Shotgun Baby

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  But when he awoke late the next morning, alone, naked and sick as a dog, the only thing to tell that she’d been there was an empty money clip, and his FBI badge lying open on the table beside it.

  Holding the badge, looking toward the unmade bed, he hoped to God he hadn’t done anything else to hate himself for. The last thing he remembered was a woman’s cool hand running gently along his back, and him wanting to thank her for something. But he couldn’t thank her. He didn’t even know her name.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Fifteen months later

  IT WAS DONE. And done right. He should care.

  “Congratulations, Randolph.”

  Con nodded at FBI Special Agent Orlando and continued on his way out of the bowels of the Tyler building in downtown Phoenix. Orlando’s job was just beginning; he had cleanup detail—documenting every shred of evidence so that when operation Dogtags came to trial the government could nail these bastards.

  “You did it again, Randolph. Thanks.” Maricopa County Sheriff Tom Whitcomb was standing just inside the front door of the building with a couple of his men, waiting for William Tyler to appear.

  Con nodded again, shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks and headed silently out into the blistering June heat. The sun felt good. He barely noticed the flashing lights of the police cruisers surrounding the area. After fifteen years with the FBI very little fazed him.

  “I’ll get you for this, Randolph!”

  Con turned just in time to see William Tyler make a complete ass of himself as he was escorted out of the building that, until today, had been an institution, a monument to the Tyler dynasty in Phoenix. William Tyler, the epitome of the American dream, a classic case of a good man making good. He’d been a poor itinerant preacher who’d started with one small investment. And he’d donated his first million to the church. The sedately suited man was hollering loudly enough to be heard on the next block. “I’ll hunt you down and cut your—”

  Con turned his back. He’d really expected the man to go quietly with a measure of class. During the past several months of investigation, he’d found Tyler to be a crook, but a gentleman just the same.

  Or maybe he’d just wanted to find something good in the ex-preacher. Something redeemable in one of the shady characters he dealt with day after day, year after year. What he’d found, instead, was a foulmouthed villain.

  Con lowered himself into his nondescript sedan, government-issue blue, and cursed as his knee hit the dash. Turning his key in the ignition and setting the air conditioner to high, he reached for his cell phone and the cigarettes on the console at the same time. He dialed first.

  “Newsroom.” Her voice was like a welcome blast of fresh air.

  “OK, Robbie,” he said, pulling a cigarette from his pack. “It’s public now. It’s Tyler.”

  “William Tyler? He’s the investment broker you’ve been after?”

  Con took a long satisfying drag on his cigarette. “He’s on his way downtown now.”

  “This is good news.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So how come you sound so whipped? What’s the matter with you, Randolph?”

  Trust Robbie to jump right into his personal minefield. Nobody else would dare talk to him like that. Nobody else would get away with it. “It’s just a job.”

  “It didn’t used to be.” Her voice was soft, unusually tender. “I’m worried about you.”

  Yeah. Lately he was getting a little worried himself. “Don’t be. Now get your butt down here or you’ll lose an exclusive.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  The phone was almost back in its holder when Con heard Robbie call his name.

  “Yeah?”

  “Take care, friend.”

  Two HOURS LATER Robyn Blair was back at the TV station. She’d just spent the afternoon covering the arrest of one of Phoenix’s pillars of society, a man who’d been charged with insider trading. Tyler had a beautiful wife of thirty-five years, three great kids, all college graduates, a couple of grandchildren and was an ordained minister. Go figure.

  She was looking forward to a nice cold beer in a frosted mug. Hearing voices coming from the news-room at the end of the hall, she prepared to join the guys for their Wednesday-night jaunt to Coyote’s.

  “Come on, let’s get going. Robbie may not be back for hours,” she heard Tom Richards, a staff writer for the six-o’clock news, say. “I think maybe she’s gone back to police headquarters.”

  “I’m ready,” Darrin Michaels boomed. He was one of Channel Four’s star photographers. “Going without Robbie might be nice for a change. At least I won’t have Alysse harping at me when I get home. Why that woman has a problem with Robbie joining us for a beer I’ll never know.”

  “You, too? I thought Joan was the only one who had a screw loose where Robbie’s concerned.”

  Robbie stopped in her tracks as Rick Hastings, her producer, jumped into the conversation. Joan had a problem with Rick having drinks with her? She couldn’t believe it! Hell, she’d baby-sat their kids just last weekend so Joan and Rick could go to the movies. Joan had said she didn’t know what they’d do without her.

  “Connie, too.” That was Tom again. Connie, too? Robbie sagged back against the wall, her notebook hugged against her chest. She’d considered all three of those women her friends. How could they not have faith in her—or in their husbands? It was ludicrous.

  “I don’t get it. It’s not like I’d be interested in Robbie even if I were free,” Tom continued.

  Robbie was glad to hear it.

  “Me, either,” Darrin seconded. “If you took her dancing, she’d probably want to lead.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but Robbie is a bit too aggressive for my taste,” said Rick.

  Rick’s words hit her harder, probably because he was right. But a woman in her profession had to be aggressive.

  “It’s not just that she has the tenacity of a pit bull,” Tom added. “Can you guys honestly say you’d ever want to get into bed with a woman whose hair is as short as yours and who wouldn’t know what to do with a tube of makeup if she had one? I’ll bet she even wears boxer shorts for underwear.”

  The other guys laughed.

  Robbie had never been overly fond of Tom Richards, and she was liking him less and less. Short hair was easy to manage. And so what if she’d never understood why smearing goop on her face was supposed to be a good thing; at least, she’d been blessed with a complexion that didn’t need any covering up. And she most certainly did not wear boxer shorts.

  “And she’d insist on being on top all the time, too,” Darrin added, causing another round of male laughter. Robbie stood frozen outside the door. She’d thought these guys were her pals! But she had to admit—in her one brief relationship, she had rather enjoyed being on top.

  “Come on, guys, Robbie’s all right,” Rick said. “Besides, have you ever taken a look at her legs? They’re the best pair I’ve seen since Christy Brinkley’s. I can tell you, under different circumstances, I wouldn’t mind having them wrapped around me.”

  “Yeah, but only if the package was different.”

  Robbie didn’t know whether to slink away quietly or to barge into the room and strangle Tom Richards with her aggressive hands.

  “Oh, I don’t know, her boobs aren’t so bad, either,” Darrin said. “Come to think of it, when you get past the way she acts and dresses, her body’s worth taking a second look at.”

  “And a third.”

  Robbie gritted her teeth at the newly appreciative tone in Tom’s voice.

  “OK, guys, we better go have that drink before we get ourselves in too deep to pretend we never had this conversation,” Rick said, suddenly serious. “Robbie is Robbie, aggression and all, and she’s saved our butts more than once. Let’s just hope she never learns how to shop for clothes, or our wives’d really start harping. And I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to be nagged, I’d just as soon it be over someone who turned me
on.”

  The men approached the door and Robbie slipped into the women’s room across the hall. She’d never been so thankful to find the place empty in her life. It would have been the last straw to have had to explain the tears streaming down her cheeks.

  As CON PULLED into his driveway that evening, he saw a woman at his front door. Which would have been fine with him if his professional eye hadn’t already cataloged her in detail. This was not one of his occasional female acquaintances.

  This woman had to be pushing sixty. Her posture was stiff and her clothing prim. With that manila folder clutched in her fingers, she looked just like his fourth-grade English teacher, old sourpuss Mc-Laughlin. He had no idea who she was, and he wasn’t in the mood to find out. It didn’t appear, however, that he’d have much choice. She’d seen him pull into the driveway.

  Opening his automatic garage door, Con drove inside and closed the door behind him. When he entered the kitchen, he dropped his keys on the ceramictiled counter, pulled a beer from the refrigerator, uncapped it and took a swig. With his free hand he picked up the pack of cigarettes he’d left on the counter that morning. One long satisfying drag later he walked, beer in hand, to his front door and swung it open. “Yes?”

  The woman’s face took on an even more sour look as she appraised Con. “Are you Mr. Connor Randolph?”

  “Who wants to know?” he asked, purposely allowing his cigarette to hang out of the corner of his mouth. He’d had to put up with snobs like her throughout his adolescence, but he wasn’t a kid any-more.

  He leaned against the doorjamb, allowing himself the satisfaction of forcing her to take a step backward. He was always conscious of his intimidating stature and normally tried not to take unfair advantage of it unless he was working, but at the moment he didn’t give a damn about fair.

  “The state wants to know.”

  The state? He was the state.

  Flicking the ashes of his cigarette outside the door, he took another long drag. What he really wanted was to finish his beer, strip off his clothes and dive into his backyard pool.

  “You collecting money or signatures?” he asked, resigned to giving her either so she’d go away and leave him alone.

  “Are you Connor Randolph?” she repeated.

  Stepping back, he nodded.

  “Then if I could just get your signatures here, I’ll be on my way.” She pulled some forms from her folder and thrust them at his chest.

  Con stubbed his cigarette in the hallway ashtray and reached into his suit jacket for his pen. “What is it this time—higher taxes or better neighborhoods?” he asked, barely glancing at the papers. If she wanted something from him, she sure wasn’t going about it the right way. But then, it was probably hard to get people to go door-to-door collecting signatures any-more.

  “It’s your son, Mr. Randolph.” She practically spit the words.

  He froze, his pen poised above the papers. “What did you say?”

  “Your son. We’ve found a family who wants to adopt your son. A fine proper family. The only thing holding us up now is your signature. So if you could just sign these preliminary forms, we can get the formal proceedings under way. Of course, the state will also be petitioning you for child support for the three months he’s been with us.”

  Con lowered his pen. “I don’t have a son.”

  She didn’t bat an eye. “My name is Sandra Muldoon, Mr. Randolph. I work for social services. And according to our records, you do have a son. Now if you could just sign there on the line marked with a star—”

  Con’s back was suddenly as stiff as hers. “I don’t have a son.”

  “I realize you refused responsibility for the child, Mr. Randolph, but that doesn’t negate his existence. However, we’re prepared to sever all connections just as you wish. You need only to sign the forms.”

  She had the wrong man. Con had no interest in having a child, in fact had decided quite unequivocally that he would never bring a child into such an ugly world. But neither would he refuse responsibility for one he’d created. Not ever. This woman had the wrong man.

  “Who’s the mother?” he asked.

  “Cecily Barnhardt,” she said, as if he already knew full well who the mother was and was wasting her time.

  It was all the confirmation Con needed. “I’ve never heard of her.”

  The woman’s mouth fell open. “Never heard of her? Well—” the scorn was back in her voice “—I must say you might at least try to learn the names of the women you, uh, consort with in the future, Mr. Randolph, especially if you aren’t going to. consort responsibly. Now, if you’ll just sign these forms…”

  Con turned to the hall table and set down the beer he’d been holding. Hard. It foamed up and over the mouth of the bottle. “I’ve never ‘consorted,’ nor had sex, with a Cecily Barnhardt,” he said, enunciating very clearly, though softly, as he reached to close the door in the woman’s face.

  “She says you did. And we have proof.”

  He pulled the door back open and glared.

  “It’s all right here.” She shook the manila folder in front of his face. “The baby was conceived at the Pink Lagoon Motel the night of March sixteenth last year. In room 173—a room registered to you. He was born at Phoenix Baptist Hospital on December twentieth and abandoned at the same hospital three months later with his birth certificate and a letter from his mother begging that someone give him a good home. You, sir, are the father named on the birth certificate.”

  Con felt the blood drain from his face. Anyone could be named on a birth certificate. He knew that.

  But he had been at the Pink Lagoon. He’d never forget that seedy motel. Or, no matter how hard he tried, that date. Just as he’d never remember what did or did not happen after he’d reached his motel room the night he’d deliberately drunk himself into a stupor.

  “Now, if you will just sign these papers…” The woman said again.

  “No.” Nausea roiled inside of him.

  “Excuse me?”

  “No.” He couldn’t be much clearer than that.

  “But you said you didn’t want to have anything to do with the child.”

  “I said nothing of the kind.”

  “It’s all here, Mr. Randolph. We found Cecily and she told us how she couldn’t care for the child herself and that the baby’s father had refused to help her. She signed him over to the state.”

  Con stood to his full six-foot-five height. “Let’s understand one thing. I would never have turned my back on a child of mine if I’d had any idea that it existed. If, as you say, this child is mine, I will take him. I will raise him,” he insisted—though he had no idea how he could possibly do such a thing. He knew only that he couldn’t not do it.

  “But you can’t!”

  Her reaction didn’t surprise him. He’d been getting it all his life.

  “Can’t I?”

  Her gaze raked him, stopping for pointed moments on beer splattered on the hall table. “Well, look at you. You can’t possibly care for a baby.”

  He felt as if he were back in the seventh grade and his teacher was telling him he couldn’t possibly expect to run for class president. He was, after all, nothing but a troublemaker, a loser.

  “Is the child mine?” His steely gray eyes held her gaze.

  “Y-yes. It would appear so. But—”

  “Then I will care for him. Where is he?” Con looked behind her, almost as if he expected the child to appear.

  “He’s in a foster home in Gilbert, but—”

  “Then let’s go get him,” he said.

  “You can’t just go get him!” Sandra Muldoon cried, shocked.

  “Of course I can. He’s mine.”

  “Th-there will have to be tests. We’ll need proof. Besides, you can’t really mean to raise him yourself.”

  “Why not?” The more she pushed him, the more desperate he became to rescue his son from the same system that had made his own childhood such a mockery.

&
nbsp; “You aren’t even married!”

  “There’s no law against that.” Finally, something in the whole mess he was sure about.

  “But you can’t—” She broke off when Con’s gaze turned steely again. “This is highly unexpected,” she said.

  “I want my son.”

  Putting the forms back into her folder, she clutched it to her chest. “Yes, well, there will be procedures.”

  “Such as?” Procedures. Something he was used to.

  “Blood tests, for one.”

  “But you said he’s my son. You’re not sure?”

  “One can never be certain about these things.”

  “You were certain enough when you wanted my signature to give him away. And certain enough to take my money for his back support.”

  “There will have to be blood tests, Mr. Randolph. We can’t just hand over an innocent baby—”

  “Not even to his father?” The words made him quiver inside.

  “He’s a ward of the state now,” she said, as if that changed the child’s parentage.

  “So I’ll get a blood test. Where can I pick him up?”

  “I’m telling you, Mr. Randolph, you can’t just go get him. We’ll have to send someone from social services over first.”

  “Why?”

  Her eyes grew wide. “To see if you’re a fit father of course!”

  “And you do this every time people give birth?”

  “No,” she said impatiently. “But you chose not to be present when Cecily gave birth.”

  “I wasn’t informed she was pregnant.”

  Mrs. Muldoon didn’t look like she believed him. “You also chose not to support him when she came to you asking for help.”

  “She never came.”

  “She says she did,” the social worker snipped, still clutching her folder. “And which of you is telling the truth is something for the courts to decide. In the meantime, if you’re serious about this, you’ll need to call this number to set up an appointment with social services.” She handed him a business card and turned haughtily, her back ramrod straight as she headed out to her car, parked at the curb.