Special Delivery (Mountain Meadow Homecoming 1)

by Laura Browning

  Spence’s eyes opened wide as he stared at the squalling baby. Damn! That was the most earsplitting sound he’d ever heard. No wonder so many parents seemed like they couldn’t hear their kids. They weren’t tuning them out as he’d always thought; they were deaf from the god-awful noise.

  After stumbling through the mysteries of how all the clothing went together on the tiny, wiggling body, Spence discovered the dirty diaper. Nose wrinkled in distaste, he changed the baby and got all her clothing back on, but still she cried and seemed even more pissed than before. He poured formula in one of the bottles and shook it before offering it to her. She rooted at it, touched it with her small mouth, then turned her face away, screaming all the harder.

  “Well shit.” He glared at the baby and muttered, “You’ll sure as hell eat once you get hungry enough.”

  He slammed the rear door, slid into the driver’s seat of the SUV, and blasted the radio to drown out the baby’s squalling as he headed back to the mountains along a different route. He had mapped out a way along back roads. While shorter in mileage, the twisting and turning of the narrow highways made it infinitely more time-consuming.

  The baby fell asleep eventually and Spence smiled. Fatherhood wasn’t so tough after all. He pulled his flask out and took a swig. Just a few sips would help calm his nerves.

  * * * *

  Within an hour of the Code Adam, Jake seated Holly in front of a security monitor. As they scanned the tapes, Evan stepped through the door with a state trooper. Introductions were quickly handled and the trooper stepped over next to Jake. They watched as Holly bent to help the woman who’d bumped the DVDs. In the bottom left corner of the screen a man stepped forward amid the chaos. Everyone else’s eyes were focused on the scattered DVDs as the man removed Noelle from the infant carrier. For just an instant, his face was visible.

  “There. Freeze it.” Jake told the computer tech.

  Holly gasped. “It’s him, Jake. It’s Spence.” She started to shake.

  Jake put his arms around her, feeling her lean into him. Focusing must be so hard for her. Between Evan and the other lawmen there, terms flew around the room she would be unfamiliar with. They had already put out an Amber Alert, and were in the process of issuing an All Points Bulletin for Spencer Dilby. As long as he stayed in Virginia they would be working under state kidnapping laws, but they had put the feds on alert just in case Dilby headed south into North Carolina. The family had a house on the coast, so law enforcement agencies there were also put on alert. Officers contacted the Dilby family in Richmond.

  Jake bent his head to her. “Honey, I need to ask you about the woman you helped.”

  “Woman?” She still appeared dazed.

  “The woman who knocked over the DVDs. You helped her pick them up.”

  Holly smiled. “Yes. Rebecca Austin. She has a daughter, too.”

  Jake stroked her cheek. Only Holly could have gotten all that information from just a chance encounter. “Honey, do you have any reason to think she might have done that on purpose? That she might have helped Spence?”

  Holly’s eyes widened with horror. “Oh no! She was so embarrassed at what had happened. No.”

  “Okay,” he soothed. “That’s all I needed to know. Look, I’d like you to go with Evan. He’ll take you home. I’ll bring your car later.”

  “Wh-where are you going?” Tears welled. “I need you.” It tore him apart, but he had to help. He cupped her cheeks in his hands, and leaned his forehead against hers.

  “To the sheriff’s office, honey. I wish I could be two places at once, but I can’t. I’m gonna find her and bring her home.”

  He doubted seriously if Dilby had any clue how to care for a baby.

  “I know you will, Jake. I’m being selfish. You’ll find her. I know you will.” Holly made an effort to pull herself together, her jaw clenching.

  “Not selfish. I love you. I promise I’ll find her.” Jake walked with her and Evan out to the truck. After Jake tucked her in the passenger seat, he stared hard at Evan who had just vaulted into the driver’s seat. “You’ll stay with her?”

  Evan raised a brow. “Of course. Jenny’s going to meet us at your place.”

  Jake watched them leave, fury and desperation swirling inside him. He knew, without a doubt, if he could get his hands on Dilby at that moment…he’d kill him.

  Chapter 15

  Jake rubbed the heels of his hands against his gritty eyes and rolled his aching shoulders. Nearly midnight, and so far the only thing they’d hit were dead ends. By continuing to look through the store’s surveillance tapes, they had tracked Dilby leaving the store and located him getting into a car in the parking lot. He had beaten the store lockdown by mere seconds. So they were still looking for the car, a rental. The state folks contacted Dilby’s parents and were told he and his fiancée had headed to a resort in Northern Virginia, and indeed there was a reservation there under their name, paid for in advance, that Spence checked into on Sunday, but when the state guys got there, no one had even stayed in the room.

  A check of other resorts hadn’t revealed any reservations in Spence’s name. They were trying to get a recent photo from the family right now, but they weren’t being very cooperative.

  “Jake,” Sam said firmly, “go home. Holly needs you there as much as you’re needed here. And you look like shit.”

  Jake stared at his friend. “I promised her I’d bring Noelle home, and all I’m doing is sitting here. I feel like my hands are tied, damn it.”

  “We will bring her home, Jake,” Sam reassured him. “It just looks like it’s going to take some time. Go home. Be there for Holly. You know the ropes, and you know as we get leads it’s easier and faster to have local guys follow up.”

  He pulled in the driveway a quarter hour later. Only the lights in the living room were on. When he opened the door, Jenny greeted him. His eyes went beyond her into the living room, where he saw Evan still in his dress shirt and suit slacks, but there was no sign of Holly.

  “Where is she?” Jake asked hoarsely.

  “I sedated her, Jake,” Jenny said. “She went from being almost in a stupor to being manic. I gave her something so she could settle down. She’s upstairs sleeping right now. I take it you haven’t found Noelle yet.”

  How he wished he could give any answer other than the only one he had.

  “No.” Jake took off his cap and his leather jacket. As he hung the coat on the hall tree, everything crashed in on him. He braced one hand against the wall. He was going to lose it. He raised his hand to cover his eyes. “What if he’s not taking care of her? She’s like my own, Jen.” He cringed as a short sob escaped. “I delivered her, for God’s sake, held her while she took her first breath. I feel like I’m being ripped into pieces.”

  “Sh.” Jenny soothed him. Her arms wrapped around him from behind and she hugged him fiercely. “Come back to the kitchen, Jake. Have you had anything to eat?”

  He shook his head as tears continued to roll down his cheeks. Then Evan was there with him, putting his arm around his shoulders and guiding him back to a chair at the big kitchen table. Jenny heated leftovers, poured him tea, and they both sat and kept him company while he tried to eat.

  Between bites, Jake told him the leads they had pursued so far, and the dead ends they’d hit. “Evan, even though Dilby is Noelle’s biological father, we can make the kidnapping charges stick can’t we?”

  “Most likely. There will be a lot of factors in our favor. He’s not listed as the father on the birth certificate first and foremost, so legally he’ll have to prove paternity. From what I understand from Holly, he initially denied being the father. Most importantly, though, he’s endangering the life of a child so young by removing her from the care of her natural mother. Yeah. We can make it stick. There are other avenues as well, but we can pursue those only if we have to.”

  Jake nodded. He went back to eating, his movements methodical. Years in the ar
my taught him to feed the furnace even when battered psychologically. When he finished, he took a deep breath, blew it out. “I’m ready to see Holly. Anything I should know?”

  Jenny nodded. “One of the orderlies at the hospital brought a breast pump. Holly needs to keep pumping milk along the same schedule Noelle was nursing. You’ll need to pour the milk out while she’s sedated and for twenty-four hours after she’s not. I saved the milk from the first two pumping sessions before I sedated her. It’s in the fridge in bottles, but we’ll get to that if we need it as soon as we have Noelle back. For right now, you concentrate on her.”

  “I need to work on the investigation,” Jake said running his fingers through his hair for about the millionth time. He had promised Holly. He couldn’t disappoint her.

  “Call me or Evan,” Jenny said. “We’ll stay with her and Tyler. She needs another adult to lean on now. But, Jake, she needs you most. She’s not nearly as self-sufficient as she seems, and I think we all tend to forget because she’s always so upbeat.”

  Jenny was right. Everyone took Holly’s upbeat outlook for granted, and he had been no exception. Well, that would change.

  She was curled up on the bed they now shared. Jake kicked off his boots, but stretched out next to her still fully clothed. She immediately curled into him and he wrapped his arms around her. Heaven help him. She and Tyler and Noelle were his life. His throat ached.

  “I love you,” he whispered to her in the dark and silent room.

  * * * *

  Holly sat in Jake’s office working on the computer. While the police concentrated on Spence, she learned what she could about Celia Segal. She had to do something. She didn’t believe Spence would deliberately hurt her baby, but he knew nothing about children, and she’d already seen from the way he dealt with Tyler he was not a patient man. So she pinned her hopes and prayers on Spence’s current fiancée.

  Her research turned up extensive coverage of Seely’s accident. Even focused on clues that could lead her to Noelle’s location, Holly’s sympathy stirred. She suspected a lot of the accident details had been kept from the press. No one was immune from tragedy, and even coming from a fancy background didn’t make one bit of difference. As she continued to scan any news she could find about Celia Segal, one thing became abundantly clear. Seely wasn’t just an avid skier, she was fanatical. Holly knew the police were checking other resorts once the first one turned out to be a red herring…

  The phone rang and Holly snatched it. “Hello?”

  “It’s me, honey.” Jake’s voice sounded a little less tired than it had. “We’ve located Spence’s rental car. It’s about an hour east of here. I’m getting ready to…”

  “I want to go with you.”

  “Holly…”

  “Jake…I need to,” she told him, letting her intensity show. This was not an option. “I can’t stand just sitting here any longer.”

  She let the silence hang. When she heard his sigh on the other end, Holly closed her eyes in relief.

  “All right. I’ll have Evan pick Tyler up from the store on his way home. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Be ready.”

  He pulled into the driveway exactly ten minutes later, not in his truck, but in a marked cruiser. It drove home to Holly this was business. She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall in the big front hall, trying to calm her breathing and slow her heartbeat.

  “Holly?” Jake stepped through the door and grasped her shoulders as he pulled her toward him. “What is it, honey?”

  She leaned her head against his broad chest. “It just suddenly hit me. Seeing you in uniform, in the cruiser. It’s not some joke. Spence is in big trouble, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, honey. He is. And all the Dilby fortune in the world won’t buy his way out of this. All we have to do is find him.”

  An hour later, Holly stood dispiritedly next to the cruiser as she stared at the nondescript rental sedan. Spence had left behind a dirty diaper and some fingerprints, but that was it. She clenched her fists in her jacket pockets and walked to the other side of the parking lot where he’d left the car.

  She heard Jake’s soft footsteps behind her, but didn’t turn from where she studied the tangle of underbrush encroaching along the pavement’s edge. “I’ve been trying so hard to stay upbeat, to believe Noelle will be okay. I mean, Spence is her biological father, right? But, Jake, I’m so angry. So damn angry! How could he take my baby? She’s not some toy or pet to be passed from owner to owner.” She clung to the arms he wrapped around her. “He stole our child!” Her words crackled in the cold air.

  “We’ll find her, Holly. Hang onto your belief.” He held her away for a moment so they could get face to face. “I need your optimism, honey. You’re what keeps me going. Don’t lose faith now.”

  The truth of what he said shone in his eyes. Although they reflected the same pain she felt, she also saw conviction. If her belief fueled his, then she would stay positive. It was nearly Christmas after all, a time for miracles.

  * * * *

  Holly sat in Noelle’s nursery. She was pumping milk, the whirr of the machine reminding her vaguely of a dairy she’d visited on an elementary school field trip. It felt a little macabre to pump while sitting in the rocker where she normally nursed Noelle, but only there could she relax enough for her milk to let down.

  Christmas Eve. Her birthday. Through the doorway, she saw Jake sprawled on the bed, exhausted but still not sleeping well. His nightmares had returned full force, and he would awake with a hoarse shout, then struggle to get back to sleep. He looked far worse than she did, and Holly’s heart filled with tenderness. He was working himself to the bone on the investigation, and then trying to be there for her as well. As strung out as she was, she could only imagine the fine edge Jake teetered on.

  After Spence’s rental car had revealed nothing helpful, Jake went to check several other leads closer in. But they were all dead ends. They had talked on the way back from looking at the car and decided to stay close to home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Then Monday, they’d check out some of the ski resorts closer to Mountain Meadow.

  She finished pumping and took the milk downstairs to the fridge. She could keep this milk. Jenny had told her to wait twenty-four hours after the last of the drugs.

  After pumping, Holly slipped into bed and cradled Jake’s head against her. He stirred and she stroked his hair. She loved him so much. Circles lay beneath his eyes, and strain lined his face even as he slept. In some ways, she thought, Noelle was more his than Spence’s. Jake had helped her into the world, held her while she took her first breath, and cleaned her. He’d cut her umbilical cord, loved her, and cared for her every day.

  Holly did what she did every time she thought of Spence and the anger threatened to overwhelm her. She prayed. She prayed for him to take care of her little girl and bring her back. She prayed some Christmas angel would find Noelle and bring her home. She prayed she could let go of the anger that made her want to stomp Spence into the dirt if she ever saw him again. Holly bit her lip. Better not to go there. She was afraid to give vent to her anger, afraid it would overwhelm her. Like a tidal wave, it would destroy everything in its path, even those she loved.

  Christmas was surely a time for miracles. Holly believed that stubbornly and wholeheartedly. Over the last day, that optimistic outlook with which she viewed her world had returned. Jenny and Evan noted it with wonder. Jake, she knew, watched it with the need for reassurance, but also with worry.

  The longer Noelle was gone, the less the chances were they would find her. Those were the statistics, but Holly wasn’t a statistics person. Her life was built on belief in the goodness of man, and this was surely the biggest test yet of that belief. If Spence wouldn’t do the right thing, then maybe Seely would. Nothing she’d read led her to believe Seely was bad, or anything like Spence at all.

  Holly touched Jake’s cheek, and he opened his eyes wearily. “It’s Christmas Eve, Jake,
and I know she’ll be home with us soon. Today or tomorrow. Noelle will come home.”

  * * * *

  Holly’s green eyes glowed with optimism. Jake’s closed to hide the defeat he felt. He swallowed with a pain verging on anger. How could she remain so positive? “Oh, Holly, baby, I don’t want to see you disappointed…” He had borne a lot of things while he was in the army, but the idea she might not get the answer to her prayers nearly knocked his breath from his body.

  She smiled. “I won’t be. You’ll see. You said you needed my optimism. Well, I’m telling you right here, right now, Jake. Something wonderful will happen. Just believe.”

  He stared at her. How could she be so sure? So upbeat and peaceful? In some ways it made it worse for him because the pressure to make her hopes reality was so heavy he was afraid he might crack. She touched his face and smiled. “I love you. I will love you forever. No matter what.”

  He wanted to be able to take some of her serenity inside him. She had taken his loneliness away. She, Noelle, and Tyler. But what had he given her? He was a man of action, yet his hands were tied bringing Noelle back to them. Sam tried to reassure him that where he was needed most was right where he was, but it ate at Jake. He wanted to find Dilby and pound him until he couldn’t get up. But they had no leads. In this one area at least, Dilby had covered his tracks.

  Jake clutched Holly.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t find her. It’s like they’ve disappeared off the face of the earth. You’ve given me so much, and I can’t help you now when you need it the most.”

  Holly framed his face between her palms. “Oh, Jake. Never think that. We help each other. We will always help each other. Please. Have faith. If you can do nothing else, have faith. If you can’t do that, then hold onto me. I have enough faith for both of us. Maybe it’s not your time to do; it’s simply your time to be. Be with me. Monday we’ll hit the road. But I don’t think we’ll have to.”