WITNESS PROTECTION 02: The Baby Rescue

by Margaret Daley

“Did you ever see the person who rented the house?”

  “A woman a week ago but I haven’t seen her since. She had a cute yellow bug.”

  “A Volkswagen?”

  “Yes.”

  “There wasn’t a man with her?”

  “Not that I saw. I keep an eye on the neighborhood, but even I have to sleep.”

  Colton descended the steps to the sidewalk, studying the white brick house next door.

  Lisette poked a card through the small opening. “Call me if you think of anything else. Thanks, Mabel. You’ve been a big help.” She started to turn away and stopped. “Oh, Mabel, what did the woman look like?”

  “A looker. Dark hair, curvy body. Probably broke a lot of men’s hearts.”

  “How tall?”

  “Don’t rightly know that. Average, I guess.”

  “How old would you guess her to be?”

  “Twenties. Thirties.”

  “Who’s the landlord?”

  “He lives on the other side. Ron Perkins.”

  “Thanks again.” Lisette hurried to catch up with Colton, who plodded across the yard in the snow toward the house in question. “The lady she described could be Hannah Adams, except for the color of the hair. She’s blonde.”

  “That could be a wig.” Colton mounted the couple of steps to the front door and knocked since there was no doorbell.

  Lisette went to the window, but the blinds were closed and there was no way to look inside. “Let’s go ask the landlord to let us in.”

  “You go ahead. I’ll stay out here and watch the house and neighborhood.”

  At Mr. Perkins’s, she quickly explained their need, and he grabbed his keys and went back with her.

  “A nice lady rented the house for the month. Paid me cash. She had a friend coming to spend some time in Denver.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Harriet Peabody. She showed me a driver’s license.”

  “Did you take down her license number and address?”

  “Sure did. I’ve got it back at my place.”

  When Lisette ascended to the porch, Colton extended a gloved hand and opened the door. “I tried it and it wasn’t locked. Do I have permission to enter your rental?”

  Mr. Perkins nodded.

  Lisette turned to the landlord. “Would you please go get me the information you have on Harriet Peabody?”

  The bald man grinned. “Sure. I always like to help the police or, in your case, the FBI. I’ll be right back.”

  Lisette decided to stay on the porch until he returned so Mr. Perkins wouldn’t come inside. Her instinct told her Harriet Peabody was Hannah Adams. Maybe something in the house would confirm that. She felt they were getting closer to Saunders, but would they be too late to keep Baby C from being sold?

  * * *

  Colton would first do a walk-through to see if he could find anything to indicate that Saunders had been staying here, especially with Baby C, or evidence of who this Harriet Peabody was. Hannah Adams? There were similarities in the description of the two women. Stepping into the second bedroom in the house, he scanned it, not seeing anything that caught his eye except there was a drawer missing in a dresser. He moved around the twin bed to get a better look and nearly stumbled over the drawer on the floor with a blanket lining its bottom.

  Where Baby C slept?

  Possibly. But he didn’t want to jump to conclusions just because he wanted it to be that way. That would probably mean the man who shot Buddy Smith was Saunders and he’d made a run for it with Baby C. With a description of the car he was driving, the police might be able to track it down. He prayed that was the case because each day they didn’t find the child the chances grew that she’d become lost to them.

  “Did you find anything?” Lisette said from the doorway.

  “Possibly where Baby C slept. I’ll call in the crime scene techs and hopefully they’ll be able to pull Saunders’s fingerprints from here. Maybe the woman’s, too.”

  “If she’s in the database. Saunders is, but she might not be. We already checked on Hannah Adams and she isn’t. We need a set of her fingerprints to compare to the ones we find here.”

  “My gut is telling me she’s involved somehow with Saunders. But if Harriet Peabody isn’t Hannah Adams, then at least when we find the woman who rented this house, we’ll have evidence to support our case against her.”

  Lisette moved farther into the room, rounding the bed and staring at the drawer on the floor. “I’ve got the information from the landlord about Harriet Peabody. I’m having one of the FBI agents at the office run it for me. If Saunders was the one here, I’m sure the info is bogus. I showed Mr. Perkins the picture we had from the hotel camera of Little Bo Peep―Hannah Adams. It wasn’t clear, but he thought it could be Harriet Peabody in a blond wig. I’ll bring back a better picture later and see if he can ID her positively.”

  “So now we have to wait.”

  “We still have Hannah Adams to interview.”

  “I’d like to wait until after we get the evidence back from this house. If Hannah Adams is involved, the best way we might discover what’s happening at the clinic is to have you go in undercover. I don’t want to tip her off that we suspect her.”

  “As a client or employee?” Lisette adjusted her glasses and glanced around the bedroom.

  “The more we investigate, the more I think you need to get a job at the clinic. Marshal Benson has been monitoring the activities of the clinic, and he told me this morning they have an agreement with a nursing agency for temporary help when needed. He’s contacted the owner and can put you in as a nurses’ aide. From what I understand, your duties would be mostly following the orders of the nurse or doctor at the clinic. Setting up for patients, cleaning up after they leave, taking information down. They have someone going on vacation in a couple of days.”

  “In two days?” She sighed. “I’ve had first aid training. I’m sure I can take a crash course on what would be expected of me as a nurses’ aide. I think I need to do that.”

  “I think so, too. You really only have one day since we’ll probably be tied up today. I’ll ask Marshal Benson to set someone up for tomorrow to help you.” Colton pulled out his cell phone and arranged to have a crime scene unit go through the house for evidence. “Let’s finish our walk-through, then go back to Smith’s and see what Quinn has discovered.”

  When Colton turned toward the hallway, he spied a trash can partially behind the door. He strolled to it. “Dirty diapers are in here. Small ones.” He looked toward Lisette. “We’re getting close.”

  She nodded. “I can’t wait to bring that man down.”

  Colton followed her into the hallway and strode toward the last bedroom, making a survey of the room. Nothing. “I’ve still got the kitchen, then we’ll leave.”

  When he arrived in the kitchen, he stopped in the middle, noting the food out on the counter and a pan on the stove. He walked to it and peered into it. “Soup.” Gesturing toward the can nearby, he added, “Chicken noodle. Another half an inch and it would have been gone in the pot,” then reached to turn the burner off.

  “I did that once with some water I was boiling. Forgot all about it until a burning smell reminded me. It scorched my stovetop.” Lisette opened the refrigerator. “Two baby bottles in here. He must have really made a fast getaway if he didn’t take these.”

  “And that could lead to mistakes.” Colton started for the front of the house. “We’ve done what we can until forensics has been run on this place.”

  Outside again, Colton breathed in a deep gulp of air as though that would cleanse him of the dirty feeling he had after going through the house. Selling babies was about as low a person could go in his book.

  Lisette paused next to him, her eyes closed.

  “You felt it, too. The evil in that place.”

  “Yes. The only consolation is that he will keep Baby C alive because she is important to him. I’ve been involved in several kidnappings where that wa
sn’t the case. One child was killed. That broke my heart. I had a difficult time recovering from it. I was so angry at the Lord for letting that happened.”

  “He isn’t the one who kidnapped the baby. A person was. Bad things happen to good people. In this life there is no Garden of Eden.”

  “But you console yourself with the fact that justice will prevail in the end. If not in this life, the everlasting one. Where were you when I was struggling with that?”

  Facing her, he clasped her hand, something he would normally consider unprofessional and something he wouldn’t do, but the pain dripping off Lisette’s words made the gesture feel right. “My outlook took years to form. I used to get angry like you. I’d rail at God. Then I read a passage in the Bible where it says, ‘Vengeance is mine,’ and it began to fall into place for me.”

  One corner of her mouth lifted. “Now if I could just work on forgiving, life might be a little easier.”

  “I’m working on that one, too.” He released her hand and began walking toward Smith’s house. “When we have time, you can tell me about yours and I’ll tell you about mine.” That sentence slipped out before he realized what it would mean to him. He wanted to take it back, but maybe he said it because he did need to share with a person he respected and cared about.

  She didn’t say anything. Instead, she increased her pace as though needing to put some space between them. It had to be her mother. She’d shut down the last time she’d been close to saying something about her mother.

  Colton opened the front door to Smith’s house, and Lisette proceeded inside. The crime scene techs were processing the living room. Quinn saw them and crossed to them.

  “So far nothing to give us a lead to Saunders. But Smith had a book with phone numbers and access codes to websites on the internet. One of the entries for a phone number was listed under D.S. on the last page. I’m figuring that’s Don Saunders.”

  “Did you try the phone number?”

  Quinn smiled. “Yep, and a man answered. I’m positive it was Saunders. He hurriedly hung up, and when I called back, it rang until a recording picked up. I want to leave and see if I can track anything on Saunders’s phone number.”

  “It’s probably an untraceable cell number, but we need to run it down. Lisette and I will stay. Another team is coming to process the house near the end of the block. I think Saunders was staying there, and he was the guy that shot Smith.”

  “I’ll call you if I discover anything useful.”

  “Let me know when you rule it out as a lead.”

  “Sure.” Quinn left the house.

  As the door clicked shut, Colton’s cell phone rang. He noticed it was the sheriff’s office. “Marshal Phillips.”

  “This is Sheriff Dailey here. We found the white car you identified leaving the scene of the crime.” The sheriff went on to describe where the Chevy was in a rural area just south of Denver.

  “Did you get anything from the vehicle?”

  “No. It was set on fire, out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Fan out and search the area. I’m sending you a picture of the man I think was in the car. He may be on foot with a kidnapped baby. I’ll be right there.” He disconnected with the sheriff, caught Lisette staring at him and continued, “He’s making mistakes. He’s harried and not thinking things through. I hope this doesn’t cause an innocent baby to be hurt.”

  NINE

  Lisette stared out her side window in the car at the scene of the abandoned Chevy in the field. The charred remains of the car disturbed the pristine white of the snow—that and myriad footprints marred it. Three law enforcement officers were at the scene with the one in the center probably the sheriff.

  After buttoning her heavy coat, Lisette put on her gloves. “I hope they know which tracks are Saunders’s. Having snow can be a good thing unless the path has been destroyed.”

  As another sheriff’s car arrived and parked behind Colton, he opened his door. “I’d hoped they were already searching the area nearby.”

  “It might be a man power problem.”

  “That’s why I called the state police to aid us, as well.”

  Lisette paused next to the Jeep. “From what I see, all footprints lead back to the road. I can’t see any going away from the car in any other directions. So why did he drive off here―” she pointed at the set of tire tracks going down the gentle slope to the pasture “―through the fence and into the field?”

  “And why set the car on fire? To cover any forensic evidence?”

  “We don’t know for sure the sniper is Saunders so that might be why. The person in the house left in a hurry, leaving his food cooking on the stove, so I guess trying to cover up any evidence might be why, but it calls attention to the car immediately.”

  Lisette traversed the incline, following in Colton’s steps next to the tire tracks in the snow. “The sniper might be someone different than who was at the house. It looks like someone walked in these tracks.”

  “Easier than plowing through a foot of snow.”

  A slamming car door drew Lisette’s attention. A medium-height man held the leash of a bloodhound. “Looks like we’ve got some help.”

  “Good. There are a lot of questions. Few answers.” Colton shook hands with the sheriff when he had finished giving instructions to his deputies.

  Sheriff Dailey greeted Lisette with a nod. “There is one set of footprints leaving the car. The driver walked back there―” he pointed toward the road “―using the tracks he made in the snow. I called Al to bring Boomer, but I suspect the driver either got a ride with someone or he was picked up by an associate.”

  “That’s a definite possibility. Saunders has people helping him.”

  Al with his bloodhound joined them. “What’s up?”

  The sheriff bent over and petted the dog. “We need to see where the driver went after leaving the car. If he hiked somewhere, we need to know that. It’s hard to tell on the road. My deputy pulled up and what footprints were there were run over.”

  “Boomer, let’s get to work. The faster we find the driver, the faster we get to warm back up.”

  Colton stepped forward. “I’m Marshal Phillips, and we believe this is an escaped criminal. This is Agent Sutton of the FBI. We appreciate you coming out on this cold day.”

  “I heard a child was involved. I’d come out in a blizzard if I had to.” Al squatted and whispered something to Boomer, then when he stood, the bloodhound took off with his handler trailing after him.

  Colton followed with the sheriff while Lisette stayed back a moment to examine the car. “It looks like he set the seat on fire and it spread from there.”

  “Yes, ma’am. That’s what I figured, too.” The deputy glanced at the dog and his handler. “I’m sorry I drove over the footprints up on the road. At the time I was responding to a call about the fire from the dispatcher, and I wanted to see if anyone had managed to get out of the car and was hurt.”

  “Who reported the car on fire?”

  “The dispatcher didn’t know.”

  “Male or female?”

  “Female.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone on the road as you drove here?”

  “Nope. I came from the north so they must have headed south.”

  “Thanks.” Lisette strolled around the car. What kind of game was Saunders playing? Was he even in the car? Was the woman Harriet Peabody in it?

  “Lisette,” Colton called out. “The trail leads this way.” He waved his hand south.

  Lisette hustled toward the road, the movement warming her body, but the wind cut through the layers of clothing to chill her when she crested the incline. On the pavement she hurried and caught up with Colton. “So he walked for a while.”

  “It looks that way.”

  The sheriff’s cell rang, and he answered it. “Yep. I know where that is. We’re not far.” He turned toward Colton and Lisette. “A man was found on the side of the road about a mile down thataway.” He pointe
d south.

  “Is he dead?” Lisette asked, wondering if it was Saunders.

  “Nope but unconscious. The lady who found the man called 9-1-1 for an ambulance.”

  “What lady?” Colton started walking again to keep up with Al and Boomer.

  “Don’t know. She didn’t leave a name, and her number couldn’t be traced.” Sheriff Dailey sprinted after Al.

  “A lady called in the fire on the car,” Lisette said, throwing a glance toward the field before they went around a bend in the road and lost sight of the charred car.

  “Someone with Saunders? That’s possible. The footprints were messed up as if Saunders or someone purposely made them wide.”

  “I wonder what Hannah Adams is doing right now?”

  “Great idea. We should see if we can find her. Keep an eye on her. She’s the only woman besides the courier we know is involved, and since the courier is being tailed, it probably isn’t her.” He removed one glove and placed a call to Marshal Benson. After filling him in on what was happening at the car, Colton continued, “See if Hannah Adams can be found and watched. She should be at work.” When he hung up, he smiled at Lisette. “Maybe you won’t have to cram tomorrow for the nurses’ aide job.”

  “I’m fine with that. I have to say I hate being reminded of school.”

  Colton’s eyebrow rose. “You waited until the last minute to cram for a test?’

  “Yes.”

  “I never took you for that. You’re so thorough in your job.”

  “And you?”

  “No, I always studied ahead of time so I relaxed the day before the test.”

  She chuckled. “I didn’t take you for that.”

  “So we both have surprises.”

  Boomer stopped ten yards up the road and sat. Al pivoted toward them and said, “The trail ends here.”

  The sheriff glanced around. “I don’t see a man.”

  Colton reached him. “Maybe this is where someone picked up our suspect. It doesn’t feel like we’ve gone a mile. He could have incapacitated the driver up the road, around that curve, then stolen his car.”

  “We’ll keep going a little longer and see if Boomer picks up anything,” the sheriff said to Al.