Shattered Lullaby

by Rebecca York

  They headed for the ladies’ room. Cam scanned the ground outside, while Hunter searched through the trash can beside the sink. Miguel charged into the stall. When he found nothing, he slammed his fist against the metal partition. “I thought there would be something!”

  “Look carefully,” Hunter told him as he unfolded damp paper towels. “She couldn’t just write a letter to us on the wall. She’d have to hide it.”

  Miguel took off the toilet tank. Nothing. He lifted the seat, then tried the back of the lid. On his knees, he felt along the wall beside the tank, Then followed the stall wall along to the toilet-paper holder. A tiny piece of paper fluttered to the floor. With trembling fingers, he carefully picked it up, read it, then waved it in the air.

  “Here! Here it is!”

  “Let’s see.” Hunter scanned the text. “The license nunber is good. I don’t know if the Watson farm is specific enough.”

  IT HAD STOPPED SNOWING, Jessie noted as the van crept through snarled traffic. Occasionally Sombra cursed. Sometimes he and Martinez engaged in a brief, tense exchange.

  Jessie figured that under normal conditions the ride to the farm from Jessup wouldn’t take more than forty minutes, but they’d already been on the road for over two hours, and they were still far from their destination.

  As the car inched along, the pains in her belly had gotten stronger and closer together, and she knew she wasn’t having indigestion; she was in labor. And she didn’t know what to do about it. When she’d first figured it out, she’d told herself that she had hours before the baby was born—and Miguel would surely find her before then. Now she wasn’t so sure. It was all happening much faster than she’d expected, judging from the childbirth books she’d read.

  Trying to look casual, she snuck another glance at her watch. The contractions were coming every five minutes now. A lot closer than she’d anticipated.

  Lord, now what? Fighting terror, she tried to do the breathing exercises she’d learned. But every time a contraction hit her, she clenched her teeth, struggling to conceal her condition from her captors.

  At least Martinez wasn’t paying a lot of attention to her. Sitting next to her, he looked preoccupied. She hoped he was worried that he’d gotten in over his head. She hoped he was thinking about Jurado and what she’d told him.

  Above her, she could hear a traffic helicopter again. It had passed over the highway several times. Fat lot of good it was going to do to report the obvious—that the roads were completely snarled.

  The ride was endless, and as the miles inched by, the contractions grew closer together—and more painful.

  She closed her eyes, praying that the baby would wait. When she made a small sound of mingled pain and terror, Martinez turned to her, studying her critically. “Are you sick?” he demanded again.

  “I’m frightened. You should be, too,” she added in a low voice, her gaze holding his until he looked away.

  “What?” Sombra asked from the front seat.

  Neither she nor Martinez answered. But she was sure that the INS agent was thinking about what she’d said back at the gas station.

  “We should call her office again,” Sombra said. “See if they’ve located her husband. The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

  They were on Highway 108 now, on the outskirts of Clarksville. Martinez pointed to a small strip shopping center. “Over there.”

  The van pulled into the parking lot near an outdoor phone.

  As Martinez turned toward her, another contraction hit; this time it was a vise-like claw grabbing her middle, and she couldn’t hold back a groan of pain as she doubled over.

  In the front seat, Sombra cursed. “I’ve been watching her. I think the bitch is in labor.”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you see it?”

  Martinez’s face reddened. “How was I supposed to know?”

  “You’ve been sitting next to her for hours.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Martinez snapped. “As long as she can talk to Valero.” He tugged on her arm, pulling her out of the van. Then he steadied her on her feet, as he helped her toward the metal phone booth.

  “Is it true,” he hissed, “about this man named Jurado? Valero operated on him, and he’s killed everyone who knows?”

  “Oh, it’s true, all right,” she managed.

  Martinez made a strangled sound. “I didn’t know. I thought Valero was the criminal.”

  “You know the truth now.”

  “Prove it.”

  She gave him a helpless look. “I can‘t—until Sombra shoots me. And you.”

  Martinez looked pale. “Okay. I can show you where to find faxed messages between Sombra and his boss. If I help you, you’ll help me? You’ll tell them I didn’t know what he had planned?”

  “Yes,” she answered. Then another pain took her, and she gasped.

  Martinez’s gaze darted around the shopping center. “How—how long do you have?”

  “I don’t know,” she managed.

  “Hurry up!” Sombra shouted from the van.

  The agent shoved change into the slot, and she dialed the Light Street Foundation. He was holding the listening device he’d used before, apparently too distracted to attach it to the phone.

  Again, Erin picked up on the first ring. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.

  “Yes.” The assurance ended in a little cry as a gush of wetness rushed out of her, and she knew her water had broken.

  Erin’s voice came to her dimly through the phone. “Jessie, please listen to me. Get down on the ground. Get down now.”

  “What?”

  “Get down,” Erin ordered. “Roll behind the car to your right.”

  “I don’t understand.” She could hardly hear because a whirring noise was filling the air around her.

  “The men are coming for you!” Erin shouted. “Get down!”

  Martinez must have heard the warning—even without his receiver—because he grabbed her and threw her to the snowy pavement just as she saw a helicopter swoop down from the sky. As she watched in stunned disbelief, a stream of gunfire erupted from the van, and the helicopter returned the fire.

  Martinez was pulling her behind the van when she saw one of the copter’s landing skids smash into it, breaking the windshield and lifting the vehicle off the ground before setting it back with a bone-shattering thunk. Hunter leaped out of the copter, landing on the roof of the van. Miguel and Cam came right after him, jumping to the ground and heading toward her. Miguel’s gun was pointed at Martinez.

  “Don’t shoot!” the INS agent pleaded. “I can help you prove what really happened in San Marcos.”

  “I’ll take him,” Cam said, grabbing Martinez by the arm and pulling him away.

  Another contraction seized Jessie, and she groaned. Instantly, Miguel knelt beside her in the snow.

  “Jessie, are you hurt? Did they hurt you?”

  “I’m in labor!” she managed, her fingers clenching his jacket. All this time, she had been alone and frightened, coping on her own. Now he was here, and she could hardly believe it.

  “Here? Now?” he gasped, his face a study in panic as he looked around the snowy parking lot.

  Before she could answer, another pain captured her, and she cried out as she grabbed his hand and squeezed it in a death grip, her own fear rising as she realized that everything was happening much too fast. “Miguel, I feel like I have to push.”

  He made a strangled exclamation, then his expression changed to a kind of calm resolve. “Not yet. Not out here in the snow.” Gathering her into his arms, he looked toward the strip of stores, then back into her eyes, his steady expression soothing her. Miguel was here. She wasn’t alone anymore. “Jessie, can you pant?” he asked. “Can you do that for me?”

  She nodded, trying her best to comply as he bore her across the parking lot.

  “Is she okay?” Hunter called urgently.

  “The baby is coming! Get my medical bag!�
�� he shouted as he reached the front of a real-estate office. Yanking the door open, he carried Jessie past a startled receptionist.

  “Is there a private office in the back?”

  “Yes, but you can’t go there!”

  “The hell I can’t!” he retorted, striding past her, kicking open the door to a plush private enclave.

  The receptionist dashed after them. “I’ll call the police if you—”

  “She’s about to have a baby,” Miguel interrupted as he laid Jessie on a leather couch.

  “Oh, my God!” the woman squeaked, her tone changing from outraged to unnerved.

  “Where can I wash my hands?” he snapped.

  “There.” She pointed toward a men’s room.

  “Get me blankets, if you have them. And something clean to wrap the baby in,” Miguel ordered in clipped tones. But his voice became gentle as he bent over Jessie. “I will be right back.”

  She lay panting, her head turned toward the door where he’d disappeared. Then he was back, kneeling beside her, telling her how much he loved her, telling her everything was going to be all right.

  He sounded calm and in control as he stripped off her sodden underwear and pushed her dress out of the way—exactly how she needed him to be at this moment.

  Still, she couldn’t hold back a cry as the next contraction grabbed her.

  “Just a little while longer,” he crooned to her. His hand was on her abdomen as she felt another contraction building. “Push!”

  She was beyond answering, beyond anything but following the dictates of her body.

  “Good. Perfect,” he praised her. “I can see his head! Everything is fine. It is only going to be a little bit longer.”

  Everything is fine. She clung to that through the next contraction and the next, bearing down again and again, groaning with the effort.

  All at once the pain was less. “That’s the head,” Miguel told her. Then she heard him suck in a sharp breath.

  “What? What’s wrong?” she managed.

  “The cord is looped around his neck.” He moved quickly, and she couldn’t see what he was doing.

  “Miguel?” she cried.

  “It’s okay. Everything is okay. I’ve got it off him,” he said, but his voice was strained as he helped her deliver the baby’s shoulders, then the rest of the tiny body.

  “Is he all right?” She sobbed when she saw that the baby’s skin was tinged with blue. Miguel was working over him, suctioning his mouth with a syringe from the medical bag that somebody must have brought into the room.

  For what seemed an endless time, she waited for an answer, her breath frozen in her chest. Then she heard a tiny cough and a high-pitched wail.

  “Oh, God,” She sighed through the tears that ran down her face now. “Thank God.”

  “His breathing is strong,” Miguel said after a moment. “And his heart rate is a hundred and ten.”

  “Is that all right?” she asked anxiously.

  “It’s good. Over a hundred is what we want. And his muscle tone is good.” Miguel’s answer was thick with emotion as he laid the infant on Jessie’s chest.

  Her arms came up to cradle their child. “Is he really all right?”

  “Yes.”

  She gazed into her husband’s eyes, saw the look of relief, and knew that he wasn’t just saying what she wanted to hear. “Oh, Miguel, what if you hadn’t been here to help us?”

  “But I was, Jessie. I was.” One of his hands clasped her shoulder, the other curved around the baby’s head. “Both of you are safe now.”

  He stroked his lips against her cheek, and she closed her eyes, trying to come to grips with everything that had happened. This wasn’t a dream. She was safe. The baby was safe. And her husband had made it possible.

  When he pulled away, her eyes opened. “Don’t leav us!”

  “Never again. But I must do a few more things for the two of you,” he whispered. In a low, reassuring voice he kept talking to her, telling her what he was doing. He cut the cord, delivered the placenta, then bundled Jessie in blankets and cleaned off the baby before wrapping him in a towel. Finally, he handed the infant into her arms.

  She looked down in wonder and gratitude at her son, whose skin was pink now. “His hair is dark, like yours,” she whispered, stroking the tiny head.

  Miguel nodded, and she gave him a little smile, sensing that this was a time when she could ask for—and get—anything she wanted. But she wouldn’t be too greedy. “I’d like to call him Michael,” she said. “After you.”

  “Yes,” Miguel answered in a choked voice as his lips moved against her face.

  She rested again for a moment, then murmured, “I was so frightened when they had me. How did you find me so quickly?”

  He stroked her possessively as he replied, “We found your note. With the license number, it was easy to spot the van from the air.”

  She nodded.

  “My wife. So brave. So clever,” he told her, his voice breaking.

  “Like my husband,” she said, burrowing closer to him. He held her as if he would never let her go, and she felt herself drawing strength from his embrace.

  A little while later, Cam came in to deliver a terse news bulletin. “Sombra is dead. Martinez is going to cooperate with the police. It looks like he can provide information that will link Sombra to Jurado. And Jed was able to dig up some of Jurado’s old dental records. Unless the bastard had all his teeth pulled, we’ve got him”

  “Thank God,” Jessie breathed, then turned to Miguel. He looked stunned, as if he didn’t believe it could finally be over.

  “Think of it as an early Christmas present,” Cam said. “But you should keep out of sight for a few more days, until we get things nailed down. Let’s go with the original plan. You, Jessie, and the baby can stay at the estate. Do you want me to have Jessie’s doctor meet you there?”

  “Yes. And a pediatrician. I want her checked—and the baby, too.”

  “I’ll arrange that. When you’re ready, we’ll leave in the chopper.”

  “In about a half hour,” Miguel said. Standing, he shook Cam’s hand. “Thank you. There is no way I can repay you for all of this....”

  Cam looked embarrassed. “I’ve been in some tight spots myself. I know that friends can make a difference.” He took a small step back. “I’ll go make the arrangements.”

  When they were alone once more, Miguel came down beside Jessie, his face still full of wonder. “I can hardly believe it. It is almost over. We can live like a family—like everybody else.”

  She laid her hand over his.

  “I am so lucky,” he said, looking from her to the infant in her arms.

  “We both are.”

  At that moment, little Michael began making tiny noises and waving his arms.

  “Do you think he’s hungry?” Jessie asked.

  “Probably. And it would be good for you to nurse him.”

  “Is that a medical opinion, or do you want to see your son have his first meal?”

  “Both,” he answered softly.

  He arranged the pillows so she could prop herself up and watched while she undid the front of her dress. As soon as she brought Michael to her breast, he started searching for her nipple. When he found it and began to suck, she caught her breath. The sensation was sharp at first, then settled down to a sweet tugging.

  Miguel cupped his palm around the back of his son’s dark head, then laid his own head on Jessie’s shoulder as he slipped his arm around her protectively. She closed her eyes, feeling tired but so very happy.

  “A lot of men would take this for granted,” he said in a thick voice as he touched the baby’s cheek. “But I know what it means to be with the woman I love. And the child we made together.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “With the man I love.”

  “You went through too much for me,” he said.

  “That’s all in the past, and I’ve got exactly what I want.” Her heart overflowed with love
for this man as she thought of the years ahead. The future would make up for the nightmare he had survived, if she had anything to say about it. “Now that you’re a free man, you can open that clinic you’ve been dreaming of,” she said.

  She felt a tremor go through him. Then he moved so that his liquid gaze could meet hers. “That was just a dream—to keep me going when I needed hope.”

  “Is it what you want?”

  He swallowed hard, and replied evasively, “I wouldn’t be a rich plastic surgeon if I opened a clinic for the people in the barrio.”

  “I didn’t marry a rich plastic surgeon,” she countered. “I married a man who wants the same things I do—to help people, to make a difference. And if we can do it together, that’s even better.”

  “Truly?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Jessie, you understand me better than anyone else,” he said, his voice thick, as he settled her and the baby more solidly into his embrace.

  “I hope so.” She felt tears blur her eyes as she savored this moment together.

  “You have already given me so much.” He gently stroked the baby’s hair and hers.

  She looked from her child to her husband, knowing they possessed riches that money could never buy. They had almost lost each other, more than once. Yet now they were safe—the three of them.

  “The luckiest day of my life was the day I saw you across that room at the rec center,” he whispered. “I thought I couldn’t have you. And now...” Overcome with emotion, he choked up before he could finish.

  “Now we’re at the beginning of a long and wonderful life together.” She completed the thought for him and snuggled into the certainty of his love.

  And there’s more 43 LIGHT STREET!

  Turn the page for a bonus look at what’s

  in store for you in the next

  “43 Light Street” book by Ruth Glick

  writing as Rebecca York, coming

  to you in October 1999.

  MIDNIGHT CALLER

  Only from Harlequin Intrigue!

  Chapter One

  Meg Faulkner felt it like a dull ache—disaster looming around the next hairpin turn of the road. Night had fallen hours ago, bringing with it a chill haze that billowed across the narrow ribbon of macadam winding through the thick pine forest. The mist fogged the headlight beams and turned the landscape into a scene from the X-Files.