His Case, Her Baby

by Cassidy, Carla

  Tom parked and cut the engine and without another word to Peyton got out of the car. As he approached the front door he hoped like hell he’d find inside the one thing that would erase the pain from Peyton’s eyes.

  Chapter 6

  Peyton’s heart was in her throat as she sat and stared at the house Tom and Benjamin had just disappeared inside of.

  A young woman who had looked at Tom and Benjamin in surprise had opened the door. A thin young man had appeared at her side, then the two lawmen had gone into the house and Peyton hadn’t been able to see anything else.

  This whole thing felt wrong. What would that young couple have to do with a kidnapping, with a murder? They looked like teenagers. Why would they want to steal her baby?

  She rubbed a hand across her forehead where a headache squeezed like a tight band. She leaned her head toward the open car window and drew in a deep breath of the warm night air.

  She could hear nothing from the house. What was going on inside? Surely if Lilly were in there Tom would have already come out to get her.

  Tom had said this was just the first of the tips to come in. Peyton had seen enough missing-children newscasts to realize that often in these cases thousands of tips came in from all over the country. The child was spotted in California or in Texas or in Florida, often all at the same time.

  It could take weeks or even months to chase down all the leads this case might generate. Weeks and months that she wouldn’t have sweet Lilly.

  Hot tears burned her eyes as a well of grief threatened to consume her. The inner scream begged to be released, but she swallowed hard against it.

  Lilly was at that stage of development where she changed almost every day. Peyton would be missing some of the most precious moments in her daughter’s life.

  She squeezed her eyelids closed and for the first time wondered if she would ever have Lilly back in her arms. How would she get through the rest of her life if they never found her baby?

  How did Tom get up mornings without his little girl? How did any parent who had lost a child survive the grief?

  She had to stay strong. She refused to break now. Right now all she knew was that Lilly was out there somewhere and hopefully would be found alive and well.

  The minutes ticked by and twilight was replaced by the darkness of encroaching night. A glance at the clock let her know that Tom had only been in the house fifteen minutes, but if felt like hours had passed since he’d disappeared inside.

  She felt as if in the space of seconds passing she’d transformed into a very old woman, with nothing but grief to keep her company.

  The opening of the front door snapped her eyes back open and she looked toward the house to see Tom’s silhouette as he approached the car.

  He was halfway across the yard when she realized he was carrying something in his arms. Peyton froze and for a moment it felt as if her heart had stopped beating.

  She heard the distinctive sound of a fussing baby, her baby. “Lilly?” The name whispered from her. She threw open the car door and sprang out, nearly tripping in the grass as she ran toward Tom.

  “Lilly!” Tears half blurred her vision as she met him and he held out the infant.

  Her baby! Oh, God, it was Lilly.

  The deep sobs that Peyton had held in for so long ripped from her as she took Lilly from him and clutched the baby to her chest. She was laughing and crying at the same time as Tom grabbed her by the elbow and took her back to the car.

  “I’ve got things to finish up inside. I’ll be back in a few minutes and we’ll get the two of you home where you belong,” Tom said. “I’ll have a doctor come to check her out, but she seems okay.”

  She nodded absently, barely hearing him as she focused all her attention on her baby. Happy tears escaped her as Lilly smiled up at her.

  The baby was wrapped in a pink blanket and Peyton quickly unwrapped her, needing to check her from head to toe to assure herself that Lilly was really okay.

  She was clad in a pink T-shirt and a diaper and she smelled sweet and clean. It was obvious she’d been well taken care of, and for that Peyton was grateful.

  At the moment Peyton didn’t care how Lilly had come to be here and what the people inside the house had to do with India Richards. All she cared about was the baby in her arms, her beloved Lilly.

  “Mommy missed you,” she whispered as she held Lilly tight. She kissed her cheeks, her eyelids and forehead. She kissed Lilly’s little toes as her heart sang. “Mommy missed you so very much.” Lilly cuddled against her and within minutes had fallen asleep.

  Peyton felt as if the world was suddenly right. Nothing mattered other than the fact that Lilly was safe and sound and back in her arms where she belonged.

  Silent tears of joy fell as Peyton waited for Tom to come back to the car. What she wanted now was to get Lilly home.

  It was nearly thirty minutes before Tom came back outside. He took Lilly from her arms and placed her in the car seat in the back, then got in behind the wheel and started the engine.

  “Benjamin is going to stay here while I take you home. We’re still in the process of taking statements from them. Their names are Benny and Molly Morris. They’re nothing but a couple of kids playing house. Got married last year when they were eighteen years old.”

  “How did they get Lilly?” she asked.

  “Apparently Molly is India’s second cousin. India showed up here out of the blue on Tuesday afternoon with the baby. She told them that the baby belonged to a friend of hers who couldn’t take care of her anymore and wanted to put her up for adoption. Molly has been trying to get pregnant for the last year without success, so India thought they might be interested in adopting. They took one look at Lilly and said they fell in love with her.”

  “They didn’t question the legality of just being handed a baby?” Peyton asked incredulously.

  He flashed her a quick glance. “Did I mention that they’re really young? According to them, India was working with a lawyer and told them she’d be back with legal papers for them to sign.”

  “You think she just wanted to give them a baby? That’s what this is all about?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Tom replied. “According to the couple, they weren’t close to India.”

  “Is there something physically wrong with them that they can’t have a baby of their own?” she asked, trying to make sense of it.

  “I asked them that and they both assured me that there was nothing wrong with them. But Molly had gotten impatient because it wasn’t happening fast enough. She said the last time she’d talked to India she’d mentioned how frustrated she was about not getting pregnant.”

  “So she apparently went directly to their house right after she took Lilly,” Peyton said thoughtfully. “And then went back to Black Rock and to that motel room? Why wouldn’t she have run as far away and as fast as possible?”

  “That’s what I need to find out,” he replied. He flashed her a quick smile. “At least this has a happy ending where you and Lilly are concerned.”

  Peyton’s heart crunched a bit as she returned his smile. This must be a bittersweet moment for him, that he’d been able to return her child to her but had not been able to save his own little girl.

  “Thank you, Tom. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me and for Lilly.”

  “Just doing my job,” he replied lightly.

  She felt his emotional distance and suddenly realized he was moving on. He’d achieved what he’d wanted in returning Lilly, and now it was time for him to get back to solving a murder and resuming his own life.

  Even though she’d only known him a couple of days, she was surprised to realize she was going to miss him, that the intensity of emotions they had shared had forged a bond in her, but one that he obviously didn’t feel.

  He’d just been doing his job. When he’d held her as she’d cried, it had been his duty as an officer of the law and nothing more.

  Lilly slept the entire way home, and Tom
and Peyton didn’t speak for the remainder of the ride. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence but rather one of two people who were occupied with their own separate thoughts.

  “What’s going to happen to Benny and Molly?” she finally asked when he turned down the street where she lived.

  “I don’t know yet. It’s too early to know if they’ll be charged with anything.” He pulled into her driveway and cut the engine. They both got out of the car and he opened the back door to get the sleeping Lilly from her seat.

  As they walked up to the front porch he looked right carrying a baby in his arms, and Peyton’s heart hurt for him as she thought of the child he had lost.

  “I’ll be in touch if I need anything from you, but Peyton, this isn’t over yet. We still have a killer out there, and we don’t know what his relationship might have been to you. You need to be careful, okay?” He transferred Lilly from his arms to hers. “I’ll have a squad car stop in to check on you periodically.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you enough,” she said as tears once again burned at her eyes.

  “You don’t have to thank me. We got lucky, that’s all,” he replied.

  She couldn’t tell him that not only did she want to thank him for the return of her daughter but also for the fact that he’d instinctively known when she’d needed his strong arms around her. He’d known when to cover her cold, trembling hand with his own.

  On impulse she reached up on her tiptoes with the intent of pressing her lips against his cheek. At the very last minute he dipped his head down and instead of his cheek her lips met his.

  His mouth was softer, warmer than she’d anticipated, and what she’d meant as a simple thank-you kiss became so much more. Although his arms remained at his sides, a flicker of heat licked at her insides just before he stepped back from her.

  His eyes were dark, impossible to read. “Good night, Peyton. I’ll be in touch.” Without another word he turned and left her porch.

  She watched him go and felt a ridiculous stab in her heart as she realized he was for all intents and purposes out of her life.

  She had her baby back and Tom had a killer to catch. There was no reason for their lives to intersect again in any real, meaningful way, and she wasn’t sure why that thought made her incredibly sad.

  The kiss was everything Tom had imagined it would be. Sweet, yet hot enough to flood his veins with heat. It had made him wonder what her skin would taste like beneath his lips, if she’d moan while he made love to her.

  As he got into his car and left her house, he tried not to think about how soft and yielding her mouth had been against his, how much he’d wanted to deepen the kiss with his tongue.

  Thank God they’d found the baby alive and well. Thank God there had been a happy ending for Peyton where the baby was concerned. In a million years he would never forget the look on Peyton’s face when he’d returned Lilly to her. It had been such exquisite joy. He would love for her to experience that kind of joy every day for the rest of her life.

  Unfortunately, the case wasn’t wrapped up neat and tidy. One loose end was the fact that somebody had killed the kidnapper and Tom not only wanted to know who, but he also wanted to know why.

  Cliff Gunther. The new name whirled around in his head. He needed to get Sam on finding out what he could about the waiter who had dated Peyton before her relationship with Tom. It was another loose end Tom didn’t want to leave untended.

  The next morning he was no closer to having answers than he’d been the night before. Not only did he have the weight of the India Richards case on his shoulders, but he was also wondering if Peyton was truly out of danger.

  As he went into his office Sam greeted him with a frown. “Don’t have much information for you on Cliff Gunther,” he said.

  Tom sat in the chair next to his desk. “What have you got?”

  Sam pulled some papers in front of him. “Cliff Gunther, thirty-two years old. Born and raised in Wichita and has a clean record except for a couple of speeding tickets. He quit his job two weeks ago and hasn’t resurfaced anywhere else.”

  “Did you get an address?”

  Sam nodded. “But one of his coworkers at the restaurant said he hasn’t been at his apartment since he quit his job.”

  Tom frowned. “It could mean nothing, it could mean something. We need to dig a little deeper to find out where he is and what he’s up to. If nothing else I need to exclude him in this case and move on to somebody else.”

  “Have you heard anything from Caleb?” Sam asked.

  “Not yet. I’m hoping to hear something from him today about India Richards’s life in Wichita. Meanwhile, I intend to spend the day trying to trace her movements while she was here in Black Rock.”

  “At least the baby is back where she belongs,” Sam replied. “Peyton is probably having the best morning of her life this morning.”

  Tom nodded. He wished Sam hadn’t said her name, hadn’t put her back in his head. “I’ll be in my office. Let me know when you have something more for me on Cliff Gunther.”

  “Will do,” Sam agreed.

  Tom went into his office and closed the door and tried to put Peyton Wilkerson out of his mind, with little success.

  It felt strange not going directly to her house this morning. In the span of just a couple of days, being with her had become a habit. But it was a habit he had to break.

  Even though Peyton had been the first woman in a very long time to interest him on a male/female level, he could never be the man in her life.

  He knew enough about her past, enough about her hopes and dreams to know that what she was looking for was a fantasy storybook ending. Tom was grounded in harsh reality too much to believe in those kinds of happily-ever-afters.

  When he’d buried his precious Kelly he’d buried half his heart with her, and when Julie had walked away from him she’d taken the other half. There was nothing left for anyone else, and in any case he never wanted to be that vulnerable to the capricious nature of fate again. It was much safer, much easier to keep himself from ever caring too deeply about the people in his life.

  He had to forget that kiss they’d shared, he had to stop thinking about Peyton as a sexy, loving woman and think of her only as a victim of a crime.

  Besides, he had more important things on his mind, like the murder of India Richards. He also wanted to figure out who Peyton had had her run-in with at the grocery store. It might have nothing to do with what happened, but he wouldn’t be satisfied until he checked out all leads.

  Tom spent the morning chasing down information about India Richards. He knew there was no way she could have been in town for two months and not have met anyone but Peyton. Although the apartment where she’d been living had yielded few clues as to the life of the occupant, there had been some.

  A discarded foam cup had held the name of a convenience store on the edge of town, and that was the first stop Tom made. Armed with a photo of India Richards, he entered the shop.

  He recognized the older woman behind the counter and offered her a smile. “Hi, Margie.”

  “Morning, Tom. What brings you to this neck of the woods? I know it’s not that sludge we call coffee.”

  Margie Meadows was a widow who lived in the house next to the Grayson ranch. At sixty-five years old she was as feisty as a woman half her age and had made it known that she was actively looking for a husband to replace the one she’d lost to a heart attack a year before.

  “Or maybe you’ve finally come to your senses and decided what you need most in your life is a hot, sexy cougar like me,” she added.

  Tom laughed. “Ah, Margie, I have a feeling I could never keep up with you.” He pulled the picture of India from his pocket. “I was wondering if you could tell me anything about this woman.” He slid the picture across the counter to her.

  “This is that woman who kidnapped that baby,” she said. “Yeah, I’ve seen her in here a couple of times.”

  “Was she ever with anybody
?”

  Margie frowned. “Only once. I saw her get out of Buck Harmon’s truck and she came in and bought some beer then got back in his truck and they took off.”

  Buck Harmon. A burst of adrenaline shot through Tom. Buck was a twenty-four-year-old tough guy who lived fifteen miles outside of Black Rock and only ventured into town to frequent Harley’s bar.

  He was tall with sandy-colored hair and drove a black pickup. The only reason Tom hadn’t thought of him before now was because he rarely saw Buck.

  Was it merely a coincidence that Buck fit the description of the man who had cursed Peyton in the parking lot of the grocery store and had a connection to the woman who had kidnapped Lilly? Tom didn’t believe in those kinds of coincidences.

  He left the convenience store and headed out to Buck’s place. Even with the little bit of information he now had, he couldn’t make sense of the whole mess. He had the pieces of a puzzle but no puzzle box to look at to see how the pieces were supposed to fit together.

  Buck lived in a small house that had belonged to his parents before they retired to Florida. He worked as a mechanic in the neighboring town of Little Creek and from what Tom knew had few friends. A phone call to the garage let Tom know that Buck didn’t work on Saturdays, so Tom hoped to catch him at home.

  Buck’s pickup was in the driveway when Tom pulled up in front of the house, which looked as if it had been neglected for years. The paint was faded and peeling and a collection of old beer cans sat on top of the porch railing. The front yard was a graveyard of old tires and car parts.

  As Tom approached the door he unfastened the snap of his holster, allowing for immediate access to his gun if it became necessary. He had no idea what role, if any, Buck might have played in either the kidnapping or the murder.

  Buck answered Tom’s knock. Clad in a T-shirt and a pair of boxers and with his hair disheveled as if he’d just climbed out of bed, he didn’t looked pleased at the intrusion.

  He narrowed his blue eyes and glared at Tom. “What’s up? What are you doing here?”