His Secret Christmas Baby. Rita Herron
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of the baby? I’ll need it for the media and so I can fax it to the Web site for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.”
She’d taken dozens in the last six weeks. Had even bought a new digital camera so she could download them to her computer.
“Yes.” She pushed herself up. “Let me get you one.”
She walked over to the table, then glanced at the assortment of photographs. First the one from the hospital the night Ryan had been born. Another photo two weeks later in a sailor’s outfit. Another the next week in a baseball hat. But her gaze rested on the photo she’d snapped the week before.
She’d propped Ryan up in the infant seat, and dressed him in a soft blue terry cloth sleeper. The picture showed his pale blond hair, his toothless grin and his chubby cheeks. He’d already changed from birth. In fact, he seemed to change every day.
Grief assailed her. Natalie was missing it all. But she’d trusted Brianna to care for him, and she’d let her down. What would happen if they didn’t find Ryan soon?
He might change so much she wouldn’t even recognize him….
Swiping at fresh tears, she handed the picture to the sheriff. “Here, this one is the most recent.”
“I’ll get it sent ASAP.” He offered her a tight smile. “Try to hang in there, Brianna. I’ll send a deputy here to watch the house if you want.”
She shook her head then hugged her arms around herself. “No, I’m fine. Besides, if that man had wanted to kill me, he would have. He obviously just wanted the baby.”
“Now we just have to figure out the reason,” the sheriff said. “And wait for a ransom call.”
Brianna twisted her hands together, praying the kidnapper would phone. Or that Derrick found Ryan first. That he brought him back safely and this nightmare would end.
C AREFUL NOT TO LET THE neighbors see him, Derrick slumped in the seat as two of them pulled from their driveways and passed his car.
The cold seeped through him, but he’d long ago grown used to stakeouts. He just wished he’d brought a thermos of coffee to warm his hands and stave off the exhaustion weighing on him from lack of sleep.
Finally the front door of the Phillipses’ house opened, and a man dressed in jeans and work boots carrying a hard hat stepped out. A woman stood behind him in a thick bathrobe, tears streaming down her face. The man shouted something he couldn’t distinguish, then turned and stormed toward his car. When he climbed inside, he slammed the door and took off, speeding from the drive as if he wanted to escape. The woman slammed the house door, then disappeared inside.
Derrick frowned. It appeared the couple was having marital problems. Maybe arguing over whether or not they should have kidnapped the baby?
If they had, why would they stay in town? Why wouldn’t they have disappeared?
They would have to know that Brianna would confide about her altercation with them and the sheriff would check them out.
He needed to talk to the husband alone, but first he wanted to see if the baby was inside, so he remained parked, watching. A half hour later, the woman appeared at the door again, this time dressed and wearing a long black coat. The snowfall had ceased, but the driveway had accumulated a couple of inches of snow, so she slowly picked her way to the car.
She wasn’t carrying a baby, and he didn’t see a child’s seat in the car, either.
Maybe she had a sitter inside?
Or what if she had hired someone to kidnap the baby? She could be meeting with him later to pick up Ryan.
Although at the moment, she didn’t have a diaper bag or any supplies with her. And she didn’t bring a suitcase, so she wasn’t leaving town.
She might be desperate, but she probably knew Brianna would send the sheriff to her door, so decided to lay low and wait until the dust settled, then connect with the kidnapper afterward. That would be the smart thing to do.
He kept his head down while she veered onto the street and waited until her car had cleared the corner. Then he slipped from his vehicle, crept along the side of the house to the back. Beside the stoop, he found a laundry room window, jimmied it open and climbed inside.
Instincts alert, he hesitated in the doorway joining the laundry room to the kitchen, listening to make sure no one was inside.
But an ominous silence filled the house.
He combed through the kitchen, searched the cabinets to see if the Phillipses had stocked up on baby formula, but found nothing. In the same vein of thinking, he checked the living room, bathroom and two bedrooms—looking for baby paraphernalia, diapers and baby toys—and found a book of baby names where several had been circled. A white bassinet sat against the wall, but it was empty except for a stuffed lamb lying inside.
Was this bassinet for Ryan?
He needed to talk to the couple. But first he rushed to the desk and searched their computer and business records for any financials indicating they’d hired someone to kidnap Ryan.
What he was doing was illegal, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
Too often he’d had to wait on warrants and the perp had escaped. It was damn nice not to have to play by the rules.
A S SOON AS THE SHERIFF AND crime unit left, Brianna phoned her office, explained what had happened, and arranged for another social worker to take over her workload until Ryan was found. Then she dragged herself into the shower and washed off the stench of her attacker. She shampooed and dried her hair, then dressed in jeans and a thick sweater, her heart aching as she glanced at the empty crib.
The first week after Natalie had died, she’d been too grief-stricken to do anything but buy the essentials. A baby bed, a cradle for the downstairs, car seat, bottles, diapers, toys and baby clothes. When she’d cleaned out Natalie’s apartment, she’d found a few onesies and baby clothes Natalie had already purchased along with an infant bathtub, diaper bag and baby book.
Brianna hadn’t been able to open the baby book yet.
Still, she’d vowed to Natalie that her son would know how much she’d loved him.
What if she never got the chance?
Pain gnawed at her insides, but she willed herself to be strong. Derrick and the sheriff would find Ryan. She couldn’t, wouldn’t allow herself to believe anything else.
And she had to admit that it was comforting to have Derrick working on the case.
By the time she descended the steps, she heard a pounding on the door and Derrick calling her name. She rushed to let him in, but disappointment filled her when she saw the bleak expression on his face.
“What happened?”
Snowflakes swirled with the wind, and he quickly stepped inside, stomped his boots on the mat and closed the door. “I didn’t talk to the Phillips couple.”
“Why not?”
He ushered her into the living room. “I wanted to watch them first. To see if they had the baby. They didn’t.”
Brianna’s stomach caved. “If they don’t have him, who does? Some child predator? Someone who wants money that I don’t have?” She hadn’t realized how much she’d banked her hopes on the fact that Dana had Ryan and was taking good care of him.
That he wasn’t in danger from a crazed, cold-blooded killer who might take money, then kill him anyway.
Derrick stroked her arms. “Listen Brianna, I’ve worked these cases before. If they kidnapped Ryan, they obviously hired someone else to the job which means they’re planning to meet him later. I waited until both of them left home, then searched the house.”
Her hopes skyrocketed. “What did