Just Eight Months Old...

by Tori Carrington

  She halted directly in front of the house, staring up at the handsome structure. Chad stepped beside her. Hannah tried to ignore how striking he looked with the night’s shadows shading the solid planes of his face. The interior of the house was dark, but to make sure no possible visiting relatives or other live-ins were home, Hannah pressed the lighted doorbell and listened to the chime echo inside. She didn’t worry that it was ten o’clock and the neighbors might be watching. As far as anyone was concerned, she and Chad were just friends paying a visit. Besides, Hannah didn’t plan to be there long enough to raise much suspicion. She rang the doorbell a second time.

  “Do your thing, Chad.” She moved aside and held open the outer storm door so he could bend over the lock on the heavy wooden door. He quickly manipulated the small metal tools he slid from his back jeans pocket until the door opened inward. Hannah waited for an alarm, but none sounded. She didn’t find it unusual. The police had probably been tramping through the house all day and had switched it off.

  “All yours.” Chad pushed the door open.

  Hannah passed him. “Haven’t lost your touch.”

  He gently caught her arm. “Haven’t I?”

  Tiny little butterflies fluttered in her stomach, both at the feel of his hand against her skin and the sober look on his face. Why did she get the impression he wasn’t talking about the case anymore? And why did she want to forget Persky and Furgeson even existed and start making some sort of sense out of what was and wasn’t happening between her and Chad Hogan?

  He briefly closed his eyes, then used his grip to steer her into the large foyer.

  A shadow moved to Hannah’s right. Chad must have seen the same thing because he reached around her and closed the solid front door, shearing off the outdoor security light that silhouetted them like targets.

  “What’s going on—Oh!” Chad propelled her off to the side of the foyer. She slowly backed away, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. Where did Chad go? She couldn’t see a thing.

  Something moved. Hannah slipped The Equalizer’s charger on and held the stun gun tightly in her hands. There were two shadows. She gained her night vision and made out the shapes of two men near the door, apparently looking for her and Chad. Speaking of Chad…

  “Where’d they go?” one of the guys whispered.

  “How the hell should I know? Why don’t you turn on your flashlight?”

  There was a rattling sound. “The batteries must be dead.”

  Hannah crouched lower. The two men spread out. Hannah backed up farther until she bumped into something hard and warm. She gasped.

  “Quiet,” Chad whispered, gripping her hips.

  Hannah’s stomach contracted, the most intimate part of him pressing against her bottom. She tried to wriggle from his grasp.

  “I don’t like this,” one of the other men said. “What if they’re cops?”

  The second guy hurried past, then doubled back.

  “Would you just stay still.” Chad’s warm breath filled her ear.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” the other guy said. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t think what we’re looking for is here anyway.”

  Chad finally pulled away from her. Relief swept over Hannah, strong and complete, leaving a sense of exposure in its wake. “Stay here.”

  “Where are you going?” Hannah whispered, clutching the stun gun with shaky hands.

  Chad rounded her and rushed full steam toward the two men as they opened the front door. He hit one in the back of the knees, sending him hurtling onto the front steps.

  “Chad!” Hannah rushed forward. Chad jerked to look at her. The free man hit him in the back of the head with his flashlight. Chad stumbled slightly, then leaned against the wall for support.

  The first man grabbed the second and they disappeared through the door.

  Stuffing her stun gun back into her belt, Hannah rushed to Chad.

  He shrugged her hand from his arm. “What were you doing, Hannah? I thought something had happened to you when you yelled out like that.”

  She tried to gather her wits around her. Her fear for his safety had distracted him and given the other guy an open opportunity for attack. She had meant to spare him pain, instead she had caused it. A stupid mistake.

  But his name was out before she’d had time to consider the consequences.

  Chad hurried to the door. Hannah followed. She barely made out the two shadows running through a shrub-darkened lawn two houses away.

  “Great, just great.” Chad closed and locked the door then flipped a switch to his right. A car-size chandelier filled the foyer with its bright, blinding light. He softly muttered a curse.

  Hannah reached out, then stopped, unsure if it was a good idea to touch him. If ever touching him again would be a good idea. Still, it was her fault he’d been clobbered with a flashlight. She reached out again, ignoring his curious stare, half expecting him to push her away.

  She carefully probed the back of his head with her fingers, ignoring the clean softness of his sandy brown hair, and the memories that rushed back at seeing her fingers entangled in the thick mass. Her breath snagged in her throat.

  “I thought so.” She located the marble-size bump at the base of his skull and found the blow hadn’t broken the skin. “You’ll live.” She tugged her hands away from him and refused to meet his gaze.

  His first question echoed through her mind. What were you doing, Hannah? And what had she done? Never in her years as a cop, then as a skip-tracer, had she put someone else in danger.

  She tried to shrug off her uneasiness, but it wasn’t easily dismissed. Instead, she turned from him and examined an overturned vase. If she couldn’t explain to herself what had happened, how was she supposed to explain it to him?

  “At least they didn’t find whatever it is they were looking for,” she said.

  “Yeah, them and about three other search teams.”

  Hannah glanced around the ransacked foyer and the many rooms that snaked off it. “Well, since you’re probably not up to that staircase, why don’t you take the first floor?”

  “You’re a real hoot, McGee.” Chad massaged the back of his head, his gaze still questioning.

  Hannah quickly scaled the stairs to the second floor. Maybe it wasn’t too late to back out of this case. Just hand the information over to Chad, and wave at him as he drove off into the night.

  Coward.

  She glanced around the second floor hall. Only that morning she hadn’t had any problem taking on Eddie the Snake and Jack Stokes. So what was it about being with Chad again that made her act like somebody’s…mother.

  “Oh God,” she muttered, the impact of her thoughts hitting home.

  She hurried down the hall, thrusting aside the unwelcome insight and trying to focus on the case.

  Who were the two men they’d run into and what exactly had they been looking for? She’d have to take a look at the data Schindler had given her. See what Persky and Furgeson were accused of stealing and whether or not the police recovered it. She didn’t think the information would help her find either of them, but it might give her an idea how deep a hole they had dug for themselves.

  She turned on the overhead light and sifted through a bureau in the master bedroom. The bottom drawers held nothing of use, unless you were a six foot two, two hundred and fifty pound man. Hannah rummaged through socks, T-shirts and long johns. She pulled a pair of the latter out. If this was any indication of how big the man was, she and Chad had their work cut out for them.

  She closed the drawer in exchange for one of the top ones.

  “Gambling chips.”

  Hannah stared at the array of blue and red discs. Closer inspection told her they were from Atlantic City. Not unusual for a New Yorker, except Persky seemed to be a regular visitor. Faded matchbooks were also scattered among the drawer’s contents. Hannah picked them up one by one, only to toss them back. There were a few from different casinos, but the majority were from one
in particular. She picked up the older-looking of the matchbooks. She was searching for any sign of a phone number, a name, anything that would give her an idea where Eric might be. Granted, she could be jogging down the wrong avenue, but it was worth a try. Clichés were clichés because they happened so often.

  She was getting nowhere quick when she opened one with faded blue ink on the inside cover.

  Hannah leaned against the bureau, holding the book up to the light.

  “Find something?” Chad stepped through the doorway.

  Hannah glanced at him. “You’re not done down there already?”

  “Gone through every drawer, every cupboard, and looked under every seat cushion.” He displayed envelope-size pieces of paper. “The only articles worth anything were in his desk. Our friend likes to keep old bills for comparison.”

  Hannah looked up from where she stared at the matchbook, catching the thoughtful, unguarded expression on Chad’s rugged face. A sense of the familiar wound through her. For a moment she was reminded how well she and he had worked together brainstorming ideas for Seekers. She absently rubbed at the stain on her vest and tugged her gaze from his.

  “Are there any phone bills?” she asked.

  Chad sifted through the pile in his hands. “Visa, MasterCard, gas company…here we go.” He held a bill out to her. “A love note from old Ma Bell, herself.”

  Accepting the itemized bill, Hannah continued to manipulate the matchbook. “Can you make this out?”

  Chad looked over her shoulder. Every muscle in her body tingled in alert. With barely a hesitation, he said, “It’s a girl named Rita Minelli’s phone number.”

  Hannah dropped her hand to her side. “I’ve been trying to read this thing for five minutes and you take one look and tell me exactly what it says?”

  Chad grinned at her. “I’ve copied a few numbers on matchbooks in my time.” He took the number from her.

  Hannah didn’t need the reminder of how uncommitted his lifestyle was. “Very funny.”

  He examined the matchbook. “There’s no area code.” He flipped it over and stared at the cover. “Atlantic City.” Chad tossed the matchbook on top of the bureau, pulling the next drawer open. It yielded a handful of photographs. He silently thumbed through the photos. There was one of Eric Persky standing with Lisa Furgeson and another colleague inside what Hannah guessed to be PlayCo’s factory.

  The next picture was of the house they were in. Placing that one under the others, Chad stared down at another.

  “Do you think that’s the woman in the match-book?” Hannah asked.

  The photo was of Persky and a woman. A pretty brunette in her early- to mid-thirties.

  “If it is, the number isn’t local.” Chad pointed to the smock the woman wore. “I know that outfit. It’s one cocktail waitresses wear.”

  “It’s almost too simple.”

  Chad slipped the photo of the woman and the one of Eric and his colleagues into his front pocket. “What makes you say that? Chances are the woman in the picture was a one-nighter. Or they broke up months ago and she hasn’t seen him since.”

  “My instincts tell me the name on this matchbook and the woman in the picture are one in the same. If we find her, maybe we’ll find Persky,” Hannah said. “Crooks are rarely as clever as they make them out in movies.”

  “And if we find Persky, hopefully he’ll lead us to Furgeson.”

  “That’s right. If Persky is with some woman in Atlantic City, then chances Lisa Furgeson is with him are slim.”

  Chad eyed the cracked concrete sidewalk that separated him and the car from a four-story walk-up in Brooklyn Heights. After leaving Persky’s, he’d suggested they hit PlayCo next to see what the company’s personnel records held on the two bail-jumpers. But Hannah had driven them here instead, saying she had something to do first. Chad tapped the face of his watch for the third time, remembering the call she’d made at the police station. Could she be in there explaining things to the man who had replaced him?

  A possessiveness he hadn’t known he was capable of burned through him. Certainly he hadn’t expected Hannah to wait around for him…. Or had he? Is that the real reason he didn’t hesitate when Blackstone gave him the perfect excuse to come back? He stared at the back-lighted screen door. If subconsciously he had entertained ideas of rekindling his relationship with Hannah, he suspected they were about to be squashed.

  “Come on, Hannah,” he muttered, resisting the urge to lean on the horn.

  He had half a mind to barge in there and drag her out caveman-style. The impulse stunned him. He shifted on the leather bucket seat. He and Hannah had happened a long time ago. She had every right to go on with her life…didn’t she? But no matter how logically his mind argued the point, his gut told him he wanted her, boyfriend or no boyfriend.

  He reached for his duffel bag in the back. His hand bumped hard plastic and he twisted to stare at a large, gaily colored object fastened to the back seat. He didn’t know how he’d missed it before. Maybe because he’d been focused on other things when he’d first put his duffel on the floor. Perhaps because he’d sat in the passenger’s seat up until then, narrowing his line of vision when he got in and out of the car.

  What was Hannah doing with a child’s car seat fastened in the back? Just how far had this new relationship of hers progressed? He hadn’t noticed a wedding ring. Then again, he knew better than anyone that appearances were deceiving. She’d been driving a sputtering old rust bucket when they met up outside of Blackstone’s. He knew she didn’t have any siblings, so a young niece or a nephew was out. Even if she’d had one, he doubted she’d keep a seat in her car—

  Door springs squeaked, interrupting his rapid-fire suppositions. Breaking his gaze away from the object that posed so many questions, he turned his head to find Hannah coming out of the house—and his head filled with even more. He stared at the bundle she held in her arms. His throat tightened painfully, his breath froze in his lungs, and every curse he sought scrambled beyond his grasp. Hannah awkwardly opened the passenger door and released the seat so she could push it forward.

  Chad sat staring at her from where he’d moved behind the steering wheel.

  “Come on, sweetie, stop wiggling so Mommy can get you into your seat,” Hannah said.

  It dawned on Chad that she had a baby seat in the car because she had a baby.

  She patiently maneuvered the baby, wearing a pink, baggy jumpsuit into the back despite the fidgeting of chubby arms and legs and nonstop gibberish. “There you go. Now take this.” She handed the baby a donut-shaped, rubber thingy. Chad counted all of four, widely spaced teeth as the baby opened her mouth and chomped down on the item.

  Chad’s gaze slid from mother to daughter, trying to get a handle on things and failing miserably.

  Finally Hannah looked at him. Her soft blue eyes held a mixture of expectancy and…He couldn’t quite read the other emotion. The only sounds he could hear were the gurgling of the baby in the back seat, and the slamming of his own heart against his rib cage.

  It didn’t take an MIT grad to do the math. There wasn’t a single, solitary doubt that the baby who even now regarded him with happy curiosity was his daughter.

  His daughter.

  Sweet Lord in heaven…. He cleared his throat. “Who—I mean, is that your…”

  Finally he latched onto a curse and let it rip. Hope. He realized too late the other emotion in Hannah’s eyes was hope. He knew this, even as he watched it crushed by gray disappointment. But what in the hell had she been hoping for? Hannah climbed into the passenger’s seat, her stony silence more effective than any words could ever be. Chad blinked just to make sure he still could, and tried to shove his mind into working order. For a guy who prided himself on being quick on the uptake, who needed to think fast on his feet, he was lapsing at least two steps behind right now. And he had the sinking feeling he’d never completely catch up.

  Like an echo from a lifetime ago, he remembered Hannah’s
words earlier, her explanation why they shouldn’t work together, why they couldn’t get intimately involved again. Things have changed, Chad. Everything has changed.

  He absently started the car, with no idea where he was going, or a clue what he was going to do.

  “Chad, meet my daughter, Bonny.”

  He stared again at the squirming baby in the back seat. The sparse-haired, drool-covered little imp stared back, chattering as if saying something directly to him, then holding out the toy she chomped on in his direction. He swallowed hard, his heart expanding, surging against the bands he’d wrapped around it so long ago. Her large eyes were open, so very trusting, her cheeks flushed, her entire face animated. She grunted. Chad blinked, then awkwardly moved to accept the offering, only it appeared she hadn’t meant for him to take it, merely to feel it. When he released the slobbery rubber, she gave a peal of laughter, then stuck it back into her mouth.

  A grin edged its way across his face and he swore he could feel one of the intangible bands in his chest snap and begin to unravel. A car passed on the street. With every ounce of concentration he still had left, he watched it, trying hard to pull himself together. His grin waned and he looked at Hannah, too wrapped up in his own thoughts to respond to her wary expression.

  Things have changed….

  The bottomless feeling in Hannah’s stomach refused to budge, no matter how hard she tried to make it. She repeatedly clasped and unclasped her hands in her lap, not quite knowing what to do with them, and unable to do nothing at all.