Lullabies and Lies

by Mallory Kane

  She shuddered. Thank goodness Bess loved kids, because Janie hated them. Maybe they should have gone into dog snatching, she thought with a smile as she merged onto the New Jersey Turnpike and headed back toward New York. Dogs were a lot quieter, and a whole lot less trouble.

  But nothing she’d ever done in her life gave her the rush she got from snatching a kid from under its mother’s nose. And she was good at it. Her nondescript features and colorless appearance made her nearly invisible.

  She’d never even come close to being caught.

  Her cell phone rang. She glanced at the ID, sighed and pressed the speaker phone. “Hi, Eddie.”

  “Janie, where are you? I thought you’d be back by now.” Eddie’s voice was tight and high with tension.

  “I’m on the road. I’ll be home in a couple of hours.”

  “How was your mom?”

  Janie almost laughed. As if she’d ever visit her mother. Eddie was so gullible. He knew how much she hated the woman who had given birth to her but never wanted her, and still he bought her lies about visiting the old hag.

  “She’s fine. Said to say hi.” No way was she telling her husband where she’d really been, or what she’d done. He’d panic again, and screw things up even worse than he already had.

  He’d just wanted to help, he’d said.

  Janie took a long drag and let smoke drift out through her nostrils. Eddie’s help was what had set all this in motion in the first place. If he helped any more, they’d be in jail.

  He needed to focus on getting elected. Which reminded her—she glanced at the time. “Shouldn’t you be filming those new campaign ads?”

  “We’re on a break. I’m sick of saying ‘I’m Edward A. Gross, and I approved this message.’”

  “Well, you just keep saying it, and come November you can say ‘I’m Congressman Edward A. Gross, from the great state of New York.’”

  “Janie? I can’t stop thinking about that private investigator and the client she was representing. Maybe we should meet with the girl. Admit she’s our biological child. Maybe it could be a positive thing—you know, reaching out to our long-lost daughter—”

  “No!” Janie angrily whipped the Lexus into the next lane, and a car swerved, its horn blaring.

  Why couldn’t Eddie just stick to what he was good at—glad-handing and pandering—and leave the thinking to her? She lowered the window a crack and tossed out the cigarette butt, then lit up another one and took a deep drag while Eddie named all the politicians who had gone on to success after admitting an early indiscretion.

  “But Janie, if she is one of our babies—”

  “Eddie, shut up! You never know who’s listening. We don’t have any kids. Never change the story, remember?”

  She’d drummed the phrase into his head for fifteen long years, ever since the day she’d snatched the first kid. They’d fled Nashville that night, leaving everything behind, including their own two babies whom they’d sold at birth to eager childless couples. It had always been laughably easy to find people willing to pay for a kid.

  “But Janie,” his voice lowered to a coarse whisper. “The Loveless woman showed me a picture. The girl is eighteen. That’s how old our daughter would be. She looks like you.”

  Janie’s ears burned with rage and a dull, throbbing ache started in her temple. “We don’t have any children, remember? The story?”

  She consciously relaxed her face and throat. She had to calm down. If Eddie thought she was angry at him, he’d fall apart. “Go look nice for the cameras, Mr. Future U.S. Congressman. Concentrate on that bright future. I’ll take care of the past.”

  She flipped off the phone, pounded her palm against the steering wheel and cursed loudly.

  Damn that Loveless woman. This was all her fault. A month ago, when Eddie had told her about the private investigator who’d shown up at his office looking for her young client’s biological mother, Janie had nearly passed out from shock. Until that moment she’d never spared a thought for the two babies she’d birthed and sold while Eddie was in law school in Nashville. She’d never wanted kids. They were a commodity, nothing more.

  The idea that those kids were now teenagers, nearly adults, had never crossed Janie’s mind. If the truth about illegally selling their own kids came out, Eddie’s future would be down the toilet. They might even go to jail.

  Eddie had a real chance to win that House seat. It was what he’d always wanted and whatever Eddie wanted, Janie made happen. She’d worked hard to get them where they were today. Nobody was going to spoil her plans.

  The Loveless woman had shown up at the worst possible time.

  To give him credit, Eddie had handled her pretty well—for him. He’d lied, told her they didn’t have any kids. But Janie knew how bad a liar he was. Then he’d gone and called that dork buddy of his from law school, Hiram Cogburn. Hiram had come in handy to handle any legal matters related to the baby-selling business, but Janie didn’t trust him, never had.

  Spooked that Loveless had found them so easily, and worried about that fool Hiram’s bumbling attempts to throw suspicion elsewhere, Janie had headed for Nashville to assess and contain the damage Hiram had already done.

  She’d had no clue what she was going to do about Sunny Loveless, until she’d seen her—with her six-month-old infant.

  Even now, the thrill of that moment sent an addictive rush of adrenaline surging through her.

  Sunny Loveless had a baby. And babies were Janie’s specialty.

  34 hours missing

  SUNNY LOVELESS paced the length of the interrogation room at the East Nashville Patrol Sector headquarters, her limbs twitching from tension, her head pounding, her empty stomach cramping from the reek of stale cigarette smoke and old coffee.

  Nausea burned her throat. Momentarily dizzy, she grabbed the back of a chair and closed her eyes until the wave of sickness passed. It was exhaustion—she knew that. Combined with fear and grief and a terrible, suffocating guilt.

  She shouldn’t be here, waiting to talk to the FBI agent that Lieutenant Carver had called in. She should be at the operations center the police had set up, reviewing the tips and photos that had come in since the AMBER alert was posted. Or at home, helping Lil recreate the stolen case files that the police had dismissed until two days ago.

  She glanced at her watch. They were late.

  Not that she was looking forward to going through the events of Tuesday night again, this time for the FBI. Having to remember everything she’d told the police—and everything she hadn’t.

  She gripped the chair more tightly and shuddered. Not even the FBI could help her. Not with this.

  The note that had been stuffed into her mouth by those wet, gloved fingers now rested like a lead weight in the pocket of her slacks. She hadn’t let it out of her possession for an instant. It was her only link with her baby.

  Her baby. All the horror overwhelmed her again—the attack, the realization that Emily was gone, the sickening sound of that whisper echoing over and over in her ears.

  Chew on this, Loveless.

  The wooden door creaked open, startling her out of her thoughts. Lieutenant Harry Carver stepped in. “Thanks for coming down here again, Ms. Loveless.”

  He moved farther into the room and Sunny spotted a taller man behind him.

  The FBI agent.

  Sunny gave him a quick once-over. He was a shade under six feet tall, lean and athletic, with dark hair and eyes. He carried himself with a loose-limbed grace that wasn’t hidden by the crisp shirt and summer-weight jacket he wore, although his face and the set of his mouth told her he was anything but loose.

  His jaw was strong and square. His features were even, but a little too prominent to be considered handsome.

  And those eyes were as piercing as an eagle’s. She felt an odd mixture of wariness and reassurance. She was going to have to watch her step around him.

  “This is Special Agent Griffin Stone. He’s with the Division of Unsolved
Mysteries.”

  “Unsolved mysteries?” Fear congealed into a cold knot in her belly. “Is my daughter’s abduction connected with an unsolved case?”

  “Nothing like that, Ms. Loveless,” Agent Stone said, stepping forward.

  Sunny noticed his slight accent. He’d grown up in the South.

  “I’m here because I’ve worked a number of missing child cases.”

  A shadow crossed his face as he spoke. Her investigator’s instinct kicked in. He didn’t want to be here. Why?

  “I see.” She held out her hand. “I’m Sunny Loveless. But then you know that, don’t you, Agent Stone?”

  Griff lowered his gaze to Sunny Loveless’s outstretched hand, and accepted her intense scrutiny. Families of abducted children were initially wary of law enforcement, especially if they’d received a warning from the kidnappers.

  For some reason, he was reluctant to touch her. Just seeing her straight slender silhouette, haloed by the faint light from the dingy window, had been enough to slam him in his solar plexus. It was always difficult to meet the family of a missing child for the first time. This time, maybe because he was back in Nashville, the intensity of his reaction surprised him.

  But he didn’t want to be rude so he took her hand. Her trembling fingers telegraphed how hard she was working to stay in control. After a brief but surprisingly strong grasp, she withdrew.

  His hand tingled, as if she’d left a part of herself on him. He knew she’d taken something of him with her. But then each family he worked with took something from him, and gave him something back.

  “I’m very sorry about your daughter, Ms. Loveless,” he said politely, studying her. She was dressed for business in tailored black pants, high-heeled shoes and a white sleeveless top with a long row of buttons down the front. Her frightening ordeal had certainly left its marks. The palm that had touched his was scraped. Red scratches ran up the left side of her face to her temple, where a bruise wasn’t quite covered by her hair. Her eyelids were red-rimmed, and below the angry scratches the creamy perfection of her skin was marred by tear-chapped cheeks. On her left shoulder, a flesh-colored bandage strip peeked out from under the white top.

  When he finally met her gaze, he ran smack into green eyes that reflected a dull anguish and a desperate hope he knew all too well.

  She immediately turned her attention to the lieutenant. “Do you have any news?” she asked Carver.

  “We’ve talked to several of your former clients. Just like you said, they all seem satisfied with your work.”

  “What about the break-in, the odd phone calls?”

  “Ms. Loveless, I have apologized that the burglary of your case files was not given the attention it should have been back when it happened. But we’re on it now, checking alibis in case there’s a link between the burglary and your daughter’s abduction.”

  “Any more information from trace evidence?”

  Carver shook his head. “CSU didn’t find much. Your clothes had a few dark blue wool fibers. We figure they came from the blanket. Nothing else. The rain pretty much destroyed any evidence at the crime scene.”

  Pretty much was an understatement. Griff had already gone over the meager evidence with Carver earlier this morning. According to the Crime Scene Unit, the parking lot and Ms. Loveless’s car had been washed clean. He’d asked them to go over both one more time.

  He cleared his throat. “Why don’t we sit down,” he suggested, touching the back of a wooden chair in invitation.

  When she hesitated, he backed away a step and took a seat himself, then nodded at Lieutenant Carver.

  Carver got the message. “I’ll be at my desk if you need me for anything.” He opened the door and lifted his hand to touch an invisible hat brim. “Ms. Loveless.”

  She nodded stiffly. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  When the door swung shut behind him, she crossed her arms and looked down at Griff, her emerald eyes bright. “What can you do for me that the police can’t, Agent Stone?”

  A reluctant admiration eased the knot in Griff’s stomach as he leaned back in his chair. Taking a good look at her, he gauged her by the system he’d invented to help him gain the trust of distraught parents.

  She was doing her best to appear tough, in control. That didn’t surprise him.

  Since she was a private investigator of sorts, he’d expected her to be demanding—wanting more effort, minute-by-minute reports, faster results. But he didn’t want to be too quick to judge by outward appearances. They could lead to the wrong conclusion.

  Carver had said she was strung tighter than a well-tuned banjo. It was a good description. Most people would think, given the circumstances, she was holding up remarkably well.

  But Griff already knew it was an act. He recognized the hollow fear that emanated from her like a scent. The fear that she would never see her daughter again.

  She was barely holding herself together. His heart squeezed in compassion. He immediately quashed the unwanted emotion and called on the careful balance of distance and concern that worked for him. Becoming too emotionally involved would cloud his thinking.

  “I can help you, Ms. Loveless. But to do that, I need to hear your account of what happened.”

  “You have my account in the police report. There’s no need to waste time repeating it.”

  “I thought you were a private investigator.”

  “I am.” Her delicately arched brows knit together in a tight frown.

  “Then you know that having the person go over events several times allows new memories to surface.”

  “I know that it’s a tried-and-true tactic to catch people in a lie.”

  Griff almost smiled. “Does that bother you?”

  “No.”

  She answered too quickly. Griff glanced at her folded arms. Her knuckles were white where her hands squeezed her upper arms.

  Body language always told the truth. Ms. Loveless was definitely hiding something.

  He let his mouth stretch in a grim half smile. “Good. That should make it easy then, because I like to ask my own questions, face-to-face.”

  Sunny bit back the urge to snap at him and pressed her lips together instead. She didn’t like Griffin Stone. He was like his name. Cold. Hard. Unyielding.

  When their gazes had first collided, she’d noticed a hint of sadness and empathy in his dark eyes, as if he knew her pain. But nothing marred his sculpted features now, except a slight frown and a shrewd curiosity that worried her.

  His knowing gaze scrutinized everything about her, from her stance to the way her folded arms pushed up against her breasts.

  Suddenly self-conscious, she tried to relax her arms by her sides, but her hands shook. So she sat and clasped them in her lap.

  She dreaded reliving that night of hell. Dreaded having to keep her story straight. Again.

  “Okay,” she sighed. “Ask your questions. But could you please hurry? This is a waste of time you could be using to find my daughter.”

  Her daughter. The words still thrilled her, even as they tore at her heart. She’d always wanted to adopt a baby, to pay forward the boundless love her adoptive parents had given to her. Emily had changed her life in ways she hadn’t even imagined.

  Now her baby was in the hands of a stranger. Sunny had promised Emily she’d keep her safe, and she hadn’t. Her vision clouded.

  “Tell me about the attack. Start when you got to your car.”

  Sunny closed her burning eyes. “Do we have to do this right now? Emily is out there—”

  “Trust me. It’s not a waste of time.”

  She heard the sympathy and assurance in his voice, but she also heard a steely determination. Nothing would stop this man.

  Certainly not the lies of a terrified mother with secrets to hide.

  She blinked and focused on her hands, because she couldn’t meet his steady gaze. She was afraid his sharp dark eyes would see past her lies. She couldn’t take that chance. He was there to uncover ever
y shred of evidence. She couldn’t trust him. She didn’t dare.

  “It was pouring rain. I threw the groceries into the backseat, then—” She halted as the door to the interrogation room opened.

  A young man set two cups on the table, and tossed some packets of sugar and a couple of stirrers down beside them.

  “The lieutenant said you might want coffee,” he commented over his shoulder as he left.

  Griff took one of the cups and pushed the other one toward her.

  “Sugar?”

  Caught up in the memory of those terrible few minutes when Emily was kidnapped, Sunny shook her head. Her stomach clenched. She wrapped her fingers around the warm cup and stared into the coffee’s muddy depths.

  “Go on.” The agent’s soft voice compelled her.

  “It was still raining when I got Emily’s carrier fastened into the safety seat. We were both soaked. As I straightened, someone threw a blanket over my head and kicked my legs out from under me. I fell on my hands and knees. He pushed me down and slammed my head into the asphalt until I couldn’t move.”

  She turned the cup with shaking fingers, and watched the dark liquid swirl. “As soon as I could pull myself up, I reached into the backseat for Emily—”

  She couldn’t go on. The horror that had enveloped her soul at the sight of the empty carrier still took her breath away.

  “What happened to the blanket?”

  “What?” Momentarily startled, she looked up at him. “I guess he took it with him. Maybe he wrapped—” Her breath caught. Had he wrapped Emily in that wet, smelly blanket?

  “You didn’t see the kidnapper?”

  She shook her head. At least that was true. “I should have been faster, stronger.”

  The agent didn’t respond. The fact that he was all business was a relief. She’d had all she could take of trite, well-intentioned but meaningless reassurances.