking down her front door. She’d been crippled by anger and grief at the thought of Joe walking out of the house with Tyler. Her pleas had been useless, her threats ineffective. She couldn’t outfight or outwit her ex-brother-in-law. But Dwight had stopped him.
“He could have killed you, too.”
An awkward silence left Maddie fidgeting on her feet and suddenly sensitive to the temperature rising in the room. She stared at the center of Dwight’s broad chest, wishing she could be closer yet seriously afraid of just how close she wanted to get.
Dwight’s deep sigh broke the quiet and whispered across her skin. “You don’t believe those things Rinaldi said about you, do you?”
“What things? Oh.” Maddie flushed with embarrassment and turned away. “I’ve gotten used to his insults over the years.” Tonight, she’d barely heard the snide innuendos, she’d been so focused on getting Tyler back and keeping Dwight alive. But she was the plain McCallister. The plump one. The one men asked out so they could get to her sister. Just like Joe had. “Karen was a beautiful woman.”
“You’re a beautiful woman.”
“Trust me. I pale by comparison.”
“The man had a twisted mind.” Dwight’s voice drifted closer. “He couldn’t see the beauty in any woman. He couldn’t appreciate your glorious red hair or smooth, milky skin. He sure as hell never looked below the surface to see the fire inside you.”
Maddie tried to laugh off this miserable effort at sweet talk. “C’mon, Dwight. I rely on you to always tell me the truth. That’s one of the things I like best about you.”
“You do believe him.” He sounded disappointed.
“I’m just being a realist.”
His hands closed over her shoulders and his breath brushed against her ear before he whispered, “I have never lied to you. I will never lie to you. If I can’t promise anything else, I promise that.”
The vow in his voice seeped into her bones and tempted that shy, fragile confidence buried inside her. She turned to gauge the sincerity in his eyes. “Don’t try to flatter me, okay? Or make up for anything Joe might have said. I’ve had too many secrets and false hopes in my life to deal with. I don’t need any more from you.”
Dwight held up his right hand. “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”
She couldn’t help but grin. “That’s quite the cliché, counselor.”
“You’re quite the woman. I had to make it good.” His gaze left hers and glanced at Tyler. “If we leave the doors open, will he be all right in here?”
Not the question she’d expected. “I think so.”
Dwight took her by the hand and led her into the hallway. She wasn’t naive enough to question
where they were going, but she was having a hard time understanding why they were heading to his bedroom. True, there was an undeniable heat simmering between them. But tonight, they’d cheated death. Dwight needed his rest.
And she was, well, she wasn’t what a man like Dwight really wanted, was she?
Still, the words to argue her point stuck in her throat. He tucked his fingers inside the knot of the robe and untied it. His gaze went to the shadowy gap as it fell open. “Dwight, I—”
“Shh.” Dipping his hands beneath the collar, he slid the thick terry cloth off her shoulders, caressing her skin with its rough texture. The robe caught in the crook of her elbows and his hands lingered there.
Maddie squeezed her eyes shut as he looked his fill at the translucent white cotton and whatever extra curves were revealed underneath. Without seeing it, she felt his scrutiny like a gentle, insistent touch. Her nipples hardened and shamelessly thrust against the soft material. She felt the usual embarrassment and something less familiar, more hopeful, engorging her breasts, warming her skin, rising along her neck.
She sucked in a heated breath as Dwight’s cool hand splayed across her chest. Two fingertips soothed the throbbing pulse at the base of her neck while the heel of his palm rode the top swell of her breast.
Opening her eyes, she saw his hooded gaze taking in every stuttered breath, every turn of color, every heated response—every detail.
“What are you doing to me?” she whispered through parched lips, echoing the same question he’d asked her last night.
He blinked and his storm-colored eyes were focused on hers. “Understand this.” His voice was as hushed and still as the night around them. “Any man who doesn’t see what I see is an idiot.”
“Don’t do this. Please don’t say anything to spoil—”
He pressed a finger to her lips to silence her. “The way you respond to a look or a touch is pretty heady stuff. Makes a man feel like he might not be so far over the hill as he thought.” Three more fingers followed the first, brushing across her mouth in a callused stroke that made her want to open her lips and catch a finger between them. A lazy smile spread across his face. “Yeah. Just like that.”
