Paternity Unknown

by Barrett, Jean

  Lauren braced herself to receive the weight. Had Hilary been a heavy woman, she probably wouldn’t have been able to bear that unconscious load. As it was, she was able to wrap her arms around the ex-housekeeper’s waist and, when Ethan released her, ease her down onto the slope.

  When she straightened, her eyes just above the level of the window ledge, she could see the quilt over the door smoldering. The fire had reached the bedroom and was eating its way inside.

  Ethan! Where was Ethan?

  He appeared in the opening. “You forget your purse.”

  She took the purse from him as he reached out to hand it to her. She must have flung it down somewhere while she was trying to seal the door.

  “Hurry!” she urged him.

  There was a bad moment when Ethan tried to fit his broad shoulders through the frame. It was a tight squeeze that required his full strength before he was finally able to squirm his way into the open and join her on the ridge.

  “Don’t wait for me,” he commanded her. “Get yourself down to the edge. I’ll follow with Hilary.”

  Sinking to the shingles, she scooted herself on her backside down the slope until she arrived on the rim of the porch roof. When she turned her head and looked back, she saw smoke pouring from the window through which they’d escaped. Flames were leaping from the peak of the upper roof.

  With Hilary in his arms, Ethan managed his own descent on his feet. He started to lower his burden to the shingles in order to help Lauren reach the ground.

  “I can manage,” she assured him.

  She could, and she did. But the process of twisting over flat on her stomach, wriggling backward so that her lower half was dangling in space, and then pushing herself the rest of the way until her only contact with the roof were her hands clinging to the gutter, was an unnerving one.

  She hung there for a few seconds before, summoning her courage, she released her hold and dropped to the ground.

  When Ethan was certain she’d landed safely, he tossed her purse down to her, lowered Hilary into her waiting arms, and launched himself from the edge of the roof with maddening ease.

  By the time they’d put distance between themselves and the house, and were crouched in the grass beside the inert figure of the ex-housekeeper, the building was an inferno.

  “You okay?” Ethan wanted to know.

  Lauren dragged in a mouthful of air that this time was not tainted by smoke and nodded. “You?”

  “All in one piece.”

  For a moment they rested there in the deepening dusk, their gazes trained soberly on the raging conflagration that was rapidly consuming the old farmhouse. The blaze was instantly forgotten when a soft moan alerted them.

  “She’s coming around!” Lauren said.

  They bent close over Hilary. The woman’s eyes drifted open, her gaze slowly focusing on Ethan’s face looming just above hers. The glow from the fire must have been strong enough for her to not only recognize him but to make out the color of his eyes.

  “She has your eyes,” she whispered.

  Sara! Lauren thought. She has to be talking about Sara!

  “The same as his eyes.”

  “Who?” Ethan demanded. “Tell us who he is.”

  Hilary frowned, looking dazed and then making another effort. “I thought I could manage him. Even after Seattle, I thought it would be all right. I was wrong. He’s out of control now.”

  “Where has he gone?” Lauren pleaded with her. “Where did he and the woman with him take Sara?”

  “Why, to Windrush, of course. They’ve gone back to Windrush.”

  Windrush. Lauren had heard the name before, but she couldn’t remember what it meant. “Hilary, I have to know. Please, won’t you—”

  “Lauren, it’s no good. She’s out again. She needs an ambulance.”

  Lauren’s conscience reminded her that, in her desperate desire to learn answers, she had neglected to remember how serious Hilary’s condition was. Nor could the woman have benefited from the less-than-gentle treatment that had been necessary in order to get her out of the house.

  Through it all, Lauren had managed to hang on to her purse. She opened it now and took out her cell phone. Before she could punch in the number for emergency help, Ethan laid a hand on her arm.

  “You don’t have to bother,” he said. “Listen.”

  She heard it then, too. The wail of sirens in the valley below the farm.

  “A neighbor must have spotted the fire and reported it,” Ethan decided. “Let’s hope the paramedics are right behind the fire engines.”

  SHERIFF HOWELL was not happy with them.

  “You two had no business playing cops. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the law in this county.”

  “If we hadn’t come out here when we did,” Ethan angrily defended their actions, “Hilary Johnson would have burned up in that house. Or haven’t you figured out by now what’s got to be obvious? That the woman must have been left for dead and the fire meant to destroy her body and any evidence connected with the man who turned on her.”

  “There you go again, playing detective.”

  Which you should have been doing yourself, Lauren thought, wanting to say it but afraid if she did that Howell might charge them with obstructing the law.

  “And I’ll tell you something else,” Ethan went on, ignoring the sheriff’s warning. “The guy wasn’t taking any chances on getting caught on the scene. That fire was set to go off after he took himself and his girlfriend out of the area.”

  And our baby is with them. So why are we sitting here arguing about it? Why aren’t we going after them?

  This further delay was maddening. But all Sheriff Howell could rouse himself to do at the moment was gaze at them reproachfully from his side of the battered old picnic table, where they were seated a safe distance away from the activity at the house. That, and perform the annoying habit he had of sucking at his teeth.

  The sky was dark now. Nor did the fire offer any glow. It had been nearly extinguished, leaving the farmhouse a smoking rubble. But Lauren had no trouble seeing the sheriff’s ruddy face. There were all the lights from the fire engines, the other vehicles that had accompanied them and the two police cruisers parked in the grass at the side of the drive. The ambulance had already departed with Hilary.

  “You got another interesting theory?” the sheriff asked Ethan, his tone dry with sarcasm.

  “Yeah, I do. Even after Seattle. Those were Hilary’s words. She figured she could manage him even after Seattle, only she was wrong. What she said didn’t make sense to me at first, but now it does. I think what she meant was that this guy, whoever he is, killed my grandfather, and she lied about it to cover for him.”

  “Maybe,” Sheriff Howell conceded. “Or maybe she was in such a bad way she didn’t know what she was saying.”

  “Not so. She was coherent.”

  Deputy Wicowski, who had been monitoring the radio in his police cruiser, arrived at the picnic table. He leaned over to murmur something in the sheriff’s ear. Howell listened and then relayed his message to Lauren and Ethan.

  “My office just contacted us with a report from the paramedics. Hilary Johnson didn’t make it. She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital without ever regaining consciousness again. Looks like we’ll never know exactly what she did mean by her last words to you.”

  There was a long silence at the picnic table, each of them sobered in their own way by the news of Hilary’s death. It was the fire chief, a grizzled veteran known for his tough lan guage, who ended the silence when he joined them a moment later.

  “There was no way we could save any of it,” he said, referring to the house. “But from the way you folks described what happened when we got here, I’d say it probably was an incendiary device. Something involving a timer, a fuse and highly combustible material. Arson investigation may be able to detect evidence when they sift through the remains. One thing’s for sure—whoever set it is a cunning bastard.”
>
  “He’s more than that,” Ethan maintained, “because even if he didn’t kill my grandfather, Hilary’s death does make him a murderer now.”

  Lauren could no longer restrain her impatience over the sheriff’s inaction. “A murderer who has my daughter!” she cried. “Why aren’t you out there catching him, Sheriff?”

  “If it’s within my power, Ms. McCrea, I intend to do just that. But I was counting on Hilary Johnson explaining about this Windrush. Only, with her gone, it’ll take some digging to learn what she was talking about when she told you—”

  “You don’t have to wait for that! I know what Windrush is and where it is!”

  The four men around the table turned their gazes on her in surprise.

  “Hell, Lauren,” Ethan said, “if you knew all along, why didn’t you—”

  “But I didn’t. It just sounded familiar, that’s all. It’s only now I’ve remembered I came across it in the research I was doing for one of the books I wrote last year.”

  Ethan leaned toward her earnestly. “And?”

  “It’s a hotel in the mountains. One of those big Edwardian resorts on the shore of a remote lake in British Columbia.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s the same Windrush the Johnson woman was talking about,” the sheriff pointed out.

  “It must be,” Lauren insisted. “It’s an unusual name. I’ve never heard it in connection with any other place.”

  “It’s worth checking out. But British Columbia?” Howell shook his head. “That’s a problem.” He turned to his deputy.

  “Eddy, radio the border. See if they can tell you whether a couple with a baby crossed over into Canada in the last few hours or so.”

  Wicowski headed for his cruiser. The fire chief trailed after him with the intention of rejoining the other firefighters, who were preparing to depart with their equipment.

  Lauren glanced at Ethan. She could see he was restless, wanting action as much as she did and unable to hide it. She’d learned eleven months ago that he was one of those men who needed to be occupied. His long confinement in that Seattle jail, and before that in a North Korean cell, must have been a real hell for him.

  He was starting to get to his feet when a dark sedan sped up the driveway. Another sightseer to add to the confusion, Lauren thought. There had already been several of them that the deputy had sent on their way.

  But when the car rolled to a stop and its sole occupant emerged from behind the wheel, she could see this was no sightseer. Lauren recognized the woman at once. It was FBI Agent Marjorie Landry.

  “Wicowski must have been awfully busy on that radio of his,” Ethan observed as the agent hurried toward the picnic table.

  When she was close enough for Lauren to see the expression on her face, she understood what Ethan meant. Marjorie Landry wasn’t wearing this morning’s sweet-tempered smile. She had a severe look that said she’d been informed of all that had been happening since she had last met with them and was no more happy about their activities than Sheriff Howell was.

  The agent’s little-girl voice lost no time in blistering them when she reached the table. “If what I’ve been told about the two of you is right, and I have no reason to think it isn’t, then your actions are inexcusable.”

  “Yep, real busy,” Ethan muttered.

  If Agent Landry heard him, she wasn’t interested in an explanation. She was much too intent on lecturing them.

  “Irresponsible behavior is not the way to get your baby back.”

  “What is, Marjorie?” Ethan asked her with a deliberate familiarity. “Waiting while the FBI does nothing?”

  “The Bureau will not tolerate unauthorized interference in their investigations,” she went on, sidestepping his pointed question.

  I never figured her for a by-the-book type, Lauren thought. But I guess she is, which makes her no more effective than Sheriff Howell.

  When Agent Landry had finished venting her displeasure with them, she turned to the sheriff. “What’s the latest? Anything?”

  Howell shared with her what Lauren had told him about Windrush. The agent looked perplexed.

  “British Columbia? That’s a long way from here. Why would they be on their way to British Columbia, if in fact they are? What could they possibly want at this—what did you call it? Windrush?”

  The sheriff shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Who knows. Could be anything.”

  “Well, if they are headed there, then—”

  She was interrupted by the reappearance of Deputy Wicowski.

  “What did you learn, Eddy?” the sheriff asked him.

  The stoic deputy shook his head. “There’s been a lot of traffic up at the border this afternoon. A number of couples were passed through the gates, a few of them with little kids. Being as how I could give them only a sketchy description, and without names, they weren’t able to tell me whether our couple went through their port of entry. ’Course, as they pointed out, the perps could have used another port of entry or managed to cross the border illegally. They did promise to study their videotapes and get back to us with their findings.”

  And how long will that take? Lauren wondered, her frustration deepening by the moment. The sheriff and Agent Landry proceeded to add to that frustration.

  “If it turns out they did cross the border,” Howell said, “that puts the case beyond my jurisdiction.”

  Marjorie Landry nodded. “And mine. The Bureau has no authority to operate in Canada.”

  “No U.S. law enforcement does,” Howell said.

  “Except by permission through the proper channels,” the FBI agent said.

  “Right,” the sheriff said.

  So much for their power struggle in the past, Lauren thought sourly. Because on this subject, Sheriff Howell and Marjorie Landry were in total agreement. Like a couple of parents who had mended their differences, at least temporarily, they took turns sternly addressing Lauren and Ethan.

  “It’s out of our hands.”

  “There’s nothing we can do except contact the Canadian authorities and let them handle it.”

  “I hope you both understand that.”

  “We’ll do everything in our power to help the agencies up there recover Sara for you, but from now on you two stay out of it.”

  “Strictly out of it.”

  “THE HELL we will!”

  Ethan had answered Lauren’s question before she could ask it. But at least he’d had the wisdom to wait until they were in the car and on their way back to Elkton before he voiced his explosive opinion of Agent Landry and Sheriff Howell’s bombastic instructions.

  Wanting to be sure she understood him, Lauren responded quietly, “Then we’re going after Sara’s kidnappers ourselves?”

  “Do you want to just sit and wait while the authorities wade through a lot of red tape that could cost us our baby?”

  “You know I don’t.”

  “There’s your answer, then. All right, this Windrush is a long shot, but it’s the only chance we have of catching up with them.”

  She was relieved by his decision. Having long since overcome any qualms about recovering Sara on their own, it was exactly what she had hoped to hear.

  Ethan, who was driving this time, tapped his fingers on the wheel as they stopped at a crossroad to let a pickup go through. “The only thing is…”

  “What?”

  “They have a head start on us, and they know where they’re going and how to get there. We don’t.”

  “I think I can help with that. Or at least I know someone who ought to be able to tell us exactly where Windrush is and the best way of getting there.”

  “Who is it?”

  “You remember when I told you this morning that a friend called to offer her sympathy? Well, her name is Vicky Waller, and she operates a travel agency in Elkton.”

  “Sounds promising. Think you can reach her?”

  Lauren already had her cell phone out of her purse. “It’s after five. The agency won’t be open. I’l
l have to try her at home and hope she’s there.”

  Vicky was at home. Less than three minutes later, after Lauren had explained her need to her friend, she rang off and turned to Ethan.

  “She’s willing to help us in any way she can. We’re going to meet her back at the agency.”

  “Why there?”

  “Because she thinks she might be able to make arrangements for us to travel to Windrush, and she needs her office computer for that. Keep your fingers crossed, Ethan.”

  VICKY WALLER had a passion for travel, which was why she had opened an agency that catered to the desires of clients seeking the perfect vacation. She also relished the rich foods served in luxury hotels and on cruise ships. And, as she cheerfully admitted, she paid for it with a zaftig figure.

  That figure was parked now in a swivel chair as she faced them across her desk. “Okay, here’s the scoop,” she said, leaning toward them earnestly. “Windrush is just what you figured it is, one of those colossal hotels built somewhere around the turn of the last century and still popular with travelers who can afford to be guests in something that looks like a French château.”

  Lauren wondered not for the first time why Sara’s abductors would be on their way with her to such an unlikely destination. Back to Windrush. Those had been Hilary’s words, indicating the couple was returning to…what? Something familiar? Something vital?

  “Problem is,” Vicky continued, “it’s not one of those hey-let’s-stop-and-take-a-look-at-it-while-we’re-passing-through kind of places.”

  “Why is that?” Ethan asked.

  “Because it’s in the middle of nowhere, which makes it a destination unto itself. Folks, we’re talking about a region of British Columbia hundreds of miles from here. Oh, the lake and the mountains are to die for all right, but it’s still wilderness. You don’t get there by a four-lane highway. The only road linking it to the outside is long and undependable. No commercial airline to service it, either.”