Operation Bassinet. Joyce Sullivan

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СКАЧАТЬ populated the lush lawns and shreds of gigantic spider webs and pieces of plastic skeletons dangled from bare tree branches. It was nothing like the neighborhoods of stucco bungalows, concrete driveways and parched yards he was used to in L.A.

      Halloween was one of the many holidays, along with Father’s Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas that he’d grown to hate ever since Paddy, his grandfather, had died. The crime stats always went up—murders, suicides, break-ins, robberies. He’d seen people resort to desperate acts when the reality of their personal and family situations failed to live up to the impossible expectations planted in their minds by TV shows, movies and magazines.

      Peace on earth. Right. Most people would settle for peace in their own home a few nights a week.

      Holidays to Mitch were a brutally painful reminder that he had no family.

      The door opened behind him. Mitch swung around. Stephanie Shelton had engaged the chain lock and was eyeing him up and down suspiciously, a phone plastered to her ear.

      “Turn around,” she said to him.

      “What?”

      She made a circling motion with her finger. “Turn around.” A tiny red heart was painted on her fingernail.

      “Hmm-humph? No, not Russell. I’d say more like Dennis—” she paused as Mitch glowered at her. “Nice and…um, where did you work before you came to the Foundation?” she asked sweetly.

      Mitch propped a hand on the door frame. “L.A.P.D.—the Robbery Homicide Division,” he replied, making a mental note to have a little chat with the hot-line phone staff.

      “It’s him.” The door slammed in his face again. He heard the chain slip off, then the door popped open. Mitch was annoyingly aware of the outline of her bra beneath that top. Stephanie Shelton was slightly nutty and very hot. There was an intriguing line of golden flesh visible between the hem of her shirt and the black leather belt riding her hips. “Come in. The house is a mess, but that’s life.”

      The house was not a mess. It was lively and colorful and an irritatingly normal example of how Mitch thought average nondysfunctional, middle-class families lived. He followed her through an entryway cluttered with a child-size pair of red boots, library books and Halloween decorations into a funky living room painted in dramatic colors and furnished with a beige sofa piled with pillows and two gargantuan armchairs. The armchairs covered in olive velvet made him think someone had a grandmother who’d liked Victorian furniture. In an alcove off the kitchen Mitch could see the child whose abandoned drinking cup he’d swiped the other day—dancing along with a furry critter on the TV.

      “Have a seat, Mr. Halloran.”

      “Is your husband home, ma’am? I’d really like to speak to both of you.”

      Those green and gold eyes shone with dewy tears. “My husband died two years ago in a rock climbing accident.”

      “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Mitch said, caught off guard. The list of babies they’d been investigating had been too long to do thorough background checks on each family. They’d received confirmation from the lab about the DNA match less than two hours ago.

      He took a seat on the sofa as Stephanie Shelton perched on the edge of one of those gargantuan chairs and folded her arms across her chest, bringing even more attention to the color of her bra beneath the transparent fabric of her blouse. “Why would someone from the Find Riana Foundation want to talk to me? Wasn’t she the little girl of that famous couple who were killed in an explosion last month?”

      “Ma’am—”

      “Please, stop calling me that. Teachers and librarians swathed in polyester prints are ma’ams. My name’s Stef.”

      Mitch started to sweat. Damn, she looked so defense-less—so your-best-buddy’s-younger-sister nice. She’d already lost her husband. An image of her dancing around the garbage can when he’d staked out her house four days ago, two fingers held up in a two-point salute after she and Keely chucked a decaying jack-o’-lantern into the can, shimmered vibrantly in his conscience.

      His news was going to kill her.

      He cleared his throat and told himself to remain unplugged from the drama. “Stef, are you aware of the date Riana Collingwood was kidnapped?”

      She frowned. “I think it was the day after my daughter was born. I remember seeing it on the news a couple of days after Keely and I were discharged and being relieved that we weren’t still in the hospital. Of course, the Collingwood baby wasn’t born at the same birthing center, but still, it made me nervous.” She shuddered. “I couldn’t imagine how horrible it must be for that baby’s parents to have their child taken like that. But I still don’t understand why you’re here. I didn’t know the Collingwoods.” Her eyes were clearly puzzled.

      In the other room Mitch heard Keely singing a catchy tune about apples and bananas. He mentally cursed a blue streak as the icy hole inside him bore painfully into his soul. There was no way to put off saying the words that would change this woman’s life into a living hell.

      He laced his fingers together. “Mrs. Shelton, I have evidence which leads me to believe that whoever abducted Riana Collingwood switched her with your daughter.”

      Stef Shelton started to laugh. “This is a joke, right? My brother-in-law put you up to it? He’s such a jerk—” The words died on her lips as her gaze met his. Mitch looked steadily back at her, trying to stay as detached as possible, while fear spontaneously combusted like twin gold flames in her eyes.

      She wrapped her arms around her middle as if trying to hold herself together. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What are you saying?”

      Mitch felt his stomach catapult out of the wall of his torso and pass through a meat grinder as he observed her every facial reaction, her every gesture, for the tiniest hint of falseness. But there was none. His chest hurt as he sucked in air and he swallowed hard against the anger and the disgust that some lowlife scum had destroyed this lovely young woman’s life.

      She shook her head, her eyes pleading with him. He steeled himself against a compelling urge to reach out to her. The same type of sympathetic reaction that had had him unwisely reaching out to Theresa Lopez two years earlier when her twelve-year-old granddaughter had been kidnapped.

      He’d seen his grandfather in Theresa Lopez’s anxiety-lined face. Saw the thin fingers worked to the bone to support a grandchild who was her sole reason for being. He’d twisted himself inside out trying to bring Carmen home. But he’d lost precious time chasing the wrong lead. By the time he’d realized his error and directed searchers to the killer’s home, Carmen was dead and her killer, the sixteen-year-old boy who did Theresa’s yardwork, had hung himself.

      Theresa hadn’t deserved to lose her granddaughter, nor did Stef Shelton deserve what had happened to her. She probably helped old ladies across the street and baked cookies and banana bread for her church’s bake sales.

      “I wish to God I didn’t have to tell you this, but that little girl in the other room is Riana Collingwood. DNA tests have confirmed it.”

      “DNA?” She glanced toward the alcove, horror streaking her beautiful face like fissures in a broken mirror. “What are you talking about? Keely’s my daughter! I labored thirty hours bringing her into the world.” Her angry gaze shot back to him. “I should know my own baby!”

      Mitch СКАЧАТЬ