White Mountain. Dinah McCall

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      He put his notebook in his pocket and gave the manager a card.

      “Please tell your employee that we appreciate her help, and that if she remembers anything else that might help us catch the man who killed Mr. Walton, to please call us.”

      The manager relayed the message.

      The housemaid stood, gave the men a nervous glance and bolted out the door.

      Butoli shook his head. “What’s she so scared about?”

      The manager didn’t bother to hide a sneer. “Being sent back, of course.”

      Larry Marshall looked up from his notepad.

      “Back to where?” he asked

      “Russia.”

      Marshall’s gaze sharpened. “What? Are you hiring illegals? You can’t do that. You have to report them to—”

      “Thank you for your cooperation,” Butoli said, then grabbed his partner by the arm and all but dragged him out of the hotel.

      “What do you think you’re doing?” Marshall yelped.

      Butoli took a deep breath, mentally counting from one to ten before he trusted himself to answer.

      “Marshall, for once in your life, just shut the fuck up.”

      Larry Marshall’s face turned a dark, angry red. “It’s people like you who screw up the systems we have in place.”

      “Maybe,” Butoli muttered. “But it was people like you who put the cockamamie systems in place to begin with. For God’s sake! We’re trying to get them to help us find a killer, and you’re threatening to call INS? What the hell were you thinking?”

      Then he threw up his hands and headed for the car, leaving Marshall with no option but to follow.

      Marshall got in and started the engine.

      “Where to?” he asked.

      Butoli glared. “Back to the precinct. We’ve got a name to go with the body, and a credit card number that should give us enough background information to find his next of kin.”

      “But don’t you think we should—”

      The look on Butoli’s face was enough to stifle what he’d been going to say. Instead, he pulled into the traffic and took a right turn at the next block.

      Isabella handed a room key to the couple who’d just checked in. In the years since her father and Uncle David had opened White Mountain Fertility Clinic, she’d seen hundreds like them—people desperate for a child of their own and willing to try anything to make it happen.

      “There is an elevator just to the right of the staircase,” she said.

      “We’ll take the stairs,” the woman said. “Exercise is good for me.”

      Isabella smiled. “Do you need help with your luggage?”

      The man shook his head. “No. We only have the two bags. We can manage just fine. Oh…what time does the kitchen open? We have an appointment in town in the morning, and we don’t want to be late.”

      “We start serving breakfast at six o’clock and if you need a taxi into Braden, you’ll need to call ahead and expect about a fifteen to twenty minute wait.”

      The couple nodded their understanding and started up the stairs, their heads tilted slightly toward each other as they spoke in undertones.

      Isabella hurt for their sadness. It was evident in every aspect of their expressions and posture. How sad to want a child so desperately and yet be unable to make it happen. Even sadder were the children who were born to people who didn’t care. It didn’t make sense. Why didn’t God just give babies to people who wanted them and let the people who were unfit to be parents be the ones who were barren? But she knew her thoughts were fanciful. Nothing in life was fair. She thought of her father dying so suddenly and leaving not only family, but waiting patients, behind.

      The staff at White Mountain Fertility Clinic was well-trained and able to continue without her father’s presence. In the past few years he’d even talked about the time when he would retire and leave the creation of life to those younger than himself. Besides her father, Uncle David and Uncle Jasper still held active roles in the clinic, even though they took fewer and fewer new patients with each passing year.

      Without thinking, her gaze automatically slid to the portrait above the staircase, unaware that the gentleness in the woman’s dark brown eyes mirrored her own. Her wandering thoughts stopped abruptly when the phone rang. Making herself concentrate on the present, she lifted her chin and picked up the phone.

      “Abbott House.”

      “This is Detective Mike Butoli with the Brighton Beach police. I need to speak to Samuel Abbott.”

      Isabella’s breath caught as a quick film of tears blurred her vision. It was the first time this had happened since her father’s death, but she knew it wouldn’t be the last. She cleared her throat and made herself answer.

      “I’m sorry, Detective, but Samuel Abbott recently passed away. I’m his daughter, Isabella Abbott. Maybe I can help.”

      Mike Butoli frowned. He hated this part of his job more than spinach—and only God and his mother knew how much he hated spinach.

      “Did you know a man named Franklin Walton?”

      His use of the past tense made Isabella’s heart drop.

      “Uncle Frank? What’s happened to him? Has he been injured? Is he all right?”

      Butoli sighed. Damn. As many times as he’d done this, it never got easier.

      “I’m very sorry to tell you, Miss Abbott, but Mr. Walton was found murdered in an alley a few days ago.”

      The wail that came out of her mouth was a mixture of disbelief and despair.

      “Nooo,” she cried, and staggered backward onto a chair.

      John Michaels and Rufus Toombs, two of the men she called uncles, were just coming off the elevator from their third-floor apartments when they heard her cry. Without hesitation, they rushed forward.

      “Isabella…darling, what’s wrong?”

      She recognized the voices but couldn’t focus on the faces. Everything around her was fast going black. Before she could answer, she slid out of the chair onto the floor in a faint.

      Rufus quickly knelt at her side, while John went for the phone dangling from her hand.

      “Hello? Hello? Who’s there, please?”

      Butoli knew the woman had not received the news well.

      “This is Detective Butoli with the Brighton Beach P.D.”

      “What did you say to Isabella? СКАЧАТЬ