The Baby’s Bodyguard

by Alice Sharpe

  “Your mommy is a little clingy,” he told Abby as he made sure he was supporting her head and not smothering her in the blanket. The baby stopped fussing at the sound of his voice, her gaze more or less glued to his face. It seemed she was waiting for something. He sat down on the swing seat and gently got it moving, holding the baby on his lap, one hand supporting the back of her neck, the other under her legs.

  The melody and words of a song he’d heard down in Tierra Montañosa ran through his head. One of the women who cleaned the office had brought a small baby in to work with her sometimes and she’d sung to him as she moved around the place. Until that second, Jack didn’t even know he’d picked up the lyrics. Making sure no one was watching him or listening, he looked right into Abby’s eyes and tried singing.

  “Duerme, niño chiquito,” he crooned, wincing at the sound of his voice. There would be no music awards in his future. “Duerme, mi alma; Duérmete lucerito, De la mañana.”

  Abby didn’t fall asleep, but she did continue staring at him, and for a second, he experienced one of his Zen moments, one of those rod-through-the-head, out-the-feet, right-on-through-to-the-center-of-the-earth moments and he hadn’t even tried to get there.

  “The power of music, huh, Abby?” he said, and damn if it didn’t look to him like she smiled.

  Hannah practically burst through the door looking more harried than she had when she left the porch. Her arms were full of baby stuff and a diaper bag was slung over one shoulder. She looked at the two of them with anxious eyes.

  “It’s okay, she’s fine,” he assured her.

  “THE SAME ROOM?” SHE SAID when he came back to the truck with a single key.

  “The same room,” he insisted. “I’m Abby’s bodyguard, remember? That means I need her close by and you come as part of the package.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Her name is Aubrielle.”

  “I know her name,” he said.

  His tone suggested he would call the baby what he wanted to. It seemed stupid to argue about it because she knew the only reason she cared was because she was feeling territorial. When she’d glanced out the window an hour before and witnessed him singing a Spanish lullaby to her enraptured infant, she’d freaked out.

  “Okay, okay,” she said.

  He started the truck and drove into an underground parking garage. He’d insisted they stay in a place with no exterior door leading to their room and now he informed her they were on the fourth floor so there’d be no surprises through the windows.

  “What did you mean when you said you were glad I was thinking with my gut?” she asked.

  He cast her a quick look, then pulled the truck into an opening close to the elevator. “Because whatever you’re still hiding from me has had you more scared than the very real threats of a person willing to enter your house in the daylight, twice, and the second time take your child. That’s finally changed and that’s because this person finally hit you hard enough to get your gut working. I, for one, am grateful.”

  She shook her head.

  As they packed everything into the elevator and rode up to their floor, she asked him what his plans were.

  “I’m going to go see Fran.”

  “Why? Do you have a buyer for her house?”

  He smiled down at her. “You sound jealous, cariño.”

  “Ha.”

  “After you kicked me out yesterday, I looked her up. When I saw the For Sale sign, I drove back to what passes for a mall around here, bought a suit, got a haircut and made up some business cards. When she returned, I flattered and flirted my way into her house. I lied to her. I ate her food, which was at least not burned, and I laughed at her jokes. I heard about everyone she works with, especially you and David. I think she started the supposed ‘rumor.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if she knows he was Abby’s father.”

  Hannah made a fuss over shifting Aubrielle’s slumbering body in her arms so she wouldn’t be expected to respond.

  “Anyway, tonight I’ll confess all my sins. Women appreciate groveling. Maybe she’ll talk some more.”

  “You said the car park location didn’t necessarily lead things back to her.”

  “I know. But I’d bet a few bucks she knows more than she’s telling. Like that trip she mentioned those four men taking. What was that about? It would have been a perfect opportunity for David to meet with one of them or more and if she was intimate with David, sorry for mentioning that, maybe she knows who. And if we have a who I can get him to open up, so to say, to spill his guts and reveal what’s going on with you and the Staar Foundation—”

  “You’re getting ahead of yourself,” she said softly.

  “I feel as though I’m stuck in quicksand,” he said.

  “Aubrielle and I will go to Fran’s house with you.”

  “No, you won’t. I’ll ask hotel security to keep an eye on the room. You and Abby stay put.”

  “You can’t help yourself, can you? Stop bossing me around. Fran is my friend, I’m going. If she knows something about what’s happening to me, she’s more likely to tell me than you, especially when she figures out you lied to her about being a real estate agent.”

  “You’re the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met,” he said as he unlocked the door.

  The room contained a table and chair in a corner, a dresser and TV and two queen-sized beds that seemed to stretch from wall to wall. They piled all their things on the bed closest to the door. Hannah pulled back the bedspread—everyone knew how seldom they were laundered—and laid the baby on the clean white sheets. When she looked up, Jack was staring at her, his expression so intense she got the feeling the memories of their one night together in a hotel room were running as vividly through his mind as they were hers.

  He put a hand on the bed and pushed gently as though testing the softness of the mattress. The sight of his tan fingers pressing against the crisp white cotton sent a quiver through her core and for a second she was tempted, she was very tempted….

  “Let’s go see Fran,” she said.

  FRAN LIVED ON A CUL-DE-SAC AT the end of a street where half the houses were either empty, for sale or both. Hannah had been there a few times in the past for a party or to give rides when Fran’s car broke down.

  The garage was wide open and her car—a new one, the old wreck had disappeared several months before—was parked inside so at least she was home. They hadn’t called first figuring surprise might be best.

  Aubrielle was still asleep. This time Hannah loosened the car seat from its anchors and carried it with her to the front door. Jack offered to take it from her but she declined. Yes, it was bulky and heavy but the less Jack did with Aubrielle, the better.

  Jack rang the bell and knocked. Then he tried the knob.

  “It’s locked,” he said as it refused to twist.

  “Since she left work so early, maybe she’s working on her garden,” Hannah volunteered.

  “In this weather?” Jack said as he zipped his leather jacket. “She told me she was leaving for an appointment. She didn’t say anything about gardening.”

  “You have a better idea?”

  They moved around the south side of the house and through the gate. There was no sign of Fran or any indication she’d done any gardening that day. A peek through the sliding glass door revealed an orderly dining room and kitchen. Jack tried that door as well and she wondered if he planned on entering the house. “Locked,” he said.

  Back in front, they passed the open garage. Maybe Fran had exited through the garage door to take a walk, but it seemed odd not to lock up behind her with the neighborhood so empty and the garage filled with tempting things. Plus the weather was still drippy and gray.

  “There’s a door into the house at the back of the garage,” Jack said peering inside.

  “It enters into her laundry room,” Hannah murmured.

  He stepped into the heavy shadows of the garage and Hannah followed. She’d gone no farther than Fran’s rear bumper when
the hairs rose on the back of her neck. She couldn’t see anything amiss, but on some sensory level, she felt something was wrong.

  “Jack, I have a feeling—”

  He put a hand back and touched her chest. “Stay there, please,” he said, his voice soft.

  He was standing opposite the driver’s window and now he stepped closer and peered inside. His body jerked backward in an involuntary startle. In that instant, Hannah knew he’d found Fran.

  With a warning look at her, he approached the back door. He unzipped his jacket and, using it to shield his hand, tried her knob. The door didn’t budge.

  Jack returned to Hannah with a resolute look on his face, his mouth a grim line.

  “What happened to Fran?” Hannah whispered.

  “She’s dead.”

  “How?”

  The baby carrier was suddenly in his hands instead of hers and she realized she’d been on the verge of dropping it. He put another hand on her arm and propelled her away. “Someone shot her in the face,” he said softly.

  Hannah sagged a little more.

  “Call the police,” he added.

  She took out her cell, anxiety making her so clumsy she almost dropped it. She had flipped it open before her mind started to work and she closed it. “Hannah?”

  “You have to leave first.”

  “Leave? I’m not leaving you here—”

  “You have to. I can tell the cops I came by for a visit. They can check me out all they want. But you, Jack, you’re suddenly in the middle of too many crazy things. Rocks and bombs and if it gets out, even a kidnapping. Now a murder?”

  “My ID has held up so far. I’m not leaving you here alone to cope.”

  “You have to. You’re Aubrielle’s bodyguard and you can’t do that from a jail cell. Everything has changed.”

  “No,” he said, staring deep into her eyes. “I will not leave you. Don’t you understand? Someone shot and killed Fran. They could still be here.”

  “But you—”

  “No, Hannah. This isn’t about me.” He gestured at her phone. “Call the police.”

  “There have been two similar murders in the past few months,” she said. “In fact, Fran was worried I was being targeted when I told her about feeling watched.”

  He looked into her eyes. “Do you honestly believe this is a coincidence?”

  She wanted to, but no, how could she on the heels of everything else that had happened that day? She shook her head. “It looks like the killer tried to make it look like one of those murders.” And, accepting the inevitable, she placed the call.

  They retreated to wait in the truck where they hurriedly discussed the things they wouldn’t be telling the cops. “No word of the kidnapping,” Hannah said, making Jack promise to agree. She was already sick to her stomach that whoever had taken Abby and warned about taking her grandmother if the police were notified would see contacting them now as an act of defiance on her part. She could see no option, however. This was murder, it couldn’t be kept a secret.

  Within minutes, the scene went from one of deathly quiet to a three-ring circus as emergency vehicles with screeching sirens started to fill the cul-de-sac, spilling police and a bevy of other officials.

  She and Jack were separated and asked to run through the discovery of Fran’s body. Hannah recounted every detail she could recall, explaining that she’d come by to discuss work issues with Fran and that Jack had given her a ride as her car was in the shop.

  All the time she answered questions her attention was divided between the crime scene a dozen feet away, Aubrielle’s growing discontent with her baby seat and her own worry about Jack. The police would talk to everyone at the Staar Foundation—Jack’s name would come up as a man who had been with Fran that morning. His fingerprints were all over Fran’s doors but they must also be all over the inside of Fran’s house as he’d eaten dinner with her the night before.

  She should have figured out a way to make him leave.

  At last the detective asking questions seemed to notice the baby was at the end of her rope. “You can go now, Ms. Marks,” he said, “but stay close by. We may have further questions.”

  He was a middle-aged man with receding blondish hair and an extra twenty pounds on his frame. The smell of his clothes identified him as a smoker.

  “Is this the work of the garage killer?” Hannah asked as medics rolled a gurney past her to the ambulance. Hannah averted her eyes, unable to believe that Fran could really be inside that body bag, dead and gone from the world.

  The detective shrugged.

  “Can Jack Carlin leave now, too?” she asked, almost uttering Jack’s real last name, but catching herself.

  The detective glanced over at Jack. “Not yet. I’ll get someone to give you and your baby a ride home.”

  “I’d rather call a cab,” Hannah said. She wasn’t sure she should mention the fact that she was staying with Jack in a hotel room in Fort Bragg. She felt sick with the stress of telling half-truths to say nothing of the shock of Fran’s murder.

  Jack met her gaze as she carried Abby out to the cab. She could almost read his mind: Be careful, there’s a murderer loose. You might be next on his list….

  Chapter Eleven

  Jack gave the hotel as his temporary address and drove away an hour later, warnings of staying in town still ringing in his ears. He was a “person of interest” in the murder of Fran Baker. So far his identity was holding up, but it wouldn’t for long; it wouldn’t withstand serious investigation.

  He’d had to tell the cops he was with Fran the night before. He’d had to tell them he’d visited her at work. He had no idea what they would make of all this but he could feel the noose tightening around his throat and if she’d kept the real estate card he’d given her the night before and they found it when they processed her house, he was going to have to try to explain why he’d lied to her.

  Jail. Even if it was just long enough to straighten everything out, the prospect of captivity made him sweat. There was a huge part of him that just wanted to keep driving. To hell with Tierra Montañosa and Hannah and Aubrielle and Mimi and everyone else. Was finding the truth and maybe diverting a disaster worth the loss of his freedom?

  He got back to the hotel, anxious to make sure Hannah and Abby had arrived safely. Even if he ran, he had to know they were okay first.

  When he opened the door, he found Hannah sitting in a chair, head back, eyes closed. She’d apparently taken another shower because her hair was damp and she’d changed into soft gray slacks and a sweater. Her luscious lips reminded him of ripe fruit and he throbbed with the desire to kneel in front of her, kiss her, ravish her.

  Abby was asleep on Hannah’s lap, cheeks flushed pink, arms flung above her head.

  He stared at them for a long moment, the doorknob still in his hand, one foot inside the room and the other still in the hall. And then he stepped all the way into the room and closed the door behind him. The click roused Hannah, whose eyes opened abruptly.

  “Jack, I was so worried they would take you in for questioning—”

  “That’s probably what’s coming next,” he said. “I don’t think we have much time, Hannah.”

  “Should we change hotels?”

  “That would just make me look more guilty than I already do. No, there’s no point. But tomorrow is sink-or-swim day. Tomorrow we make things happen. We’re out of time.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m hitting the shower,” he said.

  “I’ll call room service and order dinner.”

  Forty-five minutes later, they both pushed pasta and chicken around on their plates, too preoccupied by Fran’s death to engage in conversation until Hannah finally laid aside her fork. “So, you don’t think the police believe it was the garage killer?”

  “I don’t think so. They usually have details they don’t share with the newspapers so they can tell if something is copycat. I’m just guessing here though.”

  “Did they
mention how long she’d been dead?”

  “I overheard the M.E. say something about more than three hours.”

  “Jack, I was thinking. What if Fran was the one black mailing someone?”

  “And that someone thought it was you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If that’s true, then why did they kidnap Abby, threaten your grandmother? The killer couldn’t have been everywhere at the same time. If Fran had been blackmailing someone, wouldn’t that someone want what she had and wouldn’t that have meant forcing her inside to get it? If she’d met with whoever it is away from home, then why trail her back to her garage to kill her?”

  “To make it look like the garage killer.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know, I just have a feeling we’re missing something.”

  “The police will question the people at Staar, won’t they?” Hannah said suddenly. “I imagine.”

  “And some of them will mention she was with you, Jack. They might even know you were passing yourself off as a real estate agent.”

  “I know,” he said.

  Hannah’s cell phone rang and she answered it. “Grandma,” she said, and proceeded to listen. Jack closed his eyes and almost fell asleep in the chair.

  She roused him with a gentle touch on his shoulder. “Grandma is fine. I’m exhausted.”

  No use pretending he wasn’t. Hannah slept in the bed next to Aubrielle, Jack had the other bed to himself.

  It was a big bed and it was lonely. Enough light filtered through the curtains that he could see the curve of Hannah’s hip beneath her covers. He turned over to face the wall and shut his eyes, but the sensory overload of the day had hunkered down deep in his psyche. Seeing the rags floating out at sea and thinking maybe, maybe it was Abby. Fran’s obliterated face, the evening in the intimate setting of a motel room but without the intimacy, the indecision, the doubts…

  It was almost enough to make a man miss the jungle.

  Sometime later, he awoke with a start when he felt weight shift on the bed. Muscles tensed and he shot out a hand to grab whoever was there, reaching high for a throat. His fingers closed on petal-soft skin and he instantly withdrew his hand and swallowed.