by Nancy Bush
That really wrinkled Dolph Loman’s brow. “Those women are all my patients,” he told her flatly. “They have been for years.”
Claire had no intention of getting in a turf war over the rights of the Siren Song women. “How many are there? I saw some of them when I was invited in, maybe six or seven?”
“Why do you want to know?” he asked suspiciously.
“Family history. They’re Natasha’s sisters.”
“Sounds to me like rife curiosity,” he bit out.
“One of them, Lillibeth, was in a wheelchair. Is she your patient?”
He didn’t deign to answer, just looked down on Tasha in the bed, bending over her in an imposing way.
“Well, unless you plan to birth this baby yourself,” Claire said, “you might have to hand over this patient to a professional.”
He shot her a dark look and swept out.
“Pompous ass,” Claire murmured, then made sure she was out of the way as Eugenie Ledbetter and a team of nurses came into the room and took over Tasha’s care as the young woman’s contractions increased in frequency and strength.
Like an unwelcome memory, Claire remembered why Tasha had come to be here at all. “Where’s Rita?” she wondered aloud.
The light from all the windows of Ocean Park Hospital beamed out cold, white and harsh. Rita had worked at the institution for a number of years but she’d never noticed before what a truly awful place it was.
But…there were no locks on the doors. She could walk right in and take her baby away.
Unless they knew about her, knew who she was and what she planned. Just thinking about it gave Rita a host of heebie-jeebies, sliding up and down her arms, burrowing into the base of her spine and leaving a frigid knot behind.
She sat in Roberto’s Wrangler. Nothing wrong with it at all. That stupid Cade had wanted the blond whore for himself. Figured. And he’d conveniently left the keys for her on the kitchen counter. She’d seen them as soon as she walked in.
What had happened there? Rita felt like her head was full of muck. Dull. Overrun with goo. She couldn’t think past the image of Cade waving a handgun at her and Tasha standing by smugly, her huge belly about to burst with Rita’s baby!
Vaguely she remembered lunging at Tasha, connecting, maybe. And then Cade was on her, slamming her against the counter, screaming to leave her alone!
And then blam and Cade was spinning away from her. And blam blam blam and he was clutching his chest, his mouth an “O,” and he was toppling.
And Tasha had the gun, and Rita was screaming and screaming and she had Tasha by the hair and she was banging her head into the wall and Tasha was biting her!
Now Rita lifted her right arm and pulled back the sleeve. The bitch’s teeth had broken through her forearm. Left a perfect dental match on her skin.
And it hurt!
A frustrated cry issued from her throat. She’d stumbled out of Cade’s house in shock, bleeding, wondering why Tasha had let her live when she’d shot Cade in cold blood.
Now she knew. Tasha planned to blame her.
But I didn’t kill him! I didn’t!
She pressed her hands to her mouth. Tasha had taken Rafe from her, taken Rita’s chance to have her own baby! And now she planned to frame her for Cade’s death. Oh, Rita saw it now. Everyone already believed she had killed Rafe. But it was Tasha. She was the killer. She was the evil one, not Rita!
And she has my baby…
With sudden decision she switched on the Wrangler’s ignition and drove out of the hospital and north toward Seaside. She needed a disguise. A wig, at the very least.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would go into the hospital and take Tasha out of there, one way or another. And then she was going to get her baby. Kill Tasha if she had to.
And then she was going to drive away. Far, far away.
While Tasha was in labor Claire spent some of the time in the room with her, but most of it in the general waiting area. At one point she thought about going home to meet Lang but he appeared around eleven o’clock while she was still debating and took her away to one of the area’s bars, Davey Jones’s Locker, a dive, really, but the only game in town at this time of night where they could order food—bar food—chicken fingers and jo jo potatoes.
He told her about meeting Vonda Youngley, and Claire in turn brought up her conversation with Dolph Loman.
Then they were both quiet. Claire saw lines on his face that hadn’t been there earlier. “I’m sorry about Cade,” she said.
“What happened there tonight?” He shook his head. They’d worked through most of the chicken fingers and were eyeing the jo jo’s with less interest. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Lang picked up his glass of water and took a long draught, trying to shake it off. “She killed him. Rita shot him? Why?”
“She’s a woman with a dangerous obsession that has taken her over. Rational thought is missing. She wants Tasha’s baby.”
“Cade was merely in the way,” Lang said, reiterating. “He was collateral damage. Rafe, too, apparently. The Blackburns said Rita was a friend of Rafe’s. Cade didn’t know about anyone from Siren Song, but he said Rafe’s had a girlfriend or two. Maybe Rita was one of them.”
“She’s targeted Tasha’s baby for some reason,” Claire agreed. “If Rafe dumped Rita for Tasha, that would qualify.”
“And she killed Rafe, too.”
“I think she must be the nurse who talked to my friend Leesha at Laurelton General. She was looking for Tasha. Something went wrong at the rest stop and Rita was on Tasha’s trail.”
Lang nodded. “And after she found out Tasha was at Halo Valley, she quit her job at Ocean Park and took a position at your hospital.”
“Happened pretty fast,” Claire mused. “I’m going to look into that tomorrow. Check with Human Resources.”
“But where is she now?” Lang asked. “Deputy Burghsmith is standing guard at Rita’s mother’s house. The car’s been impounded. So where is she?” he asked.
“Somewhere around the area.”
“She’s either on foot or found some new transportation,” he agreed, frowning. “She doesn’t own her own car, as far as we know.”
Claire shook her head. She had no answer for him.
“And what exactly happened at Cade’s house?” Lang circled back to the issue that was under his skin. “Rita stabbed Tasha, so where did the gun come in? Musta been Cade’s. And if so, he had it out for a reason.”
“Tasha knew Rita was coming for her,” Claire suggested. “She told Cade.”
“She remembers everything,” Lang said. “That’s what you’re saying.”
“Well, I don’t know if she remembers everything. She…” Claire inclined her head, thinking hard. “Catherine said she had an affliction. She didn’t specify. But Tasha seems to go in and out of consciousness. In and out of reality.”
“She’s in labor now. That baby’s coming, right?”
“Yeah. Let’s go back. I want to be there when it happens.”
“Okay.”
Lang drove them back to the hospital and then, though Claire assured him he didn’t have to stay, they both kept vigil. She marveled at how far they’d come in their “relationship” in such a short period of time. She already felt connected to him, dependent on his company. An unexpected pleasure.
By the time the gray light of morning was reaching through the windows, Claire was already awake from a brief sleep. She got up from her chair and stretched. Lang was standing by the window and, seeing she was awake, said he’d go look for coffee for them both. “I’ll check on Tasha’s progress,” Claire said.
She’d barely taken ten steps when Nurse Nina Perez pushed through the doors and nodded at Claire. “Nurse Baransky sent me to find you. She’s pushing.”
“Tasha’s awake?” Claire hurried after Perez.
“In and out. Eugenie’s delivering.”
They entered the room and heard Eugenie coun
ting and saying, “Relax, relax, baby’s here,” and Tasha seemed somewhat alert and the little girl slipped out, purple as babies are, and Eugenie was cutting the cord and placing the child in Tasha’s arms. Claire was in awe, overcome, but when she turned to Tasha she saw that she’d slipped away again. Nurse Baransky scooped up the baby girl and handed it to another nurse to take care of.
“She keeps going out,” Baransky said. “Dr. Gallippo is on his way, but I’m wondering if she needs a neurologist.”
“Her aunt told me she’s had this all her life.” Claire looked with concern from Tasha to the little girl, who was suddenly crying at the top of her lungs.
“The baby looks great,” the younger nurse said with a smile for Claire.
“Good.”
Eugenie and Baransky examined Tasha’s vital signs. “She would come to when the contraction got hard enough,” Eugenie said. “I never knew whether she understood what was going on. But she seems stable.”
“Good news all around.” Claire said it as a statement, but Baransky heard the unspoken question.
“Looks that way,” she said. “Ah, Dr. Gallippo…”
The serious-faced, middle-aged obstetrician came in briskly, took in the scene in a glance. Claire, whose overall feeling was relief, left them to go in search of Lang. He was waiting in the main seating area, holding two Styrofoam cups of coffee.
“Tasha’s slipped back into unconsciousness, but her vital signs are good. New baby is terrific.”
He smiled, his first since he’d heard of Cade’s death. “Let me take you home,” he said, and Claire agreed.
Catherine stared out the lookout slots by the front door to a gray morning where tiny tree limbs lay in a jumble of debris across the walkway to the gate. It would be difficult to get the car out, if she wanted to leave. She would have to wait until tomorrow when their weekly gardener/cleaner/handyman, Earl, who’d advised her to hire Rafe Black Bear in the first place, returned.
Isadora came up beside her and said, “Cassandra had a nightmare about Natasha last night.”
“Remind her that Natasha is not here. She’s on the outside.”
“She said there was a baby in the dream.”
Catherine stood stiff and silent for long moments, then said, “Dr. Norris will call on us after Natasha has her baby.”
“You think it’s happened?”
“What do you think?” Catherine asked the younger woman.
Isadora nodded. They all possessed the ability of second sight sometimes, and Cassandra was particularly gifted. “I hope Dr. Norris calls on us soon.”
Claire and Lang returned to her house and Claire put in a call to Halo Valley, saying she would not be in until the afternoon and to cancel her morning appointments. It was rare that she gave so little notice, but then the events of the last couple of days had thrown her world into a tailspin.
She slept till noon in her lover’s arms, though she had the sense that Lang got up several times. Finally, when she snapped into full consciousness, it was because she heard him on the cell phone, his voice urgent and tense, and she was awake and out of bed, recognizing a crisis without knowing what it was.
“What?” she demanded, tossing a hand through her tousled hair, staring at him in a kind of controlled panic as she saw his shuttered face, closed off to hide his own emotions. “Is Tasha all right?”
“It’s not about Tasha. It’s about her new baby.”
Claire’s heart clutched. “Oh, no…Lang…no!”
“She’s alive, as far as we know,” he said, addressing her fear correctly. “But it looks as if she’s been kidnapped from the hospital. She’s been missing for nearly an hour.”
Rita drove away from the hospital with extreme care. Extreme care.
Two reasons: one, she could not afford to be stopped, and two: she didn’t have an infant car seat. She’d had to put her baby on the floor of the backseat, and the little thing was crying over every bump.
The wig she’d chosen was a light brown color in an old-fashioned “bubble” style. It made Rita look ten years older than her real age. She’d walked down the halls in her scrubs like she owned the place, and nearly had a heart attack when Carlita suddenly appeared in the hallway with another RN named Laura, who glanced Rita’s way casually while Carlita, unaware, was going on about the new baby born to the woman from the cult.
Ocean Park Hospital did not have a wing devoted entirely to obstetrics. Expectant mothers were associated with doctors whose deliveries were at Seaside Hospital or Tillamook, one north of Deception Bay, one south, and Ocean Park’s OB-GYN, Dr. Gallippo, was mainly with Seaside General and only came to Ocean Park when specifically requested.
For these reasons—and possibly because it was just meant to be that Rita would finally have her own baby at last!—there was no real checkpoint at Ocean Park like at other hospitals, where no one could take the baby away before it was released by the doctor in charge.
Rita had simply walked the halls, looking efficient and busy, until the moment she was assured that Tasha was finally completely alone, then she stepped into her room, swept up the sleeping child, and with the Fertility Mother looking after her, had taken the baby into the first empty room she could find, ripped off her top, slipped the child into the baby sling she wore underneath, then replaced the top. She looked pregnant herself by the time she left the room, and with her heart pounding in a wild, deafening tattoo, she walked out of the hospital unbothered.
But with all her planning, she’d forgotten the car seat. She was shocked at her own failure.
Now she had to buy the protective item, and it sent shivers down her skin. If someone should notice the baby was gone—and the news broke—and they remembered a woman buying a car seat at the local drugstore, for that’s where she was headed…well, she couldn’t think that way! The goddess had watched over her to date, even if she’d had to leave the blond bitch sleeping away in her bed, untouched, and Rita saw no reason for her luck to change now.
The drugstore was the only game in town and it had been around Deception Bay for as long as Rita could remember. Rita drove around to the back, where there were no vehicles and no activity. She had no choice but to leave the infant where she was. It would only be for a few minutes and then Rita would put the car seat in place and they would be gone. Roberto might be looking for his Wrangler, but he wasn’t exactly on good terms with the police, so it could be a while before he really reported it missing.
And Cade would be Roberto’s first go-to, and with him shot and probably dead…
She purposely shoved those thoughts aside and went inside the store. Glancing around, she was glad to see she didn’t recognize the girl at the counter. Baby gear was to the back, she knew, and she walked carefully, her legs wanting to run. She grabbed up formula and a bottle and one of the two car seats they had for sale. She wanted much, much more but she couldn’t afford to draw too much attention to herself. Oh, how she’d waited for this day. But these details.
She wondered, suddenly, the thought like a wave of cold water, if she’d made a mistake. They would find her. She should have left without taking the baby. She would be away by now and Tasha could lie all she wanted and it wouldn’t matter.
But no. The baby was hers.
“Is that everything?” the girl at the counter asked.
“Yes.” She put the money on the counter with shaking hands.
Paolo, she thought randomly. Paolo wouldn’t be a bad father. If she couldn’t have Rafe—or Jake at Ocean Park—maybe she could have Paolo, even though he was older?
And then she was outside, glad for the misting rain on her face. She hurried to the back of the building and the Wrangler. Quickly she opened the door. The baby was crying and Rita picked her up and cuddled her close, her gaze darting both directions. The little girl wanted to nurse, so Rita climbed in the backseat and poured the premixed formula in a bottle, holding the baby and feeding her with shaking hands.
The little girl took to
the bottle well, Rita saw with satisfaction. Good. She hadn’t made a mistake.
The baby fell asleep with the nipple still in her mouth. Rita gently swaddled her back up and lay her on the seat. Then she ripped the car seat box open with her bare hands. She stared at the contraption and wanted to cry. She wasn’t good with these things. But there were instructions.
Painstakingly, she got the car seat in place, buckling it in. Then she put her treasure inside, adjusting the buckles.
She was a good mother, she thought with pride. A good, good mother.
But when she edged toward the highway, intending to drive south toward Tillamook, a sheriff’s deputy whizzed by in the direction of the hospital, lights flashing.
They knew!
She couldn’t be on the highway. Couldn’t afford to be in view.
Because she could think of nothing else, she drove back toward the Foothillers’ community. A familiar place to hide while she planned her next move.
Chapter 24
It was a melee at Ocean Park Hospital when Lang and Claire arrived together. Someone had stolen the baby from its bed inside Tasha’s room while Tasha slept. Someone brazen enough, or just crazy enough, to believe they could get away with it.
And they had.
Claire knew it was Rita. Lang knew it was Rita. Hospital personnel wanted to believe it was some kind of strange mistake.
Lang marshaled Clausen for the job of finding the kidnapper and left a younger woman deputy named Dunbar at the hospital. He phoned Warren Burghsmith, still on duty at Rita’s mother’s house, warning him of the new development. Then he pulled Claire aside and said, “She’s obsessed. She took that baby out of here under everyone’s nose. Where would she go? What’s she thinking?”
“She wants the baby above all else.” Claire could hardly think, she was so worried. “But she left Tasha alone. That’s good. That’s good.”
“Where the hell is she?” He was talking rhetorically, frustrated, his eyes flashing with anger. “Where the hell is she?”