by Rebecca Deel
“It’s time for her to eat and I can’t wake her.”
“Did you or your nanny notice anything unusual about Kayla before dinner? A fever or inconsolable crying like she was in pain?” Sam was out of her depth. She worked with adults, not babies.
Charlaine shook her head. “When I checked on Kayla a few minutes ago, Bianca was gone and I couldn’t rouse my daughter.”
Footsteps hurried toward them. Sam glanced back to see Lance moving their direction, worry in the eyes he’d focused on the baby.
“What’s going on?” he asked, voice low. “Is the baby all right?”
“She won’t wake up,” Charlaine said, tears streaking down her face. “I can’t find Bianca.”
Lance scowled. “She left Kayla alone? If she doesn’t have a rock-solid reason for leaving the baby, she’ll be looking for another job.”
A telling statement. Would Lance have been as free with his words and feelings if the other executives from Hollingbrook were near?
“What do you need, Sam?” Joe asked.
“A quiet place to check the baby and my mike bag.” She didn’t have supplies to treat an infant’s ailment but she could check Kayla’s vitals.
“I’ll be back in a minute.” Joe spun and ran.
“There’s a lounge at the other end of the corridor,” Nico said. “It should be deserted. Will that work?”
“Lead the way.” As the group walked away from the dining room, Sam sent Joe a message, letting him know where to bring her bag. When they entered the lounge, they discovered the area was deserted.
Charlaine hurried to the closest couch. Lance spread the baby’s blanket over a cushion and stepped aside for Charlaine to place Kayla on the makeshift bed. Although he didn’t touch the mother, he stayed close.
“May I undress your daughter to see if she has a rash on her torso or marks on her skin?” It would also give her a chance to check Kayla’s temperature.
“It’s fine. Please, just help her.”
Charlaine’s heartfelt plea tugged at Sam’s heartstrings. She’d felt the same utter terror when Joe had been shot in the chest on a mission. Yeah, she understood how desperate Kayla’s mother felt. Sam had worked feverishly to save Joe’s life and stayed by his side during the nightmare flight to safety and Dr. Sorensen’s clinic. Like Joe had done for her not so long ago, Sam had stayed with the spotter while he recuperated.
Joe raced into the lounge with Sam’s mike bag slung over his shoulder. He shrugged it off and set it beside the couch. “Any change?”
She shook her head as she unsnapped Kayla’s sleeper. She eased the baby’s arms and legs from the outfit and checked her skin. No rash on the front. With a glance at the mother, Sam gently turned Kayla to her stomach. Still no rash. No odd marks, either. As she examined the baby, Sam talked to her, pausing to gently tap her cheek or the bottom of a tiny foot, hoping for a response. Nothing.
Joe crouched beside her. “What do you need?”
“Stethoscope and digital thermometer. I want to check her heart rate and temperature.”
A moment later, he laid the instruments in Sam’s hand.
She listened to Kayla’s heart. The beat was too slow for a baby her age. Sam checked pupil reaction, then used the thermometer. When she finished, Sam turned to Charlaine. “I’m not an expert on babies and children, but I think your daughter has been drugged.”
Charlaine clamped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. Lance cursed. “Can you treat her?” he asked.
Sam shook her head. If they’d been on a mission outside of the US with no access to doctors, she would have done what she could to help. This wasn’t a war zone and a qualified medical staff was available. “You should take Kayla to the infirmary. The doctor will treat her. Charlaine, do you mind if Joe and I search your cabin? The doctor needs to know what Kayla might have been given.”
The distraught mother shoved her hand in her pants pocket, yanked out her key card, and thrust it toward Sam. “Cabin 2347. Hurry.”
“I’ll escort Charlaine and Lance to the infirmary with Kayla,” Nico said. “Joe, go with Sam.” He urged the parents to follow him with their daughter.
Joe scooped up the mike bag and clasped Sam’s hand. They jogged to the stairs. Three decks down, Sam slid the key card in the lock on Charlaine’s door. She surveyed the cabin. “I’ll take the bedrooms. You start with the bathroom.”
“Gloves first.” He glanced at her. “In case foul play is involved in the nanny’s disappearance.” Joe set Sam’s mike bag on the floor and opened it. “We don’t want to contaminate evidence if law enforcement needs to step in. Making ourselves a target of their interest would be a waste of time and resources.”
Sam handed Joe gloves before tugging on a pair herself. She moved into the room and began to search. The room included a bed and luggage of one of the women. Shoving aside her qualms about invading the woman’s privacy, she rifled through Bianca’s belongings and didn’t find medicine aside from birth control pills. She passed through the bathroom to the second bedroom and shifted her search to the next set of luggage on the far side of the bed. Charlaine’s luggage was a set Sam recognized from an Internet search into vacations and luggage during a lazy, boring afternoon while she recuperated and Joe was out of the country with Shadow. This set of luggage was one Sam admired and marked off her list of possible purchases because she felt the price too steep to pay for something she might use a handful of times.
Hoping she wouldn’t find evidence incriminating the mother, Sam searched through the Hollingbrook executive’s luggage. Nothing except over-the-counter pain meds. Caplets, nothing that could be easily given to an infant.
“Sam.” Joe stood in the doorway to the bathroom, two small bottles on his palm.
She rushed across the cabin and took the bottles from his hand. Children’s allergy medicine and pain reliever. Sam scowled. The bottles were empty. This had to be what they were looking for unless the nanny or someone else brought meds to drug the baby. “Let’s go.”
Joe slung her mike bag over his shoulder and they ran to the infirmary. Nico turned as they raced inside. “Find anything?”
“Maybe.” Sam extended her hand, bottles on her palm. “Charlaine, did you bring these on the ship?”
She frowned. “I always travel with these in case Kayla needs them.”
“Were the bottles new, partially used, nearly empty?”
The doctor glanced away from Kayla for a moment. His gaze locked on Sam. “What was in the bottles?”
“Pain reliever and allergy meds. The bottles are empty.”
Charlaine gasped. “That can’t be. Each bottle was at least a quarter full.”
“I don’t understand.” Lance frowned. “Why would Bianca want to hurt a baby?”
“If she gave Kayla the meds, she didn’t intend to hurt her.” Sam bagged the bottles, then handed the empty containers to the doctor. “I think the intent was to make sure Kayla slept for a while.”
Lance cursed. “Bianca will be looking for another job.”
“If she’s guilty.” Charlaine’s attention shifted to her daughter. “Bianca came highly recommended and she’s never done anything to suggest she would do something like this.”
“Kayla was left alone in the cabin for at least 40 minutes. I want to talk to the ship’s security chief. I want Bianca found and questioned.”
“Did you bring any other medication for Kayla?” Sam asked.
The baby’s mother shook her head. “She’s been healthy except for a mild cold last month. Her pediatrician recommended I bring the allergy medication and pain reliever just in case Kayla came down with another cold while we were on the ship.”
“I’ll talk to Winestock,” Nico said. “He’ll want to examine Charlaine’s cabin and Bianca’s.”
“I don’t care if he tears the place apart. I just want answers.” Charlaine turned toward the doctor. “Can you help my baby?”
The man nodded. “We’ll be here a while.
You should get comfortable.”
Nico signaled Sam and Joe to follow him to the corridor. Lance followed on their heels.
“I want to know anything you find out about Bianca or the baby,” he demanded, his voice low.
Shadow’s leader folded his arms across his chest. “Why do you think we will know anything?”
Lance snorted. “Please. I’m not stupid. You may not work for Hollingbrook but you work in some type of security profession. My brother is a cop. I recognize the awareness of everything and everyone around you.” His gaze swung to Joe and Sam. “Military training might explain the same awareness in the two of you. I’m not convinced that’s all it is. There’s something about the way you carry yourselves that says you’re more than Army grunts.”
“We’ll tell you what we can.”
“Next to nothing, in other words.” Lance frowned. “I can get what I need from Winestock. I’d rather get it from you. I’m betting your curiosity won’t let you drop this until you find Bianca. Weird things have been happening on this cruise route and I want to get to the bottom of it, especially since Kayla and Charlaine are involved. I won’t let anything happen to them.”
“What’s your interest in them?” Joe asked.
The other man swallowed hard and glanced toward the room where his daughter and lover waited. Lance turned toward them, dragging a hand down his face. “Kayla is my daughter. You can’t say anything to anyone about this or Charlaine and I will be fired.”
“Why?” Sam asked.
“Hollingbrook Cruise Lines has a no fraternization policy. If anyone finds out, our careers there are toast.”
Sam stared, glad Maddox didn’t have the same rule. At least two Fortress couples she knew were married and suspected a few of her other friends were interested in dating another operative. She knew office romances could be messy but wouldn’t it be better to allow the relationships than make a blanket declaration that workplace romances were off limits?
She looked at Joe and found him watching her, eyes filled with intense emotion. Sam didn’t want to imagine having to choose between Joe and her job. At least at Fortress, if she couldn’t work on the same team with Joe, she’d have the option of working with another team. It wouldn’t be the same, though. Shadow was her family. Losing them or Joe would savage her.
Lance returned to the infirmary, closing the door softly behind him.
The Fortress operatives looked at each other a moment before Nico said, “We need to tell Winestock about Charlaine’s nanny. I’m afraid if we don’t find Bianca soon, we’ll be too late.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Winestock met the Fortress operatives at Charlaine’s cabin. “What’s this about a missing woman?”
Joe shoved the key card in the lock and opened the door. “It’s Bianca White, Charlaine Bennett’s nanny for her daughter. Charlaine came to Sam for help because Kayla wouldn’t wake up to eat.”
The security chief turned to stare at Joe like he’d lost his mind. “Maybe the kid’s tired. Ms. White might have gone for a walk.” Winestock scowled at the operatives. “If the child is sleeping, maybe the nanny stepped out for some fresh air.”
“For more than an hour? I’m not buying it. Besides, Kayla is four months old.”
Winestock’s mouth gaped. “Four months?”
Sam gestured to the baby clothes and supplies scattered around the cabin. “She’s too young to be left alone. Charlaine’s daughter takes a bottle frequently and doesn’t vary her feedings by more than thirty minutes. Joe and I found two empty vials of over-the-counter medicine for babies in the trash. Kayla isn’t sick and the vials had at least a quarter of the medicine still in them when she left for dinner. When she returned to feed her daughter, Charlaine found Kayla alone and couldn’t rouse her.”
Winestock scowled. “The nanny drugged that baby?”
“We want to find her and ask,” Nico said.
“My team may not find anything useful,” the security chief warned. “Cabin stewards clean between occupants but they don’t obliterate all the fingerprints. Besides, you searched the place less than an hour ago. Your prints will be in here as well.”
“Only on the knob. We used rubber gloves to search.” Joe folded his arms across his chest. “I haven’t been away from police work that long.”
Nico signaled Joe to back off. Joe locked down his emotions with a tight grip. Winestock didn’t know anything about him or the other Fortress operatives aside from their ability to deal with bombs. He had no inkling of the skill sets Shadow brought to this investigation. Still, the security chief knew Joe used to be a cop. Ticked him off that Winestock believed he would be so careless as to obliterate evidence at a possible crime scene.
“Does your team have the proper equipment to handle a crime scene?” Nico asked.
“We have the basics.” With that statement, he walked into the cabin and made a call, his voice hushed.
“The security chief won’t share the results of his investigation,” Sam said.
“If necessary, we’ll request Hollingbrook encourage Winestock to cooperate.” Nico scanned the corridor. He stared at the domed shape on the ceiling 100 feet away. “Security camera. Maybe Winestock won’t mind if we look at security footage.”
“Would we be able to access the security footage of passengers boarding the ship as well?” Sam asked.
“Probably. Why?”
Joe explained about the man taking photos of women as they boarded, then leaving. “I sent the photo to Zane. It’s not a great shot, Nico. I’m not holding out much hope.”
“Z has been known to work wonders with bad photography.”
Winestock rejoined them. “My team will be here in a few minutes. I’ll secure the scene until they arrive.”
In other words, shove off. Joe’s lip curled. Guess Winestock was territorial. No problem. Joe and his teammates would work around him to get what they needed. If all else failed, they’d go to Hollingbrook.
“Charlaine will need access to her baby’s supplies and formula,” Sam said.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“We’d like to check some security footage.” Nico inclined his head toward the dark-colored dome on the corridor ceiling.
“I’ll alert the men in the security office. No taking footage from the office and I want to know everything you see.”
“Deal.”
“Need directions?”
Nico shook his head.
“If you find Bianca White, hold her until one of my security team arrives to take charge of her.”
“No problem.”
When the Fortress operatives were far enough away from the connected cabins to avoid being overheard, Nico said, “After we talk to her.”
Joe chuckled.
The operatives walked to the security office and went inside. A dark-haired, stocky man in a security uniform sat at a desk. “Help you?”
“Chief Winestock cleared us to view security footage. I’m Nico. This is Sam and Joe.”
“You’re with Fortress.” His shoulders relaxed. “Name’s Caleb. I met your teammates a few hours ago. Good guys. We owe you for defusing those bombs. Anything you need, you let us know.”
Nice. This is the attitude Joe had expected from the security chief. “We appreciate your cooperation.”
Caleb pushed away from the desk and led them to the next room. Another security employee twisted in his seat to stare at the newcomers. “Chip, this is Nico, Sam, and Joe. They’re part of the Fortress team.”
Chip stood and extended his hand. “You guys saved our skins yesterday. Which one of you is Joe?”
“That’s me.” Why single him out?
“Ben told me you were the second half of the duo to defuse the bombs. How long have you been doing that job?”
Joe didn’t figure Chip should know this was his first solo job. “Not long.”
“Where did you train?”
“Fortress. We have a training facility in Otter Creek
, Tennessee where we train bodyguards and operatives. We have world-class snipers, EOD and communications experts, computer techs, and more. We have some of the best trainers in the world at PSI.” Not that Joe had used PSI for his EOD training. No, that training had come courtesy of Ben and a desperate need for Joe to get out of the house on weekends instead of wishing he was with Sam. He’d almost driven himself crazy walking around the house in a daze like a lovesick puppy.
Caleb and Chip exchanged glances. “Sounds like training we could use,” Caleb muttered. “Don’t tell Winestock I said this, but our security training is barely adequate and we’re understaffed. We’re a soft target with thousands of potential hostages or victims on board every time we leave port. We need to be better prepared for terrorist attacks.”
“We can help,” Nico said. “Convince Winestock and Hollingbrook it’s necessary for the protection of passengers.”
“We’ll definitely run the idea past them.” Caleb folded his arms across his chest. “Now, what security feeds do you want to see? We also need an approximate time.”
“We have two locations. The corridor outside cabins 2345 and 2347 from 5:30 to 6:30 tonight and the security line for passengers boarding the ship. Joe, what’s the time you’re interested in?”
“Let’s try 4:30 to 5:00 this afternoon.” That range of time surrounded his time-stamped photo by fifteen minutes on either side. Hopefully, their security cams had good enough definition to enable identification of the women of interest to the clown at the dock. If security kept a digital picture of each passenger, the identification process would be faster. The sooner they identified the women, the better.
Chip swung around to the bank of monitors and the computer on the desk. “Which location first?”
“The cabins,” Nico said. “We have a missing woman and a four-month-old baby who was drugged to keep her quiet.”
Both security men scowled at that information. Chip’s fingers flew over the keyboard and one of the blank monitors to his right flickered to life.
“Set it to fast forward.” Joe nudged Sam to the empty chair in front of the monitor as the time stamp at the foot of the screen started running. Various passengers passed by the cabins without stopping on the way to dinner. About twenty minutes before Joe had escorted Sam to the dining room, Charlaine left the cabin. For twenty minutes more, the traffic pattern outside the cabins remained the same.