Just Eight Months Old...

by Tori Carrington

  His expression was unreadable. “What way, Hannah?”

  The low, husky sound of his voice made her realize his probing gaze had nothing to do with peanuts. She tried to concentrate on straightening the top of Bonny’s yellow jumper.

  “You know what way.” Why was it, even when discussing the most innocuous subject, one well-directed look from Chad could make her feel incredibly…unmotherlike?

  “No, Hannah, I don’t know.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  Her gaze locked with his across the open air. That maddening expression was back. The one that said so much, though he said nothing. Like how much he’d like to touch her. The unspoken promise that if she succumbed, she wouldn’t regret it. At least not until after he was gone.

  “Come on,” he said, tugging his gaze away from hers, and taking the suggestion with it. “I say we find a motel and get some rest before we begin our search for the elusive Lisa Furgeson.”

  Hannah tried to strengthen her watery knees. “Okay. But first I think it would be a good idea to get a newspaper and a map.”

  Gathering her wits about her, she headed for a newsstand and bought both items. Meeting Chad back in the wide concourse, she attempted to figure out exactly what his attention meant. If it indeed meant anything at all beyond “I’m a man, you’re a woman, and it’s been a long time since we’ve been intimate.”

  He touched her arm and halted midstep, staring at something across the way.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He began walking again. “Don’t look now, but see those two men over by the doors? They may be FBI.”

  Hannah ignored his suggestion not to look. Through the windows, solid sheets of rain slid down the glass. Just inside stood the men Chad was talking about. “Oh God, I think those are the guys I saw outside Rita’s apartment in Atlantic City. Right before you went in and found Persky.”

  Chad glanced back to the doors where the two men in identical dark blue suits stood like stiff sentinels. Hannah crowded Bonny closer, earning a wet, indignant squeal.

  Digging coins from his pocket, Chad slipped them into one of the middle telephone slots. “They’re making their way toward us. Act natural.”

  She watched him punch out a series of numbers. “Natural? I’m not sure what that is anymore.” She tried not to glance in the men’s direction. “Who are you calling?”

  “No one.” He held the receiver to the side of his face, grasping Bonny’s hand when she reached for the instrument. “I’m stalling until we can figure out what to do.”

  “Do you really think they’re FBI?” She recalled the conversation between the two men at Persky’s house in New York. They definitely hadn’t been law enforcement agents. But these ones looked exactly like them. She rubbed her forehead, trying to piece everything together. First Persky’s house in New York…then Minelli’s place in Atlantic City…now here. Could they be the same men? If so, how did they fit in to all this?

  “I don’t know, Hannah, but if they are FBI, we’re in a bit of a jam.” Chad’s mouth tightened around his smile.

  “Great.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “What do we do now?”

  “We wait to see what they’re going to do. It might not even be us they’re after.”

  “Right, somewhere in the airport are probably fifty other people on their short list.”

  Chad’s smile turned genuine for a moment. “I always did love your sense of humor.”

  He did? Hannah felt suddenly warm, inside and out. “Just stop with the jokes, all right? We could be in serious trouble.” The men stopped. “Jeez, they look like something out of a Bond film.”

  “Yeah, all one of them needs is a mouthful of metal.” Chad grinned at her grimace. “Okay.” He turned away for a moment, feigning conversation with the person he pretended to call. “They’re standing guard at the doors. That means leaving the airport is out of the question for now.”

  Hannah nodded. “So we should try to lose them inside the building.”

  “A building we’ve never been in before,” Chad said half to himself, considering the foot traffic.

  “Yes, but if luck is with us, our two friends don’t know their surroundings, either.”

  “That would make our job a little easier,” he agreed.

  “Are you ready?”

  “No.”

  Hannah stared at him. With a low chuckle, he replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle, ignoring the clink of his coins as the machine returned them. The baby reached for him and Hannah shifted her away.

  “What’s the plan?” she asked. “I don’t know yet, but we’ll figure something out. Whatever you do, you can’t use your weapons. It would only complicate matters if they are FBI.”

  As if she would with the baby around. Hannah watched him open the stroller then allowed him to take Bonny so he could fasten her in. The vocal eight-month-old wasn’t pleased with the new seating arrangements and gave an indignant wail. Chad leaned over and put on the funny little hat he’d bought for her, instantly placating her. Hannah tucked her arm into Chad’s as he steered them back into the terminal area, away from the outer doors and the two men guarding them.

  Her heart beat a steady, loud cadence in her chest as she glanced around, pretending their walk was a leisurely stroll. She ignored the fear that swept up from her stomach. If the two men were FBI, they presumably wouldn’t be alone. Somewhere in the building at least another couple of them would be waiting and watching as well. She swallowed. What would that mean for her and Chad if they were caught and charged with fraud? She gazed anxiously at Bonny. What would it mean for her? Hannah’s throat grew dry. They had to find a way out of this mess.

  They moved fifty feet.

  “All right, they’re following us,” Chad said. Hannah fought the urge to turn around. “Now what? We have no chance of losing them if they shadow our every move.”

  “Hannah, Hannah, Hannah,” Chad spoke quietly. “You should know by now chance plays no role in our lives. Skill does.”

  “Sometimes you can be such a braggart, Chad.”

  “If it gets us out of here alive and free, does it matter?”

  Hannah swung her gaze to him. Alive? Did he believe their lives were in jeopardy? The baby made a “hah” sound and Hannah stared at her, realizing Bonny was trying to say her name.

  “Oh, no, it’s Mommy to you, Munchkin,” she said firmly.

  Chad’s fingers curled around her upper arm. An immediate jolt of awareness swept over her skin. “What does that make me?” he asked.

  Hannah’s cheeks blazed under his scrutiny. Despite the possibility for chaos swirling around them, the two men who even now shadowed them, Hannah couldn’t have felt more aware of Chad. More conscious of their tentative personal situation than if they had been completely, utterly alone, away from the rest of the world.

  “I guess that’s up to you, Chad.” She met his gaze meaningfully, trying to read him, hoping for some sort of response, positive or otherwise, to let her know where things stood between them after all that had happened in the past two days.

  Her hopes were quickly dashed as Chad turned his head, leaving her to wonder if he’d even asked the startling question, or if she had answered it.

  She averted his gaze, trying to calm the rapid beating of her heart. She reminded herself that they didn’t have time for this. Didn’t have time to probe past hurts, to talk about a future that at best was immediately in danger.

  She jerked her gaze back to his face, having found the weapons she needed to crowd Chad from her mind, and her heart—however temporarily.

  “I’ve got it,” she said suddenly.

  She ignored Chad’s skeptical expression and motioned for him to resume walking.

  “You have to go to the bathroom,” she told him.

  The rest was a blurry sketch with too many variables. She took the stroller from him and moved it away from a shelf of stuffed animals Bonny was eyeing a little too keenly. For he
r sake, they had to make this work.

  “After that?” Chad asked.

  Ahead, signs pointed to the rest rooms. Hannah noted them and the shops surrounding the entrance hall. Her gaze settled on a shop selling postcards near the corridor that led to the bathrooms.

  “Bonny and I are going to give you enough time to reach the men’s room, keeping the guys out here with us.”

  Chad grimaced, obviously not enthralled with her plans. They’d stopped just outside the hallway.

  “I’ll give you three minutes,” she said. “Then I’m gonna get the urge to go to the ladies’ room. That’s when you’ll jump out from the men’s room across the hall and tackle one of them while I go after the other. Now go.”

  He disappeared down the long hall, shaking his head as he went.

  Hannah stared after Chad for a long moment, then moved down the hall. “Now, you don’t suppose they have a book here detailing the best way to disarm an FBI agent, do you, Bonny?”

  Her daughter giggled as if understanding the question and amused by its ridiculousness.

  Hannah feigned interest in the postcards, casting a cautious glance in the direction of the two men watching her as she did so. Neither followed Chad to the rest rooms. With her standing outside waiting for him, it was a pretty safe bet he would return.

  Abandoning the postcard rack, she pointed the stroller toward the rest rooms.

  “Come on, guys,” she whispered, the men following quickly behind her. “Don’t get too close or you’ll screw up my plan.”

  The hallway was long and hollow. The sound of her footsteps and the men’s mingled, sounding strangely out of tune as theirs sped up. Risking a glance behind her, Hannah increased her pace, earning an excited cry from Bonny.

  “Okay, Chad,” Hannah whispered, eyeing the closed door to the men’s room a few feet away. “You can jump out any time now.”

  The echo of the footsteps behind her changed drastically. Hannah turned to find the two men had broken into a run. Her pulse jumped. Oh, no! That they were no longer concerned about their presence being known sent off an alarm. Hannah sprang into motion and sprinted toward the door to the ladies’ room, fear for Bonny thickening her blood. Where was Chad?

  Finally the door was within her grasp. She pushed the stroller into the ladies’ room then turned to force the door shut. But her pursuers didn’t care whose privacy they invaded, or about the child with her. Through the crack that remained, Hannah watched one of the men break from the other, dashing across to the men’s room. He was going after Chad!

  Her grip on the door slipped, and Bonny’s happy squeal confused her. Trying three times, Hannah finally slid her pepper spray from her concealed belt and held down the button, covering the guy’s face with red powder. She stared into his reflective sunglasses, her efforts earning nothing more than a short sneeze. The glasses had protected his eyes.

  “All right, you asked for it,” he spat out.

  Hannah drew in a deep breath, then yelled, “Fire!”

  The guy who had gone in search of Chad suddenly appeared in the hall. The men stared at each other.

  “He’s not there,” one said.

  The interaction gave Hannah the opportunity to finally slam the door shut. She searched frantically for something with which to bar it closed. She turned, then froze solid. Chad was crouched a few feet away, entertaining Bonny with a set of keys. He met her gaze, then stood and pushed the stroller toward the back of the room and into an empty stall. “Look, sweet pea, toilet paper. Knock yourself out.”

  “Fire?” he asked, coming toward Hannah. He shifted her away from the door then jammed his foot against it.

  “Nobody pays attention to ‘rape.’” she explained. “Have you been here the entire time?” She already knew the answer.

  The door he held shut jerked violently inward.

  Hannah noticed he held a two-foot-long length of pipe in his right hand and guessed he must have dislodged it from one of the stalls.

  “You see, Hannah,” he said, “I improved on your plan. Then again, how were you to know you weren’t supposed to fight them, but to walk in here and let them follow you?”

  “What?”

  “Get with the program, McGee, and move out of the way. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner our daughter is out of danger.”

  Our daughter? Hannah hurried toward the wide throughway separating two rows of stalls, protecting the route to Bonny. She reached for her stun gun. “You realize we’ll be in a lot of trouble if they are FBI.”

  “A decided understatement.” Chad moved his foot from the bottom of the door. The two suited men spilled into the room in a sudden flurry of activity. Chad hit the first across the shoulders, sending him sprawling to the floor, where he hit his head. The other reached for his gun. Instantly Chad brought the pipe down hard on the man’s head, sending his gun flying into a full-length mirror and shattering it. He joined his partner on the floor.

  Hannah carefully made her way over the broken glass. Their reflection in the shattered mirror made her and Chad look like twenty instead of the meager two they were.

  “That’s all I need. Seven more years of bad luck,” Chad commented.

  Hannah bent down to pry the gun from the unconscious man’s hand. “Is a silencer standard FBI issue?” she asked as she noted the two-inch attachment meant to muffle the sound of a bullet.

  Chad searched the men’s pockets, coming up with little more than money from each. No identification. No credit cards. Nothing that could give them a clue to their identity.

  “They’re not FBI,” Hannah said with a little relief.

  The worried lines on Chad’s face told her he didn’t share her relief. “Do you really think that’s better?”

  Hannah bit down on her bottom lip and decided it wasn’t. She hurried back to the stall where Chad had put Bonny and found the baby wreathed in lengths of toilet paper and unraveling even more, completely unaware of what had gone on outside. Hannah said a silent prayer and lifted her daughter out of the stroller, cuddling her close to her chest, toilet paper and all.

  When she came out still holding Bonny and dragging the stroller, she found Chad locking his hands under the gunman’s arms and pulling him toward an empty stall.

  After he positioned the two men, Hannah tore two of Bonny’s blankets into long strips. Chad took them, cutting them to fashion a makeshift rope and gags. It didn’t take long to make certain the men wouldn’t get out of the ladies’ room without assistance.

  “Come on.” Chad grasped Hannah’s arm and ushered her and the baby toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

  As Hannah followed him out into the concourse, she couldn’t resist pressing a lingering kiss to Bonny’s forehead, ignoring her daughter’s soggy protests.

  “I’m sorry, Hannah,” Chad said quietly, his voice sounding notably somber in the din of conversations in the lobby.

  “What are you sorry for?”

  “For getting you and Bonny into this mess.”

  “You’re not to blame,” she disagreed. His eyes were warm silver as he gazed at her. “I’m to blame for much more than this, Hannah. A lot more than this.”

  His expression was solemn as he gently grasped the baby’s foot and put his arm around Hannah’s shoulders. She didn’t protest. This time she merely absorbed the warmth the simple gesture conveyed, her mind too jumbled to try to make sense out of his words.

  Chapter Seven

  Hannah sat up on a rumpled motel bed and budged her dusty shoes aside where she’d tossed them to the floor two hours earlier. For long minutes, she listened to the sound of Chad taking a shower, then stared at where Bonny slept quietly next to her. Despite the exhaustion that had claimed her on the plane, she hadn’t been able to sleep a wink, her body and mind thrumming with an unsettled awareness she swore at times she could actually hear.

  Her gaze rested on Bonny’s sweet face. She gently caressed her daughter’s silky cheek with the backs of her fin
gers. So delicate. So defenseless. Hannah never knew being responsible for another life would carry such worry, concern…and such an incredible sensation of pride and contentment. For the past eight months she alone had been responsible for feeding, bathing, changing and attending to her baby’s needs, including providing a sense of security that allowed her to sleep as peacefully as she was now. Hannah tugged a toy away from where Bonny had been gnawing on it, thinking her daughter’s smiles, her nonstop gibberish, her robust protests for freedom were all part of what made her special. Yes, this child was a talker. She was also the sweetest thing that had ever touched Hannah’s heart.

  Afraid she might wake her, and squashing the desire to do just that, she stared at the closed door to the bathroom. There was one other person who had touched her life and heart so completely. Chad.

  Her heart gave an involuntary squeeze and she forced her gaze away from the bathroom door…and Chad.

  Working her way around her restless emotions, Hannah tried to concentrate on the case. She lined up one by one the unusual events over the past two days. First, there was the Monte Carlo that had tried to run her down in New York, then had driven by Minelli’s place in Atlantic City. Second, there was Persky’s hitlike murder moments before she and Chad had arrived at his apartment. She swallowed against the image. Third, the appearance of the goons at the airport where she and Chad had ceased being the couple paralleling the steps of the others involved and instead became a target themselves.

  Hannah fitfully worried her hands in her lap, then shoved her tangled hair back from her face again. An undeniable measure of wistful longing and guilt twisted inside her as her gaze again fastened on the closed bathroom door. What was it Chad had said when they were leaving the airport? He was to blame for more than their current predicament? Her empty stomach felt suddenly wooden.

  Not once had she stopped to consider that Chad had as much at stake as she did. Or reflected on how an arrest might affect him. She sank back against the pillow. She guessed her one-sided attitude came from the need to block out bail-jumpers’ claims to innocence whenever she caught up with them and hauled them back to jail. If she had stopped to listen to their claims, she might have let half of them go. Then where would she be?