by Judi Lind
Fearing her heart was going to explode, Valerie tiptoed toward the alcove. For a moment she thought she would make it, then a huge shadow fell across the gleaming tile.
Her legs wobbling uncontrollably, she glanced into the living room. Less than three feet away, a large masculine form stood silhouetted against the light flooding in from the front window. As if sensing her presence, he started to turn.
Valerie didn’t know whether to scream or to faint. She brandished the banana like a sword, her left arm wrapped protectively across her naked body.
She had to think. There was a way out of this. There had to be. She couldn’t let this man hurt her. Naked and cut off from the telephone, she’d never felt more helpless in her life.
After working in medicine for so many years, particularly in obstetrics, she’d grown used to the sight of the unclothed human form. If you’d asked her ten minutes ago, she would have insisted that she had no qualms about nudity. Now she couldn’t imagine anything worse than that man turning around and catching her so exposed.
That irrational fear gave her a burst of fool’s courage.
Knowing now that she would never make it to the phone unnoticed, she boldly stepped down into the sunken living room and jammed the end of the banana in his back.
“Make one move and I’ll shoot.”
Chapter Six
“Is that a banana in your hand, or am I just glad to see you?”
“Gil!”
When he heard the now badly bruised fruit hit the floor with a dull thud, he slowly turned to face her. He couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at his lips. It hadn’t been a dream, after all. Valerie really was standing before him, deliciously, delightfully nude.
While waiting for her return from the hospital, he’d fallen asleep in her comfy denim easy chair. The muted whisper of her footfall had awakened him, but a glance in the mirror over the mantel almost convinced him he’d lucked into a pleasant dream.
Dimly aware of the croak in his voice, he murmured, “It’s really great to see you, Doc.”
Following his gaze, she looked down as if only now becoming aware of her nudity. “Oh!”
Moving faster than he would have believed possible for a woman just coming off a double shift, she darted across the room. Jerking the Southwestern-patterned afghan from the sofa, she wrapped it around herself like a toga, depriving him of the delectable view.
“Aw, Doc, you didn’t have to get dressed on my account.”
She whirled around, her eyes hard and glittering like shards of steel. “What the hell are you doing in my house? Why did you run away again? How did you get in here? You have exactly five seconds to convince me not to phone the police and have your keister thrown in jail.”
“Five seconds, huh?” He couldn’t blame her for being angry. Hell, in her place, he would have tossed his butt out first and asked questions later. Much later. Speeding up his response before she made good on her threat, he ticked off his answers on his fingers. He decided not to mention that he’d snagged her address from his notes. He didn’t know where this case was headed. He only knew it revolved around Valerie. “One—I didn’t know where else to go. Two—if that hit man was still hanging around the hospital, I didn’t want him to see us leaving together. Three—the spare key you leave under the barrel cactus.”
A surreptitious glance at her scowling visage confirmed that his explanations hadn’t made much impact. Although he wanted nothing more than to hang around in hopes of another tantalizing peek under that afghan, he strove to keep his mind on the very serious situation. “And four—although it wasn’t really a question—we’re both in a helluva lot of trouble, and frankly I don’t expect the cavalry to come charging up to save our hides. It’s just us, Doc.”
“Trouble? I’m not in any trouble—although disaster trails after you like a pet dog. How did you know?”
Gil shook his head. Granted, that beating he’d taken had scrambled his brains for a while, but he’d totally lost the thread of her logic. “Know what?”
“The key. I have more than two dozen potted plants on the patio, how did you know the house key was under the barrel cactus? Has your amnesia been miraculously cured? Or was that just another act, another game for your amusement?”
He frowned. Now that he thought about it, he realized that he hadn’t consciously searched for her spare key. Some...instinct had prodded him to lift that particular clay pot. As if he’d known it would be there.
The faintest flicker of a memory danced through his mind. He’d flopped into that soft denim easy chair before. A memory of Valerie curled up at his feet, her golden hair loose and flowing across his knees. Then, like a watercolor dissolving in the rain, the image melted away and he was left with that black nothingness. “Bits and pieces, Doc. Just bits and pieces.”
To his surprise, she dropped the subject. She seemed afraid to delve too deeply, more willing to let the monster that must have been their past slumber on.
“Your time is up, Gil. Out or I phone the police.”
From studying his case notes, he knew he’d been operating undercover before he’d left Phoenix, and that at one point Valerie Murphy had been his prime suspect. Surely he’d been mistaken. The woman who had taken a terrible risk with her own career by moving him without authority and saved his life by covering his body with her own couldn’t be the woman responsible for the heinous crime he’d been investigating.
“Please,” he said, “let me explain. Then if you still want to throw me out, I’ll go peacefully.”
His breath tightened as she cinched the blanket around the swell of her breasts. “Why should I listen? Why should I believe a word you say? You’ve lied to me from the moment we met.”
Although he couldn’t recall specific incidents, Gil knew that he’d gone undercover several times in the past. He also knew, without actual remembering, that he’d never considered how his subterfuge would affect others. Pretending, lying, fabricating were all in a day’s work for an FBI operative. He felt slightly shamed seeing himself through the eyes of a civilian, a real person who still valued honesty.
“If you’ll fix me a cup of coffee, I’ll tell you the truth. At least, as much as I know.”
She stared at him for a long hard moment. “It shouldn’t take too long to hear what little truth you seem capable of telling. But fix your own coffee. I’m going to put some clothes on.”
Turning on her heel, she took two brisk steps, then paused and whirled to face him. “Where’d you get those clothes?”
He glanced down at the T-shirt and jeans he’d traded for the too-short surgical scrubs.
While he’d waited for Valerie to come home, he’d strolled through her house, trying to get a sense of who she was, what she cared about. Whether there was a man in her life. Unfortunately he’d found pretty good evidence that she wasn’t celibate. A razor and aftershave in the bathroom, a half-used box of condoms in the bedside table and a few items of masculine clothing hanging neatly at the end of her closet.
Apparently the boyfriend was about his size.
Still, he was only in her home on sufferance, and if she discovered he’d been snooping... “These clothes?”
“Yes. Those.”
“I, uh...found them.”
She held up a hand. “Don’t bother. I haven’t believed your last dozen lies, no sense adding another.”
Then, still clutching the afghan to her, she strode down the hallway.
Ten minutes later Gil poured them each a mug of dark Java roast, his favorite. Valerie stirred two packets of sweetener into her mug and added a healthy dollop of nondairy creamer.
“You’re ruining a perfectly good cup of coffee.”
“So you tell me every time.”
He did? One more puzzle piece snapped into place. He’d known where she kept her spare house key and used to razz her about how she took her coffee. In his shadowy past she’d been more than a suspect. Had they become friends? At the very least, they must have been cordial acquainta
nces.
A sudden intuition clutched him and refused to let go. One of them had wanted more than friendship. The way Valerie was acting, all prickly and full of venom, he had to guess she’d wanted more from their relationship than he had been able or willing to give.
He searched her face, looking for a sign, confirmation, that his gut feeling was right. Her expression was devoid of emotion. If they had evolved beyond friendship, would she withhold that knowledge now? Wouldn’t her face reveal the truth?
Bad deduction, Branton. This woman isn’t pining for you. She just wants you gone.
She sipped at her adulterated brew. “You’re back on the clock, Gil. Five minutes. And I want the truth. I deserve at least that much.”
Was it his imagination or did her voice catch a little at the end? “Okay,” he said. “But this is in the strictest confidence. You have to promise not to reveal anything I tell you.”
She tossed her head. Her pale hair, crimped from hours of confinement in her waist-length braid, fell across her face. “You’re just going to have to trust me for a change. I’m not making any more promises to you.”
The raw pain revealed by the harshness of her tone jammed another piece of the puzzle firmly into place. Their relationship had been a close one. And he’d hurt her. Badly.
He shoved this new painful knowledge deep down. He couldn’t afford to have his focus diverted. Right now he had to concentrate on solving this case, free them both from the danger that stalked them, then he’d try to patch up the remnants of his past Somehow he’d make amends to her. If they both lived long enough.
Taking a deep swallow of the hot strong coffee, he nodded. “Okay. Guess I’ll just have to rely on your discretion.”
“Four minutes.”
“The amnesia and my name aren’t fake. Everything else was.”
Her head jerked up. Color leeched from her skin and she clutched the mug like a lifeline. “Three minutes,” she whispered.
“Everything that I remember, anyway. I’m a field operative for the FBI.”
She avoided his eyes while she sipped at her coffee. “Yeah, and I’m Michelle Pfeiffer’s body double.”
Gil reached into his hip pocket and tossed the slim black leather folder containing his photo ID and silver shield onto the table.
She hesitated, then picked it up. After studying it intently, she tossed it back. “Okay, you’re a fed. If that badge isn’t as phony as everything else you’ve told me. Go on with your tale, Special Agent Branton.”
Ignoring her sarcasm, he tucked the folder back into his jeans pocket. “Six months ago I was assigned to go undercover as a governmental bean counter conducting an audit.”
“At Parker Memorial? Where we met.”
“That’s right. I needed a cover that would give me access to hospital records. As well as employee records of the staff.”
“I see. And what were you hoping to find?”
Gil hesitated. Now they were at the heart of the matter. Could he trust her or not? If he confided in her and she was even peripherally involved, it would blow the entire operation. Months of investigation and untold taxpayer dollars right down the proverbial porcelain fixture.
She looked up pointedly at the kitchen wall clock. “Two minutes.”
He scanned her face for long moments, searching for some sign of guile or subterfuge.
“One minute left.”
He glanced behind him at the wall clock she’d been watching. It was Southwestern kitsch: a purple coyote howling at a vivid yellow sun. The sun’s rays were the hour marks. Another flash of lucid memory—Valerie laughing with delight when she’d opened the package. He’d given her that clock for Christmas. Once upon a time he’d made her happy.
Closing his mind to caution, Gil started his story. “I was sent to crack a fake adoption scam.”
She frowned. “What’s that got to do with Parker Memorial?”
“There was a strong connection. In the year before I came to Phoenix, four infants disappeared.”
“Here in the Valley? I don’t remember hearing about anything like that on the news.”
“It was never made public. Actually the bureau didn’t get involved until the fourth one. In fact, I don’t think the disappearances were even tied together by the local authorities until then.”
“What!”
He wiped a coffee mustache from his lip with his forefinger. “You can’t blame them. Whoever is behind this scam is slick. The babies were chosen very carefully. And they weren’t taken from the hospital—that would have brought the law down on their heads with the first disappearance. No, our kidnapper waited until the babies were a week or so old and well removed from the hospital.”
“So how did you connect them?”
“Our computers are set to give printouts of certain patterns. For one thing, all the stolen infants were born at Parker Memorial Hospital. Secondly, they were all born to women who were likely to leave the area immediately after giving birth, or of a ‘type’ that wouldn’t necessarily be believed if they reported their babies were stolen from their cribs.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the babies of very young unstable mothers disappear, the authorities are more likely to look at her as a suspect rather than a victim.”
Valerie nodded. “I see that kind of prejudice every day in our WomanCare clinic. Women who are devalued because of social class, poverty or even youthfulness.”
“Yeah. And whoever is behind this scam is well aware of that fact. One stolen infant was the child of a teenage runaway. Two were born to single mothers who lived on the outskirts, not part of the city proper. The last baby belonged to a Prescott woman, but she came to Phoenix for the birth because they expected complications.”
Shoving her hair out of her face, Valerie leaned forward and studied him intently. “I...I had a patient like that a few months ago. Natalie...Natalie Brown? Brennan? No, Brewer! Natalie Brewer.”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, no! You mean her baby was taken? How awful. She and her husband had tried for years to conceive. Hers was a change-of-life miracle baby. Her only chance. Oh, please say you got her baby back for her.”
Gil avoided her hopeful gaze as he sipped the last of his coffee. “No. None of the infants have been recovered. Not yet, anyway.”
Unshed tears glimmered in her eyes. “But...but I don’t understand. Why kidnap children from women who were obviously unable to pay the ransom?”
Gil got up and fetched the coffeepot. When Valerie covered her mug with her hand and shook her head, he poured the dregs of the glass carafe into his own mug. “No ransom notes were ever received.”
“Then why?”
He swung the chair around and straddled it. “You’re in obstetrics. You know how many desperate childless couples are out there. Too many of them are willing to sell their very souls for a healthy baby. We think those infants were sold to the highest bidder.”
“That’s terrible!” She propped her elbow on the table and cupped her head in her hand. “But how do they get away with it? I mean, every birth is registered. Babies are issued social security numbers. They can’t start school without shot records and birth certificates.”
Gil nodded his agreement. “That’s why we’re pretty sure that someone in the medical community is involved. Possibly—probably a doctor.”
“A doctor! No, I can’t believe that!”
He laughed wryly. “Come on, Val, you’re not that naive. You can’t seriously believe there are no greedy or unethical physicians.”
“Of course there are, but...most of my colleagues went into medicine to save lives, not destroy them.”
“I don’t doubt that, but all it takes is one bad apple. At any rate, someone with the knowledge and clearance to issue phony birth certificates is certainly involved. These babies are ‘adopted’ by wealthy couples. I understand the going black-market rate for a healthy Caucasian infant is upwards of a quarter million dollars. Four mi
ssing babies is a cool million-dollar profit—tax free. A doctor who can be blackmailed, say, one with a drug problem, may convince himself that he can do an awful lot of good with a million dollars.”
She nodded slowly. “Unfortunately, abuse of prescription narcotics is at an all-time high in our profession right now.” She rose and carried her mug to the sink. From the way she was worrying her upper lip, Gil could tell she was processing this plethora of unpleasant information.
She picked up a sponge and absentmindedly wiped the spotless table. “All right, you have me hooked. I can understand why you had to go undercover, why you didn’t tell me the truth. At first. But later, after you’d...” She hesitated, as if searching for a word. “After you got to know me better, why didn’t you confide in me?”
Gil shrugged. “I don’t know.” He tapped his temple with his index finger. “Except for bits and pieces, everything that happened before my alleged accident is all a blur.” That much was the truth, but only part of it. Confiding in Dr. Murphy would have been a severe breach of duty. Even if he’d been sleeping with her. Which, of course, he hadn’t been. Not even amnesia could rob him of a memory that delicious, he was certain.
Rising from the table, she carried her half-empty mug to the sink and ran water into it. Gil could see the tension in her posture as she stood staring out the narrow kitchen window.
When she’d rinsed the cup a full two minutes, she finally turned off the flow of water and turned to face him. Her expression was closed, unfathomable. Gil waited. His gut told him that her next few words would affect both their lives.
She pulled a dish towel from its holder and slowly wiped her fingertips. “And that’s it? The truth?”
“Every word.”
“I’m still confused about one detail.” She nibbled her upper lip, a habit he knew meant she was deep in thought. “You told me you had to go to Los Angeles on business and...and you never came back.”
He nodded, glad for the opportunity to finally address what she obviously perceived as his desertion. “That’s right. We had a tip that the babies were being transported out of state, to California. I made a trip to the field office in Los Angeles to request their help in running records’ checks. Adoption records are sealed in most states, so I needed some friendly muscle to gain access to those files.”