To Save His Baby

by Judi Lind

She drew a deep breath and leaned back, chin tilted high. For a moment he thought she was going to toss them out, but after a long unpleasant pause she nodded. “All right, what do you want to know?”

  “Where were you between five and eight on Friday evening?”

  “This week?”

  “Yes.”

  She tapped a manicured fingernail against her cheek. “Hmm. Got off work right at five, I believe, then ran some errands. Bank, post office, stopped at the mall. Then the grocery store. Guess it was after eight by the time I got home.”

  “The bank and the post office both close at five,” he said.

  Her poise unruffled, Monica didn’t miss a beat. “True, but the bank has an automatic teller and the post office has stamp machines and mailing slots in the lobby.”

  “Where do you bank?”

  “Pardon?”

  He shrugged. “Simple enough question. What branch did you stop at to use the automatic teller?”

  After another hesitation, during which he was certain she would refuse to answer his question, she finally divulged the name of her bank, adding that she couldn’t recall which branch she’d stopped at that particular evening.

  “But you must have the receipt.”

  Monica raised her elegant shoulders and let them drop. “I’m hopelessly disorganized. I doubt I still have the receipt.”

  “No matter.” Gil noted the name of her bank in his spiral pad. “We can check the bank records.”

  “What is this all about?” Monica asked suspiciously. “This isn’t about Dr. Weingold’s taking personal leave.”

  Time to show a couple more held cards.

  “Are you aware that the newborn infant of one of the WomanCare patients was kidnapped from its crib on Friday evening?”

  “No! That’s terrible! What can I do to help?”

  The words were right. Even her tone held the perfect tinge of shocked horror. But no emotion reached those pitch-dark eyes. Nor did she ask the identity of the patient. A strange omission.

  Gil intercepted an impatient glance from Valerie. He gave her a warning shake of his head, but she plunged ahead, anyway.

  “Monica, we have reason to believe that Sid Weingold is somehow involved. Anything you can tell us might help. Any small thing he might have said or done that you felt wasn’t...well, wasn’t right.”

  Tapping a finger on her sculpted cheekbone again, Monica appeared to consider the question. “He has been...crabby lately. Preoccupied. And...and I didn’t want to mention this because it seemed so silly, really, but the past few weeks he’s been hanging around the hospital nursery. Several nurses have complained that he was interfering with their duties.”

  “Now that is odd.” Valerie turned to Gil, her eyes bright with excitement. “Sid isn’t a pediatrician. His responsibility toward the newborn pretty much ends with a healthy birth.”

  They stayed another half hour, with Gil asking questions and Monica dodging them. Almost every query brought a sudden recollection of some unusual behavior on Sid Weingold’s part.

  Finally he stood up, along with Valerie, and handed her a business card. “Well, I thank you for your cooperation, Monica. As Dr. Murphy told me before we came, you’ve certainly been open with us. Wish everyone was so cooperative.”

  Rising gracefully to her feet, she swirled her silk lounging jacket around her generous chest and reached to take his hand. “The WomanCare clinic is the most important thing in my life. I’ll do anything I can to help you learn what happened to that baby.”

  “Does that mean I can come back if I have more questions? Since you probably know the skinny on everyone who works there,” he added when her brow furrowed.

  “Oh. Well, yes. Of course. Anytime.”

  She walked them to the front door, and Valerie led the way into the bright sunlight. Standing between the two women, Gil touched the locking mechanism on the door.

  “Thanks again for your help,” he said.

  “Yes.” Valerie smiled over his shoulder at her assistant. “You’ve been a big help.”

  With a brief wave of her manicured fingertips, Monica shut the door behind them as they strolled down the treelined sidewalk.

  They were halfway to the car when Valerie looked up at him. “What did you think? She certainly seemed willing to help.”

  “Yeah, right. She was willing to help us right down the garden path. That woman is up to her plucked eyebrows in this scheme.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  Stopping under the dappled shade of a weeping acacia tree, he enumerated the reasons on his fingers. “The first red flag is the fact that that woman’s living way above her means. I know, I know—” he held up a hand to block her ready objection “—we’ll check out the private income angle.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be completely exonerated.”

  He flicked the tip of her nose with his fingertip. “Point number two, Pollyanna—she didn’t throw us out or even demand her lawyer to be present when I played hardball at the beginning of the interview.”

  “But a lot of people have an instinctive...fear of the authorities. That doesn’t mean she’s guilty of anything.”

  “True, but most innocent people won’t be bullied in their own homes. Point three—she couldn’t remember which branch of her bank she stopped at two nights ago? Come on!”

  Val, still playing devil’s advocate, tossed her head in frustration. “We took her by surprise, dropping in like that. Maybe we woke her up. Maybe she was too rattled to recall.”

  “Possibly. Except I’ve never seen a woman wake up in full face paint. Point four—why didn’t she ask whose baby is missing?”

  For the first time Valerie’s confidence in her assistant seemed shaken. “You know, I wondered that myself. Maybe she didn’t think she was allowed to ask questions.”

  “Maybe. And my last warning signal was the way she kept piling everything on Sidney Weingold’s head. If she’d been that suspicious of the man, wouldn’t she have at least mentioned it to you before now? Since you’re her immediate supervisor, that would seem the proper course.”

  “I would think so,” she agreed. “Except that taken one by one, those odd episodes she attributed to Sid wouldn’t mean much. It’s the accumulation of all this strange behavior that has me concerned.”

  “Exactly. And she’s the one who recounted every incident.”

  “Oh!”

  He looked up at Valerie’s suddenly pale face. “What is it?”

  “I just remembered something.”

  He stopped and leaned against the pale green trunk of a paloverde tree. “So tell me.”

  “Nothing really.” She waved her hand like she was swatting at a pesky mosquito. “It...it’s just an odd incident. While you were gone, I think. Yes, I’m sure. In fact, it was shortly after you disappeared. I’d had a difficult delivery, a preemie. We were concerned about the baby’s lungs, so I went to the nursery to see if I could catch the neonatologist. The nursery’s kept very dim and quiet, so I didn’t see them at first.”

  “Who?”

  “Monica and Sidney. They were having a terrible fight.”

  “Over what?”

  “I’m not sure. I could only catch a few words and I didn’t want to interfere unless one of them asked me to, so I left them to sort it out.”

  “But something about that encounter bothered you, made your subconscious associate the incident with these kidnappings.”

  “I just can’t remember.” She rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “I remember thinking how unlike Sidney it was to be shouting at a nurse. He was so angry I could see the veins throbbing in his forehead.”

  “Sounds like mellow old Sidney has a temper. And you don’t have any idea what they were fighting about?”

  “No. Like I said, I couldn’t hear clearly but—Oh! I just remembered. It...it was about Natalie Brewer’s baby. He was screaming at her about the ‘Brewer infant.’ I remember wondering what Monica could possibly have to
do with that child.”

  Gil thought about the possible impact of the incident. The Brewer child was one of the victims. Neither Weingold nor Monica were regular nursery employees. So what had happened to cause such an argument? A falling-out among thieves?

  Something else bothered him. He turned to Valerie. “And you forgot about this fight?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. I was thinking about it yesterday, but I couldn’t imagine it had any bearing on this case. Then this morning, something Monica said reminded me and I decided to mention it. Why, do you think it’s significant?”

  He scowled in disbelief. Was she putting him on or what? “Of course it’s significant! It’s the first clear link between them. And you weren’t even going to mention it?”

  “I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to involve my friends in something this awful based on a half-heard argument.”

  Gil’s brow furrowed unhappily. “And you didn’t trust me to make that judgment?” He sighed. “It’s not looking too good for your pals, I’m afraid.”

  Sadness darkened Valerie’s eyes. “I know.”

  She stepped toward him and sagged against his chest, seeming so vulnerable he was almost diverted. She’d known something of major importance and hadn’t confided in him. Hadn’t trusted him to maintain his objectivity regarding her co-workers.

  Valerie lifted her head, her eyes shimmering with guilty tears. “One thing doesn’t make sense, though. If Monica and Weingold are partners in this thing, why was she so quick to point the finger at him this morning?”

  “To deflect suspicion from herself?”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  With his arm draped loosely around her waist, they continued walking toward the car. “She was pretty eager to foist him off as the sacrificial lamb,” Gil said, “so I’d say she has an escape plan in mind for herself.”

  He stopped and released Valerie. Then he turned and started strolling back the way they’d come.

  “Where are you going?” Valerie demanded.

  His head jerked toward Monica’s condo. “I just discovered that I must have left the car keys at Monica’s. Guess we’ll have to go back and check.”

  “What are you up to?” she groused as she hurried to catch up with him.

  He didn’t respond as she obediently tagged along. A few seconds later they were back at Monica’s doorstep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Oops!” Gil whispered as he nudged the door open with his knuckle. “Guess I forgot to shut it all the way when we left.”

  One look at his smug expression told her there was nothing accidental about the unlatched door.

  “You still have to knock,” she hissed in his ear.

  “Okeydoke.” Delicately tapping his index finger on the heavy wooden surface he made a pretext of knocking.

  “Guess she can’t hear us.” He led the way into the spacious foyer.

  Because they were both wearing rubber-soled athletic shoes, their steps were silent as they moved down the marble corridor. At the sound of Monica’s muted voice, Gil stopped and held his fingertip to his lips. After waiting a long moment to make sure she wasn’t aware of their presence, they inched farther down the hall, pausing by the entry to the living room.

  With her back to the foyer, Monica was talking in a frantic voice on a white-and-gold French-style telephone. “Don’t panic! I’ll get Earl to take care of them. You just come up with five thousand cash to pay for the outside help,” she added, malice dripping from her lips. “Since you don’t have the guts to do it yourself.”

  She paused, listening. “Don’t screw this up. They’re close, too damned close. We need to handle this today.”

  Stepping closer to the window, she raised her wrist and peered at her slim gold watch. “I’ll meet you in the hospital cafeteria at noon. Have the money.”

  She stalked back to the glass-and-brass console table and slammed the phone back on the receiver. “Idiot,” she muttered.

  By mutual accord, Gil and Valerie quickly retraced their steps and slipped back outside. Gil removed the wad of gum that held the lock open and gently closed the door behind them.

  “Come on!” He grabbed her wrist as they dashed down the sidewalk. “We don’t have much time.”

  The visitors’ parking lot was a couple of blocks from Monica’s condo, and Gil led a charging pace the entire distance. By the time they reached the Blazer, sweat was pouring down Valerie’s face.

  She leaned against the hot vehicle to catch her breath while Gil used her cell phone to have a surveillance team set up a stakeout at Monica’s condo. If she didn’t start going to the gym and getting in better shape, she was going to be in for a rough time when her labor started.

  “What’s the matter, Doc? I think you need more frequent... exercise.”

  She glanced up at Gil. The jerk hadn’t even broken a sweat “Guess what, Sherlock? We didn’t get the car keys back.”

  He made a theatrical show of patting down his pockets. “Oops, again. Guess I had them all along.”

  “You’re such a fraud, Branton. Good thing you chose this side of the law to be on,” she grumbled as he helped her into the Blazer.

  By now, he pretty much knew the route between Scottsdale and the Tepee Motel, leaving Valerie free to ponder what they’d overheard at Monica’s.

  The nurse’s sinister words kept digging into her mind, refusing to let go. A week ago the only crimes in Valerie’s life were the clever plots in her favorite Agatha Christie mystery movies. Now she feared she was the intended victim in a very real, very earnest, plan to commit murder.

  Seeking reassurance that she was being melodramatic, that her life wasn’t in jeopardy, she turned to Gil. “I keep thinking about what Monica said. About ‘taking care of them.’ For some reason, I don’t think she was referring to her nursing skills.”

  “No, I think she had a more permanent ‘cure’ in mind,” he said grimly as he negotiated a complicated freeway interchange. “Sounded to me like she was the brains of the operation and whoever she was talking to—Weingold, probably—was following her orders, not the other way around.”

  Valerie turned away and looked out the window, for once not seeing the hauntingly beautiful desert surrounding them. She could no longer deny the growing evidence that Sid Weingold and Monica Giesen were accomplices in the kidnappings. A sick feeling settled in her stomach. She couldn’t believe that someone she’d admired and trusted as much as Sid could be involved in a plot to kill her.

  The truth, however, was as undeniable as the new life growing inside her. Until yesterday, only Sid Weingold knew about her unborn child and that Gil was the father. Unfortunately he must have also known about Gil’s undercover assignment.

  By confiding in Sidney, she was the inadvertent cause of Gil’s accident, as well as her own. It was a chilling thought.

  Remembering the bitter fight she’d witnessed between Sid and Monica, she realized now that Sid must have been afraid she would report that encounter. So he had decided to protect himself by killing Gil.

  But why the attempt on her life? What did Sidney Weingold have to fear from her?

  Back at the Tepee Motel, she was so lost in her troubling thoughts it was a while before she noticed that Gil was very quiet. Almost morose.

  Throwing the keys on the battered dresser, he flopped onto the bed—the one they hadn’t been sleeping in—and leaned against the headboard.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  His eyebrow arched but he scarcely glanced up. “Five children have been stolen from loving parents in the past year, and I’ve failed miserably at getting any of them back. My prime suspect, your buddy Sidney, has apparently fled the jurisdiction.”

  “And?”

  “And what? Isn’t that enough?”

  “No. Not for a foul mood like you’ve been in since we left Monica’s. You knew all that last night and weren’t irritable and defeated. What’s changed?”

  “Last night
I thought we were in this together. Last night I didn’t know you were holding back. Keeping secrets.”

  Valerie’s heart leaped into her throat. Somehow, he’d guessed the truth. She couldn’t blame him for being angry. If the situation were reversed, she’d be furious at his duplicity. She had intended to tell him about the baby, regardless of how he would have reacted to the news. Even if he blamed her, hated her, she had still planned to share her secret with him. But would he believe her?

  “Gil, I was going to tell you. Truly.”

  “When? After I was pulled off the case for incompetence and shipped back to D.C.?”

  “No. Later this evening. I swear!” His response was a bitter glare. Her eyes pleaded for understanding. “When you first came back, I was angry. Hurt. I couldn’t trust you.”

  He waved an impatient hand. “I’ll give you that. You had every reason to be ticked off—even though I had a rational explanation for disappearing. But what about later, Val? Why didn’t you tell me later?”

  Because I was selfish. Because I knew you wouldn’t keep me involved. Because... Because she was still hurt, still bitter. If he’d really loved her as much as he said before he left for Los Angeles, wouldn’t he remember her? Remember all they’d shared?

  “You didn’t trust me, either,” she reminded him. “Before the accident in Los Angeles, you didn’t tell me why you were really at Parker Memorial. You took advantage of my friendship. My feelings. You used me.”

  “Ah. The best defense is a good offense. I see. So is that the way you want to play it, Val? Quid pro quo? I made a mistake last year, so you get to make one now?”

  “No, of course not. That’s childish...”

  “And really beneath you.”

  “Okay, okay. Let’s not degenerate into name-calling. I said I was sorry.”

  “No, you didn’t. You just told me what a bastard I’d been for not confiding in you when every shred of evidence I uncovered pointed to you as the perp. In spite of a damning mountain of evidence, I went out on a very skinny limb with my bosses in Washington. On your behalf.”

  She dropped her gaze as shame filled her. “I didn’t know that.”

  “I know.” He dragged his fingers through his hair, his voice calmer now. As if the anger that filled him like an incendiary device had finally fizzled out. “I should have told you what was going on before I went to L.A. I’m sorry.”