“I haven’t decided,” he replied. “Your dad still got that shotgun?”
Jade looked to her right and nodded. “Right here by the door as always. I doubt he’s keen to use it on you any longer. You’re safe to come in.”
Harley climbed the steps and leaned close to her, drawing in her scent before whispering into her ear. “If he knew the things I did to you back then, he’d shoot me on the spot.”
Jade’s eyes widened as she took a step back. Her pale skin flushed pink as her lips tightened a bit with amused disapproval. “Best you keep that to yourself,” she noted. “Come on in and have a seat. I’ll get them both.”
Finding himself alone in the living room, he realized not much had changed inside the house, either. The furniture was the same, although the old tube television in the corner had been replaced with a new flat screen. There was also a large framed portrait over the desk of Jade on her wedding day. Unlike the one at her house, this was just her. Her back was turned, showcasing the lace and buttons that traveled down her spine into the intricate train of her dress. She glanced over her shoulder with a coy smile that made him wish she’d been gazing at him that day instead of Lance.
“Look who the cat dragged in,” a man’s voice boomed from behind him, distracting him from his unhelpful thoughts.
Harley turned around to find a softer, graying version of the Arthur Nolan he remembered. This one didn’t glare at him with disapproval, putting Harley slightly more at ease. He smiled and reached out to shake her father’s hand. “Good to see you again, sir, although I wish it were under different circumstances.”
“Don’t I know it,” Arthur said with a serious expression. “This has been really hard on Carolyn, and Jade, too. You can’t imagine something like this happening to you.”
“I’ll do everything I can to find the answers for your family.”
Arthur nodded and patted him on the upper arm. “Good, good. Let’s have a seat. Carolyn is going to be a minute. She’s fussing with some coffee.”
Harley sat down in a wingback chair that faced the sofa. Arthur sat there, leaving a space for Jade’s mother beside him. A moment later, Jade came in with a tray of mugs, cream and sugar. She put it down on the coffee table between them and took a seat in the chair beside Harley. Carolyn followed with a carafe of hot coffee and poured everyone a cup.
“I know it’s late in the day, but it’s so chilly, I thought we needed something to warm us up.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Nolan.”
Carolyn looked up at him with a wide smile as she appraised what had become of the boy who had once graced her doorstep. “I think you can call me Carolyn now, dear. You’re not a teenage boy sniffing around my daughter any longer.”
Harley smiled back and nodded, but there was something in her eyes that made him question her words. There was a curious curl to her lips as she looked him over, then glanced back at her daughter. It made him wonder if perhaps Mrs. Nolan didn’t think he was such a bad match for Jade, after all.
Interesting thought, but she was wrong.
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to record this interview. It will allow me to focus on the discussion now instead of taking notes, and I can go back and do that later.”
Her parents nodded. He started the recorder on his phone and placed it gently on the coffee table between them. “So tell me about the day you checked in to St. Francis to have your daughter.”
“It was chaos,” Carolyn began. “Everyone was waiting on the storm to hit. Arthur was nailing wood on the windows and sandbagging the sliding door to keep out the water. We’d stockpiled some supplies, and did everything we could do to prepare. And then I went into labor.”
She shook her head. “I had another week to go. I thought for sure we’d get through the storm, but no, Jade was ready.” She looked at her daughter and a pained expression came across her face. “Well, not Jade. Our biological daughter. It’s so hard to come to terms with all of this. I can’t think about the baby I raised and not think it was the same Jade in my belly all that time. Who would do such a thing?”
Harley noticed tears glittering in Carolyn’s eyes. Tears weren’t his specialty, but he could cope. He’d learned he was better at keeping interviewees focused than he was at consoling them. “I understand this is hard for you,” he said. “Just go over what you remember about your time at the hospital.”
Arthur put his hand over Carolyn’s and squeezed it. “We made it to the hospital before the storm hit,” he continued. “We had a few hours to go and were worried about a long labor, since it was our first baby, but our daughter arrived rather quickly and without a fuss if you don’t count me fainting. It’s hard to believe, but having a baby was the easiest thing about that day. About two hours later, the power went out. The wind picked up. All hell broke loose. Since the nursery didn’t have any windows, they recommended that the babies stay there for their own safety. It broke Carolyn’s heart because she’d barely gotten a chance to hold the baby before she was taken away. Maybe if we’d spent more time with her...”
Harley hated to hear the Nolans blame themselves. He didn’t know what had happened, but he knew it wasn’t anything they did wrong. “Don’t beat yourself up about this. From what I understand, newborns all look very similar, especially in those first few hours. It takes time for their individual features and personalities to come out. You went through a lot that day and had no reason to question the staff.”
Arthur nodded, but Harley could tell he still blamed himself somehow. “After the storm went through, things weren’t much better. There was only emergency power. Most of the staff was downstairs in the ER. There were only maybe two or three nurses working the whole maternity ward and I’d say there were easily nine or ten mothers there at the time.”
“Did any of the staff or people you saw at the hospital seem off to you? Anything at all strike you as odd?”
Carolyn furrowed her brow in thought. “Nothing other than the hurricane. The staff were stressed out but they seemed really focused on keeping everything afloat. There was even one nurse, I forget her name, who sat and chatted with me for a while. She was so sweet. I can’t believe I can’t remember her name now. But everyone was great. Did you notice anything, Arthur?”
He shook his head. “Everyone seemed to be coping. That’s all anyone could do. If anything seemed strange, I chalked it up to that.”
“How long was it until you got to really spend time with Jade?”
“The next day,” Carolyn said. “By then the power was back on and things seemed to be closer to normal. I got to spend most of the day with her. That’s when I first noticed that birthmark on her leg. That means the switch had already taken place, doesn’t it?”
It did. Harley knew exactly which birthmark she was referring to, although he wouldn’t say as much to her parents. It was crescent shaped and high on Jade’s upper thigh. He’d kissed it a dozen times in his youth. “It sounds like it.”
Carolyn started crying in earnest and Arthur comforted her. The conversation continued on for another half hour or so, but Harley had already gotten what he needed. The switch had happened early, during the storm itself. That at least narrowed the window in terms of hospital staff and visitors with access to the babies.
Harley knew he should be focused on the parents as they continued, but he had a hard time not watching Jade’s expression as they spoke about that day. About the birth of the child that wasn’t her. Speaking about the arrival of the baby they adored, but didn’t come home with. It was hard for her to hear, he could tell. It was hard for them, too, but it was her pained face that drew his gaze.
He hated seeing her like this. Harley was no knight in shining armor come to save Jade; he knew that much. But perhaps he could set this situation to rights for her. He’d done his research on her since their interview and had found himself at a loss as he stared at his computer sc
reen. She had been sold false goods with Lance and now she was paying for it. Finding out her ex was serving time was surprising to Harley, so he knew it had to have blindsided Jade. She’d put all her faith in him, and Lance had destroyed their future together.
Harley supposed that another man in his shoes might think it was her karmic retribution for spurning him all those years ago. But he had loved Jade too much to ever wish ill on her back then. He’d just wanted her to be happy. And now, he wanted to help. Not by sweeping her off her feet, as much as the idea of carrying her off to bed appealed to him.
No, all he could do was find the truth for Jade and hope that she could be happy at last, knowing where she really belonged.
* * *
Jade walked Harley to his car when the interview was over. It was dark now, with the winter evenings still coming early. She was looking forward to spring, with warmer temperatures and maybe the chance to work in the garden. To get to that, though, she first had to make it through this investigation with Harley.
“I hope my parents were helpful,” she said, as they reached his car.
“They were. As helpful as they could be considering they weren’t involved. If nothing else, I was able to narrow the timeline down. You were switched almost immediately after you were born. Probably during the worst of the storm, when everything was at its most frantic. It was a crime of opportunity, in my opinion.”
“A crime? As in someone actually did it on purpose?” Jade had lain in bed for several nights wondering how any of this could’ve happened, but she’d rarely considered it might be deliberate. “I could see if it was a mistake in the chaos, but you really think someone did it on purpose?”
“I do.” Harley crossed his muscled forearms over his chest and leaned back against his shiny sports car. It was so sleek and low to the ground she wondered how he even got in and out of the thing.
“To what end? What did it get them? I can’t see how anyone would benefit from it.”
“That I don’t know yet. I’ll find out one way or another. But in my gut, I know it was done intentionally. They may not have known in advance which babies and when, but they saw their chance during the storm and took it.”
They. He kept saying that with an intense expression on his face that both frightened and thrilled her. Who was he talking about? Jade had a hard time imagining what kind of person would do something like that. Then again, people were surprising her a lot lately. That reminded her... She reached into her pocket and pulled out a note she’d received the day before.
“Harley, before you go, I want you to take a look at this. It came in the mail yesterday. I thought it might factor into your investigation.”
Harley took the letter from her and unfolded it carefully. His gaze went over the text again and again, with his expression darkening more each time. His jaw was clenched tight in anger when he finally looked up at her.
“Why didn’t you mention this sooner?”
Jade stiffened as his wave of rage was aimed in her direction. She wasn’t expecting that. Was he really upset with her? She took a step back on reflex. “I wanted you to speak with my parents first. They don’t know about the letter and I don’t want them to know.”
Her parents were dealing with enough right now without knowing that Jade had received a threatening letter from some anonymous whack job. And to be honest, she wasn’t too concerned. She’d just appeared on television. Any weirdo sitting at home watching the news could’ve written her that letter.
“Do you have any idea who would’ve sent this to you?”
Jade shook her head. The handwritten text was fairly straightforward—let it go or else. That could be from anyone. “I thought maybe someone from the hospital wanted me to back off. They were basically shamed into cooperating when I went public with my story. I’m sure there’s someone there who wishes I would just go away. Or someone that saw me on TV. I wasn’t taking it too seriously.”
Harley narrowed his gaze at her. “You need to take it seriously, Jade. If nothing else, because whoever sent this knows your home address. That’s a problem. Are you listed in the phone book or online?”
Jade’s spine straightened at that thought. She’d been so preoccupied with other things that she hadn’t thought about that aspect of it. A chill ran through her and she snuggled farther into her favorite sweater. She wished she’d brought a coat out here with her, but she hadn’t anticipated a long conversation. “No. It’s a rental so you’d think there wouldn’t be anything associating my name with the house, but I suppose you can find anything on the internet for a price.”
That made the corners of Harley’s full mouth turn down into a frown. It made her want to reach out and rub her thumb across his bottom lip the way she had before. The dark, angry storm in his eyes, however, kept her arms firmly crossed over her chest where they belonged.
“Do you have the envelope it came in?” he asked.
She nodded and pulled it out of her pocket. “Here. What are you going to do with it?”
Harley reached into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a plastic specimen bag. He put both the letter and the envelope inside and sealed it up. “I’m going to send it to my lab along with the DNA swabs I took of you and your parents. I’ll see if they can pull some prints or DNA off of it. I might need to get prints from you later so we can exclude yours.”
“You have your own lab?” And you keep evidence bags in your coat? She kept the last part to herself. She got the feeling he wouldn’t understand why she thought it was weird.
Harley nodded. “It’s a necessity. Local police investigations are stymied by the backlog awaiting lab testing. Since I have my own state-of-the-art lab in DC, none of my investigators have to wait. Things can move forward faster. It was one of the first things I invested in when the company started to gain success.”
Jade tried not to look impressed, but it was hard. The Harley she was looking at was so different from the one she remembered. At least on the outside. On the inside, she was pretty sure the rebel was still there. He might have a sports car instead of his old truck, but he probably still drove fast. And no doubt liked to bend the rules as far as he could. That had always made her nervous back when they were dating, and still did now. She could look at Harley but not touch. And definitely not keep.
“Anyway, the results might help us narrow down who might be involved. Maybe the person who was behind the switch sent the letter. Or someone else who knows something about the case.” He put it away and looked at her with a softer expression on his face. “Is this the first note you’ve received?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else unusual? Phone calls? The feeling that someone is following you?”
Jade sighed and tried to think back over the last week since she’d gone on the news and her story had spread across Charleston. It had been chaotic to be sure, but she hadn’t felt like she was in danger. “Nothing I can think of. I lead a pretty quiet, boring life compared to yours, Harley.”
“Good,” he said with a curt nod. “That was what you wanted, after all, right? Safe, comfortable? All the things you didn’t think I could give you.”
She had been waiting for this moment. He’d been so professional thus far, but she knew eventually he would mention their breakup. How could he not?
“I don’t know what you could’ve given me. We were kids and I made the best decision I could at the time. I ended up being all wrong about Lance, but I could’ve been wrong about you, too. But something tells me you weren’t interested in a quiet life back then and you’re not interested in it now.”
He shrugged, confirming in her mind that it was true. “A little excitement isn’t all bad, Jade.” He pushed off his car to come closer to her, suddenly invading her personal space.
One moment she thought he was irritated with her over their breakup, and the next she could feel his body heat a
s he moved nearer. Jade looked up at his dark blue eyes, which were virtually black in the dwindling evening light. When he looked at her like that, she could feel her belly clench and her neck and shoulders tense. He could bring some excitement into her life for sure. She had sorely missed that kind of thrill. Unfortunately, with Harley there was always the promise of more than she bargained for.
“I’ll, uh, take your word for it,” she said. Jade forced herself to take a step back, when every nerve in her body urged her to take a step forward into his arms. The way he looked at her was practically a dare. It was a dare she wanted to take on, but that was exactly why she moved away.
The last thing she needed was her father out on the porch again with his shotgun.
Harley sighed, but she could tell he wasn’t going to push the issue. Not here. Not now. But eventually she wouldn’t be able to run.
“Well, listen, you’re probably freezing, so I’m going to go. I plan to stop by where I’m staying for a few things and then I’ll meet you back at your house.”
Jade hesitated, wondering what she’d just missed in the conversation while she’d wrestled with her desires. Had she gotten lost in his big blue eyes and not heard him say he was coming to her home? “What? Why are you coming by?”
He patted his suit coat pocket and the letter he’d put inside. “Someone is threatening you, Jade. This is serious. You need someone to protect you.”
“You?” He was joking with her, right?
“Of course, me. I don’t have any other staff in Charleston right now. Is that a problem?” He arched his brow at her, upping the ante of the dare.
Yes, it was a problem. In a dozen different ways, yes, but she voiced the least complicated one she could come up with. “There’s no way I could afford to pay you for security detail, Harley. I don’t have any savings left after what happened with Lance.”
His brows knitted together in a heavy frown. “You should know better than that, Jade. I’m not doing this for the money.”
From Mistake to Millions Page 4
