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“Where’s my baby?” Her voice broke, shrill with panic.
“He’s safe. For now. But if you call the police, he won’t be safe for long.”
Oh, God. Oh, God. Her mind raced. She didn’t know what to do. “Don’t hurt him. Please. I’ll pay you anything you want.”
“I don’t need your money.”
“Then what? What do you want me to do?”
A chuckle erupted over the phone. “I was waiting for you to ask that. I want you to contact the baby’s father.”
“The baby’s father?”
“You know who he is, don’t you, Alyson? Or do you need to do a DNA test to find out?”
She did her best to swallow her panic. She had to stay calm. She had to stay focused. She had to convince this man she would do whatever he wanted. As long as he didn’t hurt Patrick, as long as he gave her baby back, everything would be all right. “I know who he is.”
“Good. It’s much better when you don’t have to rely on DNA. It’s such an unpredictable science. All those double helixes running around, or whatever the hell. You never quite know when you’re going to get an inconvenient match that will ruin all your plans.”
Understanding cut through the fog of panic and confusion clouding her mind. The chloroform. The rope. All elements of the rapes he’d been convicted for two years ago. She knew who was on the other end. She knew who had stolen her baby. “Smythe.”
“Can’t put anything past you smart scientist types.” A chuckle rippled over the phone line, vulgar, obscene. “How about that justice system? Isn’t it great?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Revenge. Pure and sweet.” His voice lost the chuckle and grew dark. “You see, I know who fathered your bastard, too, Alyson. And no man condemns me to two years in that hellhole of a prison and gets away with it. No man. I want you to tell him that.”
How in the world had Smythe learned Dex was Patrick’s father? Alyson hadn’t told a soul. She’d taken a leave of absence from work to hide her pregnancy. She hadn’t even listed Dex on Patrick’s birth certificate. But it didn’t matter how Smythe had learned the truth, he was planning to use the baby against Dex. She couldn’t let that happen. “Your plan isn’t going to work, Smythe. Dex doesn’t even know about Patrick.”
“He will after you tell him.”
Tell Dex? She couldn’t tell Dex. Not now. Not after all this time. “But I—”
“You what?”
Her knees wobbled. She sank onto the bed, grasping the edge with one hand to keep her balance. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll tell him tonight.”
“I thought you’d see things my way. You want me happy, Alyson. For your baby’s sake, you want me happy. Understand?”
“Yes, I understand.” She forced herself to breathe. She had to do something. Anything. Spotting the Memo button on the answering machine, she pushed it. At least she could get Smythe’s voice on tape. She’d have proof of his threats. “After I tell Dex, then what?”
“I’ll call.”
“Can’t you tell me more now? Can’t I do something? Please.” She couldn’t just sit and wait. Not while Patrick was in the hands of this monster. Not while her baby was hungry and cold and wanted his mother. Not while Smythe might—
She bit the inside of her cheek until the coppery taste of blood tinged her mouth. She couldn’t think about what Smythe might do to Patrick. She couldn’t function if she thought about that.
“You just let Harrington know he has a son. I’ll be in touch.”
“Please. You can’t do this. Give him back to—”
The line went dead.
ANDY SMYTHE pulled his sweet, red Corvette to the curb in front of the little ranch house and killed the engine. Alyson Fitzroy’s questions and challenges still rang in his ears. Damn. A woman’s mouth was only good for one thing, and it sure as hell wasn’t talking. He couldn’t stand women who talked too much. Especially the smart, superior types like Alyson Fitzroy. He would have loved to do what he’d gone to her house to do. He would have loved to grab her by her long red hair and put her in her place. He had been looking forward to it.
But then he’d seen the baby.
He glanced at the sleeping bundle next to him on the passenger seat. His little pajama-clad body. His nearly white hair that barely covered his scalp.
Andy had learned a lot about Dex Harrington while he’d been stewing in that hellhole. A lot about him. He knew Harrington and the redhead had been tight. They’d almost been married, the private investigator he’d hired had said. That’s why Andy had chosen her as his first after getting out of prison. That coupled with the fact that she’d performed the DNA test that had gotten him out of prison seemed too ironic a combination to pass up. But seeing the kid had thrown him. He’d figured the kid had to be Harrington’s.
Just as his chat with the redhead had confirmed.
Andy gathered the sleeping kid in his arms. Throwing the strap of the bag filled with baby things he’d swiped from the bedroom over his other shoulder, Andy climbed out of his Vette. He carried the child to the door of the house and rang the bell.
A light blinked on in the bedroom. Great. Nanny had been asleep. She wouldn’t be happy with him for waking her, but it couldn’t be helped. As soon as she saw the baby, she’d forgive him. Nanny never could hold a grudge.
The frilly white curtain over the front door’s small window lifted and a withered eye peered out. It widened in surprise. The curtain fell and the door rattled then opened.
“Do you know what time it is, Andy?” Nanny stood in the doorway watching him with stern yet gentle eyes, the way she used to every day when he was growing up.
For a moment he felt like a puny little kid again, crawling to Nanny for comfort after his mother had treated him to another of her cruel and belittling tirades.
He shoved the feeling aside and stepped past the old woman and into the house. He would never be puny and weak. Never again. And neither Dex Harrington’s scathing words nor Alyson Fitzroy’s superior tone would make it so. Tonight he hadn’t come for Nanny’s comfort. He’d come for her help. He walked into a tiny living room jammed with so much furniture it would have looked like a warehouse if not for the crocheted doilies covering every surface.
Nanny followed him on tottering legs. “What do you have there? A child?”
He turned his best pitiful expression on her. “My child, Nanny. His mother doesn’t want him. She abandoned him as soon as I was freed from prison.”
“Your child? That child is too young. You were in prison when it was conceived.”
“Haven’t you heard of conjugal visits? They arrange them for prisoners, you know.”
She nodded as if this was a totally plausible explanation.
Andy laughed to himself. If she bought that story, this was going to be easier than he’d thought. “I was in love with his mother. I wanted to marry her.” He dropped his head as if he were ashamed. “Unfortunately she didn’t feel the same way.”
Pity and concern washed over Nanny’s wrinkled face.
“I need your help, Nanny. I need you to take little Bart.”
She frowned.
“You know me,” he continued, “I can’t take care of myself, let alone a baby.”
“Well that’s true enough.”
“Besides, I want my son to have the best care a boy can have. I want him to have the only thing that was good about my childhood. I want him to have you.”
Nanny’s old face softened into a smile. Amazing. Sometimes he didn’t even have to come up with a lie to manipulate people. Sometimes he had only to tell the truth.
She held out her arms for the baby. “Give him here. I hate to see you worrying about your poor child, Andy. Not after all you’ve been through. You’re right. He’s better off with me.”
Andy placed the baby in her arms and set the bag on the floor. Then he slipped his wallet from his pocket and pulled out a wad of hundreds and set them on a crocheted doily.
The old lady eyed him, hardness stealing back into her face. “I’m not taking your money, boy.”
“The baby needs things. I want my son to have the best. This money is for him.”
She paused then nodded, her thin, wrinkled lips stretching into a smile once again. “You’re a good daddy, Andy, taking care of your baby this way. I’m proud of you.”
Andy couldn’t keep the grin off his face. A good daddy. That was him. A regular chip off the old Smythe block. He stifled his laugh until he bade the old woman goodbye and closed the door behind him.
The baby would be safe and well cared for with Nanny. Contrary to what he’d told the redhead, he had no intention of hurting the kid. He wasn’t a sicko, unlike some of the scumbags he’d done time with. And he was no baby killer, either. The baby was safe.
But the father? Not a chance. The baby would give Andy just the leverage he needed to turn Dex Harrington’s life into a living nightmare. And in the process, he’d see he got a piece of the oh-so-superior redhead, too.
Revenge would be sweet.
ALYSON GRIPPED the wheel with white-knuckled fingers and struggled to quell the trembling that claimed every nerve. Stomping on the accelerator as hard as she dared, she steered her Volvo around sharp corners and down quiet streets. She trained her eyes on the road ahead, keeping her gaze from wandering to the rearview mirror, to the reflection of the empty child’s safety seat belted in back.
She couldn’t give in to the panic, the rush of loss that threatened to overwhelm her. She had to stay rational. She had to reach Dex. She had to get Patrick back.
And whatever that took, she’d do it.
The roofline of Dex’s sprawling old bungalow loomed on the edge of the lake, a dark shadow against the moonlight-kissed waves beyond. Alyson swerved onto the dead end street, pulled to the curb and scrambled from the car.
Built into the bank of Lake Mendota, Dex’s house was his pride and joy. Alyson could still picture the satisfaction on his face the day he’d bought the scarred old former fraternity house and started putting his renovation plans into motion. It was as if he’d finally arrived, finally proven he had transcended his desolate upbringing.
Her heart pounded in her ears, drowning out the lapping of the waves against the shore. The humid June air clogged her throat. She climbed the stone steps and stepped onto the porch. A light shone from the back of the house. Pressing a trembling finger to the doorbell, she held her breath.
A chime sounded through the old structure. Footsteps thudded on the hardwood floor inside. The door opened.
“Alyson.” Dex stood silhouetted against light glowing behind him. But even in the shadow she could see his brow furrow, the muscles along his cleft chin hardening in unswerving judgment.
Some things never changed. But his judgment of her didn’t matter. Not anymore. The only thing that mattered now was Patrick. Alyson forced her voice to function. “I need to talk to you.”
Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his midnight-blue eyes seemed to grow darker, harder. He took in a deep breath and expelled it. “I suppose you heard about the governor’s pardon.”
“Yes.”
“Is that what you need to talk about?”
“In part, yes.”
“Is it something about the testing you did? Something I should know?”
After Smythe’s pardon today it was logical Dex would assume she was coming to see him about the DNA test she’d done—the test that had sprung the rapist from prison. “No. It’s not that. The testing was accurate. The two samples were a match.”
His gaze raked over her, as if trying to determine her true motive for showing up on his doorstep.
“I need your help.” Her words trembled with barely controlled panic. “It’s urgent.”
As if hearing the edge in her voice, he gave a succinct nod and backed from the doorway, allowing her inside.
As she stepped into the house, a shiver stole up her spine. Sights, smells and feelings from the past washed over her. The tickle of dust in her nose as she and Dex hauled box after box of ancient junk from the attic after he bought the house. The scent of paint, varnish and wallpaper paste as they reclaimed the scarred walls and floors. The sound of hers and Dex’s laughter mingling and filling the empty halls. Memories of happy times, before her father’s crimes, before she learned exactly how precarious her position was in Dex’s heart.
She shut the memories out of her mind. They were merely sentimental longing. And she didn’t have time for sentiment. “Can we sit down?”
His eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. “You can’t tell me here?”
Her knees quivered. “Please. I need to sit down. And so should you.”
He raised his brows at her last comment. But instead of grilling her further, he mercifully turned and led her through the house.
She followed, forcing her eyes to move over her surroundings. Forcing her mind to focus on something safer than the panic thrashing inside her, threatening to shred what little control she had.
Dex had changed things since she’d helped him decorate following the renovation. He’d replaced the simple curtains she’d chosen with wood-slat blinds. He’d furnished the rooms with heavy leather instead of the light-fabric couches and chairs she’d helped him select. It was as if he’d obliterated her from his life. As if she’d ceased to exist in his world.
And of course, she had.
But he’d never disappeared from her world. His presence went far deeper than blinds and furniture. She felt his presence every time she looked into Patrick’s blue eyes or kissed that tiny cleft chin.
Patrick.
Panic rose in her throat like bile. Choking it back, she followed Dex into the glassed-in porch they used to sit in together watching thunderstorms come in off the lake. He gestured to a wicker chair. She took her place among the cushions.
He lowered himself into a chair facing her. “We’re sitting. What is it?”
She tangled her fingers together in her lap and took a deep breath. There were so many things that had been said between them. And even more things that had not been said. Before she told him about Patrick, she had to give him some idea why she hadn’t told him about his son. She had to make him understand. “I tried calling you. Several times. After my father was killed. You refused my calls. And you didn’t call back when I left messages on your machine.”
Dex’s brows snapped low over his eyes. “I didn’t want to talk to you, Alyson. I don’t want to rehash the past. I hope that’s not why you came here tonight.”
“You turned your back on me, Dex. And my only crime was that I loved my father.”
He stood and paced the length of the sunporch. He stopped, his back to her, his shoulders obviously tight under his crisp white dress shirt. Slowly he turned to look at her with hard eyes. “Your father was a criminal. The worst kind of criminal. He used his title of district attorney to sell justice. He perverted the entire system. And you defended him.”
“He was my father. I didn’t believe he could do something like that.”
“You didn’t want to believe it. You didn’t want to believe me.”
She swallowed into a dry throat. “That’s why I called. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I was wrong about my father. That I was sorry I didn’t believe you when you first told me what you suspected. But that’s not the only thing I wanted to tell you.”
“What are you saying? Why are you here, Alyson?”
“I wanted to tell you I was pregnant.” She rubbed clammy hands over her jeans and willed herself to look at Dex, to meet his gaze. “I gave birth to our son seven months ago.”
Dex didn’t move. He didn’t even seem to breathe. “I have a son.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact.
