Dylan nodded, then glanced toward the house where neighbors were still gathered in small groups on the lawn and on the porch. “Feel like another walk around the block?”
“Why?”
“Fewer people. There are a few more questions I need to ask you.”
“I’ve already told you everything,” she protested. “Paul was only on the line a minute.”
Dylan grinned. “You just think you’ve told me everything.” He gestured toward the sidewalk. “You game?”
Uncertain what more she could possibly add, she still set off around the block again, albeit at a slower pace. Suddenly she was aware of just how hot it was. The late morning heat rose from the cement in waves. The sun beat down, making her clothes cling and her hair damp. It was hardly the time for a stroll, but then this wasn’t about getting a little exercise or even settling her nerves. It was about Dylan grilling her, she realized as he began to bombard her with questions.
“First thing you heard when you picked up the phone?” he asked.
“Bobby’s voice,” she said at once.
“Right away? There wasn’t a pause. Kids don’t usually speak right off. It takes them a second to realize there’s somebody on the line.”
She thought back. Had she heard Paul coaching him? Telling him to say hi to mommy? “Paul,” she said with a sense of amazement. “I heard him telling Bobby to say something.”
Dylan nodded his approval. “Good. Anything else? Cars? Dishes being set down on a counter? Music? A clock striking the hour? A church bell?”
Kelsey slowed her pace, then stopped and closed her eyes, listening to the silence, listening with everything in her for some clue. Finally she sighed with frustration. “Nothing,” she said, staring at Dylan in disappointment.
“No TV in the background?”
“No. I told you, I didn’t hear anything except Bobby’s voice, then Paul’s.”
“What about road noise? Could he have been on a cell phone?”
“He has a cell phone. No broker can live without one. They might miss the big deal,” she said sarcastically. “But it didn’t sound like that. It was just…” She shrugged. “I’m sorry. It was just a regular call from some everyday phone. They could have been anywhere.”
He turned her to face him, kept his hands on her shoulders. “It’s okay. You’ll listen differently next time. Pay less attention to what’s said and more to the background.”
“But you told me to ask questions,” she retorted with mounting frustration. “How can I ask questions and listen to the background all at once? God, I can’t do this. I’m no good at it.”
“You’re not supposed to be good at it. No one should ever have to be good at it,” Dylan said heatedly. “But you’ll do the best you can.”
She gazed up at him, feeling that unfamiliar wave of helplessness roll over her again. “I hate this,” she said vehemently. “I’m his mother. I should have been able to protect him. I’m a doctor. I make other people’s kids well and I can’t even keep my own safe.”
“You’re a doctor and a mother, not God,” Dylan reminded her with surprising gentleness. “Nobody expects perfection.”
“I do,” she said. “My whole life has been about getting it right. My parents were overachievers, who expected me to excel, and I did. Full scholarship to the University of Miami med school. Straight A’s. Top of my class. I had my pick of internships and residencies. Kelsey Donnelly James was one of the best and brightest,” she said with self-derision. “What does it matter when my son is snatched right out from under my nose?”
Dylan’s grasp of her shoulders tightened just enough to snap her out of her bout with self-pity. “Did you teach him not to go anywhere with strangers?”
“Of course.”
“So if some stranger had come up to him in your backyard, what would he have done?”
“Screamed for me. Run to the house. That’s what I always told him, make a lot of noise and never, ever go with somebody he didn’t know.”
“Right. So you prepared him for that threat.”
She nodded, beginning to see his point.
“You didn’t think you needed to tell him not to go with his own father, did you?”
“No,” she conceded, exhaling a tiny sigh. But she should have. Wasn’t Paul the bigger threat, maybe not more dangerous than a stranger, but certainly the most likely candidate to come after Bobby? In the back of her mind wasn’t that precisely why she had insisted on sole custody, why she had moved so far from Miami? She said none of that to Dylan.
“Bobby had no idea that going with his dad was wrong,” Dylan consoled her. “This is about Paul violating a court order, not anything you did or didn’t do to protect your son.”
“Still, if I’d been watching more closely, Paul couldn’t have gotten to him.”
“You plan on never working at the clinic again?”
She regarded him indignantly. “Of course not.”
“You going to take Bobby inside and lock the doors and windows until he’s old enough for college?”
“No,” she said, even though the idea was so preposterous that it didn’t even deserve a response.
“Kelsey, there are risks, especially in the world we live in today. Los Pin˜os is a great little community. It probably has fewer crimes than most places. You can prevent a lot of bad things, you can prepare for some, but just when you think you have every angle covered, something unexpected can come along. Unless you want to stop living, you can’t protect Bobby from every single one of them.” His gaze locked on hers and he spoke with added emphasis. “You did not do anything wrong. I can’t say that strongly enough.”
She wanted to believe that, almost did because Dylan said it so forcefully, but until her dying day she knew there would always be a nagging doubt that she could have done something more.
What, though? Would she really have warned Bobby about his dad, turned a little boy against his own father? Would she have gone that far? A more vindictive woman certainly would have, maybe even one with a stronger sense of self-preservation. She’d believed the court-approved custody agreement and distance were enough. Paul had desperately wanted her silence, because anything else would have destroyed his career. He’d wanted that agreement as badly as she had. So she’d trusted him to honor it.
And for reasons that definitely escaped her now, she hadn’t wanted to take away Bobby’s good memories of his dad. She’d wanted those to be salvaged for some future date when Paul got his act together and could be trusted to be with his son again.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said wearily. “He’s gone. I just have to concentrate on getting him back.”
“Exactly. Let’s stay focused on that.” He studied her intently. “Just a couple more questions about the call, okay?”
She started to protest that it was a waste of time, then stopped. “Fine. Anything.”
“What was the first thing you asked Paul?”
“About what Bobby was eating. He said junk food.”
Dylan nodded. “Nothing specific, though?”
“No, just junk food.”
“And then?”
“About his clothes. If he was warm enough.”
“And what did he tell you?”
“That it was summer in Texas,” she repeated, then stopped as she realized what she’d said. “He said Texas.” She felt a grin starting to spread across her face. “They’re still in Texas.” It was such a small clue, but she felt like jumping up and down.
Dylan grinned back. “See? I told you there was more locked away in your memory than you realized. That’s a start. We don’t have the whole country to worry about right now, just the state. He’s sticking close, Kelsey. I can feel it. And if he’s nearby, we’ll find him.” His gaze settled on her. “Will you be all right? I want to get back to work.”
She nodded. “I’ll be fine. Where are you going? What will you do now?”
“I’ll stop by the sheriff’s office. I want t
o touch base with Justin, see if they’ve come up with anything. I’ve got some calls out for information. I need to check to see what’s turned up.” He glanced toward the house. “Lizzy waiting inside?”
Kelsey nodded. “Yes. I don’t know what I’d do without her, but she can’t stay forever. Somebody needs to be at the clinic. We have patients scheduled.” She thought of a whole slew of kids who were due in this week for their preschool checkups, all her responsibility. “I should—”
Dylan cut her off. “You should be right here. Everything else can wait. I’m sure if someone needs a doctor for an emergency, they’ll know to reach Lizzy here. She can have the clinic’s calls forwarded.”
“But there are shots,” she protested. “The kids need them for school.”
“And they’ll get them. We’ll have Bobby home soon and you’ll get right back to work. A few days won’t make that much difference.”
She supposed he was right, but it just seemed so irresponsible to be putting her own crisis ahead of duty. Her uptight mother would be appalled. A Donnelly always took care of obligations, no matter what. How many times had she heard that? How many disappointments had she endured as a child because duty called, keeping one or both of her parents away from some triumph that mattered to Kelsey, but no one else, at least not enough for them to be there? She halted that line of thinking, because it was counterproductive. It was in the past. Everyone had history they’d had to overcome. Her life was no different.
In the here and now, she could admit that a few delayed shots wouldn’t be the end of the world. The kids would no doubt relish the reprieve and the parents would understand. So would the school system, if it came to that. This was a town where people mattered more than schedules and rules. And if some poor bureaucrat didn’t believe that, Harlan Adams would be more than willing to explain it to him.
“I’ll bet we could search the whole town and not find a single kid who’s upset at not getting a shot,” Dylan teased gently, as if he’d read her mind.
“You’re probably right about that, though the word is that I am very slick with a needle. In and out before they even know what hit them. And I have some very good lollipops for the brave.”
He looked taken aback by her evident pride in that particular skill. “I’ll keep that in mind next time I decide to get a flu shot,” he said. “Probably won’t be any time this century, though, so don’t keep an appointment open for me.”
She laughed at the thought of this tough guy being scared of shots. “Why Dylan Delacourt, don’t tell me you’re afraid of needles.”
“Afraid?” he retorted indignantly. “No way. Just of the people who go poking around with them and especially of those who so obviously enjoy it.” He gave her a disconcerting once-over. “Though I’ll bet if anyone could give me a shot and make me like it, it would be you, doc.”
With that and a wink, he was gone before she could fully absorb the compliment. What was wrong with her? Her son was missing and she was getting all warm and mushy inside because a private investigator was acting mildly flirtatious. He probably hadn’t even meant anything by it. He’d just been trying to lighten the mood, to lift up her spirits.
And it had worked, too. She went back inside feeling a whole lot better than she had when she’d hung up after Paul’s last call.
“Is that pink in your cheeks from the sun or from a certain detective?” Lizzy demanded when Kelsey found her in the kitchen.
“It’s hot out,” Kelsey declared, but she kept her gaze averted because Lizzy had always been able to see right through her.
“Whatever it is,” Lizzy replied, “it’s good to see some color back in your face. You’ve been too pale. I’ve been worried. You were starting to look defeated. Now you look as if your fighting spirit is coming back.”
“Oh, yes,” Kelsey declared. “If I ever get close enough to Paul to get my hands around his neck, he’s a dead man.”
Lizzy beamed. “Now there’s a thought.” She held out a glass of iced tea. “Shall we toast to it?”
Kelsey took the tea, rubbed the icy glass against her cheek, then took a long swallow, savoring it as it soothed her parched throat. She felt better than she had in more than twenty-four hours. Her emotions were no longer on such a wild roller-coaster. She knew now exactly what she was dealing with. Paul had Bobby somewhere in Texas. It was a big state, but not impossible to search, not with the people and resources committed to helping her.
There was comfort in that, she realized. Dylan had made the illusion of control possible by putting everything into clear focus, by giving her concrete things to do when Paul called, by ferreting out the one clue that had slipped past her. She would be listening even closer next time. Not so much as a whisper of background noise would escape her. If getting Bobby back depended on it, she would listen like a hawk.
And with Dylan’s help, she would sort through the most innocuous of clues until she had her precious son back home.
Chapter Five
Dylan had never been so thoroughly frustrated in his entire career. They couldn’t seem to catch a break. Paul James wasn’t making mistakes. He wasn’t leaving a trail. Even Kelsey’s discovery that he was apparently holding Bobby someplace in Texas wasn’t going anywhere.
And with every hour that passed, there was a very real likelihood that he would slip out of their grasp for good, if that was his intention. He was that clever.
“Damn,” Dylan muttered, looking over the list Becky had compiled of the motels within a hundred-mile radius. “Not a sign of him. I was so sure he was close by.”
“I’ve moved on to the next counties,” the dispatcher told him, her own frustration evident.
“Where can he be staying? Surely he wouldn’t take that boy to some cheap, fleabag place. Do you think he’s left the area? If he’s gone to Dallas or Fort Worth or any other big city, there are too many hotels and motels for me to check between handling other calls. We’d have to have more help.”
Dylan didn’t even want to consider that just yet, but it was a real possibility he couldn’t ignore. A father traveling with his son wouldn’t stand out in a metropolitan area the way he would in some small town where people were attuned to the comings and goings of strangers.
Worse, despite what he’d said to Kelsey in this morning’s call, by now Paul could have left Texas entirely. He could have hopped a plane and fled the country, for that matter. That’s what Dylan would have done, if he’d gotten a notion to take Shane. He would have gone as far away from Texas as he possibly could to stay out of the law’s reach.
Of course, as far as he knew, the two situations were entirely different. He’d voluntarily given up custody of Shane for his son’s own good. He’d made a solemn vow—not just to Kit, but to himself—that he wouldn’t intrude in the boy’s life again.
For the most part, he’d stuck to that promise. Except for one person, no one knew about the lapses and he prayed to God no one else ever would.
He’d made three trips to see Shane, only from a distance, of course. Just to reassure himself that the boy was getting along okay. He believed with all his heart that he’d done the right thing in giving up custody, but he’d needed to see the evidence of it with his own eyes.
It hadn’t been hard to track Kit and her new husband down. They were living in a fancy suburb of Houston on the opposite side of town from Dylan’s own place. It wasn’t like they’d made a secret of it. He hadn’t had to go digging through confidential records to find them. They were in the phone book for anyone to find. That was how much Kit had trusted him to keep his word.
And he had—more or less. He’d just driven through the neighborhood a couple of times during the first few months after she’d remarried. Okay, once he’d lingered down the block from the house, waited until he’d seen Shane playing in the yard with his new brothers.
Even now his throat tightened as he recalled how happy the boy had seemed. Shane had dogged the footsteps of his new big brothers, trying to
keep up with them, and they had been oh-so-patient with a toddler tagging after them. Watching them with a mix of amusement, nostalgia and sorrow, he knew he hadn’t been half that patient with his own kid brothers. In the end, he had driven away reassured.
It had been over a year before he’d paid another visit. He’d realized one day in October that Shane would probably be in preschool. The fact that he’d missed his boy’s first day of school had overwhelmed him. Another cursory check of the phone book had led him to the school closest to Kit’s. He’d parked a block away from the playground, then kept his eyes peeled for some sign of his dark-haired son.
He’d spotted Kit first, waiting on the sidewalk as Shane ran out, a red lunch box in one hand and a brightly colored finger painting in the other. He’d been chattering a mile a minute even before he reached his mother. Dylan had longed to hear the sound of his voice, but he’d been too far away. Thankfully, Kit hadn’t seen him…or so he’d thought at the time.
A week later the finger painting had turned up in his mail. The picture had been a childish rendering of a mother, a father and three boys. Even though no note had been attached, the message was unmistakable—this was Shane’s family now.
That picture and a few photos that he’d taken from Shane’s baby album were all he had of his son. He kept them tucked away in a dresser drawer, so no one else would know that he hadn’t completely forgotten the little boy he’d given up.
He needed his family to believe he was okay with his decision, that he never looked back. He couldn’t take having to defend the choice over and over again. Though his father and brothers avoided the topic, it was always there, albeit unspoken, especially around holidays.
Only Trish and his mother dared to broach the subject aloud—Trish out of love and concern, his mother for her own selfish reasons. In fact, his mother never let up with her pestering. She had complained bitterly about giving up all rights to see her first grandchild, at least until Trish had had Laura. Now the grumbling had died down, but there were still enough barbs directed his way that Dylan knew she hadn’t entirely forgiven him. He suspected his father also resented his decision to give up the first male heir to the Delacourt oil dynasty, but after Dylan’s rebellious defection from the family business, Bryce Delacourt had learned his lesson. He knew better than to bring it up.
Dylan and the Baby Doctor Page 6