Ирис. Группа авторов

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ neighbor to whom Gaby had revealed so much. “All fascinating information, I’m sure.”

      He glanced over at the girls, engrossed in Sesame Street, then lowered his voice. “If I were some kind of child predator it would be very fascinating information. Once I had their names, it wouldn’t take me long to completely win their trust. You should have a talk with them. Warn them to be a little more careful. In my opinion, girls that young shouldn’t be wandering the neighborhood by themselves. You should never have let them outside without supervision.”

      “I was asleep!” she exclaimed.

      “All the more reason to be concerned. Anything could have happened and you would have awakened to find your daughters gone.”

      “I can take care of my daughters, Mr. McKinnon.”

      “I never said you couldn’t. I’m just bringing it to your attention. A mother who cares about her children’s safety can’t be too careful.”

      If you go into insulin shock again, anything could happen to those girls. A fragment of testimony from the custody battle slithered through her mind in a nasty whisper. Look what happened last time. You were behind the wheel and nearly killed them all.

      If you love our granddaughters at all, you must see that your condition makes you incapable of caring for them on your own.

      Oh, how those words had hurt. Irena and Joaquin had gouged at her mercilessly, again and again until even she had almost been convinced she was an unfit mother.

      She had taken it from them in that courtroom—she’d had no choice—but she was not about to listen to the same kind of accusations from a stranger, even one who looked like sin and smelled like heaven.

      She lifted her chin. “My children’s safety is my own concern, Mr. McKinnon. I’ll thank you to mind your own business.”

      His mouth tightened into a hard line. “This is my business.”

      He reached inside his breast pocket and pulled out a flat black leather case. He opened it and thrust it at her and Allie’s anger changed instantly to a terrible, icy dread at the sight of the shimmering gold badge pinned inside.

      Please, no. Somehow he had found her and now she would lose everything. She waited for him to break out handcuffs, but he only reached for the doorknob.

      “I work for the FBI’s Salt Lake City field office, Mrs. Connors,” he said, his voice distant and cool. “I see hideous things done to children on a daily basis. You have two beautiful little girls. I would hate to see anything happen to them.”

      With that, he opened the door and walked out into the summer morning, leaving Allie staring after him with bewildered fear still pulsing through her in steady, unrelenting waves.

      Chapter 2

      “Mama, I don’t want to go to Mrs. Cochran’s house. I don’t like her.”

      Allie paused in the middle of buckling Anna into her booster seat and gazed over at Gaby as unease coursed through her. “What do you mean, you don’t like her? Since when? Last week you said you thought she was nice. She pushed you on the swing and let you have Popsicles and played Chutes and Ladders with you.”

      Gaby shrugged. “She’s nice sometimes. Not all the time.”

      Oh, she did not need this. Everything had been going so well. Her insulin level was more stable than it had been for a long time. Her job cleaning houses, though a far cry from her work as a triage nurse at a busy innercity emergency room back in Philadelphia, gave her a steady income and more importantly, health insurance.

      And she’d detected absolutely no sign that anyone had followed her.

      The only fly in her particular ointment was her next-door neighbor. She had to admit, she’d suffered more than a few bad moments after learning she’d had the bad luck to move in next to an FBI agent.

      After much angst, though, she decided she could risk living here for a few more weeks, just until she could pay off the car repair bill to Ruth’s son. She would just do her best to stay out of his way and pray he would have no reason to connect the drab Lisa Connors to Alicia DeBarillas.

      Avoiding the man hadn’t been tough at all since he never seemed to be around.

      Other than that stress of living next to Gage McKinnon, things had been going so well. She thought she had found the perfect caregiver for the girls while she was working, someone matronly and loving. Ruth Jensen had suggested an older, widowed neighbor of hers who took in children to earn a little extra money. Dora Cochran had come with other glowing recommendations and the arrangement had been working well, or so Allie had thought.

      “What does she do that’s not nice?” she asked carefully.

      Gaby’s little brow furrowed as she thought it over. “Yesterday she said I talk too much and told me to shut up. And she told Anna to stop acting like a baby on account of she started to cry after Mrs. Thompson turned off Blue’s Clues so she could watch Oprah.”

      The woman wasn’t exactly beating them but she didn’t sound particularly loving either. Allie gave a mental groan. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t dump her children off at a place where they weren’t comfortable, but she had nowhere else to send them. She hated this. Absolutely hated it.

      She had to work; she had no choice. Much of her and Jaime’s savings had gone toward her medical bills and legal fees in the last six months. Though she had received life insurance benefits after his accident, it had all been tied up in the custody battle.

      Before she left, Allie had pulled everything liquid out of their accounts, figuring that if she was careful, she and the girls could survive for five or six months on her small nest egg, especially if she could find a job with health insurance to pay for her insulin. But she couldn’t tap into that now. If they had to move on quickly for any reason, she would need that nest egg to fall back on.

      She needed her job, but Allie knew she wouldn’t be able to work a moment if she was constantly worrying about her daughters.

      “Okay, honey. If you don’t want to go back to Mrs. Cochran’s, you don’t have to. I’ll figure something out.”

      Her mind scrambled to come up with some solution. Today she was scheduled to clean four vacation rental properties whose occupants had already checked out. Since they were vacant, she was sure Ruth wouldn’t mind if the girls went along with her, just until she could find someone else to watch them. She would give her a call just to make sure, but she didn’t think the other woman would have a problem with it. She had been more than accommodating so far and had treated her and the girls with a kindness that often brought tears to Allie’s eyes.

      “You might be able to come with me today,” she told the girls. “I’ll just need to check with Mrs. Jensen and get some videos and some toys and crayons from inside so you have something to do.”

      “Yippee!” Gaby cheered.

      “’Ippee!” Anna echoed.

      Allie headed back up the steps, then paused and looked over the hedge separating her rental house from its cheerful twin next door. Her neighbor would probably have something to say about a mother who would leave her daughters in the car while she СКАЧАТЬ