The Cradle Will Fall. Maggie Price

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СКАЧАТЬ the guy worked for the senator. She called Daddy, told him if he didn’t call off his P.I. she’d disappear from his life forever and never have anything to do with him.”

      “I take it the senator is the one who backed down?”

      “Yes. Andrea was his only child, and he blamed himself for her rebellious streak.”

      “Why?”

      “When his wife died, the senator dealt with his grief by burying himself in his work. He hired a series of nannies to raise Andrea.”

      “So she basically lost both her mother and father at the same time.”

      “That’s the size of it,” Mark agreed. “Fast forward to a month ago. The senator returned from an overseas trip to find a message from Andrea on his private answering machine. She acknowledged they’d had their differences and a lot of what she called ‘bad stuff’ had happened between them. Said she wanted to call a truce, then added she was pregnant and due any day. After asking if she could bring her baby home, she assured her father she would call back in two days to find out his answer.” Mark took a sip of tea. “Apparently being pregnant changed the way she looked at things.”

      “Knowing a baby is on the way can do that.”

      Mark glanced up. Grace’s voice had gone soft, taking on an almost elusive sadness. As had her dark eyes. “Something wrong?”

      Her eyes cleared as she handed the photo back to him. “Nothing more than the fact that a young girl is dead. In the message, did Andrea say where she was?”

      “No, but Grayson got the number off his phone’s caller ID. She didn’t call back when she said she would, so he contacted the Bureau’s assistant director and asked for help in finding out where she’d called from. The number checked to a place called Usher House in Oklahoma City.”

      “I know it well.” Grace sat her coffee mug aside. “A woman named Millie Usher established the shelter about five years ago for homeless, pregnant girls. I’ve dealt with several runaway juvies who’ve stayed there.”

      “The home is church funded, right?”

      “Right, but Millie opens the door to girls from all faiths. Her rules are simple—no drugs, no alcohol, no men allowed.” Grace propped an elbow on the counter. “I take it that’s where the agent from the Bureau’s local office comes in? He went to Usher House to see if Andrea was still there?”

      “Yes. The agent didn’t find a record of Andrea Grayson. But when he showed her picture around, several people identified her as A’lynn Jackson and said she’d lived there a short time. When our agent asked about the baby’s father, two girls staying at Usher House told him Andrea didn’t know the guy’s name. Just that he was some trucker passing through the city.” Mark flipped through a few pages in the file. “Millie Usher claimed that when Andrea showed up, she told Millie she had decided to give up her baby for adoption. Andrea’s decision on that was so firm, she’d already had someone at the clinic help her fill out the paperwork to legalize things.”

      “She had an ID under a fake name showing she was of legal age,” Grace said. “She probably claimed she had no next of kin and signed an affidavit swearing she didn’t know the identity of the baby’s father.”

      “All correct,” Mark said. “Which, according to Oklahoma’s parental consent laws, cleared the way for the state to handle the child’s adoption.”

      Grace frowned. “But between the time Andrea arrived at Usher House and when she called her father, she’d changed her mind about giving up her baby.”

      “That’s the logical assumption.”

      “Did your agent find out what changed her mind?”

      “No. Not long after Andrea phoned her father, she showed up at the clinic in labor. According to our agent, she didn’t tell anyone she’d decided to keep the child. Andrea gave birth a couple hours later to a healthy girl, then began hemorrhaging and died of the sudden blood loss.”

      “What happened to the baby?”

      “Per the papers Andrea had previously signed, the infant was turned over to Loving Arms Adoptions, one of the agencies that has a contract with the state. Since A’lynn Jackson had failed to give the clinic the name and contact information for a next of kin, her body was donated to the state medical school’s cadaver program.”

      Grace winced. “How did the senator take that news?”

      “Reportedly with a lot of anger fueled by his grief.”

      “I can imagine.” Grace pursed her mouth. “So how did Agent Santini wind up with this case in his lap?”

      “Through no doing of my own,” Mark returned dryly. “Grayson knew my name because I testified before a committee he chairs. He demanded the assistant director assign me to secure the release of his daughter’s body and investigate the legalities of the adoption.”

      “He wants to raise his granddaughter?”

      “Yes.” Mark sent Grace a sardonic look. “Probably hoping to make up to Andrea for the crummy job he did with her.”

      “You don’t think he’s sincere?”

      “Maybe he never laid a hand on Andrea, but he kept his distance for years. Abused her emotionally. That can do as much harm as repeated beatings. The damage just doesn’t show on the outside. Who’s to say he won’t treat his granddaughter the same way?”

      Without warning, Mark felt an old hurt and vicious bitterness close in on him. He tightened his grip on the mug. He made a point to keep what happened to him as a child where it belonged—in the past. Always the past. That those old emotions had just risen to the surface left him feeling exposed, a sensation totally foreign to him.

      “Mark, did you know Andrea Grayson?”

      He looked up to find Grace’s eyes probing his face. She was the only person with whom he’d ever been tempted to share the details of his past. It was just as well that he’d held back. They were colleagues now, with only their jobs in common.

      “No, I never met her,” he said evenly. “Why do you ask?”

      “Because you sound like there’s something personal about this case.”

      His jaw tightened. “I always take it personal when a young person dies. Andrea is dead, and try as he might, the senator can’t take a step back and make things right.” Mark rubbed the back of his neck in an attempt to ease the tension that had settled there. “What Grayson can do is get strings pulled and red tape cut on his behalf. Which is where I come in. And why I spent most of yesterday getting a court order for the release of his daughter’s body from the medical school’s cadaver program.”

      “I hope for everyone’s sake you managed to do that.”

      “Yes. The med students are out for the holidays, so the body is in the same shape now as it was when the school received it. Grayson had a private plane pick up Andrea’s body last night and fly it to D.C. Since she died with one of the clinic’s doctors in attendance, no autopsy was required. The senator wants to make sure he’s being told the truth about her death, so he hired a private СКАЧАТЬ