The Baby’s Bodyguard Read online

“Hello, Hannah, dear, is everything okay?”

  Jack had just turned off the road into Allota, passing the grocery store where the car had blown up the day before, then the garage that was trying to put it back together again. “I’m almost at the house,” she told Barb. “I got worried when Grandma didn’t answer her phone.”

  “Well, she’s there. We all left a good hour ago so Mimi could put the baby down for a nap. I know she wouldn’t leave.”

  “What do you mean she’s there? You aren’t with her?”

  “No,” Barb said.

  “Is anyone?”

  “No. Mimi shooed us all away. Jackie and Darlene, they’re sisters you know, well, they got into a little bit of an altercation and it woke the baby….”

  “Barb, excuse me, I’ll get back to you, okay?”

  Hannah folded the phone and looked at Jack. “Grandma is supposedly home and alone with Aubrielle.”

  “Damn. Okay, two more minutes,” he said, taking the next turn with screeching tires.

  There were no cars in front of the house and the door was ajar. The Harley was still parked by the side of the garage.

  “Don’t enter the house,” Jack said as Hannah tore open the car door and jumped out. She heard him, but she had no intention of complying. A million thoughts ran through her mind, none of them good.

  “Hannah, wait!” Jack yelled. “Maybe she’s just outside in the back, maybe the wind blew the door open.”

  Or maybe she was lying inside with a bludgeoned head. And Aubrielle? Hannah wanted to kick herself for leaving today, for letting Jack leave with her, for leaving her grandmother alone, virtually unprotected, with a three-month-old baby—

  “Hannah,” she heard Jack yell as she raced through the front door. She stopped abruptly. The place looked like it had been torn apart by a cyclone. “Grandma?” she whispered. “Aubrielle?”

  Jack was suddenly beside her. “I don’t think they’re here but we better look around,” he said as he walked past her and pushed open the kitchen door. She looked over his shoulder. The drain board was cluttered with tea cups and little plates, but there was no sign of a search as evidenced in the living room. The back door was wide open. Hannah ducked under Jack’s arm and ran outside. The small yard was clearly visible and totally empty of humans. The back gate swung open on its hinges.

  Hannah followed Jack back into the living room. By mutual and silent consent, they hurried down the hall. Jack took Mimi’s room as Hannah continued on to the nursery.

  This room, too, looked ordinary except for the cordless phone lying on its back by the changing table. Hannah picked it up. Pushing redial, she watched as her cell-phone number flashed on the small screen.

  Jack ducked into the room. “Anything?”

  “No.”

  “Check the closet,” he said.

  She checked the closet.

  “Is there anywhere she might go? A neighbor’s, maybe?”

  “Possibly the Hendrickses’ house, but you’d think she’d leave a note and it doesn’t explain the condition of the living room. There’s no other place here for her to hide except the garage and grandpa’s shop. Oh, and the basement.”

  “She has a basement?”

  “Kind of. It’s just a small area below a portion of the house where the land sloped. Grandpa created access to it so they could store things.”

  “And how do you access it?”

  “Back here,” Hannah said, making her way to the end of the hall, “but Grandma hates it. Too many spiders.” She opened the closet door. The two empty suitcases that usually took up floor space had been stacked on one side. Hannah slid a floor panel aside to reveal a dark opening.

  The first narrow step leading down was just barely visible in the ambient light from the hall. Lowering her voice to a whisper, she added, “They just used it to store Christmas stuff. There should be a flashlight hanging on the hook to your right.”

  “No flashlight,” he said, lowering his voice, as well. “I saw one in the room I used last night. Wait here.”

  No flashlight? Since when? As he raced off, Hannah was sure she heard a rustling noise. Heart skipping beats, she grabbed the railing and started down the stairs. It had to be her grandmother who took the flashlight….

  A light from below suddenly blinded her. “I have a gun and I’m not afraid to use it,” Mimi’s voice cried out loud and strong. “Take one more step and I’ll blast you to kingdom come.”

  “It’s me, Grandma, it’s Hannah.”

  “Hannah, oh my goodness.” The light flicked enough away that Hannah could see where she was going again. Taking the steps as fast as she dared and wondering how in the world her grandmother had made it down here holding a baby, she reached the bottom just as Jack reached the top, a light held before him.

  Mimi emerged from a dark corner of the tiny, dank basement, wending her way through old boxes, web-strewn Christmas tree stands and an artificial tree or two. She held Aubrielle clutched tightly against her chest. The light playing out in front of her wavered in her trembling hand, belying the vigor she’d put into her voice a moment before.

  Hannah threw both her arms around her grandmother and her baby, knocking the flashlight from Mimi’s hand. “Here, sit down,” she coaxed, helping the trembling older woman sit on a dusty box. Jack was there in a blink, and he knelt by the older woman as Hannah chased the flashlight’s spinning light.

  “Are you okay, Mimi?” Jack said.

  “I am now,” Mimi replied but she still sounded shaky. “When I heard footsteps overhead, I thought they’d come back,” she added. Hannah turned in time to see her grandmother clasp a hand to her chest. “Thought who had come back, Grandma?”

  Mimi shuddered. “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s get you out of here and you can tell us what happened,” Jack said. He was the one to lift Aubrielle from Mimi’s arms, pausing a second to look down at the baby as he gathered the loose blanket around her slumbering form, tucking it close to her.

  A blitzkrieg of sensations sucked the air out of Hannah’s lungs at the sight of the big man dressed in black holding the bundle of pink. Her bundle of pink. She abruptly sat down next to Mimi.

  “Are you all right?” Mimi asked, patting her hand.

  Hannah closed her eyes as she mumbled, “No.”

  “BEFORE THE COPS GET HERE, tell us what happened,” Jack said. Hannah had made the call to the police and was now sitting in a kitchen chair nursing Aubrielle. They’d decided to leave the living room as it was until investigators could dust for fingerprints.

  Jack settled Mimi into another chair and even poured her a cup from the electric teakettle on the drain board. It was kind of odd to see him comforting the older woman. Hannah hadn’t seen him in that role before.

  “Jackie was putting something high octane in her tea and told everyone Darlene was going to have liposuction and Darlene got madder than a hatter—oh, dear, don’t tell either of them I told you two that, it was a secret. Well, anyway, I kicked them out right after Hannah called and said you’d be starting home pretty soon,” Mimi began, glancing at Hannah. “Then I went into the nursery to change Aubrielle. I’d just finished with her diaper when I heard a noise at the door. I knew you two had a key. When the noise went on and on, I got too spooked to go look.”

  The cup rattled on the saucer as she set it on the table. “I had the phone with me so I called you. I could hear it ringing and then it dawned on me that if you were at the front door, I should hear your phone. When I heard the door make a kind of popping noise and a voice that wasn’t either of yours, I really did panic. The phone slipped out of my fingers when I grabbed the baby.”

  “Oh, Grandma,” Hannah said. “I’m so sorry—”

  “No, dear, it’s my own fault. I should never have sent the girls home. Anyway, I couldn’t think of anywhere to hide Aubrielle. She was wide-awake and making little noises, so I started toward the back of the house thinking maybe we could get out the bathroom window and t
hen I remembered I should have retrieved the phone but it was too late. When I heard something break in the living room, I remembered the old basement. I guess the noise out there covered the noise I made opening and closing the linen door.”

  “So you didn’t see anyone?” Hannah said.

  “No.”

  “How about the voice?” Jack asked. “Male or female? More than one?”

  “I’m not sure. Someone just yelled, ‘Anyone home?’” I didn’t say a word, not after the window last night and your warnings this morning. Maybe if I’d been alone I would have been braver. I just slunk away with Aubrielle. The living room is a bloody mess, isn’t it? I should have tried to stop whoever it was.”

  “Furniture and knickknacks can be replaced,” Jack said with a quick glance at Hannah. “People can’t.”

  As Mimi worried aloud about photographs, Hannah finished nursing Aubrielle and stood up. She’d heard a car come to a stop and caught a glimpse of flashing lights out front.

  “The cops are here,” she announced. “Uh, Grandma,” she added carefully. “I think we should leave Jack completely out of this.”

  Jack started to protest.

  “I agree,” Mimi said, and, shooting to her feet, went to answer the door.

  “Hannah,” Jack began, but she covered his lips with a finger. Probably not a smart idea. Touching his lips just created a whole lot of other problems. She dropped her hand as though she’d touched a flame.

  “You have nothing to do with what is happening here, but you are a stranger with a false identity,” she said. “If they get started on you, they may look no further or they may make a connection to the foundation and if you’re right about what’s going on out there, whoever is responsible might go underground. You wanted me to take all this seriously. Well, I finally am.”

  “Hannah,” he said, moving the blanket aside to uncover Aubrielle’s face, “I’m her bodyguard. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Be reasonable, Jack. Do what’s best for her. The police will be here for heaven’s sake.”

  He stared into her eyes for a count of five. “The Harley is in the side yard. People have undoubtedly seen me coming and going.”

  “I’ll tell them you’re a visiting friend. They accepted you as that yesterday. We’ll just leave you out of last night’s rock through the window and today’s break-in. Just go out the back door and walk down to the beach. Leave it to me. I’ll come find you later.”

  “No. Don’t leave your grandmother or the baby. I won’t be far.”

  And then, as he was proving he did very efficiently, he disappeared out the back door and through the gate.

  JACK EASILY DODGED THE policeman outside while doing his best not to compromise any evidence the fleeing intruder may have left in his or her wake. There was no way he was going to get out of sight of the house, however, so the trick was to find somewhere he could watch what was going on without being seen.

  This he did by skirting an old car that had been abandoned across the street in a vacant lot, taking cover in an even older shed close to collapse. Through the dirty, cracked window, he watched as the police did all the forensic work. One man stood at the door for quite a while talking to Mimi and Hannah. Before long, Mimi wandered off with the baby in her arms and Hannah stayed at the door, leaning against the frame, smiling and touching her luscious strawberry-gold hair while the officer chatted up a blue streak.

  The cop finally turned around and started toward the squad car where his partner, an older guy, had retreated sometime before and seemed to be doing paperwork. Jack recognized the younger man as the policeman from the night before, the one who had given Hannah a ride home. As she closed the front door, the officer took a quick look over his shoulder, and when he looked back at the car, he had a stupid grin on his face.

  Jack looked down for a second as a tightening in his rib cage caught his attention. Must be the fried fish.

  Once the police car pulled away, he let himself out the broken door through which he’d entered, and, walking the long way around, once again approached Mimi’s house. He found both women in the living room working on cleaning up yet another mess and pitched in to help. As they worked, they told him everything the police had said but there was little that would help.

  “Officer Latimer said he’d take the note and turn it in to the detectives down in Fort Bragg. The local station isn’t set up for much in the way of investigating.”

  “They acted like we knew what it was all about and weren’t telling,” Mimi said as she sprayed a table with furniture polish to wipe off the fingerprint dust.

  “I don’t think they did,” Hannah said. “I think they were just as confused as we are.”

  “Did they lift any prints?” Jack asked.

  “A few,” Hannah said. “They took samples of mine and Mimi’s and asked that you stop by the station to give them a sample of yours.”

  “I should have expected that,” Jack said.

  “I told them I wasn’t sure when you would return and gave them the water glass in the bathroom you used this morning so they could get your prints to rule them out from the ones they collected.”

  “Good thinking,” Jack said.

  “She watches those shows on TV,” Mimi explained.

  “They didn’t find any shoe prints or tire tracks,” Hannah continued. “And like before, nothing seems to be missing.”

  “Maybe they were looking for cold, hard cash,” Jack said with a meaningful look at Hannah.

  Mimi laughed. “In this house? Good luck. I think it was probably some drug addict up from the city.”

  “Maybe,” Hannah said. “Officer Latimer said he’d get back to me about what they find, if anything.”

  Jack came close to asking what took Latimer so long to say goodbye at the door but stopped himself. It was none of his damn business.

  HANNAH WAS UP EARLY THE NEXT morning. She’d spent the afternoon before doing her best to catch up on work, but there were details for the rapidly approaching festivities that needed to be addressed from the office.

  Working from home had its distractions, the primary one being Aubrielle. Hannah could never spend enough time with her. If it wasn’t for the paycheck, she would happily have quit her job for a couple of years; thankfully, she had her grandmother, who loved Aubrielle as much as she did.

  And now there was the conundrum of Jack. He couldn’t go snoop at the office because they might figure out who he was. That meant he had to protect the home front, and that meant he had to spend time with Mimi and Aubrielle, right exactly where Hannah didn’t want him.

  It made sense that the only way to get Jack out of their lives was to figure out what was going on. Then they wouldn’t need a bodyguard anymore and Jack could go about doing whatever it was he needed to go about doing. Like leaving.

  She dressed quickly after taking care of Aubrielle, laying the baby back in the crib for a morning nap. By the time she walked into the kitchen, she’d put on her game face. What she found was a replay of the morning before. Everyone in the house seemed to be an early riser lately.

  “Baby is fed, cuddled, changed and back in her crib,” she told her grandmother as she kissed the older woman’s wrinkled cheek. She was relieved to see some color back in Mimi’s face.

  Jack sat at the table, gamely eating more burned toast and a crusty scrambled egg. He looked her over, his gaze lingering on her tight reddish-brown slacks.

  “Workday?” he said.

  She poured hot coffee into a travel mug and grabbed a granola bar from the cupboard. “Yep. I’ll be home early this afternoon. The glass people are coming at noon to actually replace the window, right Grandma?”

  Mimi peeked over the paper. “Right.”

  Jack had fixed the lock on the front door the night before, so once the window was replaced, the house would be secure again. Well, as secure as any house could be. Hannah was beginning to suspect security was an illusion.

  “I took a walk around the neig
hborhood this morning,” Jack said. “I didn’t see anything suspicious.”

  “Well, Grandma, I guess I have to borrow your car again. At least we got the groceries yesterday.”

  “Meat loaf tonight,” Mimi announced. “And I’m going to make strawberry preserves out of the early crop berries we bought yesterday.”

  Jack said, “My favorite.” It was unclear whether he was referring to meat loaf or jam. Of course, he had no idea what damage Mimi could do to either one of those.

  Hannah used the back door as Jack had insisted the car be locked in the garage at night. She wasn’t surprised to hear footsteps following and turned as Jack caught up to her.

  “I’ll call the garage for you, if you like.”

  “Okay.”

  “I hate you going out there alone.”

  She continued walking. The sooner she got to work, the sooner she could come home. “I’m okay.”

  “Remember, don’t be careless. Don’t ask leading questions that will alert—”

  “Jack? Stop.” She poked his chest. “You bodyguard for Aubrielle—” and then poking herself added “—me intrepid office worker. You take care of my grandmother and baby today, that’s your job.”

  “Anything I need to know about my client?”

  She shook her head at him. “She likes to be rocked and sung to but don’t worry, Grandma can do all the nurturing, you just look out the window and shoot bad guys.” He saluted.

  “No, really, Jack, just keep Aubrielle safe. You know, from a distance.”

  JACK STARLING WAS GETTING MORE entwined in her life by the moment and that put an urgency on finding some answers. Avoiding contact with everyone, Hannah managed to get to her office and spent the next hour or so going through anything about the Tierra Montañosa schools she could find. There was tons of information on the Internet. It was trying to figure out what was and wasn’t important that was the tricky part.

  Like she’d told Jack, she knew the foundation’s background. She knew Santi Correa had vowed to make sure there were at least three schools in the small country to counteract the poverty and drug-related trade that robbed youth of their future. It was impossible to imagine Santi involved with the GTM.