The Christmas Clue. Delores Fossen

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СКАЧАТЬ exonerate you?” He couldn’t have possibly sounded more disinterested.

      Cass nodded and suddenly wished she’d rehearsed this. “Look, what I’m about to tell you might be a little…shocking.”

      He stared at her.

      “Right,” Cass concluded. “You’re not easily shocked.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, here goes. I called Collena Drake, and I pretended to be a servant at Dominic’s estate. I said I was concerned about a child that Dominic had recently adopted. Ms. Drake confirmed that Dominic had indeed adopted one of the babies in question. She’d yet to confirm that the process was illegal, but it was highly suspect. Because, believe me, Dominic wouldn’t qualify for a normal adoption. There are all kinds of skeletons dangling in his closet.”

      “A baby,” he repeated. He shrugged. A dismissal sort of gesture that wasn’t as effective as his other brash expressions. Because while his shoulder might have been shrugging off her question, his eyes were demanding more info. “Why would you bring this to me? If you think the adoption was illegal, you should be informing the police.”

      Oh, this was about to get messy. Very messy. “Remember Vanessa Jordan?”

      Matt Christensen blinked. “Yeah. Of course, I do. It’d be hard to forget my ex-girlfriend. She’s dead. And what could she possibly have to do with you or this visit?”

      Cass knew that the woman had everything to do with it. “You didn’t stay in contact after she broke off things with you.”

      “No. And it was by mutual agreement.”

      She braced herself to deliver what he wasn’t going to want to hear. “Vanessa had a baby six months ago. She gave birth the day she died.”

      Another shrug, and it was even less effective than the last one. But then, it had to be. The ice man routine wouldn’t stand a chance against news like that. He pinned his narrowed gaze to hers. “You believe Vanessa’s baby was part of this illegal adoption ring?”

      “Yes. And more. Let’s do the math. Thirteen months ago, Vanessa and you broke up. Then, she gave birth seven months later.”

      Matt Christensen mumbled some profanity under his breath. Really bad profanity that didn’t seem to be steeped in surprise or anger. It all seemed to be aimed at her.

      “Okay, let’s do some more math,” he commented. He casually propped his shoulder against the wall and angled his body so they were directly facing each other again. “Vanessa could have gotten pregnant right after we broke up, and then she could have delivered a preemie. It happens all the time.”

      “Yes. But according to the records that Collena Drake found, the baby weighed over eight pounds when she was born. Hardly the birth weight of a preemie.”

      “What are you saying?” Christensen snapped. But he didn’t wait for Cass to answer. “That the child is mine? No way in hell, because Vanessa was on the pill the whole time we were together. And we were careful because neither of us was ready to become parents.”

      Since there was probably nothing she could say that would convince him, Cass decided it was time for the more direct, visual-aid approach. She motioned toward the pocket of her brown leather jacket. “I’m going to reach inside, so don’t shoot first and assume I’m going for a real gun.”

      Only after he nodded—a gesture laced with reluctance and more of that cocky attitude—Cass slipped her hand inside and took out the picture. A picture that had not been easy to obtain. She’d had to pay off Dominic’s head groundskeeper to use a camera with a long-range lens.

      “Vanessa was a redhead. Like me, before the dye job and the bad haircut. She also had green eyes. A Scots Irish-dominated gene pool.” She aimed her index finger at him. “Then, there’s you. If you introduced yourself as Thor Svenson and claimed you were of Viking descent, people would believe you in a heartbeat.”

      With that, she handed him the photograph, and after more of that mumbled profanity, he took it.

      Cass watched as his suspicious gaze eased away from hers and skimmed over the round-faced baby sitting in a stroller in a garden. But soon the skimming stopped, and his attention speared on to that image.

      In the photograph, the angle of the sun was just right so that it glistened off the child’s loose curls that haloed around her head.

      Blond curls.

      And coupled with the little girl’s clearly visible piercing blue eyes, Cass figured that Matt Christensen wouldn’t be shrugging again anytime soon.

      This wasn’t something he could shrug off.

      Because he’d no doubt just realized that he was looking at the face of a child he hadn’t even known existed.

      His baby daughter.

      Chapter Two

      Matt stared at the photo, and he stared at it some more. Even though he tried to tamp down all the wild scenarios that started to fly through his head, he wasn’t completely successful. The little girl was a dead ringer for him.

      “You’re a fugitive from justice,” he pointed out, talking just as much to himself as his breaking-and-entering visitor. “So, why I should believe anything you say?”

      “Because I’m telling the truth.”

      No hesitation. None. It still didn’t help convince him otherwise, and she obviously realized that, from the Arctic look he gave her.

      “The truth?” he questioned, upping that icy look a notch. He handed her back the photo, and she put it in her pocket. “I doubt it. You probably had the picture doctored. Or maybe that wasn’t even necessary. Maybe you just found some kid who looks like me and decided to use her to run this…whatever this is.”

      She looked genuinely insulted. “Why would I make up something like that?”

      “Easy. To convince me to help you get this so-called evidence from Dominic Cordova’s estate.”

      That earned him a glare. And she was good at it, too. Those cat-green eyes could slice, dice and dismiss all in the same glance.

      “Then, if you follow that through to its logical conclusion,” she countered, “I must be telling you the truth about there being evidence to exonerate me. Or else why would I need your help?” She paused, and let that hum between them for a few seconds. “Now, do me a favor and take that even one step further. If I’m telling the truth about that, then I’m also telling the truth about the little girl in that picture. She’s your daughter.”

      Matt shook his head. “There’s nothing logical about that conclusion.”

      And that meant he had to figure out the next step. He could just call the cops and have her arrested. One call. A simple solution. He could have her out of his house within twenty minutes. Maybe less. But his instincts told him to take a little detour first. Not that it would change the outcome. Not that it would prevent her arrest, but it’d make him sleep a little easier if he confirmed, or disproved, a few things.

      First things first though. He reached out and grabbed her tranquilizer gun. He definitely surprised her, because judging from the look on her face, she had no СКАЧАТЬ