Lullabies and Lies (11 page)

There are no happy endings.

She pushed her nose into the bear’s soft fur. “Dear God, please. I will do anything. Just don’t let them hurt her. I promised her I’d take care of her. Help me keep that promise. Please don’t take her away from me.”

Old grief mixed with new, tasting like ashes in her mouth. Without Emily to fill the void in her soul, Sunny missed her mom and dad with a fierceness that surprised her. Her parents had been in their fifties when her mother had found her, a newborn, abandoned in the parking lot of the hospital where she’d worked the evening shift. The Lovelesses had immediately started proceedings to adopt her. As far as Sunny was concerned, they were her family.

Just as she was Emily’s family. Her throat clogged with tears and she rocked back and forth, her chest cramping with a pain too deep for tears.

She finally understood what her mother had always told her.
You could not be more special. Not even if I’d carried you inside me.

A harsh jangle startled her. It was her cell phone.

Her heart skipped with hope and fear. In the three days since her baby had been stolen, her cell phone hadn’t rung once.

Only Lillian and a few close friends had the number. She’d given it to Lieutenant Carver so he could reach her no matter where she was.

But the number was engraved on the gold ID bracelet Lil had given Emily just a week before, for her six-month birthday.

She dug the phone out of her pocket and flipped it open. She didn’t recognize the number. Her hand shook so much that she almost dropped the phone.

“Hello?” she said cautiously, afraid to hope, afraid to think this was anything other than a wrong number.

“Ms. Loveless?”

The voice was gruff but definitely female. And tense.

Sunny’s heart thudded in her chest. The bear fell from her lap as she cupped both hands around the tiny phone.

Was this the call? The ransom request?

“Y-yes?” She clenched her jaw to keep from screaming
Where is my baby?

“You don’t know me,” the woman said nervously, her voice almost drowned out by the sound of traffic in the background. “But—”

“Do you have my baby?” Sunny croaked.

“Emily is right here. She’s just fine.”

Sunny’s breath caught between a sob and a gasp. “Oh, thank God.” Her scalp tightened as the edge of her vision went dark and her knees gave way. She crumpled to the floor, huddled over the phone.

“Please, please, tell me where she is. Give my baby back to me. I’ll do anything.” Sobs racked her body.

“Ms. Loveless, listen to me. I can’t stay on the phone. You have to come to Philadelphia, alone.”

Sunny tried to concentrate on the woman’s words. “Phila-Philadelphia? Pennsylvania?” What was she talking about? “Is that where you are? Where Emily is?”

“Ms. Loveless, I need to know that I can trust you not to tell anyone. Not the police. Not the FBI. Not even your family. It’s a matter of life or death.”

“Oh, God!” Fear slashed her heart. “Please, no. Don’t hurt her. I’ll do whatever you want. I don’t have much money, but—”

“Oh, no, ma’am.” The woman sounded horrified. “I’m not asking for money. But the people who took your baby are very dangerous. I don’t know what they’ll do if they find out I’ve contacted you. They’re capable of anything. Do you understand?”

“The people who—? No, I don’t understand. Don’t
you
have her?” Sunny clutched her stomach as bile clawed at her throat.

“I do, ma’am. I do. For now. She’s safe and warm and happy.”

A moan escaped Sunny’s numb lips. “What do you want from me?”

“I just want all this to stop. You deserve to have your baby back, safe and sound. But you have to come
alone, and you have to come now! They’ll be back any day now.”

“Who are they? And who are you?”

“I can’t tell you that. When you get to Philadelphia, call this number.” She rattled off ten digits.

Sunny stood on shaky legs. “Wait. I have to find a pen.”

“I can’t. I’ve got to go.”

Sunny repeated the numbers, doing her best to commit them to memory.

“Come as soon as you can. If you don’t hurry, it will be too late.”

Too late.
Oh please God no. “Where in Philadelphia? Where do I go?”

“Just call the number.” The line went dead.

Sunny ran into her bedroom and grabbed a pen and paper from her desk. She wrote the number down, praying that she hadn’t transposed any of the digits.

Then she sank into her desk chair, her limbs quivering, her stomach churning. She looked at her phone, and hit star 69. But the phone on the other end just rang and rang.

Dropping the cell phone onto her desk, Sunny squeezed her head between her hands as dry, panicked sobs shook her.

Philadelphia
. Emily was in Philadelphia.

She had to go. Alone. She couldn’t tell anyone about the phone call. The woman had said the people who’d taken Emily were dangerous.
Capable of anything
. There was no time to waste.

Her baby’s life was at stake.

BESS HUNG UP the pay phone and hurried back to her pickup.

She climbed into the front seat and leaned over to
check on Emily. Talking to the baby’s mother had upset her more than she’d realized.

“Hey, Emily Rose. You still asleep?”

The baby’s pale lashes rested against her rosy cheeks. Bess’s eyes filled with tears. “I just talked to your mommy,” she whispered. “She’s coming to get you. She’ll be here soon, I promise.”

As Bess straightened and turned the ignition key a cold sweat popped out on her forehead. Her left arm tingled. She reached for her purse and took out a tiny prescription bottle.

“One of these little tablets should—” She tried to take a full breath, but couldn’t. “And I’ll be fine. Let’s go home. Old Bess is tired and it’s a forty-minute drive back to the house.”

A heaviness weighed on her, a sense of dread anticipation. She was scared to death that Janie would return for Emily before her mother got to Philadelphia. She had to do something.

“I’ll tell you what, Emily. I’m really worried that Janie has gone round the bend this time.” She felt a familiar flush as the heart medication took effect. “And I’m getting too old for this. You know what I’m going to do?” She smiled as Emily cooed in her sleep.

“That’s right. I’m going to call Mia. She’ll help me make sure you’re safe. Out of Janie’s reach.”

SUNNY THREW HER PURSE and Emily’s pink diaper bag into the passenger seat of her car.

She ducked her head and ran back toward the house as the rain intensified. All she needed was her suitcase.

Then, over the downpour, she heard the crunch of a footstep on gravel.

Just like the night Emily had been kidnapped.

Panic streaked through her. She jerked her head up. A bulky form loomed over her and a rough arm grabbed her.

“No!” she shrieked, kicking, elbowing—anything to stop the assault. “Help!”

“Shut up!” A hand that smelled of motor oil and cigarettes clamped over her mouth.

She clawed at it, tried to bite it, but he was too strong. He dragged her up the steps and through her front door. She struggled not to lose her footing.

He kicked the door shut and pushed her against the banister. “All right, Loveless! I warned you I’d pay you back.”

She could barely see through her wet plastered hair, but the man’s bulk and his voice were familiar. Dread filled her at the hatred that blasted her.

“Get off me! What do you want?”

“You know what I want!” The voice was harsh and furious.

Sunny wiped her face with trembling hands, and squinted at the bulky form in the light from the front porch. The short haircut, combined with the familiar voice, told her who he was.

Burt Means!

Her pulse hammered. The last thing he’d said to her was etched in her memory.

You’ll pay for this,
he’d mouthed at her as the guards had led him out of the courtroom.

“It’s you! Where’s my baby?” she managed to say as he grabbed her shoulders.

“
Your
baby?” he thundered, shaking her.

His hands were punishingly strong. Pain shot through her bones. She could barely think.

“Stop it!” She tried to kick him. “Get off me!”

“It’s my kid! Don’t mess with me! Where’s my kid?”

Sunny went limp with horrified shock. “You don’t have her?” Was he lying? Had she heard wrong? Confusion and dread turned her stomach.

“You hid her, didn’t you?” he yelled. “When you heard I was getting out. You knew I’d come after her—
and
you!”

He shoved her away and lifted his hand as if to hit her.

Sunny cringed and recoiled.

“You ruined my life
and
took my kid. Well, you won’t get away with it.”

She held up her hands to ward off his blow. “Oh, my God, you really don’t have her? You didn’t have that woman call—?”

He paused. “What woman? Stop lying! I saw you put the diaper bag in your car.”

“No! Please,” she cried. “I swear I don’t know where she is.” Her chest cramped. She couldn’t draw a full breath.

Burt didn’t have her baby!

He shoved her toward the staircase. “Is she upstairs? You’d better start talking, and fast.”

If Burt didn’t have Emily…

Her breath hitched as fear and grief enveloped her. “She’s not here. I thought you’d taken her—or Brittany had.” She looked at the hulk who towered over her. “But you’re not the one who attacked me. You’re too big.”

Burt wrenched her arm and stared at her for an instant, then his lip curled in a snarl. “You’re a smart
one, aren’t you? Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going through every inch of this house, and if that kid’s not here, you’re going to take me to her.”

“I can’t—” Sunny cried out as Burt twisted her arm until her shoulder burned with pain.

“Well you better, ’cause if you don’t…” His snarl turned into a leer. “Before we’re done tonight I’ll make you beg me to kill you.”

GRIFF PUSHED AWAY from the hotel room’s writing desk. He’d spent the past half hour studying his missing child database, looking for similarities between Sunny’s case and others, the way he did each time he heard of another missing child. He wanted to scroll down to the bottom of the file and look at the first case entered there. But that case wasn’t relevant to this one. He had a job to do, a missing child to find. This was no time for wallowing in grief and self-recrimination.

He rubbed his stubbled jaw. He was having trouble concentrating.

It had been a long day, starting at three o’clock this morning when Carver had called him about Mabry’s suspicious death.

He paced deliberately in front of the glass wall that looked out over the Nashville skyline and tried to think about the M.E.’s report on Mabry’s death. It didn’t work. All he could see before his eyes was the hurt in Sunny’s expression when he’d snapped at her.

There are no happy endings.
It had been a cruel and thoughtless comment, born from his own pain—his own failure. He’d been focused inward on the grief that had consumed him ever since he got here.

Nashville
. That was the problem. The city where he’d grown up was calling to him, reminding him, accusing him.

He stared out over the city’s streets, laid out like the spokes of a wheel. They were fast turning shiny and reflective with the rain that had begun to fall.

Nashville had changed a lot since he’d been gone, yet the skyline remained familiar. He knew exactly where Centennial Park was. His gaze zeroed in on the lights that defined the downtown park with its replica of the ancient Parthenon.

Old grief settled deep in his belly. He turned away from the window, and his gaze landed on the screen of his laptop. The screen saver had come on.

Outside, the city taunted him with whispers of traffic and rain as he stared at the slide show of pictures from that fateful summer day when he’d taken his toddler sister to that very park.

If he hadn’t been so interested in his new camera, if he hadn’t turned his back on Marianne’s stroller to snap a picture of a dog jumping to catch a Frisbee…

He muttered a curse, and took two giant strides over to the desk and shut off the computer.

If he hadn’t…

But he had. That few seconds of distraction had given Marianne’s abductor time to grab her and run.

He kept the photos on his screen saver, not to remind him of that day—he needed no help with that—but to keep his sister’s face in his mind.

To keep her alive.

He slid his laptop into its case and locked it, mindful of the FBI case notes and files it contained. He took it
everywhere. He even kept a change of clothes and a few sundries in the compact case.

Back at the window, he pulled the drapes. With the city hidden behind yards of material, maybe he could get some sleep.

He looked at his watch. Ten o’clock. He was exhausted, but he was too antsy to rest. He couldn’t sit, couldn’t relax. He sure as hell had no hope of sleeping.

He wondered how Sunny was doing. It had been a long day for her, too. First, he’d shocked her with the information about Mabry’s death.

Then there had been the fake bomb, which he still didn’t understand. Even though Burt Means theoretically had access to blasting caps, the gratuitous display didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the case. There was a chance it was coincidental, but he didn’t think so. It seemed more like a diversionary tactic.

Whatever its purpose, it had certainly spooked Sunny. Then to top it all off, he’d slammed her in the face with his cruel remark about happy endings, then put her through the third degree, questioning her for hours about every case she’d ever handled.

She’d been pale and drawn by the time he’d left to check in with Carver about the package. Her friend Lillian had been there, eyeing him with her sharp, disapproving gaze. She thought he was being too hard on Sunny.

He was. But he had to make sure she didn’t hide any more information from him. And if he had to destroy her rosy dreams in order to save her child, he would.