Anna Lewis, the woman who’d registered Joey all those weeks ago, was waiting for them, and she whisked Joey away long before Robbie was ready to say goodbye. Filled with panic for a second, she almost ran after him. Joey had already spent too much of his life with strangers. Her only consolation was that she’d be back before lunch.
“It gets easier.” Anna was back, a sympathetic smile on her face.
Robbie flushed. “I’m sorry, was I that obvious?”
Anna nodded. “But don’t apologize. It’s when the parents can’t wait to get out of here that we worry.”
“You’ll make sure he has his blanket at all times?” Robbie asked, straining to see the room where Joey had been taken.
“Of course. Now, if you’ll just sign him in?” Anna pushed a clipboard across the reception desk.
Robbie scrawled Joey’s name, taking a little license and putting him down as Joey Randolph. He would be soon enough.
Sooner than they’d expected, according to what Con had told her about Cecily over dinner the night before. It hadn’t seemed to faze him a bit that that meant she’d be leaving sooner. In fact, he’d seemed almost relieved. Not that she blamed him. The situation had been pretty unbearable between them since Sunday.
So why wasn’t she relieved, too?
She pushed the clipboard across the desk. “I’ll be back no later than eleven,” she told Anna. And with one last longing look at the nursery door, she hurried out to her truck.
Joey was safe and that was all that mattered. She was going to have to get used to leaving him. It was soon going to be a way of life.
She cried all the way to the office.
CON WAS ENGROSSED in the contents of a file when the call came.
“Mr. Randolph? This is Anna Lewis at Rosemount Day Care.”
Con stiffened, instantly alert. The woman sounded upset. “What’s happened?”
“It’s Joey, sir. He’s gone!”
“What do you mean, gone?” he yelled.
“He’s disappeared, Mr. Randolph.” The woman gave a sob. “We can’t find him anywhere!”
Con was out of his seat, reaching for his keys. “Have you called the police?”
“We thought maybe you’d want…since you’re FBI and all…”
“I’m on my way,” he said, slamming the phone down and running from his office.
He barked orders as he flew down the hall and out into the hot August sunshine, leaving a flurry of activity behind him. He wanted Cecily Barnhardt’s ass found. Immediately. And an APB put out on his son. He wanted the airports and bus stations staked out. The highways blocked. He wanted Robbie.
The jacket of his suit caught on the door as he climbed into his car, and Con yanked it free, ripping the material. He shoved his key into the ignition and roared out of the parking lot and down the street, his heart racing, his thoughts tripping over themselves.
Would Cecily have done this? And if not her, who?
What was the possibility of a misunderstanding? Of the boy having simply been misplaced in the arms of one of the day-care workers, of him being there waiting for Con when he arrived? Slim to none.
He ran through his mind a list of all the people who had it in for him, but couldn’t begin to calculate the possibilities. There were hundreds of people who’d threatened him over the years, who could have taken his son to get back at him. Hundreds of unsavory hate-filled people. Evil people who wouldn’t think twice about…
It had to be Cecily. The woman was a little off, but she was as gentle as they came. Please, God, let it be Cecily.
Wherever Joey was, whoever he was with, there better not be one mark on him.
Did he have his blanket?
Panic seared him as he swung into the day-care parking lot. Panic and despair so unbearable he almost collapsed beneath its weight.
Except that his son needed him.
He climbed out of his car and raced to the building.
THIS ISN’T HAPPENING. It’s all a mistake. It can’t be happening. The words rolled through Robbie’s mind over and over, a litany that preserved her sanity until she met Con outside the front door of the day care. One glance at his face and she couldn’t breathe. He looked haggard, ten years older than he had that morning.
So it was true. Joey was missing.
“No!” The word tore from her throat just as Con’s arms wrapped around her.
Robbie pressed against him, aware only of the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek.
“We’ll find him,” she said then, afraid to let go of Con, afraid she’d fall to a heap at his feet, unable to help him. To help Joey.
She felt Con’s nod, but more, she felt the desperation in his grasp as he held her. “If they hurt him, I’ll kill them.” His voice was pure steel, and shaking with emotion.
Absurdly, the thought crossed Robbie’s mind that a heartless man wouldn’t shake with emotion.
“Let’s go in,” Con said, releasing her to open the door.
Anna was waiting for them inside. Her pretty face was blotchy, strained, streaked with tears. “I’m so sorry,” she cried, wringing her hands. “This kind of thing doesn’t happen here.”
“Where was he last seen?” Con asked.
“In there,” she pointed to the nursery door Robbie had watched her take Joey through earlier.
She followed as Con and Robbie hurried into the room.
“When?” Robbie asked.
“Nine-thirty or so. He’d just gone down for a nap.”
It was ten-fifteen. He could be anywhere by now.
Three policeman were surrounding an empty crib on the far side of the room, questioning several day-care employees. Con joined them.
“Where are the other children?” Robbie asked, remaining in the doorway. She was loath to go near the crib. She couldn’t bear to be close to it, to know that Joey had been there. To imagine someone reaching down, snatching him…
“Most of them have gone home,” Anna said, pulling Robbie back from the darkness in her mind. “Those whose parents we couldn’t reach are in the playroom with Maria and Joy.” Anna’s voice broke. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Randolph,” she said, starting to cry again.
Choking back her own sobs, Robbie turned from Anna and went to join Con. It was either that or rip the young woman to shreds. Why in hell didn’t she watch Joey better?
“No one saw anyone unusual hanging around?” Con was asking the workers as Robbie walked up, wiping tears from her eyes.
Shrinking under Con’s gaze, every one of the day-care employees shook their heads.
“The center’s growing. We get new people almost every day,” Anna said, coming over to them.
“Where was everyone?” Robbie asked. Why weren’t you watching him?
“It was snack time,” an older woman explained. “All the children were sitting at tables in the snack room, except the sleeping babies.”
“One of you doesn’t stay in the nursery?” A policemen asked.
The woman nodded, swallowing with obvious difficulty. “I do. I’d just gone down the hall to get another box of diapers. I’d used the last one,” she said.
“How many babies were in here?” Robbie asked her.
“Three.”
One of the policemen wrote on a pad he’d been holding.
“And the other two were untouched?” Con asked.
The woman nodded, her eyes flooding with tears.
Robbie exchanged a glance with Con, saw the confirmation of her fears in his eyes. Three babies asleep in a room. Only one taken. This wasn’t a random kidnapping.
“Have you checked the windows and doors?” Con asked the policemen gathered around the crib.
“Yes, sir.” All three nodded.
“And?”
“Nothing.”
Just then a fourth policeman entered the room, and Robbie’s heart sank, nausea overwhelming her when she saw the rag in his hand. “I just found this on the other side of the fence surrounding the playgrou
nd. It was caught. Looks like someone tried to pull it loose,” he said, bringing the material over to the crib.
Con stared.
“You recognize it?” the officer asked Con, holding up the bedraggled scrap.
Con’s lips were pinched, his eyes bleak as he nodded.
Robbie fell against him, holding on to his arm as the world spun around her. A wave of blackness threatened, and then receded.
It was Joey’s blanket:
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LEAVING THE POLICE officers at the day care to continue the investigation, dust for fingerprints and comb the area behind the playground, Con followed Robbie home. He kept his eyes trained on his surroundings, looking for anyone he didn’t recognize—or someone he did. But the neighborhood was quiet, as it usually was on a hot weekday morning. Even the boy who worked in the neighborhood had stayed in out of the heat.
He checked his mailbox as he drove up, but it was empty. At this point he didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. If the kidnapper got in touch with him, he’d at least have something to go on.
Robbie had already gone in when he entered the kitchen, throwing his car keys down on the kitchen counter with such force they bounced off and onto the floor. He felt so helpless. So damn helpless.
“There’s nothing at the front door or on the answering machine,” Robbie said, rushing back into the kitchen.
Con found a pack of cigarettes in the back of his junk drawer and lit two. Robbie took one with shaking fingers.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“Let me make a phone call and then we’ll talk." He didn’t know what to think. Except that if he didn’t stay busy, he’d go out of his mind.
He dialed the number by heart.
“Pete Mitchell.”
Con breathed a little easier when his occasional and usually reluctant partner answered. Pete was the best there was at negotiating hostage releases.
“I may need your help,” Con said, taking a long drag on his cigarette.
“Where?” Pete asked without a moment’s hesitation.
“This isn’t official,” Con said almost reluctantly. He wasn’t confident that Pete would still be willing to help when he found out it was Con who needed him, not the government.
“What’s up? Is Robbie okay? And little Joey?”
“The boy’s missing, taken from his crib at the day care over an hour ago.”
“You home?” Pete’s voice was sharp.
“Yeah.”
“Anything there?”
Con knew what Pete was asking. Had there been any word from the kidnappers? “No.”
“I’m on my way.”
Pete hung up before Con even had a chance to thank him. But he would never forget how quickly Pete was willing to come to his aid. Con couldn’t remember a time he’d reached out to someone, asked for something and not been rejected. Which was why he usually didn’t bother asking. He just gave orders.
“He’s coming?” Robbie asked.
Con nodded, sat down and pulled her onto his lap. Her face was lined with strain, with the effort it took to hold herself together.
“You got any ideas?” he asked her. He didn’t tell her he was scared to death.
“Cecily.”
Con nodded. He’d reached the same conclusion. “Why?”
“A man would’ve drawn attention. Someone would have remembered seeing him.”
“And a man would’ve been strong enough to rip Joey’s blanket free,” Con added.
Robbie’s short sandy hair was sticking up where she’d run her fingers through it. As he smoothed it down, a wave of helplessness washed over him again, paralyzing him. Every contact he had would be working on the case by now, but it wasn’t enough. He needed the best.
And he was it.
“If Joey’s with her, he’s probably OK.” Robbie spoke softly, like a child needing reassurance.
“Yeah. She’s stupid, but she’s not evil,” Con agreed.
“At least when she abandoned him before, she took him to a hospital,” Robbie said.
Con stubbed out his cigarette. “The state borders are all being patrolled. And chances are good she didn’t think to change her appearance.”
Robbie sat up, turning to look at him, fear in her eyes. “What about Mexico? She could take him to Mexico.”
“We’ll find him, Rob. We’ll get him back,” Con promised, hoping to God this was one promise he could keep.
Con tried for the millionth time to remember more about the night he’d spent at the Pink Lagoon Motel with Cecily Barnhardt. He had to figure out what was going on in her head to prepare for what might happen next.
“All she wants is to be taken care of,” he said, repeating what Karen Smith had said. His own memories of the woman were so damn blurry! “She was afraid of something that night, I think. And happy as a clam as long as I let her sit there. Maybe that’s why she ended up at the motel with me,” he said, his head hurting with the effort it took to remember. “I can guarantee that I fully intended to be alone—falling-down drunk, but alone—when I rented that room earlier in the evening.”
“Judging from the way she acted in court last week, I’d say you’re definitely on the right track." Robbie’s head was a welcome weight against his chest.
“Which probably means she won’t go far. That if we just sit tight, she’ll be contacting us.”
Robbie stood up, crossing to the living-room window to stare out. “You think she’ll be willing to trade Joey for monetary support?”
“Maybe. She wants to be supported—I know that for sure.” Con joined Robbie at the window. The neighborhood looked like a picture in a travel brochure—beautifully landscaped yards, modern stucco homes with variegated tile roofs beneath gloriously blue skies. Not a hint that something could be so terribly wrong.
Robbie started to shake. “We have to give her whatever she asks for,” she said, her voice filled with the tears she’d been trying so hard to hold back.
“Pete’s going to disagree with that,” Con said, bracing himself against the tide of emotion that threatened his own control. “We’d just be reinforcing the danger of it happening again.”
She turned to look at him, her eyes pools of sorrow, of fear. “We have to pay her, Con.”
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Con pulled her into his arms. “We will. We’ll do whatever’s necessary.”
THE MINUTES TICKED BY slowly, each one a lifetime, a hell on earth. Yet somehow the minutes became hours, and still the baby had not been found and still no one had contacted them. The longer the baby was gone without anyone contacting them, the greater the danger, Con knew. Pete had arrived, and it was past one o’clock when Con got a call from Martin Emerson, one of his agents.
“Cecily left town almost two hours ago,” Con said, hanging up the phone. Pete and Robbie were sitting on stools at the breakfast bar, untouched cups of coffee in front of them. Con still couldn’t believe that Pete had come rushing over the moment he’d called.
“Someone recognized her at the bus station. She’s going by the name Cecily Armstrong.”
“Does she have Joey?” Robbie asked, jumping up. Her arm knocked over the coffee in front of her, but she ignored the liquid as it spread across the counter.
Con grabbed a towel and wiped it up. “Emerson hasn’t found anyone who could confirm that for sure, only that she was carrying a bundle that could have been a baby.”
He threw the wet towel into the empty washing machine, adding soap, then switched the appliance on. It took everything he had not to jump into his car and go after the woman.
“Where was she headed?” Pete asked, frowning. Robbie was rinsing her coffee cup, her movements jerky.
“Flagstaff.”
“She’s probably there already.”
“Or got off somewhere else. Emerson has men on that now.”
“You want to go after them, right?” Pete said. Robbie turned around just in time to see Con nod.
“You don’t dare leave, Con,” Pete said, calm but deadly serious. “The woman’s unstable. She’s not going to like it if she can’t reach you once she makes up her mind to ask for whatever it is she wants.”
It wasn’t in Con’s nature to sit back and let some-one else conduct an investigation that was more important to him than all that had come before. But he realized the wisdom in Pete’s words. He had a feeling that Cecily wouldn’t talk to anybody but him.
The other two were watching him, waiting. He couldn’t stand the pressure of their expectant gazes. He had to find something to do.
Without another word, he went out to the garage, gathered up a drill, a screwdriver and the child-safety latches he and Robbie had picked up weeks before. The way Joey was scooting around, he had no time to lose. He couldn’t have the baby pulling all their pots and pans out onto the floor or finding something to hurt himself with.
PETE FOLLOWED ROBBIE into the living room. She’d heard Con wrestling with his tools out in the garage. And as soon as she’d known he wasn’t going for his car, she’d decided to give him a little time to himself. Being alone was the only way Con knew how to deal with pain.
“Con’s changed,” the older man said.
“How do you mean, changed?” she asked, heading straight for the window, as though if she looked out long enough, the kidnapper would decide to bring Joey home.
God, please don’t let him be hurt.
“I’ve wondered a time or two if the man ever felt anything at all,” Pete said.
“Always,” Robbie answered instantly. “More than anyone realizes.”
Pete shook his head. “You could’ve fooled me. Don’t get me wrong,” he added when Robbie turned. “I’ve always respected him, admired his genuine self-lessness. I’ve just worried a time or two that he’d lost an important component in dealing with people. The emotional component.”
Robbie nodded. She could understand that. She’d wondered a time or two herself. “I guess when all you see is ugliness, it’s all you believe is there.”
“Maybe.” Pete shrugged. “But you and the baby have obviously convinced him differently. I’ve never seen him so broken up.”
Shotgun Baby Page 19