His Case, Her Baby

Carla Cassidy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Copyright

About the Author

Carla Cassidy is an award-winning author who has written over fifty books. In 1995, she won Best Silhouette Romance from Romantic Times BOOKreviews for Anything for Danny. In 1998, she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from Romantic Times BOOKreviews.

Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.

Chapter 1

Peyton Wilkerson finished mopping her kitchen floor, pleased by the shine on the tiles and the clean scent of bleach that hung in the air. She put the mop away and then went to the window of the cozy ranch house.

She stared outside, where the day before the concrete company had poured a beautiful new patio inside the six-foot privacy fence that surrounded the backyard.

Pride ballooned in her chest. It was all finally coming together for her. After years of working two and three jobs, of attending college nights and weekends, some of her dreams were beginning to come true.

She not only had her very own house, but she also had a brand-new patio where she could have a barbecue and invite neighbors who would hopefully soon be friends.

She turned from the window at the sound of a soft coo coming from the portable infant rocking seat in the center of the kitchen table. Her heart swelled as she smiled at her four-month-old little girl.

“Hey, Lilly girl,” Peyton said as she scooped the baby up in her arms. Lilly flailed her arms and cooed again, her rosebud little lips turning upward in a happy smile.

It almost frightened Peyton, how happy she’d become, how many of her dreams were beginning to blossom into fruition. In a month she would begin teaching first grade at the Black Rock Elementary School. And even though Lilly hadn’t been planned, she was the greatest gift Peyton had ever been given.

Although things hadn’t worked out between Peyton and Lilly’s father, Rick, Rick had promised to be there for his daughter, and Peyton knew he’d do just that. He was a good man, just not the man for Peyton.

“Are you hungry?” Peyton asked as she placed Lilly back in her seat.

Lilly bounced and wiggled and smiled, a faint trail of drool making its way from her mouth to her chin. Peyton laughed and grabbed a towel to wipe her mouth. “Or would you rather I just get your piggies?” She grabbed Lilly’s foot and tickled her toes. Lilly squealed and kicked her feet as Peyton laughed again.

The ringing of the doorbell interrupted the game. Making certain that Lilly was secure in the seat, Peyton left her and hurried to the door.

She peeked through the spy hole on the door and saw the tall redhead on the other side. She quickly unfastened the dead bolt and opened the door. “Kathy! I didn’t expect you to stop by today,” she said.

“I decided a little exercise would do me good, so I thought I’d walk over for a visit, but it’s hot as blazes out there.” She flipped her long red hair over her shoulder and smiled. “Hope you don’t mind a hot and thirsty friend dropping by unexpectedly.”

“Not at all. Come on into the kitchen. I was just about to make a bottle for Lilly, and I’ll get you something cold to drink.”

As they entered the kitchen, Kathy beelined to Lilly as Peyton got a bottle of soda out of the fridge and set it on the table.

Kathy baby-talked to Lilly for a moment, then sat at the table and watched as Peyton prepared Lilly’s bottle.

The two women had met two months earlier, right after Peyton had moved to the small western Kansas town. Kathy was new to town as well and the two had hit it off immediately.

“I see you got the patio poured,” Kathy said as Peyton sat in the chair next to her and began to feed Lilly.

“Yesterday. I can’t wait to have a real barbecue outside. I want to get one of those umbrella tables and invite all my new friends for burgers and hot dogs.”

“At least wait until it cools down. This heat is about to kill me,” Kathy exclaimed. “I’d forgotten how hot it gets in Kansas in July. Besides, you have to meet some new friends in order to invite them.”

“I know, and I will,” Peyton replied. “Now that I’m finally settled in and Lilly is getting older, I plan on getting out more.” Peyton had been reluctant to take Lilly outside and around strangers while she’d been so small, and she’d had the work of settling in to keep her from going out and socializing.

“Did Rick stop by last night? You mentioned that he was planning on driving out to visit with the baby.”

“No, he didn’t make it. He’s working some big trial and scarcely has time to breathe right now.” Rick Powell was an assistant D.A. Handsome and ambitious, he and Peyton had dated for six months, and ironically Lilly had been conceived on the night they mutually decided to break up.

“He could have married you,” Kathy said with a touch of censure.

Peyton laughed. “I didn’t want to marry him. We had a great time together, but I realized I wasn’t in love with him. Besides, Rick is already married to his work.”

Lilly finished her bottle and yawned around the nipple. Almost immediately she closed her eyes and fell asleep. Peyton put her back in the cushioned seat in the center of the table and brushed a strand of the pale blond hair away from her forehead.

“She’s such a doll baby,” Kathy said, then frowned and raised a hand to her temple. “You don’t happen to have anything for a headache, do you?”

“Nothing stronger than an aspirin,” Peyton replied.

“Could I have a couple? I have a killer headache.”

“Sure, hang on and I’ll be right back. I’ve got a bottle under the sink in the bathroom.”

“Great, thanks.”

As Peyton walked through her living room with its gleaming polished surfaces and simple furnishings, she thought of how far she’d come from her roots.

She’d done it. She’d climbed out of the filth and the fear of her childhood. She was in a place where she couldn’t get evicted, where filth would never exist again.

The guest bathroom in the hall was decorated in cool shades of mint-green and white. She straightened the hand towel next to the sink before she bent down to look for the aspirin bottle.

She was on her knees when she looked up and saw Kathy standing in the doorway. “Here you are,” she said as she grabbed the bottle and began to rise.

“And here you are,” Kathy said, and she slammed something into the side of Peyton’s head. Peyton reeled backward, unable to keep her balance. What? Why? These two words exploded in Peyton’s brain just before her head hit the edge of the bathtub and everything went black.

Consciousness came in bits and pieces. The faint scent of pine cleaner filled her nose and she winced from the nauseating pound of a headache. She opened her eyes and saw the mint-green bathroom rug beneath her face. She frowned in confusion. What? How did she get on the floor?

Kathy. Kathy had come into the bathroom and attacked her. Kathy had hit her. As she got to her feet it all came back to her. Why? Why had her friend attacked her? It didn’t make sense.

Lilly! She had to get to Lilly. The baby wasn’t crying. Maybe she was still napping. Peyton’s heart crashed against her ribs, like an off-balance washing machine on the spin cycle. Please, God, let her still be napping.

Woozy and unsteady on her feet, she stumbled down the hallway. She needed to call for help. She’d been attacked. But before she could do anything she needed her baby in her arms.

As she stepped into the kitchen she froze. The infant seat was in the center of the table, the receiving blanket a swath of rose color against the empty seat.

“No.” The word whispered out of her as her knees buckled. Horror pressed against her chest, making it difficult for her to draw breath. Where was Lilly?

She reeled out of the kitchen and ran down the hall to Lilly’s bedroom. Kathy must have put her in her crib. Even though Peyton knew it made no sense, that nothing made sense, she clung to the hope that Kathy had tucked Lilly into her crib before she’d left the house.

She clung to that tenuous, fragile hope as she raced into the small bedroom she’d decorated with pink ruffles and teddy bears. She stopped in the doorway and stared at the empty crib.

And screamed.

Sheriff Tom Grayson pulled his car into the driveway of the neat little ranch house and got out before the engine had completely shut off. His youngest brother, Caleb, waited for him on the lawn, his khaki deputy uniform the same color as the sunburned dried grass beneath his feet.

“What’s up?” Tom asked. The late July heat felt as if it seared his lungs with each breath he took.

Caleb’s brown eyes were darker than usual, a sure sign that he was troubled. “A missing baby.”

Tom’s stomach flipped. In all his years as sheriff of Black Rock, Kansas, there had never been a child missing or murdered.

“Details,” Tom demanded.

“The woman, Peyton Wilkerson, says she was entertaining a friend and she went to the bathroom. She says the woman attacked her and knocked her unconscious, then stole the baby. But, I got to tell you, Tom, it all seems pretty fishy. Her wounds look superficial, she just had a new patio poured yesterday, and the kitchen smells like bleach.”

Bleach, the best thing to use to clean up traces of blood. Tom tried to keep his mind open as he nodded and went into the house.

He stepped into the living room, and his first impression was one of obsessive neatness and order. The furnishings were simple and the room smelled of lemon furniture polish and glass cleaner.

He heard the sound of his brother Benjamin coming from the kitchen. It didn’t surprise him that Benjamin was the one in the kitchen with the potential victim while Caleb had been the one pacing the grass outside.

Benjamin had an affinity for anyone he thought might be a victim of a crime. Softhearted to a fault, he would be consoling Peyton Wilkerson. On the other hand, impulsive, impatient Caleb was always ready to believe the worst in a situation, always ready to investigate and arrest.

Before going to the kitchen, Tom turned down a hallway and stepped into the first bedroom he came to. It was obviously a nursery. Decorated in shades of pink, it was tidy and held the faintest scent of baby lotion.

He left that room and went farther down the hall, passing a bedroom and coming to the master bedroom. Decorated in yellow, white and green, it gave the aura of a peaceful garden with sunshine. As with all the other rooms, nothing appeared out of place. Even the nightstand held nothing more than an attractive reading lamp.

Tom frowned as he thought of his own nightstand, which often held the remainder of a bedtime snack, whatever book he was currently reading and little notes to himself of things he thought of just before drifting off to sleep.

He touched nothing; he was just trying to get a quick feel for the person who lived there. So far he learned that Peyton Wilkerson definitely took pride in her surroundings and probably had more than a touch of obsessive-compulsiveness.

The first thing Tom noticed as he stood in the doorway to the kitchen was the faint, underlying scent of bleach. The second thing he noticed was that Peyton Wilkerson was a stunner. Even red-rimmed eyes from crying and an angry gash on the side of her forehead couldn’t detract from her fragile beauty.

Both she and Benjamin sat at the kitchen table. In the center of the table was an empty infant seat covered in pink material and ruffles.

Tom knew most of the people in the small town of Black Rock, but he’d never seen Peyton Wilkerson before. If he had, he definitely would have remembered.

As he stepped into the room she jumped up from her chair. “Thank God,” she said, tears shimmering in her already swollen eyes as she reached out and grabbed his hand. “Sheriff, you have to do something. You have to go get my Lilly.”

Her hand was fevered and trembled in his. The sense of urgency that he’d felt when Caleb had told him a baby was missing welled up inside him.

“Who took her?” Tom asked.

“Her name is Kathy Simon, and she lives in the Black Rock Apartments. Please, we have to get my baby back. She’s only four months old.” A sob escaped her as Tom led her back to the chair where she’d been seated.

“You know what apartment she lives in?” he asked, aware that Caleb had come into the room.

Peyton frowned. “No, not specifically. Whenever I’ve dropped her off, it’s always been at the front entrance.”

“What does she look like?” Tom asked.

“She has shoulder-length red hair and blue eyes. She’s taller than me and very thin. She told me she was twenty-nine, the same age as me.”

“Caleb, Benjamin, head over to the apartments and check it out,” Tom said. “Get out an AMBER Alert and have Sam run a check on a Kathy Simon. Tell Clay and Eric to set up roadblocks on both ends of town and to check every car leaving town.”

“I want to go to the apartments, too,” Peyton exclaimed.

“You and I are going to stay here so I can ask you some questions,” Tom said firmly. “My deputies will check things out.” He nodded in dismissal to his brothers, who immediately left.

He returned his attention to Peyton, who looked as if she were hanging onto her very sanity by a thread. “Tell me what happened this morning.”

For a moment he thought she was going to break down altogether. Her lips trembled and tears filled her eyes. “Please, Mrs. Wilkerson. I know this is difficult, but the more information I have the easier it will be to find your baby.”

She drew a deep breath and visibly pulled herself together. “I had just finished cleaning the kitchen when Kathy showed up.” She gripped a tissue in her hand so tightly her knuckles were white.

“I smell bleach. Is that what you were cleaning with?” he asked.

She nodded. “I always use a little bleach when I clean, especially when I mop the floor.”

Tom watched her carefully, trying to discern any deceit in the depths of her blue eyes. “You and this Kathy, you were friends? “

She nodded, a single curt nod. The sunshine streaming through the window sparkled in her pale blond hair. “We met about two months ago, right after I moved here. She was new to Black Rock, too, and we hit it off right away.”

Tom pulled a small notepad and a pen from his pocket.

“You have a phone number for her?”

“No, she told me she didn’t have a phone. She said she was short on money and had to cancel her cell phone and hadn’t yet gotten a landline.”

“What about a car? Do you know what kind she drove?”

She raised a trembling hand to her forehead and frowned. “I don’t know. She mentioned something about it being in the shop.”

“Do you know where she was from?”

Her frown deepened, the gesture doing nothing to detract from her attractiveness. “Chicago, I think.”

“Where’s your husband? Can I call him for you?”

She shook her head. “I’m not married. Lilly’s father lives in Wichita.”

“What’s his name?” Tom asked. Maybe this was some sort of parental kidnapping, he thought. God, he hoped so. At least then he’d know the baby was safe.

“Rick, Rick Powell,” she replied. Her eyes widened. “Surely you don’t think he had anything to do with this. He wouldn’t. He’s an assistant district attorney. He’d never be part of anything like this,” she exclaimed.

She scooted back from the table and jumped up, her slender body vibrating with energy. “We don’t have time to sit here and talk. I need to find Lilly.” She reached up and grabbed the back of her head and grimaced.

Tom wouldn’t have thought her face could get any paler, but it blanched of any lingering color. He jumped to his feet and grabbed her by the arm. “Are you all right? Do you need medical attention? “

She dropped her hand to her side, her body weaving slightly. “I sent the ambulance away. I’m all right. I just hit my head on the bathtub when she attacked me.”

She allowed Tom to guide her back into the chair at the table. He could smell her, a scent of fresh flowers and despair, and he tried to maintain emotional distance, knowing that it was possible that all was not what it seemed.

As he asked her about the particulars of the attack and listened to her answers, he assessed the kitchen which was now a crime scene.

Did she like things so neat and clean, or had she sanitized the house before calling for help? Had a terrible accident taken place here and now she was trying to cover it up?

Certainly the news was full of stories of babies who had been shaken to death or suffocated by an overwrought parent. Or was it as she said, and a kidnapping had really occurred? It was too early to know the truth.

As quickly as possible, Tom got the pertinent information from her, and then he called in two of his deputies to fingerprint and collect evidence from the bathroom and the kitchen. He called another deputy to check with the garage to see if Kathy Simon had a car being worked on there.

With the arrival of the two deputies, Tom moved Peyton into the living room, where she paced the floor and looked as if she were about ready to jump out of her skin.

Tom had placed a call to Rick Powell and had gotten in touch with his secretary, as Rick was in trial. She’d promised to pass a message to him as soon as possible for him to call Tom.

Peyton had been seated on the sofa, hands wringing and her delicate features taut with tension as Tom directed his deputies attempting to lift fingerprints from the surfaces Kathy might have touched.

Although she appeared calm, but stressed, Tom sensed an explosion coming. He saw it in the white of her knuckles as she folded her hands together, in the deepening hue of her blue eyes as she watched him.

So far she’d been patient and cooperative, but he had a feeling that that was coming to an end quickly. As if to prove his intuition, she sprang up from the sofa when the phone rang.

The tight composure she’d kept cracked as she tearfully told Rick what had happened. Rick promised to come as soon as possible, but it was a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Wichita to Black Rock.

“You have to do something,” she exclaimed after she’d hung up with Rick. For the first time there was an edge of frantic anger in her voice. “Why haven’t we heard something? What’s taking so long?”

Tom had been thinking the same thing. “We should hear something from them any minute. We have the AMBER Alert out and I have a deputy checking background on Kathy. At this point there’s nothing else we can do but wait here until we have more information.” He glanced toward her phone.

She followed his gaze, then looked back at him, her eyes widening slightly. “You think maybe she’ll call?” A half-hysterical sob escaped her. “She won’t call. This isn’t about a ransom. Kathy knows I don’t have any money.”

“Then what do you think this is about?”

“I don’t know,” she cried. “I feel like this is all some horrible joke, or a terrible nightmare. I can’t imagine why Kathy did this. I just can’t wrap my mind around all of this.”

She whirled around as the door opened and Caleb and Benjamin walked in. Caleb gave a small shake of his head.

“What does that mean?” Peyton asked. “Why are you shaking your head?”

“There’s no Kathy Simon living at the Black Rock Apartments,” he said.

“What do you mean? I know she lives there. I dropped her off there several times.” Peyton looked from Caleb to Tom, then back to Caleb again.

“We checked with the manager. There’s no Kathy Simon on a lease. We also knocked on every door and asked if anyone knew her. Nobody did,” Benjamin added.

Peyton’s eyes widened in horror as she looked at Tom. “Then where is she? And where has she taken my Lilly?”

Chapter 2

Peyton felt as if the ground beneath her feet was no longer solid. The world was no longer as it should be, and she’d never felt such fear. Lilly! Her heart cried in anguish. Where was her baby?

Who was Kathy Simon, and why had she done this? Had anything she’d told Peyton about herself been true? One thing was certain: Peyton had wasted enough time sitting around waiting for something to happen.

She needed to find Lilly, and she wasn’t going to find her sitting around and answering questions. Without saying a word to the sheriff or his deputies, she headed down the hall to her bedroom.

Sheriff Grayson followed just behind her, as if afraid to let her out of his sight for a minute. “What are you doing?” he asked as she grabbed her purse from the top of her dresser.

“I’m going to find my baby.” She turned to face him. “If I have to knock on every door of this town, I’ll find Kathy and my Lilly.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he protested.

She raised her chin and embraced the anger that was so much easier to tolerate than her pain. “The only way you’re going to stop me, Sheriff Grayson, is to arrest me and lock me up.”

Despite the fact that he was easily six inches taller than her and had shoulders as broad as mountains, she shoved roughly past him and headed for the front door.

She’d gone only a couple of steps when he grabbed her by the arm. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go.” His dark eyes held her gaze intently. “We don’t know if this woman is dangerous. She might not harm your baby, but she would definitely be a threat to you.”

She considered his words and gave him a curt nod. “Then let’s go. I can’t sit here another minute.”

She was vaguely surprised to see that the sun was still high in the sky. It had been less than two hours since Kathy and Lilly had disappeared, but it felt like an eternity.

Even the intensity of the late afternoon sun overhead couldn’t warm the glacier that had become Peyton’s heart. She slid into the passenger seat of the sheriff’s car and was instantly engulfed by the scent of leather and, more faintly, the spicy cologne he wore.

As he got in behind the steering wheel he turned to look at her. “Do you have a plan?”

She’d shot out of the house lit with the fire of a frantic mother seeking her child, but she realized with the question that she didn’t have a plan; she just knew she couldn’t sit still another minute.

“The pizza place on Main Street,” she said suddenly. “Kathy told me she was working there until she could get something more permanent.”

He nodded, started the car and pulled away from the curb. Peyton stared out the window, irrationally hoping that Kathy would suddenly appear on the sidewalk.

The only thing that kept Peyton from losing her mind altogether was the belief that Kathy wouldn’t hurt Lilly. “She was good with Lilly,” she finally said aloud. “She seemed to love her.”

“Did she mention wanting children of her own, maybe not being able to have them?” Sheriff Grayson asked.

“No, nothing like that. I just know she was always very sweet to Lilly. Surely the pizza place will have her address on file.”

“What I need you to do is think of all the conversations you had with her, any tidbit of information that might be helpful as to where she might go and who she might be with,” he replied.

For a moment Peyton was overwhelmed. “Sheriff Grayson, we talked almost every day, about everything and nothing.” She frowned and tried to ignore the headache that pounded in the back of her head, the continuous frantic race of her heart.

“Call me Tom,” he said. “There are four of us Graysons working law enforcement in Black Rock. First names make things easier.”

“Caleb and Benjamin are your brothers?” she asked.

He nodded. “My sister is also a deputy, then I have one other brother who doesn’t work for the town of Black Rock.” He frowned. “Did Kathy mention dating somebody here in town? Perhaps somebody she was interested in?”

“No, in fact just the opposite. I got the impression she was a bit shy and was having trouble meeting people.” She released a sigh of frustration. “God, what did I miss? What didn’t I see or hear in all those conversations, in all the time we spent together?”

“You can’t beat yourself up about that. How could you guess that something like this would happen?” He pulled into a parking space in front of the Canyon Pizzeria and cut the engine, then he turned and looked at her with his dark, intense eyes. “You let me ask the questions. I need to do my job.”

She nodded and unbuckled her seatbelt, butterflies like little kamikaze pilots hitting the sides of her stomach. Please, let us get some answers, she thought as she got out of the car.

It was nearing dinnertime and the air outside the restaurant smelled of tangy tomato sauce and baking crust. The food smells only upset Peyton’s stomach even more. The last thing she was interested in was food.

All she wanted was her sweet Lilly back in her arms. She needed to smell her baby scent, feel Lilly’s wiggly warmth against her chest.

She followed Sheriff Grayson through the front door. Inside, about a dozen people were seated at various tables and booths. Most of them raised a hand in greeting to the sheriff.

He went to the woman standing behind the cash register. “Hey, Linda, is Don in?” he asked.

“He’s in the back. You here to arrest him for spicy sauce?” The blonde gave him a saucy, flirtatious smile.

“I need to talk to him. Can you get him out here?”

Her smile faded as she apparently heard the seriousness in his voice. “Sure, I’ll go get him.”

She disappeared into the kitchen and a moment later a big burly man clad in a tomato-splattered apron walked out.

“Hey, Tom. What’s up?”

“You have a Kathy Simon working here for you?” Tom asked.

Peyton watched in horror as Don shook his head. “I’ve got a Stacy, a Katie and a Linda, but no Kathy,” he replied.

“Are you sure? Maybe she was going by another name,” Peyton said desperately. “She’s tall with red hair?”

“Sorry, nobody like that works for me,” Don replied.

Peyton staggered back outside where dusk was beginning to fall, vaguely aware of the sheriff right behind her. Nothing Kathy had told her had been true. She’d lied about where she worked, where she lived. Why?

She got back into the passenger seat and Tom slid in behind the wheel. “You okay?” he asked as he started the engine.

“Of course I’m not okay.” She reached for anger, knowing that if she didn’t hang on to something she’d lose it altogether. “Nothing she told me was the truth. Why would she lie to me about the most basic things? God, she was good. She had so many details. She told me about a man who had tipped her twenty dollars, about a little girl who wanted pizza crust and cheese but no sauce. She was so good with her lies.”

A sickness welled up inside her as she realized night was falling too quickly and she was no closer to finding Lilly than she’d been when she’d regained consciousness on her bathroom floor.

“Any other ideas?” Tom asked as he backed out of the parking space in front of the pizza place. “Or are you ready to go back to your place?”

“No, we can’t go back,” she exclaimed. She didn’t want to be there without her baby. “Just drive around. Maybe we’ll see something.”

For the next thirty minutes he drove up and down the streets of the small town. Peyton kept her gaze on the sidewalks, on the houses they passed, hoping for a glimpse of the woman she knew as Kathy Simon.

He received only one phone call during the drive. When he hung up he told her that there was no driver’s license matching what they knew about Kathy Simon.

“So that’s probably not her real name,” Peyton said flatly. She was numb; in a place where her fear was so great she couldn’t process it any longer.

“Probably not,” he agreed.

“How are we going to find her if we don’t even know her name?” Peyton wanted to scream.

“We’ll figure it all out,” he replied. “Have you had any problems with anyone here in town?”

“No, nobody. Oh, there was a young man who cussed me in the parking lot of the grocery store. I was getting Lilly into her car seat and my shopping cart accidentally rolled into his truck.”

“Did you exchange information?”

“No, nothing like that. It didn’t scratch or dent the truck. He cursed me, then got in his truck and roared off.”

“When did this happen?”

“About a week ago. Surely you don’t think that has anything to do with Lilly’s kidnapping,” she said.

“I’m not taking anything for granted at this point,” he replied. “What did this guy look like? What kind of a truck was he driving?”

“It was a black pickup, but I don’t know the year or model. He was tall with brown hair.” She sighed in frustration. “That doesn’t help much, does it?”

“Sounds like half the men around this area,” he replied.

As he once again drove down Main Street, Peyton knew this probably wasn’t standard operating procedure, that he was just indulging her need to be out looking. She also knew that there was no way she would see Kathy casually walking down the street with Lilly in her arms. She knew in her heart that Kathy had probably run out of town mere minutes after grabbing Lilly.

“I noticed you had a new patio in your backyard.”

Peyton shifted her gaze from the window to him. “It was poured yesterday. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just curious.”

She stared at him, her heart beating an unsteady rhythm. She had a feeling this man didn’t indulge in idle curiosity. There was a sharp intelligence in his sexy dark eyes that made her believe he was a man who didn’t miss much.

As the realization of what he might be thinking struck her, she gasped. “You can’t really believe that I had the patio poured to hide my baby’s body?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe. I have to think of all possible scenarios,” he said without apology.

“Pull over,” she exclaimed. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

He whirled the car to the curb and she unbuckled her seat belt, opened the door and stumbled outside. She bent over, feeling the need to throw up. He thought she’d killed her baby. He thought she’d killed her Lilly and buried her beneath the patio.

She dry heaved, her stomach rolling as tears blurred her vision. She was vaguely aware of a big, broad hand on her back, and she shook it off, the need to be sick swallowed by a rage she’d never felt before.

Her rage wasn’t directed at Sheriff Tom Grayson, who was just doing his job, but rather at the woman who had pretended to be her friend and support over the past two months. The woman who had hit her in the head and stolen her baby.

She finally straightened up and stared at the sheriff. “If and when we find her, if she’s hurt Lilly in any way, I’ll kill her.” She didn’t wait for his reply but instead turned and walked back to the car and got into the passenger seat.

It was at that moment, with the fire of rage burning in her eyes, that Tom believed her. He hadn’t been one hundred percent sure what to believe up until that point. There had been far too many cases of murdered children when the mothers concocted a story to cover the fact that they’d either accidentally or purposely hurt or killed their child.

He liked to believe he was good at assessing people, at recognizing liars and criminals. He didn’t believe Peyton was either, and that meant they had a missing baby on their hands.

When they pulled up to her house, a luxury sports car was parked in the driveway. “That’s Rick’s car,” she said, emotion thick in her voice.

As she and Tom got out of his car, the front door of the house opened and a tall, well-dressed blond man stepped out.

Peyton ran toward him, and Tom would have expected Rick to open up his arms, to hug the woman who was the mother of his missing child. But she stopped just short of him and Rick shoved his hands in his expensive slacks pockets. “What exactly happened?” he asked.

Peyton began to cry as she explained to him what had occurred. When she was finished, Rick looked at Tom. “Sheriff, Rick Powell.” He held out his hand to Tom. “What’s being done to find my daughter?”

Tom gave his hand a perfunctory shake, then motioned toward the front door. “Why don’t we all go inside and talk.”

As he followed them inside he found himself wishing that Rick had hugged her. If anyone needed the security of strong arms around her, it was Peyton. The thought hit him from left field and he pushed it aside.

“We have an AMBER Alert in place, and several of my deputies are out knocking on doors and seeing if anyone knows this woman who called herself Kathy Simon,” Tom explained once they were all seated at the table. “It would be helpful if we could get a picture or a drawing of this woman to send out across the state.”

“Do you have a picture of her?” Rick asked Peyton.

“No, I never took her picture,” Peyton said miserably.

“My brother Benjamin is a pretty good artist. Why don’t I get him in here to work up a sketch, and Rick and I can go into the living room and talk,” Tom said.

Peyton nodded as he and Rick stood. Within minutes, Benjamin was seated with her at the table, and Rick and Tom went into the living room, where Rick sat on the sofa and looked at Tom expectantly.

“Peyton told me you’re an assistant D.A. in Wichita,” Tom said.

“That’s right.” He leaned forward and ran a hand through his short hair. “I can’t believe this has happened. Peyton’s a terrific mother. She would never intentionally put Lilly at risk.”

“You have no idea who this woman might be? You never met her? “

“No, but I have to confess that since Peyton moved here I’ve only been to visit a couple of times,” Rick replied. “With my work schedule it’s been difficult getting back and forth. In fact, I’m in the middle of a big trial now. I got the judge to call a continuance until day after tomorrow, but I’ve got to be back in Wichita first thing Thursday morning. Hopefully we’ll have Lilly back long before then.”

“Why did Peyton decide to move here?” Tom asked.

Rick leaned back in the chair and unfastened the buttons of his suit coat. “When our relationship fizzled out, she decided she wanted a new start someplace else. She started shooting out résumés, and when Black Rock Elementary School made an offer, she jumped at the opportunity.”

“Your breakup was amicable?”

Rick released a small sigh of impatience. “Look, Sheriff, I know how these things go. I understand that you have to look at all angles, but let me save you a little time. Peyton and I dated for six months. We had a good time together but eventually realized we wanted different things from life. The split was amicable. In fact, it was the night we decided to call it quits that Lilly was conceived. Even though we weren’t going to be together as a couple, we were both excited to be parents. We’ve had no problems, no issues since Lilly’s birth. Peyton is one of the greatest women I’ve ever known. She would never do anything to hurt Lilly, and neither would I.”

Tom fought back a sigh of frustration. He knew Rick was trying to be helpful, but there was nothing worse than investigating somebody who knew the system from the inside out. “You know I have to go through all this,” Tom said.

Rick nodded. “I was just trying to cut to the chase by letting you know that there’s nothing to investigate except the woman who stole my daughter. There’s no point in wasting time speculating about Peyton or myself.”

“I appreciate your help, but you know I’m going to do this investigation my way,” Tom said. He kept his voice friendly but firm.

“Understood,” Rick replied. “I just want my little girl back.” For the first time since he’d arrived, emotion cracked his voice.

“Is it possible this has something to do with a case you’re working on? An enemy you’ve made through your work?” Tom asked.

Rick frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. Very few people knew about Peyton and the baby. I wanted it that way for their own protection.”

At that moment, Benjamin and Peyton came into the room. “We have a sketch,” Benjamin said. He handed the paper to Tom, who looked at it closely.

Benjamin was a talented sketch artist, a talent he’d kept hidden for many years. The sketch showed a woman with a slender face and long hair. Her eyes were slightly deep set and her chin square.

Tom looked up at Peyton. “This looks like Kathy Simon?”

“It could be a photograph of her.” For the first time her eyes shone with a hint of hope. Tom was struck again by her prettiness.

He handed the sketch to Rick. “Have you seen this woman?”

Rick studied the sketch with a frown, then shook his head. “No, I’ve never seen her before.”

Tom looked back at Peyton. “You have a recent picture of Lilly?”

“I do. I just had her pictures taken at that little studio on Main Street a couple of weeks ago.” She went to the desk in the corner of the room and opened a drawer. She withdrew a large envelope and from it pulled a 5×7 photograph.

She gazed at the picture for a long moment, her eyes filling with tears, then she handed it to Tom. Lilly was a doll, one of those exceptionally pretty babies with bright blue eyes and a tuft of curly blond hair.

Tom turned to his brother Caleb, who had returned to the house moments earlier after interviewing more of the people who lived in and around the apartment complex. “Take these to the office and get them over the wires,” he said as he handed the photo and sketch to him. “Make up flyers and get them distributed around town.”

When Caleb went out the front door, Tom turned back to Peyton. “Somebody will see them. Somebody will know where she is,” he said in encouragement.

“I hope so,” Peyton exclaimed.

The next couple of hours passed in agonizing slowness. Peyton sat on the sofa looking as if a loud noise might shatter her. Rick sat next to her, but at no time did the two touch in any way.

Tom found their relationship rather intriguing. Was their lack of physical touch an indication that their relationship hadn’t had the mutual easy ending that both of them had implied? And what, if anything, might that have to do with the case?

Throughout the evening, Tom coordinated efforts to find the baby, speaking to his deputies by cell phone to keep updated. As night fell, Tom didn’t expect anything to happen. People were in their homes, getting ready for bed, and wouldn’t see the flyers until morning.

Rick must have recognized the same thing. At ten-thirty he stood. “I checked into the hotel downtown when I arrived. I think I’ll head over there for the rest of the night. I’m in room 112. Somebody will let me know if anything happens?”

“Of course,” Tom replied, vaguely surprised by his decision to leave.

Rick reached down and grabbed Peyton’s hand. “Stay strong,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll have her back tomorrow.” He dropped her hand and with a nod to Tom left the house.

Almost immediately, Peyton got up from the sofa and went to the front window. She stared out with her back to Tom, and he was struck by how alone, how achingly fragile, she looked.

“Do you have children, Tom?” She didn’t turn to face him but remained staring out the window into the darkness of the night.

“No wife, no kids,” he replied. He stepped closer to her, close enough that he could smell the pleasant scent of her perfume.

“So you can’t know what this feels like.” She turned to face him and raw pain radiated from her eyes.

“No, I can’t know exactly what it feels like,” he said softly.

“I feel like Kathy reached inside my chest and ripped my heart out.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “Nothing matters except Lilly. I need her back, Tom. I need her back in my arms.” A deep sob exploded out of her and she nearly crumpled to the floor.

Before she could, Tom reached out for her and pulled her tight against his chest. She sagged against him and buried her face in the front of his shirt while she cried.

He wrapped his arms around her and held tight, knowing it was the only comfort he could offer her at the moment. As he held her he went over it all in his mind, satisfying himself that everything that could be done was being done.

Now it became a waiting game. Hopefully somebody knew this woman who had called herself Kathy Simon, somebody who would call with information that would lead them to her and the baby.

But the last time Tom had held a weeping woman in his arms, everything had ended badly. Tragedy had pulled her away from him, and he’d nearly been destroyed.

He hoped at the end of all this that Peyton would have her baby safely back in her arms. He hadn’t been strong enough to help one woman deal with grief, and he prayed he wouldn’t have to help Peyton.

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