by Rebecca York
Do you think we could contact one of the local TV stations and ask if
they'd let me and Steve make a broadcast?
We could ask if anyone has seen Shannon, and also make a.
a.
plea for the kidnapper to bring her back.
Angel looked thoughtful.
"I-et's wait until the late news, just in case something develops in
the meantime. Also, it will give you some time to think about exactly
what to say, and for the police artist to produce a picture that the
camera can show."
Abby nodded eagerly.
Then she turned to Steve.
"What do you think?"
"I think I'm willing to try anything that will get our daughter
back."
Chapter Four
Back home in the pink and green nursery with its cute baby animal
wallpaper, Abby stood beside the empty crib, stroking her fingers along
the top of the railing like a blind woman trying to memorize a hard,
unyielding shape.
And in truth, she could barely see through the film of tears that
blurred her vision.
Somehow in the hospital and at the TV studio she'd held herself
together.
Here, however, she hadn't been able to keep back the tears of loss and
pain.
For weeks she'd imagined carrying Shannon into the house, up the
stairs, and into this room that she'd lovingly decorated for her
child.
Now she secretly wondered if she ever would.
She wiped her hands across her cheeks and stood straighter.
"I'll get you back," she whispered fiercely into the empty room.
"I will. You're in Baltimore. In the same city. Maybe not in the
apartment where Mrs. Hamadi claimed she was living, but somewhere
close by.
7 1
She wanted to hate Mrs. Hamadi.
She couldn't.
The woman had picked Shannon because she loved her.
And she'd take good care of her, just the way she'd learned in the
hospital.
At least that was something.
At least she knew Mrs. Hamadi had been trained to care for Shannon.
Abby squeezed her eyes shut as she pictured Mrs. Hamadi holding
Shannon and stroking a hand gently across her back.
"You don't exist in a vacuum," Abby continued, this time whispering her
words to the woman instead of her daughter.
"Somebody will recognize your picture.
Somebody will tell me where you're really living.
"Sweetheart?"
Abby wiped her eyes again.
Steve crossed the room and circled her shoulders with his arm.
"I heard you talking."
"To Shannon. And Mrs. Hamadi. I'm turning into a regular mental
case."
"No."
"I know it's stupid, but I can't help it. It makes me feel ...
connected."
Steve nodded.
"There's nothing wrong with that, if it helps you."
He tugged gently on her shoulder.
"We're both exhausted. Come lie down."
I can't.
"Making yourself sick isn't going to do Shannon any good."
Abby couldn't fight his logic.
In fact, after the longest twelve hours of her life, she couldn't fight
much of anything.
Wearily she allowed Steve to lead her down the hall to their bedroom.
Instead of getting undressed, she flopped down on top of the spread.
If Detective Angel called to say he'd found Shannon, she wanted to be
able to go to her immediately.
STEVE STRETCHED our beside his wife.
The day Shannon had been born, he'd wanted to lie down beside Abby and
take her in his arms, to shield her and protect her and show her how
precious she was to him.
Now he rolled to his side and pulled her close.
She pressed her face against his neck, and he felt her slender body
tremble in his embrace.
"We'll get our baby back," he murmured.
He didn'tknow if it was true.
He only knew his wife needed to hold on to that hope.
The way she was holding on to him.
He was pretty sure that if he said anything else, his voice would
break.
So he simply clung to Abby, fighting to get control of himself.
In the semidarkness, they lay that way for several minutes.
Yet there were things he needed to tell her, things he'd kept to
himself because he didn't want to worry her.
Since this afternoon, he'd realized how grave a mistake he'd made.
But it wasn't just a matter of not confiding in her.
It was also a matter of not taking action.
Abby must have sensed.
the unspoken words that were clogging his throat.
-'-'What?
"she questioned softly.
"I can tell how bad this is for you," he said in a low voice.
"It's bad for you, too. You just deal with it differently."
"Yeah."
He sucked in a sharp breath and let it out in a rush.
"Abby, I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault."
The confession he'd dreaded tumbled from his lips.
"Maybe it is."
' 'What?
" She put enough distance between them so that she could look at him.
" What do you mean?
How could it be your fault?
He wanted to twist away from her, but he didn't.
"Remember how you kept asking me what was wrong, what was bothering
me-besides Shannon being born early, I mean?
Abby nodded.
"And remember when you went into labor, and Jan couldn't find me?"
He swallowed.
" I didn't leave a number where I could be reached because I was in a
motel room near BWI airport being interrogated by two government
agents."
"Interrogated?"
Abby sat up.
He did, too.
"Yeah. Since then, they've been back to question me half a dozen
times. I'm pretty sure they work for the CIA."
"What does that have to do with Mrs. Hamadi-and Shannon?"
Reaching for the switch, Abby turned on the reading light hanging over
their bed.
They both blinked in the sudden brightness.
He ran his fingers through his hair.
"The CIA is desperate to contact Oliver Gibbs."
"Your old partner?"
"Yeah."
He went on to describe the sessions he'd had with the agents over the
past few weeks and the monitoring device he'd discovered in his
office.
"Why didn't you tell me?
" Abby demanded when he d finally run out of explanations.
"You had enough to worry about. I thought this was something I could
handle by myself."
Her brow wrinkled.
"I don't understand what the CI,N s looking for Oliver has to do with
our baby," she said.
"One of the agents threatened me by pointing out that I had a wife-and
child-now. He said I'd better worry about them if I wasn't planning to
play ball."
"Steve, the CIA doesn't kidnap the babies of American citizens to try
to force them to reveal information. It doesn't carry out any
operations inside the US. at all. That's illegal."
"So was Watergate. But maybe we're not dealing with the CIA. Maybe
somebody else is looking for Oliver and pretending they wo
rk for the
government."
Abby shook her head.
"We know who took Shannon. A sad, lonely woman who wanted a baby of
her own."
" Do we?
"Mrs. Hamadi was in the hospital this afternoon, but she signed in
with someone else's name. She was seen hurrying toward the stairs.
She falsified all of her records."
"'That doesn't disprove anything I've just said! She could have been
working for somebody else."
"Did you share your hypothesis with Angel?"
"No. The agents warned me to keep the investigation confidential. I
don't know whether or not ratting on them would make things worse, and
I'm not about to put it to the test."
He couldn't stand the look of anguish on her face.
The only consolation he could give her was to drag her into his arms a
' , gain.
She clung to.
him, her shoulders shaking and her breath uneven, and he knew she was
fighting not to break into a million pieces.
God, he wasn't helping her.
He was making things worse.
"Steve, please-" The shattered tone in her voice tore through him.
"Abby, sweetheart. Everything's going to be all right. It's going to
be all right."
He said it over and over-for himself as much as her.
He wondered if she believed him.
"Help me get her back."
"I will. I will."
He pressed her close for a moment longer, then gently eased away from
her.
Still unable to face the pain in her eyes, he strode to his dresser and
began to pull open drawers.
"What ... what are you doing?"
, 'The only thing I can.
I'm going to find Ollie Gibbs and shake the truth out of him.
She stared at him as if she were trying to figure out whether she'd
heard him right.
"What?
'Sweetheart, I've sent messages to Ollie, but I haven't gotten any word
back.
The only way I can find out what's going on is to see for myself So I'm
using one of Jason Zacharias's contacts.
He's lined me up a small jet at Dulles Airport.
All I have to do is make sure I'm not being followed when I leave
here-or lose the tail.
And I still remember enough from the old days to do that.
66 So you're telling me you don't think Shannon is in Baltimore.
"Not necessarily.
I don't know where she is!
'And what should I tell Angel?
That my husband's gone off on a wild-goose chase?
"Tell him the truth-if you think he'll keep it confidential. It might
help with his investigation."
"Where is Oliver?"
He stopped in the act of pulling a shirt out of the drawer.
"One of two places. I'll check the most likely one-and then the
other."
"You mean somewhere in India? That's like saying somewhere in
Australia."
"Sweetheart, I can't be any more specific."
"Why not?
'You can't give out information you don't have.
He saw her fingers clutching at the bedspread.
"Are you telling me I can't contact you while you're gone?"
"God, Abby, I'm sorry. It's safer that way, for both you and
Shannon.
I'll check in with you in a couple of days."
" Listen to me," she said, her voice rising in frustration." Hamadi is
a Muslim name.
Muslims aren't that prominent in India.
What could this have to do with Oliver?
Steve sighed.
"He transports cargo to lots of places outside India. Pakistan, for
example. It's full of Muslims. Besides, you don't think Hamadi is her
real name, do you?"
He could see there was no way she was going to believe him.
Not, and keep functioning rationally.
She was clinging to the hope that her daughter had been stolen by a
lonely woman who would love her and take care of her.
But if what he was saying were true, then Shannon could be anywhere.
Literally anywhere in the world.
And God knew what kind of people had her.
He understood why Abby.
simply couldn't allow herself to think in those terms.
' But one of them had to do it.
"Maybe Angel will find her."
He crossed the room and gave her 6the last, fierce hug-, She held on to
him as if her arms around his body could keep him from leaving, but she
didn't continue the argument.
She knew him too well.
When he said he was going to do something, he did it.
Only this time, she probably thought he was off his rocker.
For all he knew, she was right.
But he couldn't keep repeating the mistakes he'd made over the past few
weeks.
If Ollie had something to do with this and he didn't find out, he'd
never forgive himself.
"You work on it from this end. I'll find out how Ollie fits into it.
That way we'll double our chances."
He knew she didn't agree with him.
But that was the best he could do before he forced himself to walk away
from her.
THE NEXT forty-eight hours were the longest of Abby's life.
Steve was gone.
Shannon was still missing.
Fear was a gnawing tiger in her chest that grew fiercer with every
passing hour.
She was bone weary, but she couldn't sleep.
Yet she kept going.
Somehow, she didn't allow herself to stop functioning.
Steve had let her down.
No.
She shouldn't think about it that way.
He'd left Baltimore because he was doing what he thought was right.
And if he couldn't be here to help her, she had to rely on her own
strength.
Dozens of tips had flooded in to the police after their late-night
television appeal, which had been rebroadcast on all the local channels
on the noon news.
Angel was doing what he could, but it took time and manpower to sort
the crank calls from the real possibilities.
The crew at 43 Light Street had pooled their skills and resources to
help with the search.
Jo and Cam were checking out leads.
Noel and Laura were trying to track Mrs. Hamadi through immigration
records.
Erin Morgan, Sabrina's former employee, was also in the thick of
things.
Recently appointed regional manager of Birth Data, Inc. , a search
service for adoptees trying to locate their birth parents, she had
turned her fourth-floor office into a clearinghouse for information.
She was also sifting through adoption requests on the theory that the
kidnapper might have tried to get a baby legally before she'd snatched
Shannon.
The early leads they'd gotten had not panned out.
Then the police received a call from the manager at the Greenway
Apartments off Putty Hill Road.
One of his tenants matched the woman's description-even down to the
pierced nose shown in the police drawing.
And a neighbor had complained of a baby crying the night before.