Royal Heir. Alice Sharpe
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“It was not necessary to turn it on.”
“Didn’t you wonder where I was?”
“But, no, mademoiselle. I was met at the gate as planned. Most expedient.”
Julia sank down on the chair beside him. She said, “I don’t understand. Where’s Leo?”
He looked as confused as she felt. He said, “Nor do I. You are Nicole Chastain’s cousin? She had another?”
“No, no, just the one, just me, Julia Sheridan, Leonardo’s guardian as named in Nicole’s will. You called me, monsieur, the day after her death, six days ago. You said since Nicole’s husband died last month—”
“Oui, in a boating accident. Most unfortunate.”
“Yes. Well, you told me Nicole wanted me to become Leo’s guardian. You said you would bring him to me as instructed in her will. Where is he? Where’s Leo?”
Now his mouth was as round as his eyes. “Yes, yes, this is all true, but there must be some misunderstanding. I was met right here. By Julia Sheridan.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Julia Sheridan was waiting for me when I arrived.” He narrowed his eyes before adding, “She is different than you but much the same. Her voice is lower, her speech more formal. Her fiancé is a fine fellow. Quiet.” With a scolding expression as though he disapproved of Julia’s attempt at a hoax, he added, “I assure you, she had all the right papers.”
Julia swallowed the knot in her throat. “But I’m Julia Sheridan.”
They stared at each other for a long moment until Julia felt another gaze boring into her back. She turned to catch a tall, well-built man glancing away.
He appeared to be in his early thirties, black hair, gray eyes, dressed in an ill-fitting gray suit. His gaze followed a parade of straggling teenagers with the studied indifference of a policeman.
The lawyer said, “Mademoiselle?”
Blinking, Julia looked back at Pepin. “Do you mean that you gave Leo to someone pretending to be me?”
Trembling now, the lawyer opened his briefcase and shuffled through the contents. “Here, here,” he protested, shoving papers complete with Julia’s signature. Only it wasn’t Julia’s handwriting, but how was he supposed to know that?
“When did this happen?” she asked, her voice rising in alarm.
He glanced at his watch. “The other…Julia…she left a half hour ago. Maybe a few minutes more. She took the infant, Leonardo Chastain, with her.”
Julia opened her shoulder bag and brought out all the identification she had been told she would need to verify her identity: social security card, birth certificate, passport, driver’s license. She’d even included a picture of herself taken with Nicole a few weeks before. In the photo, Julia held Leo as Nicole hadn’t wanted to take a chance the baby would spit up on her dress. Julia shoved the photo beneath a protesting Henri Pepin’s nose.
He blinked as he studied the image of Julia—brown hair tamed into a long ponytail, no makeup, grinning—and Nicole—flaming red hair, hips thrust forward, shoulders back, expression grim. Julia recalled the conversation preceding the photo snapped by one of Julia’s friends. Nicole had been complaining about her soon-to-be ex-husband, saying how tightfisted he was, how mean, how he was going to rue the day he met her.
The lawyer gasped. “Mon dieu!” he said, as tiny beads of perspiration popped out on his high forehead. “How can this be?”
Julia echoed the sentiment as she rifled through his copies of what appeared to be legal documents and photocopies of fake identification.
“Why?” she insisted. “Why would anyone go to such lengths to claim Leo?”
“There is no reason. He is just an ordinary baby. His parents, before their deaths, ordinary people, a little savings, a little debt…”
“Who knew you were bringing him here?” Julia added.
“My office, child protection, the police. It was even in the newspaper. It was no secret.”
“Monsieur Pepin, we need to alert security at once. We need to find Leo.”
“Oui, oui,” the lawyer said, snapping his case shut again and rising.
Julia was already on her feet. “Tell me again what the woman looked like,” she pleaded as they hurried toward a uniformed airline employee.
“Much like you, mademoiselle,” the lawyer said, his accent growing thicker as his panic escalated. “The man, I don’t know, very quiet,” he added. “Fair complexion, name of George Abbot, wearing a raincoat…”
“George Abbot?” Julia asked, forehead wrinkled.
“Oui. I had wrapped the baby in a white blanket…”
Julia pushed away the alarm that her boss’s name had produced as she recalled the people getting on the elevator as she got off. Man with blond hair, much like the real George Abbot, but too tall, too thin, baby bundled in a light-colored, perhaps white, blanket, its face hidden against the woman’s shoulder, deep-set brown eyes on the woman herself.
Eyes like Julia’s.
With Monsieur Pepin’s voice ringing in her ears, Julia darted off down the bustling corridor. “Call the police,” she yelled as she shouldered her way through the crush.
Someone grabbed her arm. She twirled and faced the man she’d noticed earlier. The one in the gray suit. He blurted out, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Julia did not like strangers touching her or asking questions that were none of their business. But there was a look in this man’s eyes that stopped her from rebuffing him. Besides, she was scared to death her tardiness had put Leo’s life in jeopardy and this guy looked official. She said, “A kidnapping. My baby—”
“Your baby?” the man said, and now there was something new in his eyes and she felt a new wave of apprehension.
“It’s too difficult to explain. Let go of me, I need to search—”
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
“Who are you?”
“Airport security,” he snapped as he dropped his hand. “Quick, tell me what happened.”
Julia related the facts. As she spoke, they hurried to the elevator, retracing her steps, scouring the elevator when it emptied of people, searching each floor of the parking garage, looking in among the sea of cars for a tall blond man, a woman with dark eyes, a ten-month-old baby in a white blanket.
“It’s useless,” Julia cried as they reentered the airport. She faced the fact that the couple could have transferred to a different terminal, boarded a private plane.
A knot of uniforms surrounded the lawyer. Julia’s heart leapt in a surge of hope.
“Maybe they found him,” the man said.
Julia called out, “Monsieur Pepin? Is Leo safe?”
As one, the crowd turned to face Julia. “No, no,” Monsieur Pepin said, his face now pale, his voice jittery. “There is no sign, I’m afraid. He’s vanished into thin air.”
A huge man with tiny glasses perched on his nose and white-blond hair parted in the middle strode toward Julia. “San Francisco police,” he said, flipping open a badge. “Detective Morris. I need to ask you a few questions, Miss Sheridan. Let’s start with why you ran off.”
“I remembered seeing three people fitting the descriptions Monsieur Pepin gave me,” Julia said, her voice shaky and it wasn’t just because of Leo. Standing face-to-face, more or less, with a uniformed police officer who towered over her made her feel small and vulnerable. “I thought there might be time