LITMIR.BIZ

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her granddaughter was dead would haunt him to his dying day.

      Don’t think about Carmen or Theresa, he told himself. This is another case. Another chance to save a child.

      Cold detachment firmed his voice. “You’re coming with me. Keely’s the Collingwood heir. You’re both under my protection until this is over.”

      THE KIDNAPPER WAS CAREFUL to arrive after dark to avoid being seen. Aunt Helen and Uncle Fred’s farmhouse was set back from the road, but you couldn’t be too careful.

      Aunt Helen answered the door, her worn face brightening into a smile. “Well, this is nice, two visits in a month. I was just washing up the dinner dishes. Let me cut you some cake. It’s chocolate with butter-pecan frosting. Emma put the pecans on all by herself.”

      “Then I definitely want some. Where is she?”

      “Helping Fred feed the rabbits out back.” Aunt Helen stopped in the dingy hallway papered with faded blue windmills and folded her gnarled fingers in prayer, her voice a fervent whisper. “Have you heard from him?”

      “Sorry, but I got an e-mail from Emma’s mother’s sister. She was looking for her sister and didn’t know about Emma.”

      “Did she offer to take her?”

      “I didn’t ask in so many words, but I told her about Emma and offered to send a picture. I’m hoping once she sees her she’ll be open to the idea of looking after her.”

      “That would be wonderful. I can’t understand how adults can just abandon their children and their responsibilities. Fred and I love her dearly but we won’t be able to take care of her forever. Fred’s getting more and more forgetful. Yesterday he forgot he’d turned the kettle on and nearly started a fire.”

      The kidnapper made sympathetic noises. What Aunt Helen didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Killing her son had been an unpleasant, but necessary precaution. And frankly, the world was better off without that shiftless SOB. “I’m sure he will turn up eventually. You know I’ll do whatever I can to help with Emma’s expenses. I’m just sorry I can’t come by more often.”

      Aunt Helen shook her head. “We know you’re busy.” She made shooing motions toward the kitchen. “Now come sit down and tell me what’s going on in your life.”

      The kidnapper winced, the question striking too close to home. Everything would work out according to plan as long as The Guardian cooperated with the ransom demand. “Didn’t you say something about cake?”

      Aunt Helen cut a thick wedge of cake and served it on a chipped china plate.

      The fork rattled as boots clomped up the back steps and the rear kitchen door burst open.

      Emma, barely as tall as Uncle Fred’s knee, entered first in a navy-blue jacket, her blue eyes glowing beneath a dark fringe of bangs and her cheeks like polished apples. “Gamma, we’re ba-ack.”

      “So you are, little duck. Take off your jacket and your boots,” Aunt Helen said with a smile, rising to help her. “And come say hello to your daddy’s cousin.”

      “Quack-quack,” Emma sang back vociferously.

      “That means hello,” Uncle Fred interpreted, shrugging out of his red-and-black plaid wool jacket and hanging it on a wooden peg near the door. The retired electrician looked thinner than ever, his pants held around his waist with a belt cinched small as a dog’s collar. Even his handshake felt feeble.

      They sat around the table and talked while Aunt Helen fixed tea and Emma drew pictures on construction paper with stubby crayons.

      When it was Emma’s bedtime, the kidnapper offered to read her a story. It was simple enough to snap a picture of her in her pajamas holding the front page of today’s edition of the New York Times.

      Soon, the picture would come in very handy.

      Chapter Two

      Stef held Keely in her arms and stared mutinously at Mitch Halloran over the roof of the black luxury sedan as he stowed their luggage in the trunk. She was not ready for this. Night surrounded them with cold velvet. The stars were crystal-clear overhead.

      Stef couldn’t bring herself to touch the door handle. It had been hard enough to pack clothes and toys for Keely and to allow Mitch to collect a DNA sample from their mouths with a swab. She did not want to get into this car and drive toward an uncertain future, which might not include the precious baby she held in her arms.

      She couldn’t do it.

      She had to do it. Another child needed her.

      Mitch closed the trunk and stared back at her, not saying a word, but his Goliath expression said plenty.

      She hated him, she really did. Hated how he loomed over the car—a golden malevolent griffin with sun-bleached hair. Hated how she noticed how endlessly broad his shoulders were and how she could feel his eyes silently reminding her that her flesh-and-blood child was spending yet another day without her real mommy.

      That was the worst part of it. Nausea and anger churned in her at the heart-wrenching thought that she’d only known her real baby for a day. What if her real daughter was dead? Or would be killed once the ransom was paid. What if she never saw her again?

      “Mommy?” Keely’s voice sounded pitifully small and tired in the darkness. “I don’t like that man. He makes you sad. I want my snuggie and my beddy-bye time.”

      “Kee, that was rude. Mr. Halloran is a detective, which is kind of like a police officer, and he needs Mommy’s help. So we’re going to go with him and help him, okay? It’ll be fun. An adventure.”

      Keely didn’t look convinced. Her brow wrinkled like a plump raisin. “No.”

      Stef saw the white flash of Mitch Halloran’s patient smile in the darkness as he walked to the driver’s side door. He obviously knew better than to clash wills with an obstinate two-and-a-half-year-old. She smoothed the hair back from Keely’s forehead and kissed her frown away, her throat tightening with suppressed emotion. “Sometimes, Kee, we have to do things even when we don’t want to do them.” God, what an understatement! “I have snuggie and I’ll tuck it around you and we’ll have our beddy-bye time in the car.”

      As she spoke, Stef opened the rear door of the car. The door handle felt cold in her grasp. “Okay, baby gorilla, into your car seat. I’ll sit right beside you.”

      To her relief, Keely obeyed, though she moved at an excruciating turtle’s pace. Stef fastened her daughter into the car seat and covered her with her snuggie, the crocheted rainbow-pastel blanket that had been a gift from Brad’s former boss. Then she handed Keely her cup of milk with the leak-proof lid.

      Stef was uncomfortably aware of Mitch Halloran’s unrelenting size filling the car, his scent commingling with the scents of leather and the sweet baby smell of Keely’s blanket. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so aware of a man’s presence. It had probably been her wedding day when she’d walked down the aisle and seen Brad waiting for her at the front of the church.

      Brad. He’d been handsome, engaging and unreliable.

      Funny how she’d fooled herself into thinking he’d always be there for her. The fact that he was estranged from his parents, who hadn’t been invited to their wedding, should have been her first clue that family wasn’t at the top of Brad’s priority list. She wouldn’t be going through this nightmare if he’d stayed overnight in the hospital with them. But he’d had that job interview the next morning, which he’d blown anyway by arriving late.

      Guilt struck her. It wasn’t Brad’s fault that someone had stolen their baby.

      Mitch looped an arm across the back of the front passenger seat, his face a study of intense sharp angles as he backed the car out of the driveway—away from the home she’d bought with the money from Brad’s life insurance policy. At least he’d

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