The Baby's Bodyguard
Stephanie Newton
A SHOCKING DISCOVERYWhen an anonymous text message arrives with photos of tiny hands and feet—and GPS coordinates—Florida cop Ethan Clark believes it’s a prank. Then he follows the coordinates to an abandoned toddler. Handing Janie Doe over to caring child services worker Kelsey Rogers, Ethan thinks his job is done…until the little girl turns out to be a kidnap victim.To protect the child, Ethan and Kelsey stumble into an investigation that digs up a tragedy from Ethan’s past. Will they uncover the truth before the kidnappers bury the trail forever?
“Did you just see an empty boat floating in the middle of the ocean with the little girl in it?” Kelsey asked Ethan as she held the toddler close.
Ethan pulled out diapers and an extra outfit, very well-worn. Then he pulled out a card with a small handprint on it. He laid it on the table and stared at it.
“Ethan?”
“An … n?. I didn’t just find her. Someone sent me to the boat.” His hands shook as he stared at a picture of an infant around six months old-and not of the little one Kelsey held.
“Ethan, who is that?” She gentled her voice. It was obvious the picture meant something to him.
He shook his head, his eyes on the photo.
Kelsey put her free hand over his, blocking his view. “Ethan, look at me. Who is the baby in the picture?”
He swallowed hard, his eyes dark with pain. “That picture is my son, Charlie. It was taken right before he died.”
What was going on? Why would someone use this toddler to get to Ethan?
The Baby’s Bodyguard
Stephanie Newton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
When I started The Baby’s Bodyguard, I knew the basics. I knew that Kelsey and Ethan had both suffered a terrible loss, and that they both had some lessons to learn along the way to love.
I didn’t know that human trafficking is a huge and growing problem worldwide, including in the United States. The suspense in this story is fictional, but the truth is that children are bought and sold as commodities every day.
Here’s another truth: Love wins in the end. It’s the happily ever after that we all seek.
For more information or to contact me, please go to www.stephanienewtonbooks.com. I’d love to hear from you.
Blessings,
For Riley, who has the heart of a hero
I will turn their mourning into joy and will
comfort them and give them joy for their sorrow.
—Jeremiah 31:1
PROLOGUE
Seven months of deep cover had led to this exact moment. The meet he’d been angling for since he’d hooked up with Antonio Cantori all those months ago. A direct line to the man who was pulling the strings behind a group of businessmen. Businessmen who bought and sold millions of dollars a week. And their sideline moneymaker—human trafficking, specifically little girls.
Ethan Clark picked up the satchel of money from the passenger side of his Jaguar sedan and looped it over his head. Once the money changed hands, he was done. A team of field agents would swarm the plush office behind the restaurant and take down the man pulling the strings. And Ethan could go home to his wife and baby.
The stakes were high, had never been higher. This was his last undercover assignment. He’d told his superiors at the FBI that he couldn’t do this kind of operation any more. And the lives of those little girls were on the line, too. He’d held the weight of it in his heart for four long months, knowing he was powerless to save them.
But tonight was the night he changed things.
Ethan straightened his two-hundred-dollar tie and rounded the corner, pausing just for a minute to check out the gleaming windows of the Ristorante Giorgio, Cantori’s place. His blood thrummed through his system. Adrenaline. Excitement.
A blonde pushing a baby stroller eased into view, walking toward the restaurant. He hesitated. She moved like his wife—like Amy—but it wouldn’t be Amy. She didn’t live in this town, didn’t even know this place was on the map. He took a step closer. She stopped under a streetlamp, looked at her watch.
His wife. His baby.
Here?
Another step. She opened the door of the restaurant. She shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be anywhere close to here. But if he called out to her, his cover was blown and they were all dead. Amy, baby Charlie, and him.
The explosion slammed him against the building behind him. And when he opened his eyes, Amy was gone. The restaurant was a gaping, burning cave.
His mouth dropped open in a silent scream, his throat closing up on him so fast, he could barely whisper her name.
Sirens wailed and every car alarm in ten blocks blared.
“Amy.”
Tony Cantori walked out of the wall of flames toward a vehicle waiting on the corner. His black eyes searched the block, passed Ethan and came back. He shaped his fingers into the sign of a handgun and made the motion of pulling the trigger at Ethan. Laughing, he jumped into a black van, which slid smoothly away from the curb.
Ethan ran for the restaurant, dropping the bag of money on the sidewalk. “Amy!”
He pushed through the crowd of people that had begun to gather outside. “Amy!”
Rough hands grabbed him, holding him back. He fought them. “I’ve got to get—my wife, my—”
New hands held his face. His partner, Bridges, made him hold eye contact. “You can’t go in there.”
Ethan bucked against the arms holding him back. His legs were restricted, but he surged forward, screaming. “Amy!”
Bridges grabbed him the way he would a child and held him. “It’s no good, Ethan. They’re gone.”
His throat worked, tears locked against a wall of pain.
No.
ONE
Two years later
Ethan Clark had always preferred the gentle slap of water on a fishing boat to the raucous houseful of boys that he’d grown up in. He still had that old wooden fishing boat he’d inherited from his grandpa, but these days his ride was a dual-outboard powerboat fitted with blue lights.
Policing Florida’s waterways kept Ethan Clark out of his house. Away from the memories. Away from concerned friends and relatives, from walls painted with cars and trucks—a room his little boy would never again sleep in.
His cell phone buzzed in his uniform pocket. He started to reach for it, but hesitated, his fingers curling into a fist. He’d been getting text messages for the last two weeks. Close-ups of a baby—a tiny foot, the curve of a cheek, a little hand, chubby and creased.
He had a trace put on the number, but it was untraceable—a throwaway cell phone. He slowed the boat to a troll, barely making waves, and opened his phone. This time it wasn’t a photo. It was geographical coordinates.
Ethan keyed the numbers into his onboard navigating system. It was his job to know the ocean well—and as the map popped up, he recognized this spot. Shallows about four miles out, half an hour from his location.
If the FWC—Florida’s Fish and Wildlife service—had a plane in the area, they could scope it out from the air. He called in the coordinates and asked for aerial backup, really the only kind available on short notice out here.
He gunned the big engines on his boat, sending it plowing through the waves. Every stop, even the routine ones, had the potential for danger. A situation like this had all the earmarks of an ambush.
The radio squawked. “Marine Four, this is Eagle Two-ten. We’ve got eyes on that location. Looks like an abandoned boat. Over.”
“Copy that, Eagle Two-ten. Thanks for the look-see. Over.” Abandoned could mean a lot of things. Engine problems. Drugs. Crime scene.
Considering the text message directly to him, it definitely could mean the boat was set as some kind of trap. He had a lot of enemies from his time spent in the FBI. The fact that he’d laid low in the years since didn’t mean squat. Some of those guys had extremely long memories.
“We’ll circle until you’re clear, Marine Four. Over.”
“Roger. Marine Four out.”
The boat in sight now, Ethan slowed his launch to a crawl. Waves slapped against the bow, spraying arcs of salt water into the air. He trolled closer. Even through binoculars, he could see no movement on the anchored craft.
Flipping his speaker on, he announced his presence as law enforcement and his intention to board the craft.
Nothing. Not a sound, not a movement. The large pleasure cruiser rocked on its anchor with the motion of the waves.
Ethan cut his motor.
He dropped and set anchor in fast, efficient movements, prepping to board the other boat. Despite everything, he didn’t have a death wish. Pulse thudding in his veins, he checked his sidearm, took a deep breath … and leaped.
The other boat rocked as he landed on the foredeck and braced his feet. He pulled his weapon and swung around toward the driver’s position. Nothing. He blew out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
Used to the roll and pitch of the ocean, he moved easily toward the stern, checking for signs of what might’ve happened here. There was no sign of struggle. Every cushion was in place. No scratches or scrapes marred the fiberglass surface of the deck.
Ethan heard a sound and whipped around. A little kid’s sippy cup rolled in one corner of the otherwise completely empty boat.
A blue waterproof tarp covered one section of seats and the space underneath. Only one thing to do.
He jerked the tarp off.
Blue eyes blinked in the bright April sunlight. A tiny rosebud mouth opened wide to scream.
Ethan took a step back. He couldn’t have been more flummoxed if he’d found a bomb under the tarp.
Instead he’d found a toddler.
Social worker Kelsey Rogers stood on the pier at the marina, her hair whipping in the early fall breeze. Her peasant blouse and capris were optimistic. She should’ve worn a coat, but like most everyone else in Florida, she preferred to pretend that the Sunshine State was always sunny and warm.
She dug in the pocket of her pants and pulled out her cherry ChapStick. Uncapping it, she slicked it on and shoved it back in her pocket. She’d gotten the emergency call an hour ago from the FWC. One of their law enforcement officers had found a baby abandoned at sea. Personally, she couldn’t imagine it, but since she’d gone to work for the Department of Children and Families she’d seen a lot of things that she couldn’t imagine parents ever doing to a child, so she tried not to have preconceived expectations.
She could see the flashing blue lights of the cop’s boat long before she could actually see the occupants of the boat, but when he made the turn around the no-wake buoy into the marina, she caught her breath. Ethan Clark stood with his feet braced, one hand on the wheel, the other muscular arm around a curly-headed munchkin.
She’d met him once before on a search-and-rescue mission in a nearby state park. From what she’d seen, he was the strong, silent type. He commanded respect without saying a word.
Ethan cut the engine and glided in to bump gently against the posts of the pier. Even with the toddler firmly gripped in one arm, he still managed to toss Kelsey a line.
A worker from the marina, a young man around eighteen, came jogging down the dock. “Looks like you could use a hand.”
Ethan tossed the teenager another line and within minutes had the big boat securely tied off to cleats on the pier.
He pulled aviator glasses off and tossed them onto the console in the middle of the boat. “Kelsey, thanks for coming down here.”
“Wouldn’t miss it. Hi, pumpkin. Wanna come to me?” She held her hands out for the baby as Ethan tried to disengage himself from the little arms. The child screeched and wrapped its arms tighter around Ethan’s neck.
He shot her a what-now look.
“Maybe you should get out first—give the baby a chance to become familiar with me.” She studied the tot in his arms. “A little girl?”
His blank look told her the answer to her question before he could. She grinned. “Well, she’s wearing pink overalls, so I think it’s a good guess.”
“All I could really think about was getting uh, her, back to shore. It never crossed my mind to try to figure out a name or anything.” Ethan stepped easily across the space between the boat and the pier, balancing not only his weight but the toddler’s as well.
“Has she had anything to drink?” Kelsey dropped into step beside Ethan as he walked up the pier toward the marina sandwich shop.
“Yes, I carry water on board. I also gave her a few crackers.” He shrugged. “I don’t have much experience with kids.”
The wind caught a piece of Kelsey’s hair and tangled it around Ethan’s arm. She laughed and stopped him with a hand on his arm.
He didn’t move as she unwound the strand, his blue-gray eyes never leaving her face. The baby watched her, too, her little hands fisted in Ethan’s uniform shirt.
She laughed again. “There. No harm done. I keep meaning to get it cut, but never have time.”
Ethan took the few remaining steps to the sandwich shop and ducked inside. He dropped into a chair and rearranged the little girl so she was sitting on his knee.
Kelsey pulled a chair out beside the two of them and dug around in her tapestry bag. A toy cell phone might break the ice. She pulled it out and punched a button, pretending to talk. “Hello? Oh, yes, you want to speak to Ethan. He’s right here. Hold on a second.”
She held the toy phone out to Ethan, who gave it the same look he might give a live grenade. She wiggled it at him. “Ethan? It’s for you.”
He took it from her hand and held it to his ear. “Uh-huh. Yeah, thanks. Okay, bye.” He punched the red heart-shaped button and the phone played a silly song.
The baby loosened her grip on her shirt and lunged for the toy.
“She’s small, but still—she looks seventeen or eighteen months old to me. Did you try talking to her?” Kelsey studied the little girl. Tangled blond curls bounced around the baby’s cheeks.
“Just the basics. Name, rank, serial number.”
Kelsey smiled. So there was a sense of humor in there. Somewhere.
“In fact, she looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.” He jiggled his knee like a pro.
“Hmm. Maybe you were. We’ve seen a lot of orphans from Eastern Europe in the last few years.” She tapped the table to get the little girl’s attention and said in Russian, “Hello, baby. Where’s your mommy?”
No response. No reaction at all, in fact, from the baby.
Ethan was staring at her again, like she’d grown a second head. “Was that Russian?”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t recognize it. It doesn’t mean much, though. There are so many countries, and each one’s language is just a little different.”
“Where’d you learn Russian?” The toddler dropped the phone to the floor. Ethan picked it up, rubbed it on his pant leg, and handed it back to her.
“Russia.” Pulling another toy out of her purse, a play remote control that made noise, she pushed the bright blue button. She reached her arms out to the baby, the toy in one hand. Without a second thought, the toddler threw herself into Kelsey’s arms.
“Ha, success.” She looked up to meet Ethan’s steady blue eyes. “I learned the language when I lived in Russia. My parents were missionaries. I’ve lived a lot of places.”
She looked down at the baby and made a silly face.
Ethan smiled, but not a real smile, just a tilt of one corner of his mouth. It was a start, though. And without the baby holding on to him, she noticed something else. “What’s that over your shoulder?”
He looked. “Forgot I picked it up. I guess it’s a diaper bag.”
“Do we need to wait for someone to look at it?” The toddler primped her mouth like she might cry, so Kelsey reached into the never-ending purse again and pulled out a bag of Goldfish crackers.
“Executive decision.” Ethan unzipped the bag, his hands never faltering. He was so serious. So different from her. She bet he never wore flip-flops in the off-season.
He tilted up the side. “It has ‘Jane’ written in marker in the side of the bag. No birth date. Do you think that’s her name?”
“We have to call you something, don’t we, pumpkin?” Kelsey ruffled the little girl’s curls. “Is your name Jane?”
The toddler grinned at her with a row of pearly baby teeth.
“Okay, then. We’ll go with Janie.” Kelsey handed her a cracker and popped one in her own mouth. “Did you just see an empty boat floating in the middle of the ocean with her in it?”
Ethan pulled out diapers and an extra outfit, very well-worn. Then he pulled out a card with a small handprint on it. He laid it on the table and stared at it.
“Ethan?”
“Ah … no. I didn’t just find her. Someone sent me to the boat.”
His hands shook now as he turned over the photograph—a picture of an infant around six months old. It wasn’t the one Kelsey held in her lap.
“Ethan, who is that?” Her voice grew gentler. It was obvious the picture meant something to him.
He shook his head, his eyes on the photo.
Kelsey put her free hand over his, blocking his view. “Ethan, look at me. Who is the baby in the picture?”
He swallowed hard, his eyes dark with pain. “That baby is my son, Charlie. It was taken right before he died.”
Ethan shot to his feet. He couldn’t figure out how this tiny blonde toddler figured into what happened to Charlie. What was going on? Why would someone use her to get to him? Why would they have him find her?
None of it made a bit of sense.
Kelsey pressed a drink into his hand. “Drink this. You need some sugar.”
He looked down at her. “I’m fine. Just trying to figure out if I’ve missed something.”
She hitched the little girl she’d been calling Janie higher on her hip. “Something tells me if we can figure out who this munchkin is we’ll have another piece of the puzzle.”
“You’re right. It’s been a while, but I should be able to get some information. I have some resources in law enforcement.”
“When it comes to children, I have more. We’ll find out what’s going on.” Her pretty brown eyes were unadorned with makeup, but they were determined.
Ethan believed her. He took a deep breath for the first time since he’d seen that photograph. Someone was messing with his head, enjoying yanking his chain. And he would get to the bottom of it.
His phone buzzed. He reached for it and felt Kelsey’s soft hand on his arm. It felt like a lifeline.
He opened the phone to read the message.
Your son is alive.
TWO
Kelsey gripped Ethan’s arm tighter as he swayed. “Ethan?”
He stared at the phone. She eased it from his cramped fingers and looked at the message. Your son is alive.
What in the world was going on? “Ethan, why don’t we sit and you can tell me what happened to your son?”
He allowed Kelsey to lead him to the table. As he sat, the baby in her arms reached for him. With only a brief hesitation and something like deep pain settling in lines on his face, he took her. As Janie squirmed, he shifted her until she could lay her head on his shoulder.
Kelsey pushed the Coke toward him. “Okay, talk.”
He met her eyes and to her surprise, she saw a hint of a smile there. “I think you’re the only person who would have the nerve to ask me that. My family won’t. I think they’re afraid I’ll go off the deep end.”
“Is there danger of that?”
He rubbed a slow circle on the baby’s back while he seemed to be considering the question, and Kelsey’s heart did a lazy flip in her chest.
“I don’t think so.” A rueful smile, then.
She smiled back at him, even though she wanted to cry, because there was courage, and then there was courage. He had the real thing. “Why don’t you tell me about Charlie?”
Kelsey watched emotions—anger, fear, grief—travel across his face as he struggled to find the right words.
“I was undercover with the FBI. We were closing the deal with … some really bad people. All we needed was for the money to exchange hands and we could arrest them.” He closed his eyes, almost as if he shut them tight enough he could shut out the memory of that night. “They shouldn’t have been there. They shouldn’t have known the place even existed. I wasn’t anywhere near our hometown.”
“Wait—your wife and son were at the place where the sting was set to happen?”
“Yes.” The pain in that one word was enough to take her breath away.
“She walked across the street, right in front of me, and the restaurant where I was supposed to meet the people I’d been working to bring down … it just blew up. Amy and Charlie were killed in the explosion.” He licked dry lips and took a sip of the Coke she’d opened for him.
“How did she get there?”
“No one was ever able to figure it out. There were some unexplained phone calls on the call log of her cell phone, but the numbers traced back to burn phones. I left the FBI, but if there were new leads, I’m sure they would have let me know.” The toddler whimpered and roused. Ethan passed her to Kelsey, who lowered her into the crook of her arm and shushed her gently to sleep.
“You must feel like you’ve been living a nightmare that you can’t wake up from.”
His eyes took on a distant stare. The toll the last couple of years had taken on him had definitely been harsh. “You have no idea.”
She did have an idea—not what it was like to lose a wife and child, but she had a very good idea what it was like to lose people you love. Family.
Living nightmares? That she had experienced.
“Ethan, how can you know if the message you got is for real? Is it possible that your son could’ve survived without you knowing?”
It wasn’t possible. He’d watched as the explosion took his wife and child. And the small sliver of hope this message birthed in him only made the pain worse.
“No.” He glanced at her, her question reminding him of her presence. “And I think I might know a way to prove it.”
Ethan strode out the door of the marina shop with the photo in hand, Kelsey trailing behind with the toddler in her arms. The month before Amy and Charlie died, Ethan had been in Mobile for the weekend. A prearranged “business trip,” which really meant a visit home for him.
He’d taken Charlie out for the afternoon to give Amy a break. The two of them had gone to Kid’s Day in the park. Cops and firefighters put it on so that kids could meet them, see their uniforms and the firefighters in their gear and learn not to be afraid.
At the event, the cops were fingerprinting and photographing kids, making identification kits. He had one made for Charlie. Amy had teased him about it, an ID kit for a six-month-old.
He’d put it away in a drawer and said they would never need it.
Ethan turned down the pier that led to his boat slip. He’d tried renting a house when he first moved back to Sea Breeze, but after everything that had happened, a house was too normal. And he needed the water. He bought his boat three months later.
Climbing on board, he held out a hand. She passed him the diaper bag and then, taking his hand, made the easy jump onto the stern of the boat. In the cabin, he had stowed a small wooden box that held the only pieces of his old life that he’d kept close.
He ran his fingers over the smooth wood. So many nights he took his box out of its storage space and held it. He didn’t have to. He didn’t need mementos to remember his son or his wife. They were engraved on his heart.
It was harder than he’d expected to open it.
“Do you want me to …” Kelsey’s voice trailed off as she caught his expression.
“No, I can do it. It’s just—”
“I get it. You don’t have to explain.” She laid the baby on the berth and pushed a pillow under the mattress so Janie couldn’t roll off.
He pulled the box closer and lifted the lid. Without allowing himself to think about it, he pulled out a silver baby rattle and the tiny T-shirt that Charlie wore on his first day of life. A pressed flower that his wife had kept from their first date. Other precious bits and pieces of a life gone by. And the fingerprint card and picture he’d made on the last outing he’d had with Charlie.
Laying the handprint beside the fingerprint card, he compared the two. Neither was very precise, considering they’d been done on a six-month-old. But he could see the swirls and arches. His heart began to pound.
They looked like a match, the newer one only slightly larger.
Kelsey pushed him out of the way and pulled the cards where she could see them. “Oh my—Ethan. They match.”
He pushed away from the table and paced the dozen steps to the door of the cabin before turning back. “We need to get it verified.”
“SBPD can do that. But I think the place for us to start is with her.” She gestured to the little angel sleeping on Ethan’s bunk. Janie’s diaper-clad booty was hitched up in the air, and her chest rose and fell in even breaths. “If we find out who she is and who led her to you, just maybe that information leads to more information about your son.”
Hope and desperation mixed inside him—the need to believe that it could be true, the desperate wish for something so improbable. He turned to pace the length of the boat again, but in the small space he quickly ran into Kelsey as she paced the other way.
He leaned against the wall, his stomach in knots. “I don’t know what to think. We can try to trace her using the missing persons database, but something tells me she’s not going to be there.”
“I’ve got to get back to the office.” Kelsey slung the diaper bag over one shoulder and picked the baby up, easily settling her on her shoulder without waking her. With one hand, she dug her cell phone out of the back pocket of her capris. “Put your information in my phone. If I find something I’ll call you. With both of us working on this, something is bound to turn up.”
After finishing out his workday—which was thankfully spent doing mundane work like stopping boats to check for onboard safety equipment—Ethan spent the entire night searching the internet for information. He’d turned the problem around in his head every way he could possibly think of, and still he came up with nothing. From grief to hope to frustration, he’d pretty much run the gamut.
And now, running on little sleep, he wanted to take someone down.
Someone like the criminals who had set this whole thing in motion in the first place. Who stole someone’s child? Someone with no conscience. Someone who bought and sold people as commodities.
He slammed the brush on the surface of his boat and scrubbed. One thing about living on a boat—something always needed to be cleaned. Maybe it would help him work through some of his anger issues.
“Permission to come aboard, sir?” Kelsey’s voice drifted out from the pier.
“Permission granted, but be prepared to swab the deck.” Ethan reached for the T-shirt behind him on the rail and pulled it over his head.
“Nuh-uh. I’ve lived in Sea Breeze long enough to know better than to get between a man and his boat.”
Despite himself, he laughed, turning to greet her. She was dressed in a simple khaki skirt and a T-shirt, but she had on several long necklaces of brightly colored beads, and Janie had her hands twisted up in them. “I thought she would be in foster care by now.”
“It’s always the goal to get kids placed as quickly as possible.” Kelsey passed Ethan the baby and lightly stepped on board. “Unfortunately, all of our emergency foster care placements were full. We’re on our way to the pediatrician for a checkup.”
Janie grabbed his face and grinned, a half-dozen teeth on the top and bottom shining in her mouth. “She looks pretty happy.”
“I think she’s doing fine. I came by because, as I was looking through her diaper bag this morning, I found this.” She handed him an SD card, the kind that would go in a digital camera. “I don’t know what’s on it, but I thought it might be more evidence. It was sewn into the lining of her bag.”
Ethan stuffed the card into one of the pockets of his cargo shorts, one of the pockets that wasn’t wet from scrubbing the deck. Janie bounced on his free arm, but as she bounced, her foot got caught in his pocket.
She bounced again, but her foot didn’t come loose. Her face mashed up into a red-faced scowl. A wail came out of her mouth that rivaled the air horn he carried on his boat for emergencies. He hadn’t known she could do that. He looked at Kelsey. “A little help here?”
Kelsey loosened Janie’s foot, but stepped away, leaving him to deal. She dug in the diaper bag. He patted the baby on the back and shushed and—what was that other thing he’d read in the baby book you were supposed to do with crying kids?
His natural calm disappeared as she wailed. It was forever ago that he’d done baby stuff. Think, Clark. You’ve got this.
He started rocking back and forth. Yeah, that was it, motion.
It didn’t work, not even for a second.
Janie didn’t stop crying, but she did hiccup and gasp as she cried. Screaming kids made all kinds of crazy noises, but she didn’t sound right. He laid her back on his arm to look at her. Her lips were blue. “Kels—”
Kelsey came up with a sippy cup and a scrap of a blanket from the diaper bag.
“I don’t think that’s it. There’s something wrong with her. She’s blue—look at her hands.” His voice had risen, and he felt something close to panic.
“What?” Kelsey dropped the bag onto the deck. “Let me see.”
Janie hadn’t stopped crying, and her breathing was fast and shallow—not wheezing, like asthma, but as if she was trying to get more oxygen.
“Call 911.” Ethan might be calm on the outside, but inside he was freaking out. Oh, Jesus, please protect this little baby.
“Wait just a minute.” Kelsey took Janie from Ethan and held her close, letting her have the blanket, which didn’t really work. She didn’t even notice it. But then she tucked Janie’s legs up, almost against her own little armpits and held her close against her chest, rocking and singing to her—in Russian, he guessed.
Slowly, the baby calmed and began to suck her thumb. Her color returned, not quite pink, but not grayish-blue either. He picked up her little hand. The nails still had a bluish tinge, but the hands weren’t blue. His own heart rate started to return to something resembling normal.
“Russian?”
Kelsey nodded. “I don’t think it’s her language because she doesn’t really respond, but it probably sounds a lot more familiar to her than English.”
He dropped onto a bench seat. “I was afraid she was going to die. How did you know to do that?”
“I didn’t know, not for sure.” She eased to the seat beside him. Janie’s eyes were drifting shut, but her color was good. Crisis averted, for now. “But kids in underdeveloped countries don’t have the kind of medical care we have here, so I’ve seen this before. I think it’s a heart defect.”
“Oh, right—missionary kid. Where was this?” He watched Janie’s chest rise and fall, not quite ready to assume she was going to be okay.
“Rwanda. There was a little kid there who would be running and playing and then all of a sudden his lips and hands would turn blue and he would gasp for air, just like this. His fix was to stop and squat down and lean forward. It’s a crude treatment, but it works—for a while.” She stood with the baby in her arms. “I think instead of going straight to the pediatrician, I’ll have the pediatrician call Children’s Hospital. She needs to be seen by a specialist.”
He grabbed the diaper bag and sippy cup from the deck and followed her toward her car. “Do you want me to go?”
“We’ll be fine. I’ll keep you posted when I can.”
Seven hours later, Kelsey pulled up at the drive through at Chick-fil-A. She briefly felt guilty about her choice, but just as quickly discarded the thought. She was starving. And she was traumatized.
Janie had been poked, prodded, stuck, ultrasounded, echoed and basically put through every test any of the pediatric cardiologists could think of at the children’s clinic. And every test came back with the same result. She was one sick little baby. The miracle, they said, was that she had lived—and basically thrived—this long. She was small for her age because of the lack of oxygen and nutrients getting to her cells.
And she would have to have surgery as soon as the doctors could arrange it. Normally kids with her condition would’ve had surgery before they were a year old.
The thought that this little baby might’ve died because no one had gotten her the medical treatment she needed … Kelsey took a deep, cleansing breath and tried not to focus on how angry it made her.
The perky teenager handed Kelsey a bag of yummy chicken and fries and not one but two milk shakes. She figured if she was going to go bug Ethan, she should at least take a food offering.
She hadn’t really stopped to think why she was going to him. Maybe it was because he had found Janie, and she thought maybe he would have an emotional connection. Maybe it was because she saw how tender he was with the baby. Or how worried he’d been when she had had the episode earlier this morning.
He was someone she admired, someone she was working with. That was all. Maybe it was the fact that, like her, he’d endured more than anyone should have to. The fact that his beautiful blue eyes connected with hers in a way that she’d rarely felt before … well, that was just something she would have to deal with.
He needed to find his son. She needed to find out the identity of the baby currently sleeping in the backseat of her car.
They could help each other.
She passed the turn to her house and kept going to the marina. When she pulled into a parking place, she called his phone. When he answered, his deep voice, raspy from lack of use, rumbled in her ear.
“Hi, I’m in the parking lot. I have news.”
“Be right there.”
In two minutes, he came walking down the pier, a computer under his arm, his long, jean-clad legs eating up the distance. He slid into the passenger seat, glanced in the backseat at the sleeping baby and then back at her, those blue eyes full of concern. “Is she okay?”
“She will be.” Kelsey handed him a milk shake. He looked at it like it was a bomb. “It’s chocolate. Drink it.”
He took a sip. “What did the doctor say?”
“Doctors, plural. We just got done. She has to have surgery. Maybe more than one. Tetralogy of Fallot is the genetic defect that causes her to turn blue, but she also has another defect that has to be repaired. It turns out it’s pretty rare.”
“Wherever you have to go, we can take her.”
Here he was, his son missing after two years of being presumed dead, and he was offering to take her wherever she needed to go, whatever she needed to do to take care of Janie.
It was enough to melt the strongest woman’s defenses, and she was a sucker for a soft-hearted man.
Kelsey took a long sip of her milk shake and cleared her throat. “There is some good news, though. The pediatric cardiologist at Children’s emailed the records for Janie to the specialist in Boston and got him on the phone. It seems that this doctor has been emailed her records before.”
Ethan jolted. “So we can identify her?”
“Maybe.” This was the frustrating part, the part that had her banging her head on a wall for most of the afternoon. Well, more than the constant waiting with a fussy baby. “The doctor wouldn’t release the records he had. In fact, he wouldn’t reveal any information about her at all, not even the doctor who originally emailed the records.”
“We need to get a court order. That’s the closest thing to a lead I’ve seen. I have someone I can call—”
She shook her head, smiled. “I’m already on it. There’s a federal judge here who knows a judge in the Boston area he can tap for a warrant. I called him this afternoon when it became clear that Boston was going to be difficult.”
Ethan turned to her, and there was the smile, just that little tug, at the corner of his mouth. “Oh, you are good.”
“It isn’t my first time around this particular block with doctors and records on foster children. I go straight for the big guns. So what did you find out?”
In answer, he opened his computer and clicked through to the photo gallery. At least a hundred, maybe two hundred photos of infant faces popped up.
She sucked in a breath. “All those are …?”
Ethan shrugged. “Without any more information, I can only assume that they are babies who were trafficked here for profit. Adoption scam is what I’d guess. There’s a lot of money to be made if the person is ruthless enough.” He clicked on one about halfway down. “Here’s Janie.”
“She would’ve been an adoption risk because of her birth defect. If anyone made a stink, they would put the whole operation in jeopardy.”
“Exactly. This one—” he scrolled up a little bit and his cursor hovered over another picture “—is my son. It looks like it was taken about two weeks to a month after he supposedly died. I think this is proof that he was abducted.”
“That’s absolutely incredible.”
He nodded. “I don’t know what Amy was doing at the restaurant that night, but at least now I can figure that it had something to do with these babies being trafficked and Charlie being kidnapped.”
Kelsey reached for his hand. “I’m so sorry, Ethan.”
His gaze tracked to meet hers. And held.
“I know.” He took a long, slow breath and opened the door. “Do you want me to follow you home?”
How could he be worried about them when he was the one who’d just heard life-altering news? News that turned the belief he’d had for the last two years on its head. It had to be killing him that his son could be alive, yet he didn’t know where he was.
She shook her head. “We’ll be all right. I just live a few blocks away. We’re almost neighbors.”
“Okay, I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”
She thought he would slam the door because most people wouldn’t consider the sleeping child in the backseat. But not Ethan. He closed the door gently.
She pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward her house. Ethan stood alone in the parking lot, his hand raised in farewell. After all these years in the mission field, saying goodbye was a particular talent of hers.
It seemed that Ethan was pretty good at it, too.
THREE
When they were partners, Ethan wouldn’t have waited to call Bridges. If he hadn’t been able to sleep because of the puzzle of evidence crowding his head, he would’ve called him in the middle of the night, or in the early hours of the morning. New information would’ve meant an instant call, day or night.
But he and Bridges hadn’t been partners in more than two years.
Ethan hadn’t even talked to his former partner in close to nine months. Without the day-to-day working relationship and with the secret nature of the job that Bridges did, there wasn’t as much as Ethan would’ve thought to build a friendship on. And truthfully, at the time, Ethan hadn’t cared.
Now he needed help to put together the random pieces of this case. Because of the trauma surrounding the event, there were things Ethan didn’t remember about the night Amy died. Hopefully Bridges could put those things in place.
The voice was grumpy and sleep-thickened, but sounded the same. “Bridges.”
“Still aren’t checking caller ID, I see.”
“Ethan Clark. You better have a good reason for waking me up at one in the morning, my friend.”
“It can wait until tomorrow.”
“No, I’m awake. What’s going on?” Sleep had disappeared from Bridges’ voice. A field agent got used to being awakened in the middle of the night. Ethan waited for the twinge, the little giveaway that he missed the job he used to do in the FBI when he was partners with Bridges. It wasn’t there.
With concise, short sentences, Ethan filled in his former partner on what had happened in the last two days, only leaving the fact that he believed his son might still be alive. “I just can’t figure out how all this ties in to what we were working back then or why someone would reach out to me now.”
Bridges was silent on the line. Then, “Ethan, you have to know that we searched every piece of ash from that explosion. There was nothing. Cantori was smoke, like he’d never existed.”
“I know.” The knot in his stomach was back. He dug in his pocket to find the roll of Tums he’d bought at the convenience store earlier and thumbed off a couple. “What about the girls?”
“We never found where he was keeping them. The only thing I could ever figure is that the operation is tight, with only a few key players. You know that—you’re the one who was in with them.”
It was true. “What about your confidential informant?”
“You don’t remember?”
The question he’d been dreading. And because Booth Bridges had been his partner, he had to be honest. “Everything is hazy, Booth. I tried to wipe it all out of my memory for two years.”
There was silence on the line. Then his former partner cleared his throat. “The CI was killed in a car accident a few weeks after you went in. The wreck was cleared by local cops as accidental, but neither of us thought it was an accident.”
Ethan had a vague recollection. “He was eliminated.”
“Yes, I think so.” Bridges sighed heavily. “We can’t protect you, Ethan.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that these are very dangerous players. If you open this back up, you’ll need to watch your back. These guys—they play for keeps.”
Anger roared through Ethan. Deftly, with the familiarity of long practice, he pushed it back, though his voice shook with the effort. “I think I’m in a position to be aware of that.”
His partner’s breath came across the line in a rush. “Of course you are. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry, Ethan.”
“Even if I had nothing personally at stake, I don’t know how I could let this go. If they are selling babies, then there’s a lot more to this than we realized. More than a simple trafficking-for-profit scheme.” As if that wasn’t bad enough. His lip twitched. Frustration. Anger again.
Like an echo of his own feelings, frustration came through the line in his former partner’s voice, as well. “Right now all you have is an unidentified child, and I’m not sure what you want me to do with that.”
“We’re handling it. Local P.D. are on it and the FBI out of Mobile is involved in her case. What I need is information about the case that we worked. If it wasn’t about selling those young girls, what was it about?”
The line went quiet. Ethan could hear the clink of ice falling into a glass and liquid splashing in after it. Then, “For years, we’ve been going at this from the angle of trafficking women and coming up with nothing. Maybe I can run this new information by someone at Crimes Against Children and see if I turn up any complaints. It’s a stretch, but I’ll try.”
“That’s all I can ask.” Ethan stared into the darkness at the lights on the opposite shore. “Thanks, Booth. I owe you one.”
“No. I don’t think you do. I think we all owe you, Ethan.”
Stuffing the sigh down, Ethan said, “Keep in touch,” and as Bridges hung up on his end of the conversation, he resisted the urge to throw the phone. He hated feeling like he’d just been dealt the pity card, but if Bridges wanted to follow this through out of some misguided sense of a debt owed, so be it.
At least he would see where it led.
A few blocks away, Kelsey laid a very sleepy baby into the porta-crib. Janie’s golden curls were still damp from the bath, and she sighed in her sleep, her mouth moving just a touch, like she missed her thumb. Too cute.
The doctor had said that she needed surgery as soon as possible, maybe as soon as next week, to put a shunt in her heart, giving her time to grow until they could do the full reconstructive surgery. She was trying to find the right doctor to follow Janie’s care here in Florida. The red tape to get an unidentified child transferred from one state to another for state-funded medical care was going to be difficult—actually, she wasn’t sure it had ever been done. But Janie deserved a bright future. In the meantime, Kelsey would be vigilant and try to keep her as calm as possible.
She gave the baby’s back one last pat and turned toward the bathroom. Seeing and interacting with multiple children on a daily basis was one thing, but caring for a toddler minute by minute was exhausting—especially after the day they’d had at Children’s Hospital.
They were close to finding out who Janie really was, though. Closer than Kelsey had imagined they would be at this point, thanks to the medical records. She squeezed toothpaste on her toothbrush and reached for the water, turning it on and quickly off again as she thought she heard the sound of something outside.
Her heartbeat picked up speed. She didn’t hear it again. Maybe it was just her imagination. Or an animal in the trash cans. Maybe he hadn’t found anything to his tastes, so he’d ambled on to check someone else’s garbage. She resisted the urge to check under her bed for the baseball bat she kept. She didn’t have to—she knew it was there.
She turned the water on again, straining her ears to listen as she brushed her teeth. Glass broke and she swallowed a mouthful of toothpaste.
That hadn’t been her imagination.
That sound had been in her kitchen. Her legs were quaking, blood rushing in her ears. She ran for the bedroom door and closed and locked it silently, flipping off the lights at the same time.
Now what? Did she stay and take her chances on the police getting there in time? She felt her way across the room to her bedside table, finding her cell phone and stuffing it in the pocket of her sweatpants.
She grabbed the bat from under the bed. Hovering over the baby’s crib, she considered her options.
Stay and hide. Pray the baby doesn’t cry.
Make a run for it out the patio door.
The safety of the baby was her first priority. And if she stayed in the house with an intruder, the baby would be at risk. But what if someone had waited outside?
She breathed a prayer, one she’d said since childhood. Please God, go before us and behind us. Guard us and protect us.
Kelsey heard a door open down the hall. There really was someone in her house. Nausea burned in her stomach. She had to make a decision.
Coming closer. Oh, dear God, help.
Janie’s new medicine was in the diaper bag. She grabbed it off the floor and threw it over her shoulder. She had to leave now, if she was going to. Making the decision, she put the bat down and lifted Janie from the crib. Don’t wake up, don’t wake up.
She crept to the glass doors, her legs weak, the baby’s weight heavy in her shaking arms. Her breath was coming in quick gasps. She had to calm down and think.
From the vantage point in here, the patio looked clear. If she went straight out the back without being seen, she could cut through the neighbor’s yard and be at Ethan’s boat in less than five minutes. She had to get out without being noticed. The night was dark, no moon to speak of. If she didn’t make noise, if the baby was quiet. If the intruders were busy in the house.
So many ifs. She had to take the chance, though. Janie’s safety, her safety, depended on it.
Now or never. Her heart pounding loud enough to wake the baby on its own, she flipped the lock, slid the glass doors open and stepped out, silent in her bare feet.
Don’t wake up, don’t wake up.
She ran.
The slate pavers on her patio cut into her feet, but she didn’t slow down or cry out. She had to get through the trees to the street behind her house. Holding Janie close to her chest, she thumbed the two on her phone, where she’d programmed Ethan’s number. As it rang, she heard a shout from behind her. From her house. “Oh, no. No, no, no. Do not follow me.”
Janie lifted her head. “It’s okay, sweetie, go back to sleep.”
“Ethan Clark.”
Relief flooded her at the sound of his voice, but he was still so far away. “Ethan, someone—in my—house. I ran. I’m not sure—I think—they followed.”
“What? Where are you?”
She had to stop for a second. She had to breathe. Flattening herself against the fence in the neighbor’s yard, she glanced back at her house. A light flashed in the window. A flashlight?
The door slammed open and she heard more shouting.
She whispered urgently into the phone. “They’re coming!” She ran. The marina was about four blocks from here, but she was on the street now. She could run faster. She hitched the baby up in her arms. Janie whimpered but didn’t cry.
Her pursuers crashed through the bushes in her neighbor’s yard half a block away.
She tried to glance back to see where they were, stumbled and nearly went to her knees. Her cell phone skidded to the curb. She left it.
One wish. One prayer. Safety.
Something whizzed past her ear and she heard a metallic thud in the mailbox closest to her. Was that … oh, no, it was. They were shooting at her.
Help.
It was as close to a prayer as she could get, especially when she had a few choice words she’d like to say to the people shooting at a baby.
A shout came from in front of her. “Kelsey, run for the boat!”
She didn’t hesitate. Here was help.
Ethan didn’t hear a gunshot, but he saw the muzzle flash and heard the metallic thud as the round hit a mailbox feet from where Kelsey ran with the baby. Silenced weapon, which meant professional.
That Kelsey had been able to escape at all was pure miracle.
From somewhere he pulled calm, clear thinking. He put a bullet in the ground near where he’d seen muzzle flash. Another into the bushes. He heard a muffled cry.
All he needed was to keep the gunmen busy long enough to give Kelsey time to get safely on the boat.
A baby’s wail lifted on the air.
The calm disappeared. Someone had sent killers after an innocent woman and child, and not for the first time. Anger spilled into rage. He fired another shot toward the bushes.
“Ethan, we’re on board.” Kelsey’s voice came to him from the boat as a silenced shot hit the pole next to him, showering splinters of wood.
The weapon the hitmen were using was made for close-quarters hits, not the distance shots they were taking, but the impact of the bullets was too close for comfort.
He ran for the boat.
He had it idling already, but the lines were still attached to the pier. He turned and fired behind him at the bushes again, where at least one of the gunmen was hiding.
Ethan threw the bowline into the boat, and as he ran for the stern, he saw Kelsey pulling in the stern line. “Good girl.”
He jumped on board as she cleared the line and followed, ducking as another shot slammed into the tower. “Baby?”
“Safe below.”
“Get down there with her. You need to be under cover.” Ethan climbed the tower to the bridge and pushed the throttle slowly forward, easing out of the slip. As he cleared the pilings, a round hit the GPS, blowing it to smithereens.
He took a deep breath.
In the harbor area, he was the law. And the law said no-wake. He consoled himself with the thought, as he slammed the throttle forward, that not even he would write a ticket for someone speeding away from a professional hitman.
The lights of the marina faded quickly into the distance. He wouldn’t take a bet that the hitmen would do the same. If they were hired to do a job, they wouldn’t quit until it was done. He was going to need help keeping Kelsey and Janie safe.
As they traveled deeper into the bay, the night settled heavy around them. Safe—for now.
He slowed the boat to a stop and sat, letting his heart rate settle, letting his thoughts settle. The night sounds of the bay were as familiar to him as his own heartbeat. The song of the frogs in the estuary, the soft slap of the water against the side of the boat, the deep growl of a gator somewhere off in the distance.
He flicked a piece of glass off the bridge—what remained of his GPS. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need it to know where he was in this body of water. He took a deep breath for the first time in what seemed like hours.
“All clear?” Kelsey’s soft voice was laced with exhaustion.
Ethan dropped down the ladder to the deck below. “For now.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and held on, resting her head on his chest, her long hair falling out of its clasp to slide against his skin. The smell of sweet herbs drifted up from the strands. “I was so scared.”
He held on to her, just held on. It had been so long since he’d been held by another person. Since he’d held someone. He’d forgotten what it was like.
Ethan patted her back, much the way he would Janie’s. And found a creeping sense of peace that he didn’t expect. He closed his eyes, letting the night sounds and the feel of her in his arms give him rest.
She sniffed and moved a half step back. It was dark, but he could still see her eyes, searching out his. “I prayed for help. And there you were.”
“I don’t think there was anything miraculous about it, Kels—I was just here.” He didn’t want to step away from her; he wanted to fix this. He wanted to hold her again. Feel her hair against his chin, her head against his chest, feel that sense of belonging when he’d felt like a piece of driftwood for the last two years.
But he didn’t take her back in his arms.
It wasn’t that he felt unfaithful, exactly. Just weird.
She walked to the deck rail and looked out. “Prayers don’t always get answered, not like that. Not even just in the nick of time.”
He knew about unanswered prayers, and he wondered when it was that her prayers had gone unanswered, wondered if he should ask. But he settled for, “I know.”
He’d been praying for guidance and protection for his son. That they would find him. But how did he learn to trust in God again? How had she?
“I guess you do.” She didn’t look at him. “And I’m sorry for it.” Shaking the mood, she turned back. “So what now?”
Ethan didn’t hesitate. This was a question he knew the answer to. “Now we get you somewhere we can keep you safe. Both of you. Somewhere with high walls and high-tech security. I know just the place. It won’t be long.”
He climbed the ladder to the bridge and started moving the boat forward, but his thoughts—those were with a black-haired social worker down below. One with a heart the size of the Gulf of Mexico and shadows that came into her eyes once in a while.
High walls and high-tech security, he’d told her. He hadn’t mentioned the team of highly trained security specialists his brother and his wife had staying on holiday at their bed-and-breakfast, Restoration Cove. If anyone could keep her safe, they could.
He just hoped it would be enough.
FOUR
Kelsey held Janie close, peering out at their destination as Ethan let the boat glide into the pier. Lights gleamed from the windows of a gigantic house. Where had he brought her?
She heard his feet hit the deck after quick footsteps down the ladder. He tossed a line from the stern of the boat to a man waiting on the dock, all practiced, efficient motion.
When the bowline was tied off as well, Ethan met the man in the stern of the boat. A clasped hand, a bumped shoulder—they murmured an exchange that she couldn’t hear, but it was clear the man wasn’t a stranger to Ethan.
He turned to the door where Kelsey waited. “Kelsey, this is my brother, Tyler. And this is Restoration Cove.”
The baby was sleeping, so Kelsey nodded as she stepped closer. Ethan’s brother looked like him, but darker. Darker hair, darker eyes.
Tyler put a hand on her back as the boat rocked. “My wife, Gracie, is waiting for you in the kitchen at the main house. She has a room ready for you.” When she hesitated, he smiled. “It’s okay. We’ll be right behind you.”
Ethan made a sound of protest.
“She’s safe here, Ethan,” Tyler said softly. With his hand on Kelsey’s elbow, he helped her forward before turning back to his brother.
She walked down the long dock toward the shore, looking back only once as she felt Ethan’s eyes on her. He was deep in conversation with his brother, but he watched her.
Ethan had suffered a huge loss, one he was still reeling from. And yet he wanted to protect her. He wouldn’t have brought her here if he hadn’t thought it was the safest place for them.
As she got closer to the main house, she realized it was huge. A mansion. The door flew open, spilling light onto the marble terrace. A blonde in cropped sweatpants, an SBPD T-shirt and flip-flops stood in the door.
Janie stirred in Kelsey’s arms, but despite the events of the evening and all the moving, she settled back to sleep.
“I’m Ethan’s sister-in-law, Gracie. Come on in. I put a porta-crib in one of the guest rooms. My husband picked the room. It’s not the nicest—there’s no balcony—but it is roomy, and apparently, sniper-proof.”
At Kelsey’s quick, wide-eyed look, Gracie stopped in the middle of the hall. “I’m sorry. I’m so used to the law enforcement types we get around here. I forget you’re a layperson.”
“You’re not?”
Gracie started up the stairs. “Not really. I’m a forensic psychologist, or was, until Tyler and I opened Restoration Cove. I still work on call with the Crisis Response Team as a hostage negotiator.” She pushed open the door to one of the guest rooms. “And I work as a counselor here.”
Kelsey walked into the room. As Gracie had said, there was plenty of space for the porta-crib, which had been placed on the wall closest to the hall. The headboard of the bed was upholstered in a pale blue-and-brown scroll print. The fluffy white comforter had a cornflower-blue throw casually tossed at the end that, at first glance, Kelsey was pretty sure was cashmere.
“You do have your own bathroom,” Gracie said softly, as she gestured to a door at the opposite end of the room.
Soft light shone from the lamp on the desk angled into a corner. It was beautiful and cozy without being girly. Luxurious and understated.
Kelsey gently laid the toddler in the crib. Janie opened her eyes and blinked, saw Kelsey, and smiled. Oh, boy. If she really woke up now, they were in for an all-nighter. Kelsey laid the tattered piece of blankie next to Janie’s face and patted her on the back. With a sigh, the toddler rolled over on her tummy and tucked the blankie under her chin, her eyes fluttering shut again.
With every child Kelsey rescued from a dangerous situation, she felt a tug on her heart. A responsibility that went beyond just a job. She had defenses, of course—she had to or she wouldn’t be able to do her job at all.
But this little girl, all sixteen point two pounds of her, had wormed right under those defenses in about ten seconds flat.
Gracie waited at the door. Kelsey turned to her, tucking one bare foot behind the other, aware her appearance didn’t quite measure up to her surroundings.
“You’ve had a tough day.” Gracie’s eyes were kind, and without warning Kelsey’s burned with tears.
She pressed her fingers to them. “You have no idea.”
“Believe me, I know how it feels. Come on, I’ll give you the nickel tour, and if you like, we can join the guys for some tea.”
As they left the room, Gracie closed the door behind Kelsey. “Don’t worry about her. She’ll be fine. We have great security here.”
“That’s what Tyler said. Why?” She followed Gracie down the hall to another door, which opened into a small sitting room.
“The real reason is that last year my sister tried to kill me.” Gracie looked back at Kelsey and rolled her eyes. “Try to say that without freaking somebody out. We had the security system put in after that, and since then, we’ve upgraded.”
She let Kelsey walk into the room before her. “We’re a bed-and-breakfast, as you can tell, but we have a special mission. We cater to law enforcement officers and agents and their families who need a place to rest and recover.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like it before.”
“When Tyler came out of the DEA, he needed a place to figure out life. The Cove did that for him. We figured maybe it could be that for other people too. We have all the amenities of a high-end resort, but we also have counseling services available for those who request it. And occasionally, we provide a safe house if there’s a need.” Gracie dropped into a chair and curled her feet underneath her. “Like I said, we have excellent security.”
“Thank you for taking us in.” Kelsey sank into a comfy wide sofa and dropped her head into her hands. “It’s not the first time I’ve been under attack by armed gunmen, but I certainly didn’t expect it in my own home.”
“No one ever expects violence. What happened the last time? Was it another case?”
Life had taught Kelsey at an early age to roll with the punches, put the past behind you. She’d had to, to survive. The attack on her village in Rwanda wasn’t something she talked about—ever. She was obviously more affected by the events of today than she thought, for that event to be up front, right there, in her mind. “It was a long time ago. I lived overseas with my parents. Things are different in third-world countries.”
She slanted a look at Gracie, whose blue eyes didn’t miss anything.
“If you want to talk about it, that’s literally what I’m here for. Sometimes it helps to talk.” A wry smile curved Gracie’s lips. “And, according to Tyler, sometimes it helps to beat the living daylights out of something. He leads a hand-to-hand combat class on the back lawn every morning. Because I insist, we also have tai chi on the beach at sunset. You know you’re welcome here, Kelsey.”
Kelsey drew in a deep breath. “You have no idea how grateful I am.”
“I think I do.” Gracie unfolded herself from the chair and gestured to a different door from the one they came in. “That door also leads back to your room. Since you have the baby, you should consider this room as part of your personal space. I’m going to check on the men and head back to my quarters. We do have guests at the moment, so I’ll be back here in a couple of hours to help Tyler with breakfast.”
“Thanks.” Kelsey stood, hugging Gracie. The same early life lessons that had taught her to roll with the punches and put the past behind her had taught her to show affection when she felt it. She’d learned she might not have another chance.
Gracie squeezed. “I’ll see you in the morning. Sleep as late as you want. I’ll save you something.”
A laugh snorted out. “Oh, I wish. Janie has—for the most part—slept through all the excitement tonight. I have a feeling she’ll be up in time to help Tyler with the pancakes.”
At the door, Gracie turned back, blond curls bouncing around her shoulders. “Oh, I figured you left in a hurry, so there are a few things for you in the dresser.”
Gracie left the door open. Kelsey laid her head on the oversized arm of the sofa. Tyler and Gracie had both said she was safe here, that Janie was safe here. What an amazing feeling, to be able to relax her guard, even for just a few minutes.
She closed her eyes. Today had been such a long day and she was so very tired. Maybe she would rest just a minute before she went to find those clothes.
The smell of bacon and coffee roused Ethan from the small bit of restless sleep he’d managed. His brother had fired questions at him for over an hour about what had happened, how they would keep Kelsey safe and what they would need to accomplish it. He’d walked out on Tyler once the police called and said they had evidence that at least one of the hitmen had been injured. Lots of bullet holes, but no casings. These guys were definitely professionals.
All the while he’d kept turning the mystery over and over in his mind. Who took his child? And how had they managed it right under the noses of his team and left virtually no trace?
Who had left a tiny toddler—a sick one, no less—alone in a boat for him to find, along with the information about his son? He wondered about the intentions of the person who would do such a thing. Could they possibly be good?
Obviously he was now on the search for his son, and Janie would get the medical care that she needed. He still couldn’t understand why he or she would go to such lengths to get his attention. Surely a meeting at a coffeehouse would’ve worked just as well.
There were too many questions. Too little information. He might be stuck here, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have goals—to find his son and close a case that was apparently putting them all at risk.
Charlie was the one thing he hadn’t talked with Tyler about last night. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Tyler would believe … maybe he just wanted to keep it close to his heart for a little while longer.
His phone buzzed in his back pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the readout. Restricted number.
A sense of excitement mixed with foreboding as he pushed the send button. “Clark.”
“Ethan Clark?” The voice raised the hair on his arms. He knew this voice. The last time he’d heard it was on the phone, making the arrangements for the day on the night his wife was murdered.
His lip twitched involuntarily. “Hello, Cantori.”
“Well, of course, I don’t go by that name now, but it will do for these purposes.”
“How did you get this number?” Ethan didn’t think he could manage a civil conversation much longer.
“A mutual friend gave it to me.”
Ethan’s fingers went cold. Who had he talked to that had talked to Tony Cantori? It could’ve been one of the FBI agents in Mobile. It could’ve been one of the police officers in Destin or Sea Breeze. It could even have been his partner. “What do you want, Cantori?”
“Stay away from this case. I’m speaking as one friend to another. You’ve suffered enough.”
“What are you talking about?” The fact that this man would still threaten him made him sick.
The low chuckle rolled over Ethan like an evil wave. “I think you know exactly what I mean, Ethan. Watch your back. And keep a careful eye on those you love.” His old enemy hung up the phone.
Ethan stared at it in his hand. Then stuffed it in his back pocket.
He needed to find his brother downstairs. And he needed to find his son. Had he put Charlie in danger again by following up on this?
But what was his other choice? Not following through?
His fingers curled into a fist. Barely, he resisted punching it through the wall.
He needed to find Tyler ASAP, and he had a good idea that his brother could be found in the kitchen. As he walked down the hall, he heard a noise from Kelsey’s room. Babble, babble, babble. Silence. A little louder: babble, babble, babble. Squeal.
How was Kelsey sleeping through that?
As he went a little farther down the hall, he glanced into an open door. Kelsey lay curled in the corner of a sofa in a small sitting room, still in the clothes she’d worn the night before. She was sound asleep, her arm flung out beside her.
She was cute. Her dark hair curled almost to her waist. She wore casual sweatpants and a T-shirt that had a picture of Africa holding up two fingers like a peace sign. He was pretty sure he’d seen a celebrity wearing that on the cover of a magazine. Definition of an oxymoron?
Janie squealed again. Kelsey rolled onto her side and tucked her fist under her cheek. She wouldn’t sleep through that noise for long.
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