Читать книгу Newborn Conspiracy - Delores Fossen - Страница 8

Chapter One

San Antonio, Texas Six weeks later

Mia Crandall peered out the double glass doors of the Wilson Pediatric clinic to make sure there wasn’t anyone suspicious lurking in the parking lot. There were a handful of cars, no one on the adjacent sidewalk and no one who seemed to be waiting for her to come out.

Everything was okay.

Well, everything but the niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach, but Mia had been living with that particular feeling for months now. She was beginning to wonder if it would ever go away.

She looked down at her newborn son, Tanner, and smiled. He was still sleeping, tucked in the warm, soft covers of the baby carrier. For his six-week-old checkup, Mia had dressed him in a new blue one-piece baby outfit and a matching knit cap. Still, it was winter, so she draped another blanket over the top of the carrier so he wouldn’t get cold. She retrieved her pepper-spray keychain from her diaper bag and hurried out into the bitter weather.

It was already past five-thirty and the temperature had plunged since she’d first gone inside nearly an hour earlier. She’d had one of the last appointments of the day. Not accidental, but by design. The winter sun was already low in the sky and Mia hoped the duskiness would prevent her from being easily seen.

The wind slammed into her face, cutting her breath, but she kept up the fast pace until she made it to her car. During the past year, she’d learned to hurry, to stay out of plain sight, to go out as little as possible. It was second nature now.

She strapped Tanner’s carrier into the rear-facing brackets mounted in the backseat and then slipped in behind the steering wheel. She started to turn on the engine, but the sound stopped her.

There was a sharp rap on the passenger’s side window.

Mia’s gaze whipped toward the sound and she saw a man staring at her. But this wasn’t just any ordinary man.

Oh, God. He’d found her.

Choking back a gasp, Mia grabbed for the lock, but it was already too late. Logan McGrath pulled open the passenger’s door and calmly got inside her car as if he had every right to do just that.

He was dressed all in black. Black pants, black pullover shirt and black leather coat. His hair was midnight black, as well, and slightly shorter than it’d been when she had seen him six weeks earlier. Maybe it was all that black attire that made his eyes stand out. They were glacier blue. Cold, hard. Demanding.

She remembered that he’d been hurt the night she had given birth to Tanner. He’d used a cane and could barely walk. But he didn’t seem at a disadvantage now. She couldn’t say the same for herself. He outsized her and no doubt had years of martial arts training. Still, she had something he didn’t.

A maternal instinct to protect her son.

Mia forced herself not to panic. She thrust her hand in the diaper bag and located her cell phone. She was about to call 911 when Logan McGrath caught her wrist and took the phone from her. He also took her keys with the pepper spray and the diaper bag, shoving all the items on the floor next to him.

When he moved, his leather coat shifted, just a little. Enough for her to get a glimpse of the shoulder holster and gun tucked beneath it. But then, he probably didn’t go many places without that firearm.

Mia lifted her chin and put some steel in her expression. There was no way she was going to let this man take control of the situation.

“Get out!” she ordered.

“Soon. I came to pick up my bathrobe. You took it with you when you left Fall Creek.”

So, he obviously knew who she was. Not that he would likely forget delivering a baby on his brother’s front porch. He was also obviously good with the sarcasm. Calm and cool under pressure.

Unlike her.

Her heart was beating so fast she thought it might leap out of her chest. Mia couldn’t let him see that fear, though. For her baby’s sake, she had to get this man out of her car. Somehow. And then she had to get far away from him so he could never find her again.

“I’ll mail you the robe,” she informed him. “Write down your address and then get out of my car.”

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. It didn’t soften the rock-hard expression on his square jaw or high cheekbones. But that expression did soften when he glanced back at the infant seat.

Mia’s heart dropped to her knees. God, this couldn’t be happening. She’d been so stupid to go his brother’s house that day. Now, that stupidity might cost her everything.

She couldn’t physically fight him off, though she would try if it came down to it. However, maybe she could defuse this awful situation with some lies.

“I’m grateful to you for delivering my baby,” she said, hoping that it sounded sincere. Because she was sincere about that. The rest, however, was pure fabrication. “I went to your brother’s house because I was driving through Fall Creek and realized I was in labor. I saw the MD sign on his mailbox and stopped.”

He turned in the seat, slowly, so that he was facing her and aimed those ice-blue eyes at her. “How do you think I found you, Mia Crandall?”

She froze. Gave it some thought. And her mouth went bone dry. Because she couldn’t speak, she shook her head.

Logan McGrath calmly reached over, locked the doors, retrieved her keys and started the engine. He turned on the heater and waited until the warm air blew over them before he continued.

“I had DNA tests run on the blood you left on the porch,” he explained.

Of course he had.

Logan McGrath was a man who thought like a criminal. Too bad she hadn’t wiped up after herself, but then she hadn’t exactly had the time or energy for that chore. Mia had barely been able to get Tanner and herself to the car so she could get to the hospital in San Antonio. During that entire drive she’d been terrified that McGrath would follow her. His injury had probably prevented that from that happening, it was highly likely that he hadn’t been able to drive.

“I’m sure you know that your DNA is on file because of your former job as a counselor in a state women’s shelter,” he continued. “Once I had your name, I found an address for you here in San Antonio. You’d moved, of course. So, I took a different approach to locate you.”

And Mia thought she might know what that approach was. “You hacked or bribed your way into the appointments of pediatric clinics all over the city because you knew that I’d be taking my baby in for a six weeks’ checkup.”

He nodded. “Hacked is not quite the right word. I had police assistance to help me put all the pieces together.” He lifted his hands, palms up in an exaggerated gesture. “And here we are.”

“Not for long.” Because she needed something to do, Mia clutched the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. “Look, if you want money because you delivered my baby—”

“You know what I want, and it’s not money. It’s not my robe, either. I want answers.”

Mia glared at him. “No. No answers. Get out of my car and out of my life.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

He leaned closer, violating her personal space. He smelled dangerous. And very virile, which she was sorry she’d noticed.

“Let me help you with those answers,” Logan continued, his Texas drawl easy but somehow dark. “I already know a lot about you, Mia Frances Crandall. Born and raised in Dallas, you’ve had a tough life. When you were fifteen, two drug-crazed teen burglars broke into your home, murdered your parents and left you for dead.”

Mia automatically touched her fingers to her throat, to the scar that was still there. It was faint and barely visible now. Unlike the invisible wounds beneath.

Those scars would never fade.

“I don’t have time for a trip down memory lane,” she grumbled. She forced back the brutal images of that night in Dallas. “I need to get home. My baby will be waking up soon and will want to nurse.” Now, she leaned closer, hopefully violating his space. “Nurse, as in breast-feed. You might make your living doing shocking, violent things, but I’m guessing you’d be very uncomfortable watching me nurse Tanner.”

Something went through his eyes. “Violent things?” He looked genuinely insulted.

Mia wanted to curse. Now, he obviously knew that she was aware of who he was. She just kept getting deeper and deeper into this hole she was digging.

“I own a private security company,” he corrected.

Since there was no going back, Mia just charged forward. “You lend your services and your guns in war zones,” she challenged.

“Occasionally.” He lifted his shoulder. “When it’s necessary to rescue people and protect American interests abroad.”

Mia huffed. “That’s semantics. You’re an international hired gun.”

“I’m the good guy.” He hitched his thumb to his chest.

“That’s debatable.”

“Says who?” he fired right back at her.

Now, she put her thumb to her chest. “Me.”

There was slight change in his breathing pattern. It became heavier, as if he were annoyed.

“We obviously have strong opinions about each other,” he concluded. “Care to hear my opinion about you?”

“No.” And Mia didn’t even have to think about that.

“Tough. You’re going to hear it. A little less than a year ago, right around your twenty-eighth birthday, you decided that you wanted to have a baby. There was no man in your life, no immediate prospects of marriage, so you went to Brighton Birthing Center just outside San Antonio. They have a fertility clinic there, and you made arrangements to be artificially inseminated. It was successful. You got pregnant on your first try.”

He knew.

Mercy, he knew.

“How did you learn that?” she asked, swallowing hard.

“Careful investigative work over the past six weeks.”

“It’s not illegal to use artificial insemination to become pregnant. It’s a private matter. And it’s none of your business.”

Even though she knew it was his business.

Hopefully, he didn’t know that.

He opened his mouth, closed it, and waited a moment. During that moment, he looked even more annoyed. “I don’t know why you did what you did, but obviously something started to go wrong. You got suspicious of the Brighton Birthing Center. So, days before the center was closed because of illegal activity, you made an appointment with your fertility counselor, and when the counselor left the room to get you a glass of water that you requested, you took some files from the counselor’s desk drawer.”

Mia hadn’t thought it possible, but her heart beat even faster. “If I did or didn’t do that, it’s still none of your concern.”

“But it’s true. I managed to get my hands on some surveillance tapes. You took two files.”

That was correct. Unfortunately, it’d also been a mistake. Mia had intended to take only her own file that day. She’d taken the other one accidentally because it had been tucked inside hers.

She wished to God that she’d never seen that file.

“The police have already questioned me about this,” she admitted. “They agreed that I was right to have had doubts about Brighton. I gave them the files I’d taken and they let me go. End of story.”

“Not even close. What made you suspicious of Brighton?”

She almost refused to answer, but maybe he knew something about this, as well. Maybe the tables would be reversed and he could provide her with some answers.

“Someone was following me,” she explained. “Then once, someone actually tried to kidnap me. After that incident, I went to the police and they found a miniature tracking device taped on the undercarriage of my car. By then, there were rumors that Brighton was being investigated for illegal adoptions and lots of other criminal activity.”

He shrugged. “So why take the files?”

“I thought I was just taking my file. I wanted to make sure there were no…irregularities. Because by then, I’d gone through the insemination and was nearly five months pregnant. I wanted to verify that they hadn’t done anything that would ultimately harm my baby.”

That earned her a flat look.

“And you know the other file that you took was mine,” he tossed out there to her.

Because Mia didn’t think it would do any good to deny it, she nodded. “I don’t know how it got mixed in with mine.”

“Don’t you?”

Surprised with his increasingly icy accusations, she shook her head. “No. I don’t.”

“Did you read the file?” he demanded.

“I glanced at it, because I didn’t know what it was at first. I thought it was part of my records.”

He made a sound to indicate he didn’t believe her. “I’ll bet you did more than glance. But then, you already knew what was in it, didn’t you? You’re the reason that file was at Brighton.”

Stunned, Mia stared at him. She hadn’t expected him to say that. Nor did she know why he’d said it. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course, you do. Five years ago, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I’m cured now, but because my treatment could have left me sterile, I decided to stockpile some semen. It was stored in Cryogen Labs, here in San Antonio. That file you took, the one tucked inside yours, was my file from Cryogen.” He paused. “What I want to know is why you did it?”

Tired of the ambiguous questions, Mia threw out her hands. “Did what?”

He huffed as if he thought she were stonewalling him. But she wasn’t. Mia had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

“He’s your nephew,” he said, enunciating each syllable. “That’s what you said right after I told you that you’d had a son. You said that because—”

“I was delirious.” Her voice was so filled with breath that it hardly had sound.

“No. You said it because you thought it was true. You thought I was my brother. Therefore, you thought my brother had a nephew. And since he’s my only sibling, there’s only one conclusion I can draw from that.”

Logan McGrath stared at the carrier seat. “Judging from what I’ve uncovered, the little boy that I delivered is my own son.”