The Stranger's Sin. Darlene Gardner

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СКАЧАТЬ the same tough question the police had: Why had nobody else seen the woman?

      The reason was both simple and complicated.

      Nobody had seen her because Kelly had been the only one at the playground. Late on a Saturday afternoon. Without her neighbor’s two-year-old son.

      Kelly hadn’t set out to visit the playground. Her intention had been to enjoy the beautiful summer weather. Her walk took her past the swings and the monkey bars, the place where she spent so many happy hours. The woman—she’d given her name only as Amanda Smith—had been trying to get her baby boy to stop crying. Kelly’s first mistake had been stopping to talk to her.

      Kelly shook off the memory and stood up, suddenly desperate to be outdoors. She hurried out of the courthouse and into the brightness of the summer morning. She gazed up into the cloudless blue sky, watching the flight of a hawk that was free to go wherever it pleased.

      So was she, but not for long. The police weren’t searching for the real kidnapper. Kelly was headed for prison unless…

      Unless she found Amanda herself.

      The idea took root and sprouted. It was crazy, but it was her only option.

      There was the not-so-minor detail that she wasn’t allowed to leave the state of New York under the terms of her bail, but if she was back before her next scheduled court appearance, Vince might not even lose the money he’d posted for her bail. If she wasn’t, she’d find a way to pay him back, even if it meant selling her town house.

      But she couldn’t think about that now. She needed to remember something—anything—Amanda might have said that would provide a clue on where to look.

      Their conversation had revolved around the baby. Amanda hadn’t talked about where she’d grown up or where she lived but it seemed to Kelly she had mentioned a place.

      Yes. That was right. She’d said something about there being no more to do in Wenona than in…what? The name of the town floated in Kelly’s brain, just out of reach of her consciousness.

      Green Water? No. That was wrong. It hadn’t been Water, it had been…Springs. But Green Springs wasn’t right. Neither was Blue Springs.

       Indigo Springs.

      The name hit her with such certainty that she rushed down the courthouse steps, eager to get to a computer so she could figure out where Indigo Springs was.

      Because that’s where she was headed.

       CHAPTER TWO

       C HASE B RADFORD SET DOWN the car seat that doubled as a carrier, acting as if it made perfect sense for the invited guest at the Indigo Springs library’s Summer Speaker Series to bring along a sleeping year-old baby.

      “Dream on, buddy,” he whispered, squashing an urge to kiss one of Toby’s flushed, chubby cheeks. “Please, please dream on.”

      He wouldn’t have called himself soft-hearted before Toby came into his life, but it had taken Chase about ten seconds flat to fall in love with the little guy.

      He’d fallen pretty quickly for Toby’s mother, too, but that turned out to have nothing to do with love. He wasn’t usually impulsive when it came to women. After Mandy, he wouldn’t be again.

      “You sure that baby will be okay there?” asked Louise Wiesneski, the big-boned, florid-faced librarian who’d set up the talk.

      “He’ll be fine, Louise,” Chase said with more confidence than he felt.

      Her eyebrows formed an inverted V and her mouth twisted. “If you say so.”

      She turned to the small group of people milling about the meeting room. Chase recognized a few faces, but the group consisted mostly of the outdoor enthusiasts who descended on the town in summer to hike, bike and ride the white water down the Lehigh River.

      “Please take a seat,” she commanded. “We’re about to start.”

      The people who weren’t yet seated pulled chairs out from the tables facing the front of the room, the legs scraping on the linoleum floor.

      Toby promptly woke up, his baby blues opening wide.

      His tiny face crumpled, he kicked his short legs and he opened his little mouth. Chase bent down before he could scream, filling the baby’s field of vision with his familiar face. Toby closed his mouth, his lips forming into a pout, and stretched out both arms.

      As timing went, Toby’s couldn’t have been worse.

      Unbuckling the baby from the carrier, Chase resigned himself to having a partner during his presentation. He picked up Toby, smoothing his blond hair back from his flushed face, hoping the baby would be a silent partner.

      A few dozen faces stared up at him while he said a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn’t opted for a slide show. The way things were going, he’d have a hard enough time passing around the oversize photos he’d brought along.

      “Tonight we have Chase Bradford, a wildlife conservation officer whose talk is titled: ‘That Wasn’t a Mountain Lion.’” Louise’s voice sounded amplified even without a microphone. “Chase will speak about some of the species of wildlife that can be spotted in the Poconos.”

      Doing his best to pretend he didn’t have a baby in his arms, Chase held up a photo of a man kneeling beside a large, dead animal. “Can anybody tell me what this is?”

      The hand of a freckled-faced boy sitting in the front row shot up. He was no older than ten, the youngest person in the room. Before Chase could acknowledge him, the boy asked, “Are you a policeman?”

      “Not exactly,” he said just as Toby covered his badge with a chubby hand. “Think of me as policing the woods and waters. I help hunters, fishermen and outdoor enthusiasts enjoy our state’s resources responsibly.”

      Chase repositioned Toby and asked again, “Now does anybody have a guess about this animal?”

      “It’s a mountain lion,” answered a man wearing hiking clothing and a sunburn.

      “That’s right,” Chase said. “A big one, too. Probably somewhere in the two-hundred-pound range. So now you’re probably wondering about the title of my talk.”

      Toby squirmed, obviously still out of sorts from being awakened so abruptly. The baby almost never napped in the early evening but had fallen asleep on the drive over. His routine was seriously messed up.

      “This photo made the rounds on the Internet a while back, with the text claiming the animal had been hit by a truck in a number of locations, including right here in Pennsylvania.”

      Toby whimpered, and Chase bounced the baby the way he’d seen mothers calm their fussy children. Unfortunately motion wasn’t usually the key to soothing Toby. The baby was the ultimate outdoors enthusiast. Take him outside and he instantly quieted.

      Louise crossed her arms over her chest, her lips flatlining.

      “But there are no mountain lions in Pennsylvania and haven’t been since the late 1800s,” Chase СКАЧАТЬ