Undercover Babies

by Alice Sharpe

  NEXT, MAC DROVE to his office. He couldn’t make a tail this time and he wondered what that meant. He spent a couple of hours dictating notes for his part-time secretary to transcribe next week in case he wasn’t back from Florida, or wherever he ended up. He answered calls from worried clients and spent half an hour on the phone with Bill Confit reviewing the report he’d handed over earlier that day.

  At home, he found the apartment manager had already replaced the broken window. He packed his duffel bag quickly and then threw the rest of Jessica’s old things in a suitcase for Grace. He thought of the way Grace had looked when he’d volunteered his ex-wife’s clothing and wondered if it bothered her the clothes were used.

  The thought hit him suddenly like one of those bolts of lightning. If someone bought Jake new clothes before they murdered him, might that same someone have donated Grace’s old clothes? He found the phone book and searched for a thrift store close to Jake’s alley. Sure enough, there was a place just two blocks north of Broadhurst.

  His tail picked him up a block from his apartment. Mac did a few fancy turns around town to make sure and then grinned into the rearview mirror. He’d get the license plate number before the night was over and run the plates.

  In all, Mac hit three thrift stores. Though he searched through countless garments and found dozens of tags that looked identical to the one stapled to Jake’s yellow shirt, he found no piece of clothing that appeared to be of high quality and nothing with French labels. In every store, he was able to talk with the clerk who had worked the night before. Not one of them remembered a man fitting Jake’s description buying a yellow shirt, jeans or a green raincoat, nor did anyone recall accepting a high-quality woman’s outfit.

  As he walked back to his car, he looked across the street, expecting to find the dark sedan that had faithfully followed him from store to store. It was time to stop dithering around with thrift stores and confront whoever was following him.

  The only dark car on the block was his own. He watched his rearview mirror as he drove, expecting lights to materialize in his mirror at any moment. The streets were all but empty. He heard on the radio that an ice storm was expected any time. Apparently, the citizenry of Billington had taken heed.

  Certain he’d find the dark car lurking outside his apartment, he circled the area several times in ever-narrowing circles.

  Nothing. The tail wasn’t with him. That left only one place Mac could think of where it might have gone.

  Grace.

  He took off for his aunt’s house.

  AS GRACE snuggled beneath hand-embroidered sheets, she thought sleep would never come. Her mind kept leaping from one thing to another and to top it off, her stomach growled.

  Dinner had been a sham. Nerves, tension, Aunt Beatrice and herself both jumping every time they heard a noise…who could eat? It was amazing how many unexplained noises occurred in a big old house like this one on a blustery winter night.

  And even worse than the surface tension was the internal anxiety that continued to grow like a cancer gone wild, spreading deadly tentacles throughout her psyche. She needed to do something.

  But what?

  Run?

  Run. That’s what her heart told her to do. It told her to open the door, defy Mac and his aunt and her own sense of caution, and bolt. It told her she would instinctively know in which direction to flee.

  The fact that she so often yearned to run away made her wonder if that was how she usually dealt with problems. If it was, had it contributed to her winding up in Billington, Indiana?

  The doctor’s after-dinner visit hadn’t helped. She’d thrown a hundred questions at him as he took a sample of her blood and examined her bruises and cuts, but he hadn’t given her any answers. Just lots of kind pats and consoling murmurs.

  At least her fear of doctors seemed to be waning a bit, thanks to him.

  So many unknowns. A pregnancy. A baby. A husband. Drug marks on her arm. Old clothes. A murdered man. No memory. Unexplained fears.

  Mac!

  She wanted Mac. Right here beside her, right here in her bed, his big body hot and consoling. If she was a slut, so be it; bring him on. If she was a married woman who played around on her adoring husband—an adoring husband who apparently hadn’t even called the police when she went missing—oh, well.

  Warm tears filled her eyes and slid down her cheeks. The hunger was suddenly gone, both for food and for comfort. Fear was back, mangling her innards like a big jungle cat gnawing a fresh kill.

  Switching on a bedside lamp, Grace sat up and grabbed the deck of cards. After the doctor’s visit, she and Maddie had played a few hands of blackjack. Even Aunt Beatrice had joined in. Both older woman were dismal card players.

  In the end, they’d all gone to their bedrooms early, Aunt Beatrice insisting Grace keep the cards for herself.

  Grace laid out a game on the bedspread, but solitaire held no allure tonight. Pretty soon, she folded the cards into a pile and turned off the lights.

  SHE AWOKE with a jerk that slammed her heart against her ribs.

  She lay very still, barely breathing. Searching the dark room with anxious eyes, she found no shadow out of place, nor did she hear anything that would explain what had jolted her from sleep.

  Still, something was there.

  She knew it.

  She considered screaming.

  A black shape, man-size, moved across the floor, momentarily blocking the thread of light that rimmed the closed door. Heart hammering, she waited, tensed and poised, until the shape was so close she could hear the sound of controlled breathing. And then she sat up abruptly and swung her fist.

  A muffled thud announced she’d connected with someone. So did the stinging in her hand.

  Oaths followed.

  With alarm, she realized she knew the voice. She said, “Mac?”

  “Calm down,” he said, switching on the lamp. He held one hand against his cheekbone where she’d slugged him. “It’s just me,” he said.

  “You scared the hell out of me! Why are you sneaking around in the dark? What’s wrong?”

  The bedsprings creaked as he sat down beside her. He wore a heavy wool coat and she could feel the cold air still trapped within the fibers of the woven material. He looked serious.

  “You scared me,” she repeated.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She felt bad for slugging him. She whispered, “Did I…did I hurt you?”

  “You caught me as I was leaning down to wake you,” he said as he pulled the comforter up around her shoulders and tucked it around her. She hadn’t noticed until then that she was cold.

  “Do you need an ice bag?” she asked him.

  “No, I’ll be all right.”

  “What are you doing here? What happened? Why are you still in your coat?”

  He took both her hands into his. “Grace, listen. Does the name Michael Wardman ring any kind of bell? Doctor Michael Wardman? Think.”

  She bit her lip and shook her head. “No. Why? Who is he?”

  “Michael Wardman was Jake’s real name.”

  “The bum? The bum was a doctor?”

  “A pathologist. It probably doesn’t mean a thing. Tell me everything you remember before you ran into me last night.”

  Last night! Had it really been only twenty-four hours since they met? Twenty-four hours since she became the woman she was at this moment?

  He prompted, “You flew out of the alley—”

  “I don’t remember much—”

  “Then tell me about the instant you realized you didn’t know who you were. There had to be an instant.”

  She closed her eyes. “I was asleep, like now, and all of a sudden, I woke up.”

  “Did someone startle you awake like I just did?”

  “I don’t think so. I just woke up. It was raining and I was cold. I got to my feet.” Grace searched her memory, but all she could see was that gray alley, the puddles, the rain. “That
’s when I realized I didn’t have the slightest idea where I was or who I was,” she whispered. “I started toward the lighter end of the alley…”

  She paused for a second as a black shadow flitted through her mind.

  Mac said, “What is it? What are you remembering?”

  “A man,” Grace said, struggling to keep her voice steady. The truth was that the memory hit her gut like an ice storm. Mac’s blue-green gaze focused on her. “He came from the dark end of the alley,” she murmured. “I tried to hide. He looked right through me. He walked toward the light and I turned around and ran in the other direction—”

  “And into me.”

  “Yes.”

  “I was walking down 5th. It’s a long, straight street. If a man passed you in the alley, he must have come from 5th.”

  “Was there someone ahead of you on the sidewalk?” Grace said. “Did you see anyone?”

  “No. It was raining too hard. I barely looked up. Of course, whoever it was might have already been in the alley, hiding, waiting for you to wake up.”

  The chill she’d been nursing in her gut tried to claw its way up her spine. Her teeth chattered.

  “What did he look like?” Mac asked.

  “Tall. He wore a long black coat and a hat. I couldn’t see his face, except for his eyes, but I could feel him speculating about me. He terrified me. And then he was gone.”

  Mac surprised her by pulling her into his arms. His body was solid and real, his coat rough against her cheek. He smelled like rain and the outdoors, healthy and alive. Energy seemed to seep through his embrace and wrap her in its glow.

  She pushed him away, gently so it would seem as though she didn’t need additional comfort, though the real reason was that she needed and wanted his comfort too much.

  “Now what?” she said.

  “Get up and get dressed. I want to get you out of Billington.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Right now,” he said, standing. “Just put back on the clothes you wore today. Cooper is in the garage transferring our gear to his sedan. Hurry, don’t argue, just get dressed. And don’t forget your fancy underwear.”

  Grace all but jumped from beneath the covers. Finally, action!

  Mac glanced away quickly and she realized she was stark naked.

  Chapter Five

  Mac’s adrenaline rush fizzled out. In a perfect world, he would pull into a motel and sleep for twelve straight hours. In this world, he kept driving.

  By the time they hit highway 65, he was pretty sure he’d lost whatever tail they may have had. Deciding on caution over comfort, he kept driving, determined to put as many miles as possible between Grace and Billington before the sun came up. He’d checked on his computer at work—Miami was a little over a twenty-four hour drive from Billington.

  Twenty-four hours.

  He couldn’t drive for twenty-four straight hours. He didn’t know if Grace even knew how to drive. It didn’t matter, as she didn’t have a license. It was too dangerous to put her behind the wheel. If they got stopped and she had no identification, all sorts of problems they couldn’t afford would ensue.

  He would have to stop to sleep somewhere.

  He’d purposely driven the Coopers’ old car because it was nondescript. At the same time they’d left, Cooper and Maddie had taken off in Mac’s car with instructions to drive it back to Mac’s apartment and bundle themselves inside for the night. And at the same time as that, he’d sent his aunt out in her Mercedes with directions not to stop until she was at her favorite hotel in downtown Billington, where she was supposed to insist the doorman escort her to the desk where she would check in for the night.

  He wanted Aunt Beatrice safe.

  Just in case.

  Hopefully, the tail he hadn’t seen since before the last discount store had followed his aunt or the Coopers. Hopefully, by the time the tail figured out he had the wrong car, Mac and Grace would be far away.

  Hopefully, his master plan wouldn’t backfire when this old car gave up the ghost, stranding them in the middle of nowhere.

  He glanced at Grace. The dashboard lights illuminated very little of her face, but he could tell she was asleep, which didn’t surprise him. If she’d been drugged, as he suspected she had, the junk would still be working its way through her system. It might take several days before she felt like herself.

  Whomever that might be.

  He recalled the sight of her standing there nude, all fire and brimstone, ready to go. She was an extremely easy woman to look at and it had taken all his willpower to glance away. What was so blasted sexy about her was the fact that she didn’t seem to care a bit about her state of undress.

  Her recollection of a man in a dark raincoat with a hat and piercing gaze was almost as troubling as her nudity. And yet the first time they’d met, he must have looked just like that—a tall man in a dark coat wearing a hat. Of course, he hadn’t continued walking, but how much faith should he put in her hazy memory?

  What he would unequivocally put his faith in was her determination. She wanted to find the truth, he was sure of it. She wasn’t working for the mayor or entertaining some other agenda—he’d bet his life on it. Her fear was palatable, her anxiety catching. Even in her sleep, she twitched and murmured as though fighting against her body’s need for rest.

  Beauty, guts and determination. How was he supposed to keep his dealings with her on a professional level when she presented such an enticing triple threat?

  The thought of sharing a motel room with her both alarmed and excited him.

  The possibility she had a husband was beginning to concern him less than it should.

  And the worry that a man with dark eyes had passed her in that alley had frightened her—well, the possibility of that shadowy figure kept Mac on the road.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Her soft voice jolted him from his musings. He’d had no idea she was awake.

  He said, “They’re not worth a penny.”

  “You’re tired,” she said.

  He nodded.

  “Let me drive.”

  He explained about the driver’s license. What he didn’t add was the fact that he was carrying a concealed weapon in a clip-on holster fitted against the small of his back. He didn’t have a license to carry a loaded gun outside the state of Indiana, but that trailing car had convinced him of the necessity of doing so. He didn’t need some overzealous highway patrolman finding it.

  “We can’t afford you getting hauled off to jail,” he said, and that was true, as well. “I’ll drive.”

  “But you have to stop sometime.”

  “I know, just not yet. I thought you were all hot to trot.”

  “I am,” she snapped and he felt instantly bad for questioning her sincerity.

  “I know you are. Don’t worry. I’m fine. Besides, you’re tired, too,” he said, doing his best to keep from picturing the two of them alone in a room whose sole attraction was a great big, soft bed.

  “Not really. I feel like I’ve done nothing but sleep since the beginning of time. I guess that’s more or less accurate. Since the beginning of my current time, anyway.”

  “I’m not that tired yet,” he said, and passing a road sign, added, “We should be in Louisville by sunrise. One of us might as well be rested. Go ahead and close your eyes.”

  He was hoping she would settle down and sleep the remainder of the night away. The only thing more alarming than thinking about Grace was talking to her. With a mental slap to his forehead, it all of a sudden occurred to him that as far as he could tell, she had no trace of a Southern accent. If she was from the South, she wasn’t a native. Nor was she from New York or Boston. He recognized no accent at all.

  Another tiny piece of a puzzle of unknown size.

  Grace said, “Did someone follow us out of Billington?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But you sent your aunt and the Coopers off in different cars at the same time we left. You must have thou
ght someone following us was at least a possibility.”

  “It was a possibility,” he admitted. “I’ll be honest with you. I had a tail after I left you and Aunt Beatrice tonight. Keep your eyes peeled for a dark sedan.”

  “It’s night. Every car out here looks like a dark sedan.”

  “This one won’t be whizzing past us going ninety miles an hour,” Mac said dryly. “It’ll lurk behind.”

  “Why would anyone want to follow us?”

  “If we knew the answer to that—”

  “I mean, if there is a tail, it must be on you.”

  He said, “Everyone who cares about what I do or say is in Billington. They’ll all throw a party when they realize I left town. If someone followed us, it’s because of you, Grace.”

  “The only reason someone would follow me is because they know who I am,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “So why don’t we trap them and make them tell us what they know?”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “Trap them or make them talk?”

  “Either. Both. Besides, if they’re following us now, I can’t see them. Chances are good we left whomever it was back in Billington.”

  She was quiet for quite a while, which was okay with Mac. He had a lot to think about, not the least of which was what he was going to do with Grace if the underwear lead didn’t pan out. He supposed he’d have to drive her back to Billington. Hopefully by then, Lou and the rest of the police would have caught the person responsible for killing Jake, er, Michael Wardman. With that loose end tied up, he could take Grace to the police and they could conduct a proper search.

  He knew all of this was hogwash even as he comforted himself with it. The police stood no better chance of getting Grace back home than he did. Not as good a chance, for that matter, as their hands were tied in ways that his weren’t.

  He started thinking about what Grace had said about trapping their tail and making them talk. Maybe it was fatigue doing it to him, but her idea began to make more and more sense. Come to think of it, he should never have left Billington without giving it a try. This kind of caution—the kind that had made it seem imperative to get Grace to safety—was new to him. Normally, he’d stand his ground, but when his ground included her, to say nothing of his elderly aunt and the Coopers, then the stakes were just too high.