The Baby's Defender

by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

  Cady shrugged and shook her head. “Could be farther out than that. When the home was first built, it sat on a sizable acreage that was gradually sold off as the family fortunes diminished, the cost of living increased and suburban sprawl gobbled up all the land it could get. The home is the last bastion of our family’s heritage, which is one reason my great-aunt was so persnickety in her will about its ownership.”

  “Where do you think the tunnel ends up?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe the family crypt that sits beneath the chapel in the local cemetery two blocks away.”

  West started to laugh but she shot him a dark look and he sobered. “You’re serious. A Gothic house with a secret passage and a family crypt?”

  She allowed a small smile to play across her lips. “Those scary historical romance novels need a basis in fact. Our family is a real-life illustration, complete with deep, dark secrets...apparently.” She grimaced. “Maybe if H. died—for whatever reason—we will find her remains in the crypt with a nameplate and pertinent dates. We should go there, as well the lawyer’s office.”

  West whistled low under this breath. “I guess we add to our to-do list.” His glance over at her telegraphed a question. “Everything about this house is intensely personal to you, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Growing up, we moved around a lot. If we stayed anywhere more than eighteen months, that was a long time. But at least twice a year, sometimes more often, we would make the trek to Glenside. We might stay for a few weeks when Daddy was between jobs, or just for a holiday visit. My times there were the happiest of my childhood. Whoever has been creeping around doing violence is trying to tarnish those memories. I’m not going to let them.”

  Famous last words. She turned away from West’s perceptive gaze and stared out the window at the passing boulevard. He was giving all he had to protect her. It wouldn’t do to let him know how insecure she was about the outcome of this duel of wits with their devious and determined adversary.

  * * *

  West didn’t need Cady to tell him how scared she was beneath that courageous front, though it might be healthy if she let her feelings out. Why did she believe she had to be brave all the time, even in front of close friends? Were friends all they could ever be? His heart throbbed. Their kiss had been, hands down, the most glorious thing that had ever happened to him. But the wonderful moment had passed all too quickly, and now they were back to square one in their relationship. Maybe not even that. It was as if she continually took one step toward him and then two steps back.

  And what was the matter with him that he was wasting time thinking about their relationship right now? Head in the game, buddy. He gave his full concentration to driving. Sort of.

  When West escorted Cady and Livvy into the hospital room, Darius was sitting up in bed. A cast encompassed his left arm and road rash decorated one side of his face.

  West strode up to his friend and scowled down at him with arms crossed over his chest. “You look terrible, man.”

  Darius grinned with one side of his swollen mouth, clearly taking the gruff insult for the expression of affection that it was. “Better than you’d look if you’d gone toe to toe with the grille of a speeding vehicle.”

  Brennan rose from his seat on the opposite side of the bed, yawned and stretched his arms. “Babysitting this dude has been a bore and a half. Lazy lout sleeps all the time.”

  “That’s me being productive by promoting my healing.” Darius shot a mock scowl toward Bren.

  All three of them, along with Cady, joined in a chuckle. Darius offered West his uninjured hand and West clasped its warm strength, silently thanking God for his friend’s survival.

  “Now, out of the way, dude.” Darius waved West aside. “The real healing has arrived. Let me get a look at my honorary sister and niece.” He motioned toward Cady and Baby-bug.

  Smiling, Cady stepped up to the bed and settled Livvy in a supported sitting position on the covers beside Darius, who chuckled and tickled the baby’s cheek. Letting out a tiny chortle, she waved at her honorary uncle’s fingers and accidentally grabbed hold of one and hung on to it. If a face could melt into warm goo, Darius’s did exactly that.

  “What’s the update?” Brennan interrupted the pleasantries.

  West filled them in on Cady’s and his adventures in the night. His short, terse treatment of the bomb incident drew angry mutters from this team, followed by murmurs of satisfaction that the intruder’s access to the house was terminated.

  “That’s my report,” West concluded. “What about you, Darius? Why do you think the killer went after you and the neighborhood watch guy?”

  “Yes,” Cady said. “Did the man who packed the baskets tell you something worth a hit-and-run over?”

  “The cops asked me that, too, this morning,” Darius responded.

  “Detective Rooney?” Cady made a sour face.

  “No, Detective Leticia Grace.” Darius pronounced the name with a lilt, as if it deserved to be set to music.

  “She seems like a decent human being.” Brennan rolled his shoulders in a shrug.

  “And easy on Darius’s eyes, I presume?” West added, staring pointedly at his partner in the hospital bed. The man maintained a poker face.

  “Is she single?” Cady asked.

  Brennan chuckled. “Mr. Smooth, here, managed to finesse that information out of her with a little counter-interrogation, and yes, she is.”

  “Are you going to ask her out?” Cady persisted, a smile lighting her face.

  Darius held up a forestalling hand. “Hold on, there. We’ve got to settle our present business first. But after that I might give it some serious thought.” A tiny grin flashed across his face.

  “Back to Cady’s original question,” West said. “What did Mitch Landes tell you that made trying to kill both of you a necessity?”

  “I don’t know for sure, though he did get pretty chatty when he found out we’re both Philadelphia Eagles fans. We jawed football for a while, then he loosened up and answered my questions about the gift baskets.”

  “There must have been something critical in all that jabber,” Bren put in. “And our enemy knew Landes told you as soon as the words came out of his mouth. The cops found a listening device in Landes’s home like the one in Cady’s. It had been stuck to the inside of his mail slot, which was next to the living room, so it could have been put there anytime when Landes was gone and the person wouldn’t even have had to gain access to the house.”

  “Scary sneaky.” Cady shuddered visibly.

  West frowned, mentally seconding her assessment.

  Baby-bug started to fuss mildly. Cady picked her up and put the baby to her shoulder, patting her small back.

  Darius furrowed his brow. “The only thing that stands out to me is the dude bragging about himself for, as he put it, his ‘exemplary citizenship that is so lacking in today’s culture.’” Darius emphasized that final phrase with a one-handed quotation mark sign. “On the way to deliver Cady’s gift basket, he said he stopped to help a middle-aged woman change her flat tire. I told that to Detective Grace, and she admitted Landes hadn’t shared that tidbit in their original interview with him. The flat-tire woman could have accessed the basket while our guy was busy helping her out.”

  “Did Mr. Landes offer a description of the woman?” Cady’s voice emerged rather breathless and her face took on a pinched look.

  West stepped closer to her. Please, God, for Cady’s sake, let the description not match her mother.

  Darius nodded. “She was about five feet four inches tall, heavyset, had short, light brown hair with sprinkles of gray and ‘cat eyes,’ his words not mine.”

  Next to West, Cady let out a sharp gasp. He swiveled, barely in time to support her as her knees buckled. He helped her into a nearby chair.

  Cady’s gaze riveted on him as she sat clutch
ing her daughter like a lifeline. Her lower lip trembled, and she was as pale and shaky as that day he’d charged into her bedroom to save her from the intruder.

  “Cat Eyes,” she whispered hoarsely. “That was my mother’s nickname growing up, because her eyes are amber. Just like mine. My mother is a murderer. She’s trying to kill me!”

  That final sentence emerged in a forlorn wail that ripped sharp claws through West’s heart.

  THIRTEEN

  “We absolutely are going to go talk to Mr. Platte about this mysterious H.,” Cady told West firmly as they walked out to her Blazer from the hospital. He’d suggested maybe the visit wasn’t necessary because now they were almost positive about the identity of the person who was after her. “I need to know if my mother was homicidal in her youth or if her long-term drug abuse morphed her into a cunning and ruthless killer. I can still scarcely believe the damaged person I knew in the care facility has managed to carry out all this mayhem, but there seems to be little doubt left.”

  “Finding her is the priority,” West said. “Triple Threat doesn’t have any manpower to spare to look for her. With Brennan on his way to his own place to catch a little shut-eye and with Darius out of commission for some time, that leaves me to stick by your side. We’ll have to let the police keep looking for your mother. They have the citywide resources to do the best job of tracking her down, anyway.”

  “I do want them to find her, but I don’t want them to hurt her.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “We have time to drop by the police station before we get lunch and then head for the lawyer’s office. I want to communicate my feelings clearly to Detectives Grace and Rooney.”

  “And we should share with them your thought about the tunnel leading to your family crypt. They will probably want to check it out.”

  “All right, but please don’t mention my mother’s journals or their contents to the police,” she said as she buckled her seat belt. “At least not until we know for sure that what happened to H. would be of any interest to them.”

  West went still with his hand on the key in the ignition, and his gaze lasered into her. “I’m not positive we shouldn’t tell them everything.”

  “Please,” she repeated. “It’s my mother. She’s in enough trouble. I can’t bring myself to add to it unless we find justification.”

  “All right.” His expression softened. “You’re the boss.” He turned his head away and started the vehicle.

  As they drove out of the parking lot, Cady looked over her shoulder at Livvy. With the car seat’s back toward her, she could make out only her daughter’s profile, but Livvy’s little eyelids seemed to be getting heavy. Not surprising, since she’d been fed and changed before they left the hospital, and it was about time for her morning nap.

  Cady suppressed a yawn. If only she could join her daughter in slumber land. She hadn’t enjoyed an easy night’s rest since the wee-hour attack on her in her bedroom. And West had had even less sleep, not to mention he was in recovery from poisoning. She glanced over at him, but if he was experiencing exhaustion, it didn’t show on his face.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  He glanced at her, then returned his gaze to the road. “Just doing my job, ma’am.” He accompanied the words with a sidelong smile.

  A tension she hadn’t realized was present loosened its grip around her lungs. The mild teasing assured her that, despite not agreeing with her about telling everything to the cops, he wasn’t angry with her.

  “You’ll get a wonderful recommendation from me to put on your website if you want it.” She infused a lighthearted tone into her banter.

  “Testimonials from grateful clients are always welcome.” He shot her a grin, then sobered. “But only after the client is delivered safely on the other side of whatever caused the need for our services. We’re not quite there yet.”

  “That will happen as soon as my mother’s in custody.”

  “Can’t be long now. I mean, where could she be that she could stay in hiding indefinitely?”

  A short time later, Detective Rooney asked Cady the same question as she sat with Detective Grace and West around Rooney’s battered desk at the precinct.

  “The tunnel?” Cady made the tentative thought a question rather than a statement. “At least up until we exposed its location. Now that the tunnel’s been discovered, I don’t know where she might go.” She stretched out her palms in a helpless gesture.

  Rooney grunted his skepticism. “If food, water and sanitation were the only problems with the tunnel hideout scenario, I’d say maybe she’s been holed up in there until she had to flee last night. But setting up and powering the tech equipment for all the surveillance she’s been doing would be difficult for anybody in a primitive shaft over a century old, much less someone who’s been institutionalized for years.”

  “My mother was computer-savvy and very smart right up until that last near-fatal overdose.”

  “Good to know.” Rooney started making a note on the pad in front of him.

  Cady caught her tongue between her teeth and barely restrained herself from biting down. What was the matter with her that she was bolstering the case against her mother in order to defend the woman’s intellect? Cady had testified against one parent in a criminal trial, and now it looked like she was going to be stuck in the same position with the other parent.

  Her family was such a mess. Another reason West needed to walk away from her once the danger had passed. Who needed the baggage she came with? Griffon had been her perfect mate because he understood baggage and came with plenty of his own. West, on the other hand, had won a little envy from Griff because of his wholesome, happy-family upbringing.

  “We are following up on the technology angle,” put in Detective Grace. “It’s likely she stole the equipment because, supposedly, she left the care facility with only the clothes on her back.”

  “Since then,” West said, “she’s had to steal a vehicle, obtain a gun and build a rudimentary bomb. A very resourceful person.”

  And ruthless and determined. Cady kept those self-evident thoughts to herself.

  “When you find her,” Cady said with emphasis, “please remember that she’s damaged and quite likely not responsible for her actions.”

  “Rest assured,” said Rooney, “we will handle the situation appropriately. Trust us, Mrs. Long.”

  Cady didn’t respond. If her mother was the culprit behind all this terror, she couldn’t simply trust the woman’s fate to people who didn’t care about her. She and West had to find her mom before the police did. She trusted him absolutely to go the extra mile to protect both her and her mother, whatever it took.

  Carrying her daughter, Cady followed West out of the precinct toward the Blazer, which was parked only a short distance from the station. West’s body language said he was in hypervigilance mode, but how likely was it that her mother would try anything this close to the cop shop? Then again, Mom was mentally unstable.

  “What’s that?” Cady pointed toward a sheet of paper flapping in the breeze, caught on the windshield of her vehicle.

  “Stop!” West motioned for a halt with a raised hand.

  Cady’s heart double-timed as he performed a long, careful, 180-degree turn, gaze scanning everything everywhere—people, buildings, vehicles.

  “Follow me, and stay close,” he ordered with scarcely a glance in her direction. His attention was fully occupied with their surroundings. “The paper could be some useless advertisement, but we’re not taking chances.”

  They advanced slowly toward the Blazer. If Cady crept any nearer to the solid shield of his body, she’d be treading on his boots. The crisp and refreshing autumn atmosphere suddenly felt close and heavy.

  She glanced down at her daughter still sleeping in her car seat. What if some sort of attack happened right here and righ
t now? Olivia would be caught in the middle of it.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you, sweetie.” Her tone was low and fierce.

  “Hang on to that attitude,” West said, matching her tone. “Here we are.” They halted beside the Blazer.

  He pulled a pair of light gloves from the pocket of his jacket and tugged them on, then snatched the piece of paper from the windshield wiper. Cady held her breath as he examined it. Benign or threatening? His low growl conveyed the latter. Hot tingles shot through her from the top of her head to the soles of her feet.

  West turned, holding the paper up before her face.

  You can’t win, Cady-girl. They’ll never find me.

  Even if her mother hadn’t used the personal nickname, she would have known the handwriting. Not the childish scrawl of the diaries, but a mature, angular script that had featured on her frequent late-to-school notes when she was a child.

  “My mother was here.” Cady breathed out, staring into West’s grim face. “Only twenty yards from the police station. They really aren’t going to catch her.”

  FOURTEEN

  An hour later, Cady stared down into her plate of food in the small restaurant where they’d stopped to eat lunch. Normally, chicken fettuccine was one of Cady’s favorite meals, but at this moment, every bite was like choking down sawdust.

  Across from her, West laid down his fork beside his clean plate. “Rooney looked ready to chew nails and spit out tacks when he read the note. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget the expression on his face when we returned to the police station and handed him that paper.”

  Cady scrunched her face at him. “I’ll be happy just to live to my next birthday.”