The Baby Assignment

by Christy Barritt

  Tanner stood, hard feelings threatening to rise in him again.

  “The security cameras will be set up today,” he told her. “Unfortunately, events happened so rapidly that we didn’t have surveillance in place last night. Being here is the safest thing we can do right now. At least, until we figure out who these guys are.”

  “Okay. You know best.”

  Was there bitterness in her words? He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a hint of that. He ignored it, knowing they had more important subjects to deal with. They’d been pleasantly polite to each other at first. But was all of that wearing off now? Would their true feelings start to emerge?

  Before he walked away, he had one more question. “Did you think of anything else last night, Macy? Anything that would link this baby with you? Maybe someone in Oklahoma?”

  She shook her head and shifted Addie to her shoulder to burp her. “No, I still have no idea. There’s no one.”

  He felt the urge to say more, to push her to think more deeply.

  Before he could, his phone rang. Saul’s name appeared on the screen. He excused himself to step away and take the call.

  “We’ve got some news for you,” Saul said.

  Tanner paused by the window, staring outside and wondering just what Macy had seen last night. “What’s going on?”

  “The taxi driver who brought the baby’s mom to the FBI headquarters?”

  “You found him?” His pulse spiked. Maybe they finally had a lead.

  “We did. But he’s dead. It looks like someone shot him.”

  * * *

  It looks like someone shot him.

  Macy replayed Tanner’s words as he’d joined her at the table and shared what Saul had told him.

  How many more would die before this ended?

  She glanced down at Addie. And why was this precious little baby in the middle of this? She rested Addie across her chest, head over her shoulder, and patted her back.

  Addie had been fussy this morning. Macy was worried about the baby’s ear. Addie kept tugging on it, and Macy knew she needed to keep an eye on her.

  Macy’s niece had suffered through many ear infections, and Macy wondered if Addie was getting one also. If this continued, she would have to insist on taking her to see a doctor or bringing a doctor here. Macy wouldn’t let this baby suffer any more than she already had.

  She looked across the room at Tanner as he huddled at the breakfast bar with Armstrong and Manning. A rush of hostility swept through her.

  He hadn’t believed her when she said she saw lights outside. That hurt way more than she thought it would. Then again, Tanner lived for this job and nothing else mattered to him. Certainly she hadn’t.

  Macy fought a rush of tears—which was ridiculous. She was a professional woman. She was over this.

  Yet Macy had thought she had something special with Tanner. She’d dated since then. But no one measured up to Tanner and the connection they’d shared.

  And that was a problem because she and Tanner could never be together.

  Macy was a psychologist. She’d studied human behavior. And she should have a better handle on this. But, when she was being honest with herself, she’d admit that she didn’t have a handle on her emotions around Tanner at all. Just seeing him again had brought back so many old feelings and hurts.

  She looked down at Addie’s sweet little expression. Big brown eyes stared up at her, those brown curls framing her perfect round face, and chubby hands reached for Macy’s hair. She cooed, and a moment of peace came over Macy.

  All she’d wanted for so long was to be a mom. To have a family. She’d never wanted to be married to her career. Sure, she was doing important work. But deep inside, having her a husband and children were her true desire.

  “We’re looking for your mama,” she whispered, gently poking the baby’s stomach.

  Addie smiled in response.

  Macy hoped that they might track down Addie’s mom through the taxi company. But a bad feeling brewed in her gut after hearing Tanner’s news.

  If the taxi driver was dead... Macy shook her head. She couldn’t go there. She had to stay positive. Nothing had happened to Addie’s mom. She was just lying low until all of this passed.

  As much as Macy tried to convince herself to believe it, she couldn’t.

  “I need your help,” Tanner said, approaching her with a laptop in his hands.

  “Sure thing. What’s up?” She shifted Addie to one side of her lap.

  “Your boss from Third Day sent over your files. I need you to look through them and see if anyone rings a bell as a potential relative or connection to Addie.”

  “I can do that. But what about Addie?”

  “I’ll take her.”

  Macy quirked an eyebrow. Tanner seemed more comfortable searching for bad guys than he did calming an anxious baby. But if this was what they needed to do, then so be it.

  She stood and lifted Addie into Tanner’s arms. “She needs a diaper change.”

  Before Macy could see Tanner’s face, she took the computer from him and got busy.

  Seven

  Two hours later, Macy had searched through all the files that had been sent over. Several clients and former clients were close matches. There were mothers with children similar in age to Addie, but ultimately their infants were either boys, or the women were of a different ethnicity. Macy had worked with some of these children’s older siblings. For all she knew, Addie could be someone’s sister or cousin. The baby could have been adopted. There just wasn’t enough information to go on at the moment.

  The truth was that none of these families fit. Macy had hoped for answers, but they weren’t to be found in these files.

  She leaned back in the chair, trying to clear her thoughts. Her body ached from hunching over the computer for hours. She hadn’t wanted a break, though. No, what she wanted was to figure out what was going on and how she was connected to this baby. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that her name was scribbled on a piece of paper and left in the diaper bag.

  Macy’s mind wandered to Oklahoma again. Could Addie’s mom be connected to Macy through her work there? It was a possibility. But why would someone drive from Oklahoma City all the way to Houston to find Macy? It was a nearly seven hour trip.

  Besides, she wasn’t close to any of her clients. Most of them didn’t even know where she’d moved to. She’d been careful to keep her private life private. Oftentimes, therapy clients felt an unhealthy connection to their psychologists. She’d read case studies about how that could turn ugly. For that reason, Macy had been very careful about what personal information she revealed.

  Despite that, she’d asked Tanner to see if he could request copies of her client list. It was an option worth exploring, especially since they had so few leads right now.

  Macy leaned back in the chair and rubbed her eyes in exhaustion. Nothing made sense. And now she was in the middle of this mess, trying to claw her way out. She knew she couldn’t walk away, not when Addie’s life was at stake. Macy was in this, whether she wanted to be or not.

  Tanner emerged from the bedroom, where he’d been trying to get Addie to sleep. He strode back into the living room, his cowboy boots clicking against the wooden floor and his hat pulled down low over his eyes. Somehow, the rowdy cowboy look had always fit him—and had always been very attractive to neat and orderly Macy.

  In fact, when the two of them had first met, Tanner had been working security for a football game at the college where Macy was attending graduate school. She’d gotten locked out of her car, and Tanner had shown up to help. They’d ended up going for ice cream after his shift ended, and they’d been inseparable after that.

  Until they’d broken up, of course. Macy felt like she’d lost a piece of herself that day. Yet their breakup had been her own doing.

>   Macy studied Tanner for a brief second, but the only thing she really noticed was that his arms were empty. Eventually, the baby’s cries had faded, and silence had filled the space.

  “Well?” Tanner asked, clunking toward the table and pausing.

  Macy pushed her reading glasses up higher on her nose, unreasonable concern ricocheting through her. “Where’s Addie?”

  “Don’t look so worried. I just got her to sleep and put her down.” He tilted his head and observed her with a touch of amusement in his eyes.

  Macy felt her shoulders slump with relief. “Sorry for the overreaction. I keep expecting the worst, even when it defies logic. It sounds like you’ve got the touch.”

  “I don’t know about that. Maybe she was just exhausted from crying so much.” He pulled up a seat beside her at the table and glanced at the computer. “Did you find anything?”

  She shook her head, fighting a sense of defeat. “I was hoping I might, but none of my clients or their families match this baby. I really have no idea who she might be, Tanner.”

  “You don’t think she’s connected through your time in Oklahoma?”

  “I’ve thought of that. But if I was close enough to someone that they would track me down here, you’d think I would remember who that client was.”

  “As you know, memories aren’t always reliable.”

  She shrugged. “True, but I looked through everything and I didn’t see any matches. I just hope this baby’s mom is okay. Any updates on what happened to the taxi driver?”

  Tanner scrubbed a hand across his jaw, all signs of amusement disappearing. “The local police think an old business associate of the man’s may have killed him. Apparently, he had some trouble with drugs when he was younger, even though he’d passed every drug test over the past three years.”

  Macy crossed her arms over her chest and let that sink in. “So they don’t even think his death is connected with Addie? That seems like too much of a coincidence.”

  “I agree.”

  Her thoughts raced through what she knew. Certainly there were some answers that could be found in this man’s death. “Don’t taxi drivers keep logs of where they’ve gone and who they’ve picked up? Were you able to trace anything? Did they give you any clues?”

  Tanner leaned back and released a long breath. “Addie was left at the FBI office at noon on Monday. This driver—Rafael—picked someone up at a shopping center at ten on the same day. We think it was probably Addie’s mom. We have other agents scouring the parking lots in the area, looking for a car that may have belonged to her. We’re also checking security footage at those stores.”

  “It’s a start at least.”

  “We’ll take anything we can get at this point.”

  Another thought had been pressing on her since the details of this case came to light. She hadn’t voiced them aloud, but maybe she needed to. She needed to get it off her chest. “The thing I keep coming back to is this: What could have happened to the mother that she would leave her baby behind? I can’t imagine how extreme her situation must have been to do something like this.”

  Macy wrapped her arms more tightly over her chest, suddenly chilled. She couldn’t even imagine what the mother might have been going through. Leaving her baby must have been terrifying.

  “The woman told the guard at the gate that the baby was safer with us than with her,” Tanner said. “She must have known her life was in danger.”

  But that still didn’t make sense to Macy. “Why didn’t she try to stay with you?”

  Tanner’s gaze flickered to hers. Was he impressed by her line of reasoning? She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw a touch of admiration in his gaze.

  Finally, he shrugged. “Good question. I don’t know. She must have had her reasons.”

  Macy continued to think it through. She’d studied the human mind and how it worked, yet there were still cases that perplexed her. She wanted to crack this, to understand what was going on.

  Another thought occurred to her. “What if she had a record, Tanner?”

  Tanner leaned back and narrowed his eyes. He was tired, she realized. She could see the signs of exhaustion across his face, and she had the sudden urge to fix him a cup of coffee. But not right now. First, they had to finish talking.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “The only reason I can think of that she would leave her baby and not stay herself was if she feared you wouldn’t believe her,” Macy said. “What if she has some kind of criminal past? It might give her a natural distrust for law enforcement.”

  “It’s a possibility.” Tanner nodded slowly, as if considering the truth in her statement.

  “I don’t know how these things work, but is it possible to cross-reference women who’ve been imprisoned in Oklahoma and who had a baby six months ago?”

  “It’s a start.” He shifted, those inquisitive eyes meeting hers again. “You ever done this before?”

  “Of course not. Why?” She began straightening the notes on the table that she’d taken while going through those files, not liking how easily she could be mesmerized by Tanner’s gaze.

  “You’re pretty good at it.”

  “I just like studying how people think.” She’d been trying to figure out how Tanner thought for years but had never succeeded. He remained a mystery to her. Or maybe her problem was that she didn’t like the conclusions she came to.

  There was the Tanner she thought she knew, the Tanner she’d put up on a pedestal. And then there was the Tanner she’d never known had existed, the man who was more like Macy’s father than she’d ever like to admit. Someone who was married to his job above all else. Who resented anyone or anything that got in the way of his career goals.

  Yep, that was Macy’s dad. He couldn’t handle the death of his wife—Macy’s mom—so he’d let his work as a doctor consume him. He worked long hours, so much so that Macy sometimes went several days without seeing him. Nannies had taken care of her and her sister instead, although her sister was eight years older and had moved out by the time Macy was ten.

  “You’re doing a good job at evaluating all of this.” Tanner drew in a deep breath. “Macy—”

  She sensed he was going to say something personal and braced herself.

  Before he could, a wail cut through the air.

  Addie was awake.

  “I’ll go get her,” Macy said, rushing to her feet.

  Tanner looked at the computer, his earlier nostalgia seemingly gone. He looked all business again. And whatever he was able to say was forgotten.

  * * *

  Tanner had volunteered to take the night shift that evening. If he were honest, he would admit it was because he was concerned. On one hand, he wanted to believe that Macy was seeing things and no one had been outside last night. On the other hand, he knew she wasn’t the type to overreact.

  He had to be sure they were safe. If someone did know where they were, he felt certain they would wait until it was nighttime to plan any type of attack. The darkness added layers of protection and concealment.

  The thought had him unnerved. Not because he doubted his abilities. But because too many people had gotten hurt already. There were too many unknowns and uncertainties.

  And then there was Macy.

  She’d always thrown him off-kilter, and right now was no exception. Even with the years between them, she had the uncanny ability to make him feel like he was walking on clouds just with one single glance.

  Which wasn’t a good thing. She’d broken his heart when she left him a letter, saying they needed to break up and offering no explanation. He’d deserved more, especially considering they were supposed to get married. His attempts to reach out to her after had been unwelcomed and unsuccessful.

  His dreams of spending forever with her had died. He’d had visions of starting
a family together, of waking up each morning to see her face. But she’d crushed all his hopes.

  Tanner paced the perimeter of the house, peering out the windows, looking for any sign of danger. All he saw was darkness.

  As a sound inside the house drew his attention, he instinctively reached for his gun and pivoted.

  He released his breath when he saw Macy padding down the stairs. She looked surprisingly awake, evidence that sleep was eluding her also. Another agent had brought her clothes for her unexpected stay, and right now she wore a pair of black leggings and an oversize blue shirt. She looked cozy and warm—until he saw her eyes. They were filled with angst and worry.

  “Didn’t mean to startle a man with a gun,” she said, meeting him in the living room.

  “Can’t sleep?” He slid his gun back into his holster.

  She frowned and pulled her arms across her chest. “I can’t get my brain to turn off. I assume everything has been peaceful outside?”

  “So far, so good.”

  Her frown deepened, and she pulled her gaze up to meet his. “I have a bad feeling, Tanner.”

  “Bad feelings don’t always constitute a bad outcome,” he reminded her. He didn’t want to worry her by sharing that he had a bad feeling also. That was his job, to be concerned for those things.

  She let out a long breath and raked a hand through her hair. “I suppose you’re right.”

  Except that her instincts had always been good. Excluding when it came to Tanner. Then she’d been totally wrong. He didn’t bring that up now, though.

  Instead, he tried to distract her from her heavy thoughts.

  “How’s your family?” Tanner asked. It was one of the first truly personal things he’d asked about. He would test the waters and see how she reacted.

  Macy lowered herself onto the couch and pulled her knees toward her chest. She looked like she was a teenager again. She seemed so vulnerable and young, and that realization stirred up a protective instinct in him.