Читать книгу The Cradle Will Fall - Maggie Price, Maggie Price - Страница 10

Grace didn’t want to think about how natural it had felt to have Mark Santini in her kitchen again. Of how just sitting on the stool beside his had seemed so achingly familiar. Of how empty she’d felt when he acknowledged he would leave.

Again.

Of course Mark would leave. That was what he did. He jumped from city to city, case to case, then he moved on.

She had spent most of the previous night tossing and turning, reminding herself of his gypsy lifestyle. Reminding herself that no matter where he was, Special Agent Santini was on the road to somewhere else. His whereabouts were at the whim of the FBI, and that’s the way he liked things.

Now, as she walked beside him through fluffy, spiraling snowflakes toward the building that housed Loving Arms Adoptions, Grace shoved her gloved hands into the pockets of her coat, then fisted them. She was not going to do this again. Not going to let her crazy hormonal reaction to this hotshot cop with a killer face and fancy suits guide her like she had six years ago. She was smarter, wiser and had received enough hard knocks to know she couldn’t have everything she wanted.

Which didn’t really matter, since she no longer wanted Mark Santini.

Didn’t want any man at the moment. She readily admitted that the black, vicious grief she’d felt over losing Ryan—and later the child she carried—had sent her burrowing into a numbing emotional cocoon. If she ever got brave enough to peel off the protective layers and look for another man, she would set her sights on someone like Ryan. Her husband had been easygoing, as dependable as the sunrise. Mr. White Picket Fence who’d wanted to settle down and raise a bushel of kids. Again, she felt the bitter, dragging regret. She had never once thought of Ryan as a rebound love. Yet, when he overheard a conversation after he and Grace married about the reason she’d made the visit to Virginia to see Mark, that’s exactly how Ryan had viewed himself—as the man she’d turned to on the rebound. The man she’d settled for.

She and Ryan had barely started dating when she’d made that trip. She’d recognized something special about him, yet even then she’d known she couldn’t move on until she resolved things with Mark. So she’d gone to Virginia on the chance she and Mark might somehow be able to meld their lifestyles. There she discovered he’d already moved on with the leggy White House staffer.

She would regret for the rest of her life Ryan’s overhearing that conversation. Regret how deeply he’d been hurt. He had been dead nearly three years, yet the regret continued to hang over her like clogging, black smoke. What she did not need—did not intend to create—were additional regrets over Mark Santini.

So she would ignore the unrelenting, maddening chemistry that pulled her toward him, and do her job. Then watch him leave.

Again.

“Here’s hoping this goes smooth,” Mark said as he pulled the building’s front door open for her.

Nodding, Grace stepped past him into the lobby, an arty rectangle decorated in soft hues. She knew he wanted things to go without a hitch because the smoother they went, the sooner he could head to his next assignment. Unbuttoning her coat, she blamed the dry ache that settled in her throat on the sudden transition between the frigid outdoors and the warmth inside.

Loving Arms Adoptions was located in a multiroom suite with coral carpets and leather furnishings. A thin, fortyish woman in a gray suit sat at a well-organized desk, typing on a computer. She looked up when Mark and Grace walked in, turned from her computer and gave them a mild smile.

“Can I help you?”

They displayed their badges, then Mark asked to speak to the agency’s director.

“Do you have an appointment with Mrs. Quinton?”

“No, we have a subpoena,” he said politely. “If your boss is too busy to see us, we’ll serve the subpoena to you.”

“Wait here.” The woman popped out of her chair like a cork from a champagne bottle and hustled down a carpeted hallway.

Grace slid Mark a look. “You always did have a knack for getting a woman’s attention, Santini.”

He gave her a quick, smug grin. “It’s a gift.”

Grace tried to ignore the instant hot ball of awareness that all-too-familiar grin lodged in her belly. Dammit, the man was like a force field, hauling her closer, when all she wanted was to keep her distance.

Just then the receptionist reappeared and escorted them into a large office. Centered in the room was a dark wooden desk behind which a gray-haired woman with vivid blue eyes sat, taking them in.

“I’m Patsy Quinton,” she said, gesturing them to chairs in front of the desk. “Now that you’ve put my secretary in a tizzy, officers, what can I do for you?”

“We’re looking for a baby,” Mark said.

The woman nodded. “Most people who come to Loving Arms are.”

“A girl,” he continued, then gave the date Andrea Grayson had given birth. While he explained the facts of the case, Grace handed Mrs. Quinton a copy of the form Andrea had signed at the clinic authorizing her daughter’s adoption. “If the infant has already been adopted, we’d like to know by whom,” Mark finished.

The woman studied the form, her eyes sharpening after a moment. “I need to check something,” she said, then turned to her computer and began tapping keys. After a moment she eased out a breath. “I can’t help you.”

“We have a subpoena for your records on the child,” Mark said. “Also the written approval of the infant’s natural grandfather to view those records. If necessary, Sergeant McCall can contact a judge who will authorize a warrant for us to search your files for the information we need.”

Mrs. Quinton didn’t look impressed. “You and Sergeant McCall can serve me with a hundred legal documents, Agent Santini, but they won’t get you the information you’re looking for. We simply have no record on that infant.”

Grace leaned forward. “You mean the adoption is finalized and the record is sealed?”

“I mean we don’t have a record. That particular adoption was not handled by Loving Arms.”

Mark gestured to the copy of the form Quinton had previously scanned. “The form filled out at the clinic where the child was born states the adoption was handled by your agency.”

“Their paperwork is in error,” Mrs. Quinton said, concern clouding her blue eyes. “In more than one area, I’m afraid.”

Grace felt her shoulders tighten as her cop instinct clicked in. Something was wrong. Very wrong. “What areas?” she asked quietly.

“As I stated, Loving Arms did not handle the placement of this child. And there’s a problem with the signature at the bottom of the form. It can’t be right.”

Shifting forward, Mark studied the woman, his eyes giving nothing away. “There are two signatures on the bottom of the form,” he said. “The doctor who treated Andrea Grayson and the social worker from children’s services who picked up the infant from the clinic. Which signature can’t be right?”

“The social worker’s,” Patsy Quinton replied. “The woman whose signature is on that form quit her job about two years ago and moved out of state.”

Hours later Mark sat beside Grace in yet another office while warning blips pinged in his brain. He had learned long ago to listen to his instincts. They were currently sending the message that it wasn’t a paperwork snafu that had caused Andrea Grayson’s baby to seemingly disappear off the face of the earth.

The infant was gone.

Her mother dead.

Coincidence?

Mark checked the clock that hung on the wall of the small, cramped office. He needed to call D.C. to find out if the autopsy on Andrea Grayson’s body had been performed as scheduled. If so, he had some pointed questions for the pathologist. Right now, though, he wanted some answers from the doctor who’d delivered Andrea’s child.

“I don’t know how this could be.” Dr. Thomas Odgers sat behind a desk inches deep in paper, staring down in disbelief at the contents of a file folder. He was a balding, bearded man in his sixties with a baritone voice and wire-rim glasses.

At present, his face was as pale as his starched white lab coat. “I just… I simply don’t understand.”

Mark started to speak, but held back when Grace rose and moved to the desk. “How about I tell you what I understand, Dr. Odgers?” she asked in a mild voice. “You delivered a baby girl at this clinic whose mother subsequently died under your care. This clinic—of which you are the director—has paperwork stating the baby was picked up by a caseworker from children’s services for an adoption to be handled by the Loving Arms Agency.”

“Yes.” Adjusting his glasses, Odgers glanced down at the paperwork, then looked back up. “That’s correct.”

“One thing that is not correct is the caseworker’s signature,” Grace continued, gesturing at the form.

“Are you sure of that, Detective McCall?”

“Sergeant McCall, and I’m positive. Agent Santini and I spent quite a lot of time this morning at the adoption agency and then at the state’s children’s services office. Someone at this clinic forged the name of a caseworker who quit her job two years ago.”

“Dear God.”

“Another thing that isn’t correct on your form is the name of the agency slated to handle the adoption. Loving Arms has no record of this infant.”

His fingers steepled in front of his chin, Mark kept his eyes on Grace. They’d met while working on the Midnight Slasher task force, investigating the murders of a series of teenage prostitutes. He and Grace had teamed up to conduct interviews with several subjects. Mark had been impressed with her intuitive, no-nonsense interrogation skills and an intense passion to get to the truth. He was still impressed.

Just as he still felt the pull that had always existed between them. Would forever feel it, he supposed.

Six years was a long time, and he knew there was no sense in dredging up the past when the present demanded all his energy and attention. Yet, watching Grace, he wondered what their lives would be like now if she had moved to Virginia with him. If he’d had something more to offer her than just shreds of time.

“The state has contracts with three different adoption agencies,” Odgers pointed out nervously. “I feel certain our listing Loving Arms on the form was a clerical error. We named the wrong agency, that’s all.”

“That’s not all,” Grace persisted. “Agent Santini and I have checked with the other two adoption agencies that have contracts with the state. None of them handled this child.”

“I…don’t know what to think.” Odgers slicked a palm over his nearly bald head, now glistening with sweat. “I don’t know.”

Mark rose and moved to the side of the desk opposite Grace, a symbolic closing in on their quarry. “I suggest you come up with something, Doctor,” he said quietly. “As Sergeant McCall pointed out, the trail to Andrea Grayson’s infant starts and ends here.”

“I can only tell you what I know. I delivered the baby, then examined her again just before the social worker was due to pick her up.” Odgers looked back at the file, and Mark saw the face of a man whose mind was racing to find an explanation. “That’s the last time I laid eyes on that infant. I swear.”

Grace gazed down at him. “Did you see who picked up the baby?”

“No, but it’s rare I ever see the social workers. I’m either in exam rooms with patients or in here dealing with paperwork.” He held out a hand, palm up. “I’m sure there’s some logical explanation for the child’s whereabouts.”

Mark leaned in. “I hope so, Doctor.” He waited a beat, watching the man sweat. “If a social worker walked into the clinic right now to pick up a baby, who would that person deal with?”

“Today it would be Yolanda.”

“Today?” Grace asked.

“That’s because Iris is off. Iris Davenport. Her sister had surgery, so she’s staying with her during her recuperation. Iris usually deals with paperwork on all adoptions.” Odgers rechecked the form. “I remember now. Iris assisted with the birth of the child in question.”

Grace frowned. “You had a clerk assist you during a delivery?”

“No.” Odgers blinked several times. “Heavens, no. Iris is an RN, a very good one. The office staff is buried in Medicare, insurance and numerous other forms, not to mention patient records. Iris takes care of the adoption forms, and the office staff is glad to have her help.”

Wanting a clear view of the man’s face, Mark returned to his chair. “Doctor, if you know what happened to Andrea Grayson’s child, you’d better tell us now.”

“I don’t know.” The man’s hands fisted. “I felt awful when the mother died. The delivery had been an easy one, and she seemed fine. Minutes later, she began hemorrhaging. I tried to save her. I’ve been a doctor for forty years. I’m in the business of keeping people alive.” He pulled off his glasses, his eyes locked on Mark’s as if he were his only lifeline. “I don’t know what happened to the infant, but it’s crucial she be found. You have my full cooperation in this matter.”

Mark intended to run a thorough background check on the doctor, even though his gut told him the man was telling the truth. And his instincts were usually on target. He exchanged a look with Grace, and he could tell she agreed with him. He shifted his attention back to Odgers.

“Doctor, have there been similar deaths here?”

Odgers’s already-pale face turned gray. “Surely you’re not suggesting…”

“I’m not suggesting anything,” Mark said. “I’m asking a question, one of many you’ll have to answer. Have any other women hemorrhaged to death after giving birth here?”

“One. Nearly a year ago, I think. The young woman wasn’t my patient, so I’m hazy on details. I do know she’d been seeing Dr. Normandy. Frank Normandy. The patient delivered a healthy baby, then later bled to death.”

“What happened to her baby?” Grace asked.

“I…have no idea. I’ll have to pull the file.”

“Do that,” Mark said. “We’ll want to see Dr. Normandy.”

“He quit some time ago. Took a hospital job in Chicago to be closer to his wife’s family.”

“We need his personnel file.” Mark paused. “What nurse assisted Normandy when the woman died after delivery?”

“I’ll have to check.” Odgers swiveled in his chair toward his computer. Using his index fingers, he tapped on the keyboard. A moment later, he closed his eyes. “Iris,” he said quietly. “Iris Davenport assisted during that birth, too.”

“You didn’t get your wish,” Grace said as Mark followed her across her house’s shadowy front porch. The early-evening gloom was quickly transforming into a frigid darkness, so she had to squint to get her key into the lock. Neither Morgan nor Carrie had made it home yet, so no one had turned on the porch light.

“What wish?” Mark asked, his breath a gray puff on the freezing air.

“This morning you said you hoped things went smooth.” She caught the fresh pine scent of the Christmas wreath as she pushed open the door and stepped into the warm, inviting hallway.

“We definitely didn’t get smooth,” he agreed, his voice grave as he closed the door behind him.

The sense of dread that Grace had first felt during their interview at the adoption agency had intensified throughout the day and now felt like an anvil in her chest. “What we got were too many questions that no one seems to have the answers to.”

“Someone always has the answers.” Mark slid his gloves into the pockets of his black wool coat. “We just have to figure out who that someone is, then go after them.”

“You’re right.” She pulled off her gloves and coat, then opened the door to the small closet near the front door. “I’ve worked child abduction cases, but they were mostly one parent snatching a child from the other. Even though the child was missing, I was pretty sure he or she was safe. Being cared for.”

Mark gazed down at her, his face somber. “That’s not the type of child abduction case I get called to. There are a lot of sick scum out there.”

Saying nothing, Grace hung up their coats. She and Mark had been cops a long time and they’d seen too much evil. Still, she always hoped for a happy ending. Considering the nature of his job, she doubted Mark ever expected a rosy outcome.

When she turned, she saw he had moved a few steps down the hall and now stood at the arched entrance to the living room, the file folder he’d carried in from the car clutched in his hand.

“Is this where you want us to work?” he asked.

Stepping beside him, she reached for a wall switch, flipped it on. The lights on the Christmas tree winked on, looking like tiny white stars trapped in its limbs. What they’d found out today had left her in no mood for holiday cheer.

“No, not here.”

“Where, then?”

“Until the information we requested starts coming in, all we can do is brainstorm. Right?”

“Right.”

“Let’s do that in the kitchen while we eat. I’m starving and you should be, too, since you hardly ate anything at lunch.”

“I had soup.”

“Broth. You had broth, Santini.” She headed down the hallway, crooking a finger at him. “Follow me, and I’ll show you the difference between broth and soup.”

Twenty minutes later they sat side by side at the butcher-block island, steaming bowls in front of them.

Mark slid her a look. “So, this is soup,” he said, spooning up another bite.

“Didn’t take long for a sharp guy like you to spot the homemade noodles, chunks of chicken and other nutritious stuff.”

He nodded gravely. “I’m a professional investigator. I sleuthed out the nutritious stuff right off.”

“’Atta boy, Santini.”

He’d taken off his suit coat, loosened his crimson tie and unbuttoned the neck of his starched white shirt. Grace knew this was the first time she’d let herself relax since they walked into the adoption agency that morning, and she sensed the same went for Mark.

Sensed, too, that she had probably been nuts to bring him back to her house since she intended to keep their relationship on a professional level. The smart thing would have been to go along with Mark’s suggestion to wait at her office for the information they’d requested. It was just that the more time she’d spent in his presence, the deeper the lines of exhaustion in his face seemed to be etched.

So, why did she care if he looked tired? she wondered. Why give special consideration to a man who’d walked away so effortlessly six years ago?

With no answers to those questions forthcoming, she slid a hand into the wicker basket next to her plate, tore off two pieces of the crusty French bread she’d heated and handed one to Mark. “Butter?”

“No, thanks.” His gaze swept the kitchen. “Bran mentioned the remodeling of this place was a McCall family project. From what I’ve seen, you did a great job.”

“We think so.”

“How long did the entire project take?”

“A couple of months,” Grace answered. “Granddad and Gran oversaw things. They doled out assignments like they were drill sergeants. Everyone pitched in, carried their weight, except for…”

Mark gave her a puzzled look when her voice trailed off. “Except for?”

“It was right after Ryan died. Then I got sick…the flu.” And with her system so vulnerable, her resistance so weakened, she’d lost their baby, her final physical link with Ryan.

“Grace—”

“Anyway, I love this house,” she said, determined to force back the memories. “So do Carrie and Morgan. Having had the family’s help in breathing life back into the place makes it even more special.”

Her appetite gone, Grace set her bowl aside and squared her shoulders. “Ready to brainstorm our case?”

Mark watched her for a beat, then pushed his bowl out of the way. “Ready,” he said, while opening the file folder. “Here’s what we know so far. Nearly a year ago a fifteen-year-old girl named DeeDee Wyman gave birth to a son. The birth was without complications, the baby healthy. Wyman suddenly began hemorrhaging and died. Six months later, Andrea Grayson walked into the same clinic and became a carbon copy of Wyman, with the exception that she had a different doctor and gave birth to a daughter.”

Grace nodded. “From our checks with all three adoption agencies that have contracts with the clinic, we know none of them handled either infant, although the clinic’s records show differently.”

“Records filled out by Iris Davenport, the nurse in attendance during both births,” Mark added. “Records with the same forged signature of a former child services caseworker.”

“At this point, Iris Davenport—presently in Kansas City taking care of her ill sister—seems to be the solid link between both deaths,” Grace said. “And the two babies who have seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.”

“They’re somewhere,” Mark stated, checking his watch. “The background checks we requested on Davenport and Dr. Odgers should come through on your fax soon. And I ought to hear back anytime from the pathologist with the tox results of Grayson’s autopsy.”

“So we wait.” Grace gathered up their dishes, then headed to the sink. She rinsed the bowls, turned and ran into a wall of solid muscle.

“Sorry,” Mark said, gripping her upper arm to steady her.

“I…didn’t hear you behind me.”

“Just doing my part to help clean up.” He sat the wicker bread basket beside the sink, but made no move to put space between them.

Grace caught the faint whiff of his familiar spicy cologne, and felt her insides tighten. “Always…nice to have a helper in the kitchen,” she managed. Knowing she was between two seemingly immovable forces of granite-topped counter and muscled male had her skin heating.

Mark gazed down at her with concerned intensity. “Grace, I didn’t mean to upset you before. Mentioning the house. Bran told me Morgan and Carrie bought it about the same time Ryan was killed. I just didn’t think before I brought up the subject. I’m sorry.”

“It’s…okay.”

“From the look I saw in your eyes, it clearly isn’t okay. Ryan Fox was a lucky man to have found you.”

“I’m the lucky one,” she said, her voice an unsteady whisper. She had forgotten how easily Mark’s voice could take on that soft intimate tone. They were talking about her husband’s death, yet her blood was heating over her ex-lover’s voice.

The knowledge of how quickly memories of the way she used to feel for Mark consumed her had panic flaring in her stomach. It was almost as if they weren’t memories at all.

That jolting revelation had her taking a step sideways. Then another. Good Lord, what if he touched her? Was she sure—absolutely sure—she could resist him?

His eyes stayed locked with hers. “I’m sure the past three years have been hard for you. There’s nothing more difficult than to lose people you love and need.”

As she stared up at him, it occurred to her she had no idea if he was speaking in generalities or making a personal observation. How could she know? They’d been lovers for months, yet Mark Santini had never opened up enough to tell her about his background. His family. Never once told her how he felt about her. About them.

Which, she conceded, hadn’t mattered at the time. Mark hadn’t needed to tell her anything in order to keep her in his bed.

But now, for some reason she couldn’t explain, it mattered very much.

She wrapped her arms around her waist. “Tell me something, Mark. How do you know losing someone is difficult?”

His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “What?”

“Have you lost someone? Someone you loved and needed? I have to ask, since you’ve never mentioned your family to me. I don’t know anything about you. I never knew anything about you.”

“You’re wrong, Grace. You knew me better than anyone.”

What she knew was that his first and only love was, and always would be, the job. She didn’t bother to point that out. Pointing it out wouldn’t change the past, alter the present or impact the future.

Just then a telephone rang in the distance.

“The fax machine,” Grace said, glancing toward the hallway. “That should be the background information on Odgers and Davenport.” She’d no sooner gotten the words out than Mark’s cell phone chimed.

He unclipped the phone off his belt as Grace headed out of the kitchen into the hallway. She stepped into the small, cozy room she and her sisters had converted into an office. The fax machine was humming, rolling out pages.

When she returned to the kitchen, Mark was still on the phone. She knew instantly from his comments and questions that his caller was the pathologist who’d performed the autopsy on Andrea Grayson. Grace slid onto a stool at the island and separated the pages on Dr. Odgers’s background from those on Iris Davenport. While Grace scanned the info on the nurse, she was aware that Mark’s expression grew grimmer with each passing minute.

When he clicked off the phone, his shoulders were stiff beneath his white dress shirt.

“Bad news?” she asked.

“The pathologist found traces of an anticoagulant drug in tissue samples taken from Andrea Grayson. It wasn’t a fluke she bled to death. Someone wanted her dead.”

“So they could take her baby,” Grace theorized. “Mark, I’ve got a bad feeling DeeDee Wyman was injected with the same drug. Murdered for her child.”

“I’m thinking the same, which solidly makes Davenport our prime suspect since she was present at both births.” Mark moved to peer over her shoulder. “Anything interesting on her?”

“She got a parking-trespass violation for leaving her car in a fire zone.”

“How is that interesting?”

“The address on the citation is Remington Park Racetrack.”

“Okay, so Davenport likes to play the ponies. That takes money.”

Grace continued to scan the pages. “She lied to Dr. Odgers when she told him she’d be in Kansas City taking care of her ill sister. That would be hard to do, since Iris doesn’t have a sister.”

“Did the credit card trace get a hit on where she is?”

“Las Vegas,” Grace answered, thumbing through the pages. “Iris checked into the Gold Palace a couple of days ago. Looks like she’s planning to stay at least another week.”

“The Gold Palace is one of the high-dollar places on the strip. Betting on horses,” Mark murmured. “Casino gambling. All takes money.”

“Interesting that a nurse working at a state-run clinic has the means to fund a ritzy vacation.” Grace continued shuffling the faxed pages. “It’s going to take us time to go through this, but it looks like she was drowning in debt up until about a year ago. Then she came into some money. She took a trip to Tahoe. Stayed at a resort hotel-casino.”

“That was right after DeeDee Wyman died and her baby went missing. Then Andrea Grayson dies, her baby disappears, and Nurse Nancy takes another trip to a city where she can gamble.”

Grace looked up. “I imagine we’re thinking the same thing. Davenport kills pregnant runaways no one is likely to miss, then sells their babies to fund those trips.”

Mark settled onto the stool beside Grace’s. “Too bad we can’t prove any of that. Dr. Odgers said all clinic personnel have access to the delivery room. And the newborns.”

“And where the paperwork’s concerned, Davenport can say someone using the name of the former social worker showed up with the right credentials and took each baby. That’s stretching it, but it’ll be up to us to prove otherwise. Right now we can’t.”

“First thing we need to do is find out what happened to DeeDee Wyman,” Mark said. “If her body wasn’t cremated or donated to the cadaver program like Andrea Grayson’s, we’ll need an exhumation order and a fast autopsy. If we get the body, I have a feeling we’ll find traces of the same anticoagulant drug in her.”

“Even if we can’t get Davenport on the murders, she’d be nuts to confess to taking the infants. Each kidnap would be a long-term felony charge. If she keeps her mouth shut, we might never find those babies. Or Davenport’s accomplices, if they exist.”

“You’re right.” Mark pursed his mouth. “So, at this point, we don’t approach Davenport as cops.”

Grace frowned. “Too bad that’s what we are.”

“Davenport doesn’t know that. And it’s the last thing she’d suspect if we meet her by chance in Vegas.”

“In Vegas?” Grace asked carefully. She could almost see Mark’s mind working in the dark depths of his eyes.

“We hook up with Davenport, presenting ourselves as a well-to-do married couple. A couple desperate to have a child.”

Just the thought of parading as Mark’s wife, sharing a hotel room with him, tightened the knots already in Grace’s stomach.

“Aren’t you a little too high profile to work undercover?”

“I’m known in law enforcement circles. But as a precaution, I’ll change my hair color. Make my brows straighter.”

“Since you prefer to work with local law enforcement, maybe you’d better contact the Las Vegas PD,” Grace persisted. “Make arrangements for one of their female cops to work with you while you’re there. Meantime, I can stay here, dig through the background info on Odgers and Davenport.”

“No. If we charge either of them, they’ll be filed on and tried here, the jurisdiction where the crimes were committed.” Mark paused. He might as well have been sitting at a poker table for all Grace could tell from his expression. “You have a problem working with me, say so. I’ll arrange to have another female OCPD cop assigned to the case.”

“I like to finish what I start.” With stubbornness stiffening her neck, Grace stared at the faxed pages. “I want to find those babies. They were kidnapped out of the womb. I want to make sure they’re safe.”

“Then you’ll have to work the case, start to finish. Your choice, Grace. In or out?”

The fist of tension she didn’t want to acknowledge held firm in the pit of her stomach. She had thought she was over him. Over the hurt she had harbored over his keeping a part of his life closed off to her. The way she’d reacted a few minutes ago proved that was still an issue. She hated knowing that, despite the passage of six years, this man could make her feel like a jumbled mess on the inside.

And now she was going to Vegas to parade as his wife!

It was the goal that was important, she reminded herself. Find the babies. She had worked undercover numerous times. It was all pretense. Acting. This assignment would be no different. As long as she kept her mind on the job, the goal, she could handle working with Mark.

Handle it when he walked away.

Again.

“I’m in,” she said quietly.