Maggie Price - The Cradle Will Fall

“That’s the logical assumption.”

“Did your agent find out what changed her mind?”

“No. Not long after Andrea phoned her father, she showed up at the clinic in labor. According to our agent, she didn’t tell anyone she’d decided to keep the child. Andrea gave birth a couple hours later to a healthy girl, then began hemorrhaging and died of the sudden blood loss.”

“What happened to the baby?”

“Per the papers Andrea had previously signed, the infant was turned over to Loving Arms Adoptions, one of the agencies that has a contract with the state. Since A’lynn Jackson had failed to give the clinic the name and contact information for a next of kin, her body was donated to the state medical school’s cadaver program.”

Grace winced. “How did the senator take that news?”

“Reportedly with a lot of anger fueled by his grief.”

“I can imagine.” Grace pursed her mouth. “So how did Agent Santini wind up with this case in his lap?”

“Through no doing of my own,” Mark returned dryly. “Grayson knew my name because I testified before a committee he chairs. He demanded the assistant director assign me to secure the release of his daughter’s body and investigate the legalities of the adoption.”

“He wants to raise his granddaughter?”

“Yes.” Mark sent Grace a sardonic look. “Probably hoping to make up to Andrea for the crummy job he did with her.”

“You don’t think he’s sincere?”

“Maybe he never laid a hand on Andrea, but he kept his distance for years. Abused her emotionally. That can do as much harm as repeated beatings. The damage just doesn’t show on the outside. Who’s to say he won’t treat his granddaughter the same way?”

Without warning, Mark felt an old hurt and vicious bitterness close in on him. He tightened his grip on the mug. He made a point to keep what happened to him as a child where it belonged—in the past. Always the past. That those old emotions had just risen to the surface left him feeling exposed, a sensation totally foreign to him.

“Mark, did you know Andrea Grayson?”

He looked up to find Grace’s eyes probing his face. She was the only person with whom he’d ever been tempted to share the details of his past. It was just as well that he’d held back. They were colleagues now, with only their jobs in common.

“No, I never met her,” he said evenly. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you sound like there’s something personal about this case.”

His jaw tightened. “I always take it personal when a young person dies. Andrea is dead, and try as he might, the senator can’t take a step back and make things right.” Mark rubbed the back of his neck in an attempt to ease the tension that had settled there. “What Grayson can do is get strings pulled and red tape cut on his behalf. Which is where I come in. And why I spent most of yesterday getting a court order for the release of his daughter’s body from the medical school’s cadaver program.”

“I hope for everyone’s sake you managed to do that.”

“Yes. The med students are out for the holidays, so the body is in the same shape now as it was when the school received it. Grayson had a private plane pick up Andrea’s body last night and fly it to D.C. Since she died with one of the clinic’s doctors in attendance, no autopsy was required. The senator wants to make sure he’s being told the truth about her death, so he hired a private company to perform an autopsy.”

“If there is something suspicious about the death, the fact the body’s already embalmed won’t help.”

Mark nodded. “I understand they’ll have to compare samples of clean embalming fluids with that in the body. Check to see if any foreign elements or compounds are present.” He glanced at the clock over the stove. “The autopsy should just now be getting underway.”

“I take it you and I will be serving the subpoena you mentioned yesterday to Loving Arms Adoptions so we can try to find Andrea’s baby?”

“That’s first on our list.”

“Suppose the autopsy doesn’t turn up anything nefarious? If the adoption records are sealed by the court, they won’t be available to us, despite your subpoena.”

“True, and it’s possible we’ll run into that kind of road block. But it’s also possible the adoption isn’t finalized and Loving Arms isn’t yet under any order by the court. If that’s the case, our subpoena requires them to let us see the records they have on Andrea Grayson’s daughter. If the infant is still under the agency’s care, the senator can send a pack of lawyers to get his granddaughter turned over to him.”

Grace stood, walked around the island and dumped the remainder of her coffee in the sink. Turning, she shook back her hair.

The gesture was so familiar that Mark felt his throat close. A picture rose inside his head of her lying in his bed, her body slick with sweat from their lovemaking, her warm, silky legs tangled with his. They had shared some light comment that had prompted her to prop herself up on one elbow and smile down at him with a smugness that mirrored the same sated contentment he’d felt. Then she’d laughed and shaken back all that glorious hair. He’d slid his fingers into the dark fall, tumbled her onto her back and lost himself in her again.

“So,” Grace began, “if everything goes smooth, your work here might not take long.”

He kept his eyes steady on hers, fighting back both the vision and the erotic sweep of memories that accompanied it. He had been with other women since her, but the relationships had been scattershot with no emotional bonds forged. No other woman had brought him the same sense of completeness as Grace. Had never even gotten close.

“Right,” he agreed, shifting gears smoothly even as remnants of an age-old need clawed in his stomach. “With luck, we could have everything tied up fast.”

He noted her fingers fisting against her thighs, then flexing. “And then you’ll be gone.”

“That’s my plan.”

“Well, Santini, you always did have a plan. And the willpower to stick to it.”

“Things work better that way, McCall.”

“Don’t I know it,” she agreed as she turned and flipped off the light over the sink.

He rose off the stool. “Ready to serve that subpoena?”

“I’ll get my purse and coat, then meet you at the front door.”

“Fine.” Standing there with warm, homey scents hanging in the air, Mark watched her go. As he listened to her footsteps tap against the hallway’s wooden floor, he realized he still wanted her. Mindlessly.

Which was his tough luck.

Grace didn’t want to think about how natural it had felt to have Mark Santini in her kitchen again. Of how just sitting on the stool beside his had seemed so achingly familiar. Of how empty she’d felt when he acknowledged he would leave.

Again.

Of course Mark would leave. That was what he did. He jumped from city to city, case to case, then he moved on.

She had spent most of the previous night tossing and turning, reminding herself of his gypsy lifestyle. Reminding herself that no matter where he was, Special Agent Santini was on the road to somewhere else. His whereabouts were at the whim of the FBI, and that’s the way he liked things.

Now, as she walked beside him through fluffy, spiraling snowflakes toward the building that housed Loving Arms Adoptions, Grace shoved her gloved hands into the pockets of her coat, then fisted them. She was not going to do this again. Not going to let her crazy hormonal reaction to this hotshot cop with a killer face and fancy suits guide her like she had six years ago. She was smarter, wiser and had received enough hard knocks to know she couldn’t have everything she wanted.

Which didn’t really matter, since she no longer wanted Mark Santini.

Didn’t want any man at the moment. She readily admitted that the black, vicious grief she’d felt over losing Ryan—and later the child she carried—had sent her burrowing into a numbing emotional cocoon. If she ever got brave enough to peel off the protective layers and look for another man, she would set her sights on someone like Ryan. Her husband had been easygoing, as dependable as the sunrise. Mr. White Picket Fence who’d wanted to settle down and raise a bushel of kids. Again, she felt the bitter, dragging regret. She had never once thought of Ryan as a rebound love. Yet, when he overheard a conversation after he and Grace married about the reason she’d made the visit to Virginia to see Mark, that’s exactly how Ryan had viewed himself—as the man she’d turned to on the rebound. The man she’d settled for.

She and Ryan had barely started dating when she’d made that trip. She’d recognized something special about him, yet even then she’d known she couldn’t move on until she resolved things with Mark. So she’d gone to Virginia on the chance she and Mark might somehow be able to meld their lifestyles. There she discovered he’d already moved on with the leggy White House staffer.

She would regret for the rest of her life Ryan’s overhearing that conversation. Regret how deeply he’d been hurt. He had been dead nearly three years, yet the regret continued to hang over her like clogging, black smoke. What she did not need—did not intend to create—were additional regrets over Mark Santini.

So she would ignore the unrelenting, maddening chemistry that pulled her toward him, and do her job. Then watch him leave.

Again.

“Here’s hoping this goes smooth,” Mark said as he pulled the building’s front door open for her.

Nodding, Grace stepped past him into the lobby, an arty rectangle decorated in soft hues. She knew he wanted things to go without a hitch because the smoother they went, the sooner he could head to his next assignment. Unbuttoning her coat, she blamed the dry ache that settled in her throat on the sudden transition between the frigid outdoors and the warmth inside.

Loving Arms Adoptions was located in a multiroom suite with coral carpets and leather furnishings. A thin, fortyish woman in a gray suit sat at a well-organized desk, typing on a computer. She looked up when Mark and Grace walked in, turned from her computer and gave them a mild smile.

“Can I help you?”

They displayed their badges, then Mark asked to speak to the agency’s director.

“Do you have an appointment with Mrs. Quinton?”

“No, we have a subpoena,” he said politely. “If your boss is too busy to see us, we’ll serve the subpoena to you.”

“Wait here.” The woman popped out of her chair like a cork from a champagne bottle and hustled down a carpeted hallway.

Grace slid Mark a look. “You always did have a knack for getting a woman’s attention, Santini.”

He gave her a quick, smug grin. “It’s a gift.”

Grace tried to ignore the instant hot ball of awareness that all-too-familiar grin lodged in her belly. Dammit, the man was like a force field, hauling her closer, when all she wanted was to keep her distance.

Just then the receptionist reappeared and escorted them into a large office. Centered in the room was a dark wooden desk behind which a gray-haired woman with vivid blue eyes sat, taking them in.

“I’m Patsy Quinton,” she said, gesturing them to chairs in front of the desk. “Now that you’ve put my secretary in a tizzy, officers, what can I do for you?”

“We’re looking for a baby,” Mark said.

The woman nodded. “Most people who come to Loving Arms are.”

“A girl,” he continued, then gave the date Andrea Grayson had given birth. While he explained the facts of the case, Grace handed Mrs. Quinton a copy of the form Andrea had signed at the clinic authorizing her daughter’s adoption. “If the infant has already been adopted, we’d like to know by whom,” Mark finished.