by Julie Miller
Dwight listened to the succinct instructions at the other end of the line.
“Can’t we just meet at the clinic?” he asked, hating the idea of leaving his car at one location and being driven to the real meeting place. He didn’t give a damn about the car. He just didn’t want to be at a disadvantage if something came up and he and Maddie needed to make a quick escape.
“If you want me to expedite the adoption, you’ll have to do things my way.” The mysterious Roddy revealed nothing about himself, his background or his identity, either through his words or his smoothly politic accent. “And don’t bother with a personal check. I only deal in cash. Half now, half on delivery. If you meet my requirements, that is.”
“One of the reasons we came to you was so that we didn’t have to go through all the checks the government agencies insist on.”
“Trust me, Mr. Payne. If you and your wife are suitable parents—” by that, Dwight could guess he meant that the Paynes’ personal assets met his asking price “—then you’ll have your baby within twenty-four hours. Do you have a preference for a girl or a boy?”
Dwight thought of the little boy sleeping down the hall and Maddie’s unconditional love for him. If they were really adopting a child together, she’d love the kid no matter what the gender or skin color or health issues. He wondered if her heart was big enough to work any other miracles—maybe one that included him.
Maybe Maddie could tell him what the kid meant when he looked at him with those knowing blue eyes.
“Mr. Payne?”
Dwight tore himself away from his thoughts and got his head back in the game. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll be there.”
After hanging up, Dwight knelt on the bed, facing Maddie.
“Well?” she asked.
He touched a finger to her lips, easing the anxiety stamped there, regretting that last night had come to an end. “We’re on, Mrs. Payne. I’ll call A.J. to get the money and explain the setup.”
She nodded, dutifully stepping into her role. “I’ll call Cooper. He promised to watch Tyler.”
“As soon as we’re dressed and everyone’s in place, we’ll go.”
“And bring Katie home,” she insisted.
“And bring Katie home.” Dwight leaned in and kissed her. He hadn’t lied to Maddie yet. He prayed he wasn’t lying to her now by promising something he couldn’t deliver.
Because he knew that if he couldn’t return Katie to her alive and safe—if he couldn’t restore her family—then last night would be…their last night.
“COMFY, MA’AM?”
Maddie had nearly leaped out of her skin when the short, wiry man who’d identified himself as Morales had driven up to their rendezvous at the Independence Center Mall in a white pickup truck. Some of the events in the parking garage two days earlier were hazy in her mind. The truck had been so fast she couldn’t clearly identify the model. And from the protective barrier of Dwight’s shoulders, she’d only been able to catch a glimpse that there was no plate to trace. Like this truck. While she would never forget the horrible sound of the speeding truck hitting Cooper and Roberta, visually, everything—including the driver—had been a blur. She couldn’t recall if she’d seen Morales before or not.
Perhaps if she’d gotten a chance to smell him, she’d have remembered him more clearly. The man seemed to have an aversion to soap and a liking for foods that were heavy on the garlic.
He didn’t seem to recognize her. Still, Maddie sidled closer to Dwight on his side of the pickup’s bench seat and kept her eyes averted to the proprietary grip of his hand on her knee.
“I’m fine, thanks.” She finally managed to eke out a few words when she realized Morales was waiting for a response. Beyond that, she let the two men talk as they bounced along a county highway leading north toward Liberty, Missouri, and hoped that Dwight’s casual questions could elicit some useful information for the detectives and tacticians listening at the other end of their hidden microphones.
Once upon a time, she’d thought of Dwight as hard and invulnerable. He did have the cool, calm don’t-mess-with-me routine down pat, as he did right now, chatting up Morales. She’d seen it in the courtroom, nailing the case against her brother-in-law. She’d seen it in the way he challenged a killer with a knife in order to protect her and Tyler.
But she’d also seen a side to Dwight Powers that she suspected few people ever did. The private man. The man who knew grief and guilt and emptiness on a very personal level. The man who hurt and needed and loved with a depth of emotion that was raw and humbling.
Men like Morales and Zero—and strangers who never got to experience the well-guarded personal side of Dwight Powers—would never know that he was more human than his reputation let on. She ached for the pain and need she’d seen in his eyes and felt in his touch. She rejoiced in the rare smiles and even rarer glimpses of humor. And she vowed that she would protect the heart and soul of this man she secretly loved—just as fearlessly as he’d always protected and watched over her.
“So we’re not heading into Liberty proper,” Dwight observed, more for A.J. following somewhere behind them in his black Trans-Am than out of his own curiosity.
“Nah.” Morales steered the truck onto a twisting gravel driveway, apparently a back entrance to their destination. “The boss likes his privacy. That’s what the mothers expect, too, when they come here. A lot of them don’t even tell their families they’re pregnant because no one cares.”
Maddie felt the calming squeeze of Dwight’s hand on her knee before she could even get the words to deny Morales’s sweeping claim out of her throat. Her nod of understanding was masked by the bouncing of the truck. She wouldn’t give them away by getting into an argument about her love for Katie.
“How sad,” Maddie responded instead. “Will we get to meet any of these girls? Or see their babies so I can choose which one I want?”
Morales laughed. “You can’t be too choosy. There’s just one mother in the clinic right now. She gave birth last night to a little girl.”
Maddie’s hope plummeted a notch. One mother? Katie had given birth three weeks ago. Surely, he didn’t mean that she…that Katie wasn’t…Maddie squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the sting of tears. She couldn’t do this now. She couldn’t give up when they were so close to finding out the truth.
She felt Dwight move beside her. “Here.” He pushed his handkerchief into her hand and urged her to dab her eyes. When Morales questioned what was going on, Dwight had a ready explanation. “She gets emotional whenever we talk about this baby stuff.” They traded manly-man winks. “You can see why I’m so anxious to get this adoption done.”
“I hear ya, man.” Morales stopped the truck at a black wrought iron gate and pressed a button on the visor above him. The gate slowly rolled to one side, revealing rows of trees surrounding a tall red-brick building. “We’re here.”
Maddie couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder as the gate closed behind them. Would A.J. and his men still be able to track their whereabouts? Could they get inside the iron gate and perimeter fence if she or Dwight needed their help?
Ten minutes later, she wondered if the police could find them, even if they got inside the building, after following Morales through so many twists and turns of white-paneled hallways that she’d lost her sense of direction. He took them to what must be the front of the clinic building, past closed patient rooms that she longed to peek into, past the window of a nursery where a lone infant in a pink knit cap slept in a plastic bassinet. He led them past the janitor’s closet and into a well-appointed office. He offered them both a plush chair to sit in, poured them each a glass of water and asked them to wait while he fetched Roddy.
As soon as they were alone, Maddie popped out of her chair and paced the room. “Do you think there are any hidden cameras watching us?”
“It’s hard to tell.” But Dwight had stood, as well, and was turning a slow circle, studying the perimeter of the room. “We just have to make
sure we’re good guests who mind the rules, Mrs. Payne.”
Maddie nodded, understanding his coded reminder not to panic and blow their cover. She set her glass on the corner of the dark walnut desk that filled a good third of the room and let her gaze wander over the contents on top as she carefully worded her questions. “Did you see those patient rooms? Do you think Roddy would let us go in and meet some of the expectant mothers? It would give us a better idea of what the babies were going to look like.”
“Don’t push it, Red. We’ll get what we came for, I promise.”
“Dwight, look.” Her gaze fell on the open Kansas City Journal spread across the center of the desk. “He’s reading the article about Roberta Hays.”
Maddie picked up the paper and folded it into a manageable square to study the government ID photo of Roberta that had been printed beside the article about the unfortunate accident at the courthouse garage. “The reporter says that some of the witnesses he interviewed worried that Roberta’s accident was some kind of terrorist attack.”
She knew the truth and felt a twinge of suspicious recognition gnawing at her. That accident hadn’t been any random act of terror. The truck barreling toward them had been very deliberate, very personal.
Suspicion became a full-blown connection as she homed in on the name beneath the photograph. “Roberta Fairfax Hays. Fairfax is her maiden name.”
“You find something?” Dwight asked, coming to her side and looking over her shoulder at the paper.
“The man Roberta introduced me to yesterday, the one she was so afraid of—his name was Craig Fairfax.”
“You asked me if I knew him. There’s nobody working at the courthouse with that name. Unless he’s somebody brand-new.”
Maddie crumpled the paper in her hands as suspicion transformed into all-out dread. “I don’t think so.”
Without invitation or concern about any sort of hidden surveillance, Maddie tucked the paper beneath her arm and quickly sorted through the items on the desk. “If Roddy is Craig Fairfax, he’ll know me. Even if my face doesn’t look quite the same, he’ll remember me.” She opened one drawer after another and searched inside. “He recognized Tyler. I’m sure of it now. He touched him. It was creepy. But I couldn’t figure it out. Roberta knew that Craig knew Tyler. They must be in this together. But she had Tyler that day she took him to the doctor. If she’s part of this, why did she bring him back to me?”
“Whoa, whoa.” Dwight’s hands stilled her frantic search, urging her to remain calm. “You’re rambling again. You think this Craig Fairfax and Roddy are the same person?” Apparently, he believed the possibility enough to risk direct communication through his microphone in his collar. “A.J., check it out. Find out how Fairfax and Roberta Hays are related.”
Maddie found a box of business cards and pulled one out. “R. Craig Fairfax. Attorney-at-law.”
“We can run his name through the bar association.”
She pulled out another card when the words on them changed. “Rodney Craig, PhD. Young adult therapist. Oh, my God.” A counselor for young adults? Like someone a confused, pregnant teenager might go to for advice? “Dwight.” Maddie hugged her arms around her stomach, feeling sick. “Between him being a counselor and Roberta working for DFS, they could have their pick of pregnant girls.”
He circled his arm around her shoulder and pulled out the next card himself. “Roddy Craig. Talent agent.” Dwight stuffed the cards back into the box and closed each drawer. “We’re going to need a search warrant for any of this to be usable in court. And I want the charges against this guy to stick.”
Maddie finally got a grip on her fears and helped Dwight straighten the desk back to its original, pristine condition. “Okay. But we have to get out of here. He’ll know me.”
“We’re going.” He shut the last drawer, grabbed her hand and hurried to the door. “We’ll let A.J. run the aliases.”
“Wait.” Maddie stopped in her tracks and pulled the newspaper from under her arm. She tried to unfold it as she hurried it back to the desk. “What about Katie? Can’t we search the rooms? The grounds? See if she’s here?”
“Leave that to A.J. We have to get out of here. Now.” He tossed the paper onto the desk and dragged her toward the door. “Hell, A.J., while you’re at it, see if Fairfax ever owned a black Impala.”
Maddie heard the soft swoosh of the door swinging open and plowed into Dwight’s back before she realized he’d stopped. Before she realized they had company.
“I never did, actually. But my sister, Roberta, does.” The twin points of Craig Fairfax’s receding hairline deepened to resemble devil’s horns when he smiled. “She had a hissy fit when I borrowed it to do some construction work in Mission Hills. When she took it back, I reported it stolen just to remind her of who was really in charge in this family.”
“TKO.” Maddie muttered the panic word.
“What were you doing in Mission Hills?” Dwight asked, as coolly as if this were some kind of cross-examination. “Sizing up potential customers?”
Fairfax tapped a finger to his nose, apparently impressed by Dwight’s astute deduction. “My business runs strictly on word of mouth. So I have to make sure I’m drawing in the right sort of clientele. I’ve decided that the two of you aren’t exactly what I’m looking for.”
“Funny,” Dwight countered, sliding between Maddie and the black steel gun Fairfax pulled from beneath his jacket. “You’re exactly what I expected. Little man who thinks he’s clever. No heart, no guts. Where are your bullies? ’Cause I know, even with that gun, you don’t have the guts to take me on by yourself.”
“Dwight.” Maddie tugged at his sleeve, wishing she wasn’t feeling the same tightening of muscles she’d seen when she’d found him punching out his demons in his basement gym. “Maybe you shouldn’t push.”
“He preys on vulnerable teenage girls, desperate parents and innocent babies.” A fist flexed at Dwight’s side. “Hell, Red. I’ll bet you could take this guy one-on-one.”
Take this guy? Was that some sort of undercover code? Was she supposed to do something?
Fairfax tilted his head to the side and shouted. “Now, you morons!”
A panel in the office wall opened behind her and Morales and a dark-haired man bigger than Dwight himself stepped out.
“Told you he was afraid of a fair fight,” Dwight drawled.
“TKO!” Maddie clutched fistfuls of the back of Dwight’s jacket and huddled close as the two men advanced. The big man held a gun like Fairfax, but Morales carried a small, black leather box. The smaller man unzipped the box and pulled out a syringe filled with a clear liquid. “What’s that?” she asked.
Morales grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to find out?”
“Not yet,” Fairfax cautioned. He looked straight at Dwight. “Double the dosage.”
“You can’t have drugs like that—much less administer them—without a medical license.” Maddie said, not knowing whether to be more afraid of the gun or the syringe. But a little of the fire Dwight was trying to taunt out of Craig Fairfax had started to lick through her veins.
“My sister was a certified midwife in another life. Before we moved to Kansas City. You’d be surprised what she can get her hands on.”
“Roberta’s a midwife?” What happened to social worker?
“My sister and I have been a lot of things over the years, Mrs. Payne. Or should I say McCallister?” Craig Fairfax rested the barrel of his gun against Dwight’s heart, warning him to be still as he reached beneath Dwight’s tie and unbuttoned his shirt. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure, sir.”
“Dwight Payne,” he insisted.
“Uh-huh. And I’m the fairy godmother.” His eyes darted briefly to Maddie, then back to the task of tearing open the front of Dwight’s shirt. “To answer your earlier question, no, there are no hidden cameras. But microphones are another story. I’ve been listening to your report from the moment you came in. Fortunately, no one else has.�
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Dwight never flinched, never looked away from the older man as he reached inside and pulled out the listening wires. He plucked the tape from Dwight’s skin, ripped the microphone from inside his collar and ground the whole rig on the tile floor beneath his shoe.
“I’ve been at this for too many years to let a plant get inside one of my clinics and record anything.” Fairfax patted around Dwight’s waist and legs while the big man held them at gunpoint. He pulled Dwight’s wallet from his back pocket. “No weapon. You’re not a cop. You must be the boyfriend Roberta said cleaned the floor with Rinaldi before she shot him. Man, that pissed me off. She could have shot the baby.”
“Roberta killed Joe?” The curious question popped out of Maddie’s mouth before she could stop it. She replayed those last, chatty conversations with Roberta at the courthouse. “Wait. She talked about Joe in the past tense. Before it was in the papers. She knew he was dead.”
Fairfax laughed at her amateur detective work. “My dear sister grew a conscience the day Fitz and Morales here broke Rinaldi out of prison. She said the man was too dangerous to be around any child, that you and your boyfriend here made as good a set of parents as anyone we’ve ever sold a child to.” Fairfax leaned in and stood nose to chin with Dwight. Feeling the tension radiating through Dwight’s back, Maddie wondered which man was in greater danger at that moment.
“You’re the wild card in all this. Katie never mentioned Aunt Maddie having a boyfriend. All I wanted was for Rinaldi to convince Katie to tell me what she’d done with her baby. And if that didn’t work, he’d scare the information out of her by threatening her beloved aunt.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth, tsk-tsking the demise of his plan. “But there you were, going all bodyguard on us. I just never counted on there being a boyfriend.”
“I’m more than a boyfriend, Fairfax.” Dwight’s threat startled Maddie. What did that mean?