Turning to Jake, Kit chimed in, “If you’ve gained five pounds, it’s because you’ve parked yourself on your butt all day playing guard dog. I’ll be ready to head out in about ten minutes.” She grinned just before she gave him a mouthy kiss back.
To Baylee and Gloria, she explained, “Even if he is five pounds heavier, I have my own personal security detail right here. And you wouldn’t believe all the cool perks.” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down before adding, “I’m so glad we all got together yesterday. It was like old times, but not. Better.”
Baylee agreed, “Thanks for a lovely day. I had a blast. And I love your house. Does this mean you’ll be moving out of Gloria’s house soon? Did Gloria mention I have dibs on that, by the way? I’ve decided to rent your house from Gloria.”
“You have? You’ll be living here in San Madrid? That’s wonderful, we’ll be neighbors.” But all of a sudden she looked thoughtful. She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I can’t explain it, but I just feel like those Boyds are up to something. I just know it. You be careful. Don’t let your guard down for a second.”
“Dylan sees to that. You should see him looking around to see if we’re being followed like one of those TV characters on one of those cop shows.”
“That sounds like the way Jake is now.”
Kit turned around to start bagging the inventory of baked goods into food containers for transport to the store and saw a sleepy-eyed Dylan standing in the doorway looking a bit perturbed. “Hey, Dylan, we were just talking about you.”
He headed for the coffee pot. “So I heard. I’m a regular Magnum PI.”
Baylee laughed at his cranky mood. Then right in front of everyone in the kitchen, including her baby daughter, she walked over, tiptoed up to his chin, and gave him a quick kiss on his troubled mouth. “And we just love that about you.”
Her bold demeanor had his lips curving. “As I remember it, that Magnum guy always did get the women.”
As soon as Jake got to the back door of the Book & Bean, he knew someone had been inside. The jimmied lock was a dead giveaway. When Kit started to rush inside, he grabbed her arm. “Wait a damn minute. Let me check the place out first.” He didn’t have a clue what he might find inside, but he wanted Kit to stay out here while he did.
“No way. We go in together or not at all. Do you think Collin did that? Or am I just being paranoid?”
Jake had no idea. It might have been nothing more than a couple of kids breaking in over the Memorial weekend just for kicks. But he wasn’t taking any chances, not when Collin was out there somewhere lurking, waiting. “I suppose asking you nicely to wait out here isn’t going to fly.” When he saw the stubborn lock of her jaw, he got his answer. He decided it was too early in the morning to argue. Cautiously, they both made their way inside. “The least you could do is stay behind me. Got it?”
“Yes, I’ve got it,” she said, looking around anxiously.
“It’s a good thing we’re both morning people, because right now you are really irritating.”
“Right back at you.”
Nothing seemed out of place in the bookstore, so they proceeded into the coffee shop. Jake wasn’t surprised when he saw two customers he recognized as regulars standing patiently outside on the sidewalk waiting for Kit to open the doors. Nothing unusual about that. But at the moment he had other things on his mind than opening the damned shop. One slip up and Collin could be waiting to pounce. Jake wasn’t about to be taken by surprise again.
Nothing looked out of place, as if the store had been robbed.
“What the hell? Look at that. Woman Rising is gone. Why would anyone steal a painting?”
Jake glanced up. Sure enough, the wall looked naked without the thirty-by-thirty-six canvas. “Didn’t you say a couple of weeks back you had a customer come in interested in buying it?”
“Looks like he came back,” Kit said, as she walked over to the counter, spotted a stack of bills on top of a note.
Jake picked up the money, started counting the wad of cash. “Two-thousand bucks. Looks like you made a sale and didn’t even know it.”
Kit turned the note around without actually picking it up. Printed in block letters it read: Sorry about the lock but at least the place didn’t explode. Check your e-mail—again.
“Explode? What does that mean? Should we call the police?”
“I think I get it now. But I’ll know for sure after I check my e-mail.”
Kit gave him a curious look. “What are you talking about? Does this e-mail have anything to do with what you refused to talk to me about on Saturday?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, but it’s time I read this e-mail. And Jake, because I love you, you don’t get any more free passes.”
“I should have known,” he told her later after he’d had a chance to read his e-mail. The latest, also sent anonymously, had arrived at five-fifty-six a.m. that morning and claimed that a hit man named Uri Jankovic, hired by the Boyds, had planted an explosive device timed to blow up the Book & Bean with them inside at eight-thirty that morning. “This same guy has to be the one who sent me that bogus e-mail about Connor. I almost fell for it.”
“Wait. What makes you think he isn’t on the level?” Kit countered.
“Then again he could be a sick bastard harboring a forty-year-old grudge. He’s probably just messing with us.”
“Why claim to save us, unless…”
“Unless what?”
Kit looked pensive, then preoccupied. After several long seconds, she tapped the computer screen and declared, “He’s the one who rescued me. That night at the warehouse.”
There was a certainty in her voice that sent the hairs on the back of Jake’s neck standing at full attention. This was beginning to sound similar to the conversation he’d had last night with Dylan about Baylee’s mother. No wonder Reese had been adamant about keeping it real.
“Kit, that’s a helluva leap.” But even as he questioned it, even as the words slipped past his lips, he somehow knew her conclusion made sense.
“No, he’s the one who took the painting and the one who rescued me. It’s the same guy. I know what he looks like.”
Jake didn’t like the sound of that. A man who’d killed as many people as this guy had would never leave anyone around to ID him later.
But Kit shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“I doubt that.”
“No, you’re thinking I’m in danger now that I know what he looks like. But he rescued me from Collin. There must be a way to prove it.” She started to pace, to think. “Can you send a reply to the e-mail?”
“I’ve tried, but it bounces back every time. I’ve tried tracing the source, but the source is blocked.” At that very moment, Jake’s e-mail account dinged, signaling another e-mail in his inbox. They stared at each other for two seconds before Jake glanced at the sender. He sat up straighter in the chair when he saw that, it too, read Anonymous. The subject line read simply, Hello. Jake double-clicked the subject line and read:
Look in the commercial fridge. No, don’t be scared. It’s okay. Just look inside.
Jake checked his watch since the e-mail had suggested what was supposed to happen if Jankovic had his way at eight-thirty a.m. It was now seven-ten. He looked over at the woman he loved and made his decision. “You need to get out of here. Now. Go down the block as far away as you can and wait for me there.”
“Are you nuts? You think I don’t know what you’re planning to do? I’m not leaving you alone in here.”
“You’re the one that’s nuts, you know that. We could both be toast.”
“For the second time, I might add. I’m not leaving. I think it’ll be okay.”
“If that’s intuition talking, I hope to hell you’re as right as you’ve been so far.”
“It’ll be okay. Let’s do it.”
And they did.
They ventured over to check the fridge out together, throwing open the door together. Th
ey both spotted it at the same time. A gold cowboy the size of a toy soldier stood prominently on top of a squatty carton of organic half-and-half.
CHAPTER 16 Book 2
At the doctor’s office, Baylee and Dylan stood next to the examining table like two anxious parents, watching with eagle-eyed interest as gray-haired Dr. Newman, the pediatrician, stretched Sarah out to measure her from head to foot. He measured the circumference of her head, then her chest. When he was finished, he made some notes in her chart, comparing her height to the weight the nurse had written down earlier. “I see she’s gained almost two pounds. That’s good, looks like she’s topping the scales now at fourteen pounds,” Dr. Newman reported to an elated Dylan.
“She’s got a good appetite,” Dylan commented. “How tall is she?”
“Looks like twenty-five inches, which makes her fall into the seventy-fifth percentile range.” Over his glasses he looked at Dylan, anticipating his next question. “That’s normal,” Dr. Newman added before Dylan could ask. “Is she sleeping through the night?”
“It’s about fifty-fifty,” Dylan answered eagerly. “Last night she did, but she was worn out from the picnic.”
“Introducing a little baby cereal might help her sleep longer. She’s breastfed, right?” The doctor didn’t wait for a response. Instead he began thumbing through Sarah’s chart until he found what he was looking for. “Try mixing the cereal with a little breast milk; make it watery at first and then gradually increase the consistency. The cereal will provide her with the iron she needs too. Wouldn’t hurt her to get a little vitamin D with the cereal.” Dr. Newman made more notes in the baby’s chart and took out his stethoscope, listening to her heart before moving around to her back. “Lungs are clear. She’s sitting up, I take it.”
Once again, the answer came from Dylan. “She sure is. And she rolls over too.”
Baylee thought it sounded as if he were talking about a dog. But he looked so thrilled to be here, so excited to participate in this visit, she didn’t have the heart to dampen his spirits with criticism. Instead, she enjoyed watching his reactions to everything that came out of the doctor’s mouth as if hanging on to the doctor’s every word Dylan could pick up some new and interesting tidbit about Sarah’s development.
After feeling around Sarah’s head, Dr. Newman said with certainty, “Soft spot in the back is closed up. The one on top’s gotten smaller. That’s good.” He stuck a tongue depressor in her mouth. After looking around inside, he announced, “Two teeth. That’s a good start. Is she reaching for things?”
“All the time,” Dylan snapped out before Baylee had a chance to say a word.
“I see here it’s time for her six month round of shots.”
Dylan’s face blanched. “A shot? She has to have a shot?” He looked accusingly at Baylee and grumbled, “You didn’t say anything about her having to get a shot.” He turned to Dr. Newman, pleading his case. “She’s just a little baby. She isn’t even sick. Why does she have to have a shot?” Without any more thought, Dylan promptly reached down and snatched Sarah up off the exam table in a purely protective gesture.
Baylee listened while Dr. Newman ticked off a list of diseases a mile long which the shot protected against and the importance of keeping Sarah from getting any of them.
When Dr. Newman left the room, Dylan grunted, “I don’t like this.”
“Frankly, I don’t either. I think we should make a run for it.”
Dylan’s eyes narrowed. “You’re making jokes? This is serious. They’re about to stick this baby with a needle and you’re making jokes. I don’t believe how calm you are about this.”
“Dylan. The first time she got her shot, I was right there with you. I researched the vaccines over the Internet and was so scared she’d have a seizure or some serious reaction that I almost didn’t go through with it. And seeing that needle go in to her little leg when she was just two months old hurt me almost as much as it did her. Immunization shots are part of being a parent. What if she was exposed to influenza or hepatitis?”
“Seizures?” Dylan’s face went white at the knowledge. “God, there’s a lot to this. What did you do?”
“Sat up with her that night; gave her baby Tylenol, tried to make her more comfortable, and watched her like a hawk to make sure her fever didn’t go too high and that she breathed normally. I’ll tell you right now she’ll likely run a fever tonight and be fussy.”
“Well, that just isn’t right.”
“I agree. But the alternative is to put her at risk for all those diseases Dr. Newman mentioned. Do you want her to get sick?”
“Of course not.” But he didn’t want to see that needle go into her leg either. He didn’t even want to consider the idea of seizures. “Let’s think about this. Let me run out to the car, get my laptop, do a little more research on these vaccines, make sure they’re safe before they stick her with that needle.”
When the door opened and a middle-aged nurse walked in carrying a tray with a needle along with some oral medication, Dylan visibly winced and handed the baby to Baylee. “If you’re set on going through with this, I can’t watch.”
“What do we have here, a nervous daddy?” the nurse scoffed, as she approached the baby, trying to get her to open her mouth so she could pour in some vile, red-looking stuff. Dylan glanced at the needle on the tray and made up his mind. While the nurse kept trying to get Sarah to open her mouth, he gathered up the diaper bag and infant carrier and stormed out of the room.
Later, when they got down to the first floor, Dylan steered them around the corner. Surprised at the direction he’d taken, Baylee wanted to know, “Where are we going?”
“There’s a lab right around the corner of the building. If Sarah can suffer getting jabbed with a needle, so can I.” And with that they walked into the lab to get the blood test he had promised.
While they waited in the reception area for Dylan to get his blood drawn, Baylee’s cell phone rang. She glanced cautiously at caller ID. Relieved to see the call came from her father’s number, she pushed the button. It was Tanya.
“Baylee. Hi. I thought you might want to know your dad is having an awfully bad day. He’s been asking for you.” And that was putting it mildly, she thought. The man had been ranting and raving since five that morning, mumbling something about Sarah. Tanya couldn’t tell if he were talking about his ex-wife or his granddaughter.
“I can be there in thirty minutes. How bad is he?”
“Out of his head mostly. Talking crazy if you ask me.”
They talked a few more minutes, Tanya assuring her that he would be fine until she got there. When Dylan came out of the back with a Band-Aid taped to his arm, she ended the call.
“How’d it go?”
“No problem.” He reached to pick up Sarah. “How’s Gidget here doing?”
“She’s fine. Just so you know, I put off giving her the second round of shots until you felt more comfortable with the idea.”
Unbelievably touched, he turned to stare at her. There was nothing she could have done that said she respected his opinion more, even if he had acted a little over the top.
“I might have overreacted.”
“You think?”
“I’m new at this, okay. Be patient with me.”
“I’m trying. After you’ve done your research, after you’ve weighed the benefits versus all the risks, we’ll have time to make an appointment, bring her in next week to the doctor’s office and get the boosters she needs.”
“You don’t think I’m out of line?”
“I think you’re concerned. Getting babies immunized against a lot of nasty diseases is necessary and beneficial, but it’s also a serious decision to make. And you’re entitled to own that concern, know the risks. I think after your research, you’ll come to the same conclusion I did that she should get the shots. But I want you to have that opportunity to judge for yourself.”
“Baylee, I think that’s the nicest way anyone’s ever shown
how much they value my opinion, especially something this serious. I’ll get online when we get back and find out everything I can. When she got the first shots, did she get sick?”
“That night she ran a fever, it stayed around one-hundred degrees. She was a little lethargic and her leg swelled up some, stayed that way for about twenty-four hours. But the day after that the fever subsided and she seemed fine.”
“I just don’t want to do anything that hurts her or makes her sick.”
Baylee smiled. “I know. And that is one of the nicest things you could do for me.”
He threw his arm around her shoulders in a companionable way. “Who was on the phone?”
“Dad’s having a bad day. I think we should drop by while we’re out.”
“Good idea. Let’s get out of this place.”
William Scott was indeed having a bad day. As soon as he spotted Baylee standing at the foot of his bed, his rambling escalated, and the man’s words inexplicably became meaner. “Who asked you to come? Why won’t you leave me in peace? You always make me feel bad, guilty. I didn’t do a damn thing. Why is it every time I look at you I feel guilty for all those things I did wrong? I can’t help what I did. I can’t change what I did. I can’t go back and make it right. Do you hear? I can’t do it.”
“Daddy, it’s okay. Stop. Hush.” Baylee thought he was talking about all the times he’d hit her, but then his comments grew nastier.
“Don’t tell me what to do, Baylee Diane. You’re just like your mother, just like Sarah. Sarah tried to tell me what to do. But she couldn’t control me. I did what I wanted, marriage or not. Do you hear me? She couldn’t stop me and you can’t either.”
Strangely, big tears formed in his eyes, he started to cry. “I didn’t listen. I made a mistake, that’s all. I can’t change it, can’t go back and make it right. It’s too late, been too late for over twenty years.”
“What are you talking about?”
But as quickly as the tears formed, he turned nasty again. “Don’t question me. You’ve no right to question me. Just leave me alone, why don’t you? I don’t want to talk about it. It’s over, done with; there’s nothing I can do to bring your mother back. I made a mistake, that’s all. I didn’t know it would end like it did. How could I have known? But it’s over. I can’t go back and change the past. Leave me alone, do you hear? Leave me in peace.” William put his hands to his head to cover his ears. “I can’t take the voices. Leave me in peace.”
Evil Secrets Trilogy Boxed Set Page 60
