He’d hoped that she would remember the two of them on her own…

“Do you recall where you were this time last year?” he asked. “From Christmas Eve through the end of February?”

Her head jerked up. She said nothing as her surprised gaze locked with his, but her face paled and she dropped the glass in her hand. It hit the hardwood floor, shattering like a gunshot, ice shooting out, the last of the cola puddling at her feet. But she didn’t move. She stared at him as if seeing a ghost. No doubt a ghost of Christmas Past.

“You?” she cried, all the ramifications coming at Mach-two speed.

“The baby—”

“It’s ours…?”

A Woman with a Mystery
B.J. Daniels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Houston, B.J. Daniels is a former Southern girl who grew up on the smell of gulf sea air and Southern cooking. But like her characters, her home is now in Montana, not far from Big Sky, where she snowboards in the winters and boats in the summers with her husband and daughters. She does miss gumbo and Texas barbecue, though! Her first Harlequin Intrigue novel was nominated for the Romantic Times Magazine Reviewer’s Choice Award for best first book and best Harlequin Intrigue. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, Heart of Montana and Bozeman Writers group. B.J. loves to hear from readers. Write to her at: P.O. Box 183, Bozeman, MT 59771.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Holly Barrows—Someone had taken control of her mind—and her memory. Now they had her baby. But had they “sent” her to Private Investigator Slade Rawlins? Or was she starting to remember her past?

Slade Rawlins—The private investigator had his own reasons for wanting Holly to remember—everything.

Shelley Rawlins—Slade’s twin knew more about their mother’s murder than she thought—enough to get her killed.

Dr. Allan Wellington—The doctor might be dead, but he was far from forgotten.

Inez Wellington—How far would she go to keep her brother’s legacy alive?

Police Chief L.T. Curtis and Norma Curtis—The cop and his wife were like family to Slade and his sister Shelley.

Dr. Fred Delaney—He’d been the Rawlins family doctor for years, but could he be trusted?

Carolyn Gray—The nurse was the only witness, and now she was missing.

Marcella Rawlins—Her murder had gone unsolved for twenty years—until her son stumbled across a letter.

Lorraine Vogel—The nurse knew where all the bodies were buried.

Jerry Dunn—The pharmacist was only doing what his father before him had done.

Acknowledgments:

Thanks to Randy Harrington, RPh, for his advice on hypnotic drugs; Marcia Proctor, CHt, RBT, for her technical input on hypnosis; Carmen R. Lassiter for her computer expertise and moral support; and as always the Bozeman Writers Group for keeping me honest.

Dedication:

With love and gratitude, this book is dedicated to Bill and Dorothy Heinlein. You are the in-laws I always dreamed of. Thank you for taking me into your wonderful family, for making me feel so welcome and for raising such a great son.

Contents

Prologue

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

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Prologue

Halloween

The pain. It dragged her up from the feverish blackness, doubling her over in a scream of anguish. Her eyelids fluttered, a flickering screen of light and dark. Three shadows moved at the end of the bed, silhouetted against a shaft of blinding light. They wavered in a whisper of dark clothing and low voices, hovering at her feet, waiting.

“Help me,” she tried to say, but her mouth was cotton, her words lost in their whispers.

The shadows moved, blocking the blinding light. She blinked, focused. A scream tore from her throat as she saw them, really saw them. Her eyes locked open, her heart clamoring in her chest at the sight of their grotesque faces as they huddled around her. The three made no move to stop her from screaming and she knew from some place deep inside her that she couldn’t be heard outside this room or they would have.

She tried to get up. Another pain shot through her. She pushed herself up on her elbows, suddenly light-headed and sick to her stomach. She could feel the agony again, coming like a speeding train toward her. She had to get away before it was too late.

One of them stepped from the bright light, face hidden behind a hideous mask, voice muffled. “It will be over soon.”

Her eyes widened, blood thundered in her ears. She knew that voice! Oh, my God!

Hands held her down as the pain accelerated, the macabre shadows a frenzied flicker of movement and whispers, the horrible whispers, suddenly rising in alarm.

She tried to see what was wrong, but her view was blocked, the hands strong holding her down. She squeezed her eyes shut against the horrifying images, against the paralyzing fear and the unimaginable pain. Gasping for each breath, she fought not to scream, fought not to lose her mind. But she knew it was already too late. The moment she’d seen their masked faces, she’d known. The moment she’d heard the familiar voice. The monsters had come to take her baby.

Chapter One

Christmas Eve

Aware only of the letter in his pocket, Slade Rawlins didn’t feel the thick wet snowflakes spiraling down from the growing darkness or take notice of the straggling shoppers scurrying to their cars.

He strode down the street toward his office, oblivious to everything but the weight of the letter pressed against his heart, heavy as a stone.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” A department-store Santa suddenly stepped from a doorway onto the sidewalk in front of him, a blur of red in the densely falling snow. “Merry Christmas!”

Startled, Slade jerked back in alarm as the Santa, his suit flocked with snow, thrust a collection pot at him with one hand and clanged his bell with the other.

Hurriedly digging in his pants pocket, Slade withdrew a handful of coins and dropped them into the pot, then sidestepped the man to get to his office door.

The stairs to the second floor were dimly lit, one of the bulbs out. But that was the least of his troubles. He took the steps two at a time, the sound of Christmas music, traffic and the incessant jangle of the Santa bell-ringer following him like one of Ebenezer Scrooge’s ghosts.

“Bah humbug!” he muttered under his breath as he opened the door to Rawlins Investigations and, without turning on the light, went straight to the small fridge by the window. He pulled out a long-neck bottle of beer, unscrewed the cap and took a drink as he looked down on the small town from his little hole of darkness.

Outside, snowflakes floated down from a pewter sky, the cold frosting the edges of his window. Inside, the office was hotter than usual, the ancient radiator churning out musty-scented heat.

He could afford an office in the new complex at the edge of town. But he couldn’t imagine himself there any more than he could imagine leaving this town. He felt rooted here, as if some powerful force held him.

And he knew exactly what that force was.

He shook off a chill in the hot room as the phone rang. He’d been expecting the call. “Rawlins.”

“I heard you were down here a few minutes ago giving my people a hard time,” snapped Police Chief L. T. Curtis.

Slade relaxed at the familiar rumble of the cop’s voice. He’d heard it all his life. It had been as much a part of his childhood as the smell of his mother’s bread baking. The thought gave him a twinge. Had nothing really been as it seemed?

“Did anyone tell you it’s Christmas Eve?” Curtis asked sarcastically. “Why aren’t you home decorating a damn tree or something?” Slade’s father and Curtis had both been cops and best friends.

“I found new evidence in mom’s case,” Slade said, cutting to the chase. It was all he’d been able to think about since he’d discovered the letter. “I think I know who really killed her.”

Curtis groaned. “Slade, how many times have we been down this road? I don’t for the life of me understand why you keep pursuing this. The case is closed. It has been for twenty damned years. Her killer confessed.”

“Roy Vogel didn’t kill her,” Slade said, rushing on before the chief could interrupt him. “I found a letter my mother wrote my aunt Ethel before she died.”

“Aunt Ethel? The one who passed away in Townsend a couple weeks ago?” Curtis said. “I was sorry to hear about it.”

Aunt Ethel had been a cantankerous spinster a good ten years older than Slade’s mother. Because of some family disagreement years before the marriage, Ethel had never liked Slade’s father, so had hardly ever come around.

“Yeah, well, she left everything to me, which amounted to several boxes of old letters,” Slade said as he leaned against the radiator, needing the warmth right now. “Did you know my mother was seeing another man?” Even as he said the words, he had trouble believing them.

“Where the hell did you get an idea like that?”

“She as much as admits it in the letter.”

“Bull,” Curtis said. “Not your mother. She worshiped the ground your father walked on and you know it.”

“I thought I did. But it seems my mother had a secret life none of us knew about.”

“In a town like Dry Creek, Montana? Not a chance.”

While relieved that Curtis was having trouble believing it too, Slade couldn’t disregard what he’d found.

His mother’s murder was one of the reasons he’d become a private investigator. He’d been the one who’d found her. Twelve years old, Slade had come home early from school and had to call his father at the police station to tell him. That day, he’d promised himself—and her—that he’d find her killer—no matter what his father said. Joe Rawlins had been afraid that Marcella’s killer might come after his kids next and had told Slade to let him handle it.

Later that evening, the troubled young man who lived down the street was found hung in his garage. Roy Vogel had left a suicide note confessing to Marcella Rawlins’s murder. All these years, Slade had never believed it. He’d always been suspicious of anything that wrapped up that neatly. But there had been no other leads. Until now.

“I just have a feeling about this,” Slade said.

“Well, I’m telling you, you’re all wrong, feeling or no feeling,” Curtis said. “I wish to hell you’d just get on with your life and let your mother rest in peace.”

“That’s not going to happen until her murderer is brought to justice.”

Curtis swore. “Damn, but you’re a pain in the—”

“But you’ll take a look at the letter tonight at Shelley’s?” They’d all spent every Christmas Eve together as far back as Slade could remember. L. T. and Norma Curtis had been his parents’ best friends and had finished raising Slade and his sister Shelley. But they’d been like family long before that.

“You haven’t told Shelley?” Curtis asked.

“Nor do I intend to unless I have to.”

“It will never come to that,” the chief said. “Because you’re dead wrong.”

Slade hoped Curtis was right about that. But then there was the letter. The chief would know who had been friends with Marcella Rawlins twenty years ago. And if he didn’t, his wife Norma would.

“Go Christmas shopping. Buy some eggnog. Give this a rest until after the holidays,” Curtis advised, surely knowing his words were falling on deaf ears.

Once Slade got something in his head, nothing could stop him. “I’ll see you tonight at Shelley’s. I want you to see the letter. This can’t wait until after the holidays.”

“Merry damn Christmas then.” Curtis hung up.

Slade replaced the receiver and turned again to the window. The snow fell in a silent white cloak, obliterating the buildings across the street. But he knew this town and everyone in it by heart.

Did that mean he’d known the man his mother had been seeing? Still knew him? He’s still here, Slade thought. And he thinks he got away with murder. He doesn’t know I’m coming for him. Yet.

He thought of what the chief had once told him about people trapped in their own lives, in their own illusions of reality, unable to get out, and wondered if he wasn’t one of them. Well, then so was his mother’s killer, he thought, as he raised his bottle, the snow falling so hard now he could barely see the Santa below his window, although he could still hear the bell.

It had been snowing the day he’d found his mother’s body. He hadn’t seen her at first—just the Christmas tree. It had fallen over on the floor. As he’d moved toward it, he was thinking the cat must have pulled it over. Then he saw her. Marcella Rawlins lay under a portion of the tree, a bright red scarf knotted tightly around her neck, one of the Christmas ornaments clutched in her hand. On the radio, Christmas music played and, as tonight, somewhere off in the distance, a seasonal Santa jangled his bell.

Behind him, the soft scuff of a heel on the hardwood floor jerked him from his thoughts. He remembered belatedly that he’d failed to shut and lock his office door. Damn.

“We’re closed!” he called out, not bothering to turn around. He took another drink and watched the snow fall, waiting for the footsteps to retreat.

When they didn’t, he turned, a curse on his lips.

She stood silhouetted against the dim light from the stairs, her body as sleek and curved as the long-neck in his hand and just as pleasing as the cold beer. She didn’t move. Nor did she speak. And that was just fine with him.

He ran his hand down the neck of the sweating bottle, enjoying the slick wet feel of it as much as he liked looking at her. Something about her reminded him of another woman he’d known and with the lights off he could almost pretend—

The bell suddenly stopped, the snow silencing everything down on the street. Slade could hear the quickened beat of his heart, the radiator thumping out heat and the faint sound of Christmas music drifting from the apartment next door.

“Mr. Rawlins?” Her voice was as seductive as her silhouette and almost…familiar.

He frowned and tipped the bottle toward her in answer, telling himself he was letting his imagination run away with him.

“Do you mind if I turn on a light?” she asked.

He did. He was tired and all the holiday cheer and the letter had left him on edge. Why couldn’t she just stand there? Or leave? He’d bet his pickup she wouldn’t look half as good in the light. And once he’d seen her, he wouldn’t be able to pretend anymore.

She flicked the light switch.

He blinked, too shocked to speak. He’d been wrong about the light. She looked even better than she had in silhouette. Dangerous curves ran the length of her, from the full, rounded breasts straining against the thin silk of her blouse beneath the open wool coat to the long, shapely legs that peeked between her skirt and her snowboots, all the way back up to her face. And, oh, what a face it was. Framed in a wild mane of curly dark hair. Lips lush. Baby-blues dark-lashed and wide.

It was a face and body he’d spent months trying to forget.

He swore under his breath, more in shock than anger, although he’d spent most of the last year looking for her, worrying that she was dead—and blaming himself for letting it happen.

“I need your help,” she said, a slight catch in her voice. “I know it’s Christmas Eve…”

He shook his head in disbelief. A thousand questions leapt into his mind, all having to do with where she’d been, what she was doing here now and why she’d left him. Oh yes, especially why she’d left him, he thought bitterly.

“What the hell do you think you—” He took a tentative step toward her, then stopped as he saw her expression. Blank as a wall. No recognition. She didn’t know him!

He let out a colorful curse.

“I really shouldn’t have bothered you.” She turned to leave.

He knew if he had any sense at all, he’d just let her go. If only he’d done that the first time.

“Just a minute.” He reached for her, afraid the moment he touched her, she would disappear again. Another one of Scrooge’s ghosts.

His hand brushed hers. She turned back to him, her blue eyes glistening with tears. She didn’t evaporate into thin air. Didn’t disappear like a mirage before him. And after touching her, he knew she was most definitely flesh and blood. But not the woman he’d known.

This woman was a walking shell of that woman, and he couldn’t help but wonder what had happened since to make her that way.

“I’m sorry, you just caught me by surprise,” he said, looking into all that blue again. Just as he had a year ago, when she’d come running out of the snowstorm and into the street. He’d tried to stop his pickup in time, but the snow and ice— He’d jumped from his truck and run to her. She’d lain sprawled in the snow just inches from his bumper. When she’d opened her eyes in the headlights, they were that incredible blue—and blank. Not as blank as they were now. There’d been something in her expression…something that had hooked him from the moment his gaze had met hers.

“Here,” he said, offering her a chair as he closed his office door, afraid she’d change her mind and leave. “What can I do for you?”

She seemed to hesitate, but accepted the chair he offered her, sitting on the edge of the seat, her handbag in her lap, her fingers clutching it nervously.

He leaned against the edge of his desk and stared down at her. Easy on the eyes, but hard on the heart, he thought. He knew better than to get involved with her again. But curse his curiosity, he had to know.

Last year when she’d come to in the street, he’d picked her up and put her in the cab of his pickup, planning to take her to the hospital. But she’d pleaded with him to just take her somewhere safe. She had no memory. No name. No past. But she’d been convinced someone was trying to kill her and had pleaded with him not to involve the police.

“I need your help,” she said now.

“My help?” he asked, still looking for some recognition in her gaze. But it appeared she didn’t know him from Adam! Either he wasn’t that memorable or the woman had a tendency to forget a lot of things. “Why me?”

She shook her head and clutched her purse tighter. “I’m afraid this was a mistake.” She started to get up.

He was on his feet, moving toward her. “No,” he said a little more strongly than he’d meant to. “At least give me a chance.”

She lowered herself back into the chair, but seemed apprehensive of him. Certainly not as trusting as last time, he thought with no small amount of resentment.

He’d taken her in and tried to unravel her past, believing she must be suffering from some sort of trauma.

But two months later, he was the one who’d gotten taken in. Just when he thought he might be making some progress into her past, she’d disappeared without a trace, along with a couple hundred dollars of his money and a half dozen of his case files. He’d spent months looking for her, fearing someone had killed her. Wanting to wring her neck himself.

And now she was back. Alive. And in trouble. Again.

“I’m afraid you’re going to think I’ve lost my mind,” she said, her voice as soft as her skin, something he wasn’t apt ever to forget. She shivered as if her words were too close to the truth.

“Why would I think that?” he asked, wondering if she could just be playing him. It was too much of a coincidence that she’d come into his life twice—both times in trouble, on Christmas Eve and supposedly with no memory. At least, this time, no memory of him, it seemed.

“The help I need is rather unusual.”

He pulled up a chair and sat down. “Try me.”

She seemed to relax a little now that he wasn’t towering over her, but she still clutched her handbag, still looked as if she might take off at a moment’s notice. Is that what had happened last time? She’d gotten scared? Scared of what he was going to find out about her? Or had she just planned to rip him off the whole time? And all these months he’d been telling himself that she’d just gotten cold feet about what was happening between the two of them.

“I think someone stole my baby.”

He stared at her. She had a child? “Wouldn’t you know if someone had taken your child?”

“I know it sounds…crazy, but, you see, that’s just it, I’m not sure.”

Déjà vu. This would have been a good time to tell her he couldn’t help her. Wasn’t about to get involved in her life again. But he had to know who she was and where she’d been all this time. And why. Why she’d conned him. Why she’d stolen from him. Mostly, how much of it had been a lie.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” he suggested. “Like with your name.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said with obvious embarrassment. She kneaded nervously at her purse and he could tell she was having more than second thoughts about coming here.

He gave her a smile. “Take your time.”

Her answering smile was like bright sunlight on snow. Dazzling. And it had the same effect on him it had had a year ago.

“My name is Holly Barrows. I’m an artist. I live in Pinedale.”

Pinedale? Just fifty miles over a mountain pass from here. Had she really been that close all these months? “How long have you lived there?” he had to ask.

“All my life.”

So is that what had happened? Her memory had returned last year and she’d just gone home? It seemed a little too simple given that she’d been so convinced someone was trying to kill her. Not to mention that she’d stolen his money and case files—then apparently forgotten him. And Christmas past.

“Please go on,” he encouraged.

“When I gave birth….” she said, the words seeming to come hard. “…I have little memory of the delivery. I think I was drugged.”

“You gave birth in Pinedale?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know where it was, just that it wasn’t a normal hospital. I think the room was soundproofed and the doctors…” She looked away. Her hands trembled. “When I woke, I was in County Hospital. I was told that my baby was stillborn. I don’t know how I got there. But I keep remembering hearing my baby cry. When I asked to see my baby at the hospital—” She stopped, seeming to be fighting to compose herself. “—I knew the infant they gave me wasn’t mine.”

He stared at her in shock. “The hospital let you see your stillborn baby?”

“See it, hold it, name it,” she said in that same blank, distant voice. “So the mother knows it’s really gone.”

Sweet heaven. He couldn’t imagine. “What made you think the baby wasn’t yours if you never saw it right after the birth?”

She shook her head. “A mother knows her own baby.”

He wondered if that was true. “What is it you think happened to your baby, presuming you’re right and the baby was born alive at this other place?” Then replaced with a dead one? How plausible was that?

“I know how insane it sounds, but I keep having these flashes of memory. My baby was alive. Someone stole it.”

Someone? The same someone she’d thought was trying to kill her a year ago?

She was wasting his time. It was obvious he wasn’t going to get his money—or his case files—back. Nor any explanation, let alone satisfaction, for the heartache she’d caused him. She was a nutcase. A beautiful, desirable nutcase.

She fumbled to open her purse.

The movement should have concerned him. She might be going for a weapon. As crazy as she was, she might shoot him. But the way her hands shook, she wouldn’t have been able to hit the broad side of a barn even if she pulled a howitzer from the bag.

She tugged out a tissue and wiped her eyes.

He’d heard enough, but still, he had to ask. “Why would someone want to take your baby?”

She glanced up, tears in her eyes. “I don’t know. I just have this feeling that this isn’t the first time they’ve done this. That there have been other babies they’ve stolen.”

She was worse than he’d thought.

He rubbed a hand over his face, remembering something she’d said. “During the delivery, you mentioned the doctors. You saw them then?”

She shook her head, one glistening tear making a path down her perfectly rounded cheek. “Not their faces.” She seemed to hesitate as if what she was about to say could be any worse than what she’d already told him. “They wore masks.”

“Masks? You mean surgical masks?”

“Halloween masks with hideous monster faces.” She avoided his gaze as she rooted around in her purse again. “I will pay you whatever you want to prove that I’m not crazy and to get my baby back.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. And to think he used to fantasize about finding her. “When was this anyway?”

“Five weeks ago.”

He nodded distractedly, wondering why it had taken her five weeks.

When he opened his eyes, she had the checkbook in her hand, her expression filled with hopefulness as she looked up at him again.

Sweet heaven. He couldn’t believe that a part of him would gladly leap on his noble steed and ride off to battle evil for this damsel in distress yet again. Except that she’d punctured a hell of a hole in his armor the last time around. She’d gone straight for his heart, and he wasn’t apt to forget it, no matter how desirable, how beautiful or how crazy and in need of help she was this time around.

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said, getting to his feet.

Slowly, she lowered her gaze to her lap. He watched her put the checkbook back into her purse and rise from the chair.

“I’m sorry to have wasted your time,” she said without looking at him.

He watched her walk to the door and thought he should at least suggest she seek medical help. Did she know a good psychiatrist?

But he let her go. She was either a crackpot, or a con artist. Her name probably wasn’t even Holly Barrows.

He listened as her boot heels tapped down the stairs, and he waited for the sound of the door closing on the street below, before he picked up his beer bottle and went to the window again.

It had stopped snowing, the sky dark, the air cold against the glass. He watched her hurry to a newer SUV parked at the curb. Out of habit, he jotted down her license-plate number when her brake lights flashed on.

Why had she come to him with this latest ludicrous story? Hadn’t she gotten what she’d come for the last time?

She pulled out into the street, and he had to fight the urge to run after her.

As he started to turn from the window, he caught a movement on the sidewalk below and looked down. The Santa bell-ringer no longer had his pot. Or his bell. He was looking after the retreating Holly Barrows and talking hurriedly into a cell phone.

Slade felt a jolt as the Santa glanced up toward his office window. The look was brief, but enough. Slade swore and scrambled around his desk and out of the office. He launched himself down the stairs, nearly falling on the wet steps, his mind racing faster than his feet, and burst through the door to the sidewalk.

The Santa was gone—except for his red hat and white fake beard lying on the pavement.

The quiet snowy darkness settled over Slade as he stared down the now-empty street. He’d seen the Santa’s alarmed expression when he’d looked up and spotted Slade at the window, recalled the agitated way the man had been talking into the cell phone.

Worry clutched at him the way Holly Barrows had clutched at her purse. Sweet heaven, could she have been telling the truth this time? More important, had she been telling the truth a year ago when she’d thought someone was trying to kill her?

Suddenly a thought lodged like a stake in his heart. If she wasn’t crazy, if Holly Barrows really had been pregnant and had delivered a baby five weeks ago, then— If nothing else, he’d always been good at math.

He stumbled back against the side of the building as he stared down the street in the direction her car had disappeared. If there really had been a baby, there was a damned good chance it was his.

Chapter Two

“Are you all right?” Shelley asked him as she sliced a loaf of homemade cranberry bread. Her kitchen smelled the way their mother’s used to. Something was always cooking.

“Fine, why?” He leaned against the counter to watch her, trying to put on his best holiday face.

It was obvious to anyone who saw them together, that Slade and Shelley were siblings. Shelley’s hair was the same thick, dark blond as his, her eyes a little paler hazel. They’d both taken after their father’s side of the family. Like him, she had the Rawlins’ deep dimples. They were, in fact, fraternal twins.

“You think I can’t tell when something is bothering you?” she asked. “Something more than Christmas.”

Christmases were always hard on him. This one was especially tough after what he’d found in his mother’s letter, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

“Remember that woman? The one I met last year about this time?”

She kept cutting the bread. “The one who couldn’t remember who she was. You called her Janie Doe.” She frowned. “I remember how worried you were about her when she disappeared.”

“Yeah, well, she waltzed into my office late this afternoon.”

Shelley stopped slicing to look over at him, and he wondered if she realized just how involved he’d gotten with Janie Doe. “Then she’s all right?”

He shrugged. He wouldn’t exactly say that. “The case is complicated.” That was putting it mildly. “But I can’t get it off my mind.”

“It? Or her?”

“Both,” he admitted with a sheepish grin. That seemed to satisfy her.

“Would you carry this into the living room? Norma called to say they were running a little late.”

“I hope they come,” Slade said, wondering how badly the chief didn’t want to read the letter he’d found.

“Of course they’ll come,” Shelley said in surprise. “It wouldn’t be Christmas without them. Well, Norma, anyway,” she added with a laugh. Chief Curtis seemed as fond of Christmas as Slade was.

Shelley put out a tray of snack food while Slade poured them each a glass of wine. With Christmas music playing on the stereo, he helped her decorate the tree. It had become their tradition, since being on their own, to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve, then take it down right after the new year, and always at Shelley’s.

The first Christmas after their mother’s murder had been the worst, with both parents gone. But the chief and Norma Curtis had helped them start new traditions and Slade had gone along with it for his sister. As far as he was concerned, he could skip the holiday all together and never miss it.

“This is one of my favorites,” she said, stopping to admire a small porcelain Santa. “I remember it from pictures of when we were just babies.”

Their mother had loved collecting Christmas ornaments. She could recount where she’d gotten each, many from friends or family, and what year. Each one had special meaning for her.

He watched his sister cradle the Santa in her palm and couldn’t help but think about the Santa bell-ringer below his office window earlier. It kept him from thinking about other Christmases—and his mother.

After he’d missed catching the Santa bell-ringer, he’d returned to his office and tried to call Holly Barrows in Pinedale. Of course there was no listing. Why wasn’t he surprised? She’d probably made up the name.

Not that he knew what he’d have said even if he’d found a number for her. I think Santa Claus had my building staked out and I think he was looking for you? He would sound as crazy as she had.

But he couldn’t quit worrying about her. Or worse, worrying that she might be in real trouble—and he hadn’t taken her seriously. Between that, and worrying about his mother’s letter—and the possible implications of her words, the last thing he wanted to be doing tonight was decorating a Christmas tree. He felt antsy and anxious. Both incidents had shaken him—and during a season when he didn’t feel all that grounded anyway.

He and Shelley had just finished decorating the tree when the chief and his wife arrived.

“Slade, get them some wine,” Shelley said as she took their coats and shook off the snow. “You must be freezing.”

“Nothing like a white Christmas!” Norma exclaimed and moved to the fireplace. “Oh, your tree is just lovely!”

“Want to help me with the wine?” Slade asked the police chief pointedly.

Curtis sighed but followed him into the kitchen. Chief Curtis was built like a battering ram, neckless and balding, with a florid complexion, a reputation for being outspoken to the point of being rude and as tough as a rabid pit bull off his chain. Slade knew the chief’s bark was worse than his bite, but he still had a healthy respect for the man.

He handed him the letter, then proceeded to fill two glasses with wine, knowing Shelley would get suspicious if they took too long.

“Do we have to do this now?” Curtis asked, looking down at the yellowed envelope in his hand. “Damn, Slade, it’s Christmas Eve.”

“Roy Vogel didn’t kill her. Now I know there was someone else. A man. A secret lover who wanted to remain secret. Maybe at all costs.”

Curtis shook his head. “You just aren’t going to let this go, are you?”

“No. I can’t. And considering how my parents felt about you, I wouldn’t think you could either.”

Curtis shot him a withering look, then slowly opened the flap and withdrew the handwritten pages. They crackled in his thick fingers as he unfolded them with obvious hesitancy.

“Well?” Slade demanded when Curtis had finished reading.

“It’s vague as hell,” the cop said with his usual conviction. But Slade noticed that the older man’s hands shook a little as he folded the paper, forced the pages back into the envelope and handed it to him. The letter had obviously upset him as much as it had Slade.

“She admitted she’d been secretly meeting someone she didn’t want Joe to know about, and she pleaded with Ethel not to give away her secret,” Slade said as he put the letter back into his pocket. “What’s vague about that?”

“She didn’t say she was having an affair,” Curtis pointed out, keeping his voice down so the women couldn’t hear in the next room.

“I’m going to find out who she’d been meeting,” Slade told him as he handed the chief a glass of wine. “Are you going to help me? Someone had to know. Maybe one of her friends. Or her hairdresser. Or the damned meter reader. Someone.”

“You’re going off half-cocked,” Curtis warned. “Even if there was someone, it doesn’t mean he killed her.”

“There was someone. The letter makes that clear. And if Roy Vogel didn’t kill her—”

With an oath, Curtis shook his head. “Why did he confess then?”

“Who knows? The guy was always weird and not quite right in the head. But for that very reason, Mom would never have let him into the house, let alone offered him a drink. You do remember the second, half-empty glass on the coffee table?”

“Both glasses had only your mother’s fingerprints on them,” Curtis pointed out as if he’d said it a million times to Slade. He probably had.

“So the killer wore gloves. It was December. Right before Christmas. It was cold that year. Or he never touched his drink.”

Curtis shook his head. “I should never have allowed you to have a copy of the file. What do you do, dig it out and reread it every night before bed?”

“Don’t have to. I know it by heart.” He didn’t tell the chief that he no longer had the file. It was one of the cases the mysterious Holly Barrows, if that was really her name, had stolen, along with a half dozen other older cases. There was no rhyme or reason to the ones she’d taken. None of the cases current—or interesting enough to steal. Probably because the woman was unstable.

“Your father went over that case with a fine-tooth comb. If he’d thought for a moment that Roy Vogel hadn’t been guilty—”

“What if he knew about her affair, maybe even knew who it was?” Slade interrupted. Joe Rawlins had died of a heart attack not six months after his wife’s murder. But Joe had never had a bad heart. That’s why Slade had always believed it had been heartbreak that had killed him.

Curtis let out an oath. “You think a cop like your father would let Marcella’s murderer go free?”

“Maybe there was a reason Dad didn’t go after the real killer. Or couldn’t.” All Slade had was a gut instinct, one that had told him years ago that the wrong man had died for the crime.

Curtis shook his head. “You’re opening up a can of worms here. Have you thought at all about Shelley and what this is going to do to her?”

“I always think of Shelley,” Slade snapped.

Curtis raised a brow as Shelley called from the other room.

“What’s keeping you two? No work! It’s Christmas Eve!”

Curtis reached for the glass of wine Slade had poured for Norma. “Isn’t it bad enough that your mother was murdered? You want to murder her reputation as well? And for what? Roy Vogel killed her.”

“Then you think she was having an affair,” Slade said.

Curtis swore. “If she was, I for one don’t want to know about it.”

Slade fell silent, thinking about what Curtis had said as he followed the chief back into the living room. The conversation turned to the holidays and food and parties.

He stared at the fire, the bright hot flames licking up from the logs, and tried to follow the conversation. But he couldn’t quit thinking. About his mother’s murder. About the young woman who’d come up to his office. He wondered what she was doing tonight and if she was all right. If she’d ever been all right. And if it was possible she’d given birth to his baby.

He couldn’t help but remember in detail how it had been between them and wonder…what if her memory of him were to come back—

He reminded himself that she was a thief and, more than likely, a liar. She’d stolen more than his money and his files. She’d stolen his heart.

Maybe that’s why he couldn’t get her or the Santa bell-ringer out of his head. Or completely forget about the damned letter in his pocket—and its possible ramifications.

“Don’t you think so, Slade?”

He jerked his head up. “What?”

“I asked if you thought this was our best tree yet?” Shelley turned to the others. “Slade and I went out and cut this one ourselves.”

He nodded. “The best ever.” But he could feel his sister’s worried gaze on him. She knew him too well. It would be hard to keep his concerns from her, let alone the letter. Especially once he started asking around town about their mother.

When Chief Curtis got up to clear the snack dishes, Slade offered to help, following the cop into the kitchen.

“Now what?” Curtis asked, only half as put out as he pretended, Slade suspected.

“Any chance you could get a license plate run for me tonight?”

“Tonight?” the chief asked in disbelief.

“It’s for a missing-person case I’m working on.” He gave Curtis the license number from the SUV the alleged Holly Barrows had left his office in. “I need a name and address. It’s important and I have a feeling it can’t wait until after Christmas.”

The chief grumbled but stuffed the number in his pocket. “I’ll have someone at the DMV call you. I’m trying to enjoy the holiday.” As annoyed as he sounded, the cop seemed glad that Slade had given up on his investigation into Marcella Rawlins’ possible infidelity. At least temporarily.

After all these years, Slade thought, his mother’s murder could wait another day. Maybe the woman who called herself Holly Barrows couldn’t.

Chapter Three

Christmas Day

The next morning, after opening presents and eating Shelley’s famous cranberry waffles with orange syrup, Slade followed the snowplow over the pass to Pinedale. It had snowed off and on throughout the night, leaving the sky a clear crystalline blue and everything else flocked in white with a good foot of new snow on the highway.

Pinedale was a small mountain town, forgotten by the interstate, too far from either Yellowstone or Glacier parks and not unique enough to be a true tourist trap.

He wondered what Holly Barrows was doing here—if indeed the woman he’d met yesterday in his office really was the same Holly Barrows the Department of Motor Vehicles reported lived at 413 Mountain View and drove a blue Ford Explorer.

Pinedale was smaller than Dry Creek, set against a mountainside and surrounded by dense pines. The entire town felt snowed-in and deserted, caught in another time. It had once been a mining camp, some of the scars of its past life still visible on the bluffs around it.

He found Mountain View and drove up to 413. The sign on the lower level of the building read: Impressions Art Gallery. He got out of his truck and glanced in the gallery window, not surprised to see a typical Montana gallery with bronze cowboys and horses, oils and acrylics of Native Americans, and watercolor scenics. He spotted a nice acrylic of a sunny summer scene along a riverbank. The name in the right-hand corner was H. Barrows.

Off to the left of the gallery was an old garage and tracks in the snow where a vehicle had been driven in within the past twenty-four hours.

He stepped back to look up at what he assumed was an apartment on the second floor. The sun glinted on the large upstairs window but not before he’d glimpsed the dark image of a woman there, not before he’d felt a chill.

Rounding the corner of the building, he found a stairway that led up to the apartment. He stopped at the foot of the stairs and glanced around the neighborhood. A handful of kids were dragging shiny new sleds up the side of the mountain a few doors down. A dog barked incessantly at one of the boys. A mother called from a doorway to either the dog or the boy, Slade couldn’t tell which. Neither paid any attention.

He didn’t see a Santa bell-ringer, but then he hadn’t expected to. He figured the man in the Santa suit already knew where to find Holly Barrows. The Santa had been waiting for Holly to show up at Rawlins Investigations as if he’d either feared she would—or had been expecting her. Why was that?

He realized as he glanced up the stairs, that he had more questions than answers. And one big question he needed answered above all the rest. Had Holly given birth to a baby—his baby?

He noticed fresh footprints in the snow on the steps to the apartment. The boot print looked small, like a woman’s, and since this was the address Holly Barrows had given as her home on her car registration, he figured the tracks were probably hers and was relieved to see that there was only one set of prints and they ended at the bottom of the stairs.

Someone had come down, it appeared, to get the newspaper and had then gone back up. The newspaper box was empty, the snow on top dislodged. With any luck, Santa hadn’t been here and Holly Barrows was home. But was the person he’d glimpsed in the window the woman he was looking for?

He climbed the stairs, finding himself watching the street. The dog was still barking. One of the kids squealed as he and his bright-colored sled careened down the hill and into the street. Kids.

Slade knocked at the door at the top of the stairs and waited, more anxious and apprehensive than he wanted to admit. He expected a complete stranger to open the door, figuring the woman in his office yesterday had lied about everything, although he had no idea why. Maybe she’d borrowed the car. Or even stolen it.

So, when she opened the door, it took him a moment. He stared at her in surprise. And only a little relief. She hadn’t lied about her name. Or her occupation. But did that mean she hadn’t lied about the rest of it either?

She stood in the doorway, a paintbrush in her hand and a variety of acrylic colors on her denim smock. She wore a sweatshirt and jeans under the smock, but she looked as good in them as she had in the skirt and blouse last night.

“You’re the last person I expected to see,” she said, not sounding all that enthused about the prospect.

“Yeah.” He glanced to the street again, then back at her. “Mind if I come in?”

She opened the door farther, motioning him inside. The place was small, but tastefully furnished, the colors warm and bright, the furniture comfortable-looking. Homey. Except there was no tree. No sign at all that it was Christmas Day.

“Don’t you celebrate Christmas?” he asked, curious.

“Not this year.”

He followed her through the living area to her studio on the north side of the building. The room, bathed in light, was neat and orderly. He watched her, wondering if the woman he’d come to know this time last year was the true Holly Barrows or if this woman, who seemed to be as dazed as a sleepwalker, was the real one.

She moved around an easel in front of a huge picture window and stopped, seeming startled by what she’d painted.

Not half as startled as he was as he stepped around the easel and saw what she’d been working on. He’d expected something like the idyllic summer scene he’d seen in the gallery downstairs. The two paintings were so different no one would have believed they were done by the same artist.

He stared at the disturbing scene on the canvas, feeling ice-cold inside. He didn’t need to ask what the painting depicted. It could have been the birth of Satan, it was so foreboding and sinister. Three horrible creatures with misshapen grotesque faces and dark gowns huddled at the end of a bed waiting expectantly for the birth.

While he couldn’t see the patient’s face in the painting, he could feel her pain and confusion—and fear in the angle of her body, the disarray of her wild dark curly hair and the grasping fingers of the one hand reaching toward the ghouls at the end of the bed, toward her baby.

The painting was powerful and compelling, and seized at something deep inside him. Sweet heaven.

“We need to talk,” he said, even more convinced of that after seeing what she’d been painting.

She nodded and washed her paintbrush, the liquid in the jar turning dark and murky as she worked. He watched her methodically put the brush away, wipe her hands on the smock, then take it off.

“Why did you wait so long to start looking for your baby?” he asked.

She looked up, her eyes the same color as the Montana winter sky behind her. “Mr. Rawlins—”

“Slade.”

“Slade.” She seemed to savor his name in her mouth for a moment as if she’d tasted it before, then, frowning, continued as she led him into the living room. “I believed that my baby had been stillborn. I had no reason not to.” She waited for him to sit, then perched on the edge of a chair, her hands in her lap. “I woke in a hospital. The nurse told me. I thought at first that my belief that the stillborn wasn’t my baby was nothing more than denial. It wasn’t until I started having these memories—if that’s really what they are—” She shook her head. “Before that, I just assumed my sister-in-law was right. That my grief over losing the baby was causing my…confusion about the birth.”

Sister-in-law? “You’re married?” he asked, unable to hide his surprise—or dismay.

She shook her head. “Widowed. My husband died a year ago.” She looked away. “Are you going to take my case, Mr. Rawlins?”

He didn’t correct her. He was still mulling over the fact that she’d had a husband. And the man had died a year ago. Just before Slade had met her? He felt as if she’d sucker punched him. “There are a few things I need to know.” That was putting it mildly.

“I will tell you everything I can.”

An odd answer, he thought, all things considered. “I’ll need you to agree to an examination by a doctor.”

“To prove that I recently delivered a baby.”

He nodded.

She didn’t seem offended. “What else?”

“I’ll need the name of your doctor during your pregnancy, and I’ll want to talk to the doctor at the hospital who allegedly delivered your baby.”

“I didn’t have a doctor during my pregnancy. I was seeing a midwife.”

He lifted a brow at her. She didn’t seem like the midwife type. “Was that your idea?”

She flushed. “Actually, my sister-in-law suggested her. The woman is highly regarded as one of the top midwives in the country. Her name is Maria Perez. She just happened to have bought a place near here and was on a sabbatical. I was very lucky to get her.”

He stared at her. Something in the way she said it caught his attention. It almost sounded rehearsed. And too convenient. “You have her number then?”

Holly came up with the number from memory. He wasn’t sure why that surprised him either.

“Something else. Why did you drive fifty miles over a mountain pass in a blizzard on Christmas Eve to hire a private investigator?”

“I went to Dry Creek to the last-minute-shoppers art festival at the fairgrounds to look for promising new artists for my gallery. I go every year.”

Again, the lines sounded rehearsed. Or as if they weren’t her own. Was the art festival where she’d been last year before she’d come stumbling out of the snow and into his headlights?

“Although, this year I almost didn’t go,” she added with a frown, a clear afterthought.

“So why did you?”

She shook her head. “My sister-in-law thought it would be the best thing for me.”

He wondered about this sister-in-law who knew so much. “And do you hire a private investigator every year?” he asked, the sarcasm wasted on her.

“Of course not. I never intended to hire anyone. I was driving by and I saw your sign through the snow and—” She looked up at him and shook her head. “I don’t know why I came to you. I just had this sudden need to know the truth and there you were.”

“No matter what that truth is?” he had to ask.

“No matter what you discover,” she said, but he heard a slight hesitation in her words. She sounded scared and unsure. He couldn’t blame her. He felt the same way.

He went for the big one. “What about the father of your baby?”

“I don’t see what that has to do—”

“If your baby really was stolen, the father of the baby seems the prime suspect.”

It was clear she’d already thought of this. She nodded. “I…” She licked her lips and swallowed. “I don’t…”

“You don’t know who the father of your baby is?”

“I know what you must be thinking.”

He doubted that. “Surely, you have some idea or can at least narrow it down.”

“Are you familiar with alcoholic blackouts?”

He stared at her. “You’re an alcoholic?” The only thing he’d ever seen her drink was cola.

“Let’s just say I don’t remember getting pregnant and leave it at that for now.”

He studied her for a long moment. Was it possible he knew more about the conception of their baby than she did? “When can you see a doctor?”

Relief washed over her features at his change of subject. “The sooner the better,” she said.

“No problem. I think I can get you an appointment this afternoon.” Dr. Fred Delaney had delivered both Slade and Shelley and had been a friend of the family for years. He would make time for this, Slade knew. Dr. Delaney was also on his list of people to talk to about his mother. “Is that too soon?”

“No.” She rose as he got to his feet.

He considered telling her about the two of them. That after doing the math, he figured the baby had to be his. But first he had to know if there really had been a baby.

He started to leave and stopped. “Last night, when you came to see me at my office…”

“Christmas Eve,” she said, then waited for him to go on.

“There was a Santa bell-ringer in front of my building. Maybe you saw him?”

She shook her head, frowning as if wondering what that had to do with anything.

“I think he had my office staked out. I saw him on a cell phone as you were leaving. I think he’d been waiting for you.” He saw her pale, her hand trembling as she grasped the back of the chair he’d been sitting in for support.

“Then they know I’ve come to you,” she said, fear making her blue eyes darken.

“They?” he asked, just to clarify.

“The people who took my baby.”

The monsters in the painting.

If “they” existed outside this woman’s mind.

The Santa bell-ringer, on the other hand, had been real. He described the Santa as best he could, hoping she’d recognize the guy as someone she knew. But while the man hadn’t been hiding behind a monster mask—he had been hiding under a beard and hat and possibly a whole lot of padding. Like the monsters in her painting, real or not, Santa hadn’t wanted to be recognized either, it seemed.

“I can’t place him from your description,” she said.

He nodded, not surprised. “You just might want to be…careful.” He wanted to warn her, but he didn’t have any idea against what—or whom. The bottom line was: if those monsters in her painting existed, then Holly Barrows was in danger.

“You don’t have a phone?” he asked, remembering that he hadn’t found a listing.

“I have it listed under the gallery.” She rattled off the number.

He memorized it. “I’ll call you with a time. We can meet at the doctor’s office.”

He glanced back at the painting as he left and almost wished she really was crazy. The alternative scared the hell out of him.

DR. FRED DELANEY had grayed in the years since he’d delivered Slade and Shelley. He’d come to Dry Creek right out of medical school and ended up staying. Now in his sixties, he was semi-retired.

“You know my office is closed the week of Christmas,” he said when Slade called him.

“That’s why I’d like you to see this woman. I’d just as soon have this done…quietly.”

Dr. Delaney didn’t ask. “Three o’clock.”

Holly Barrows arrived a few minutes before her appointment. Slade had half expected her not to show and realized he was going to have to start believing at least some of what she said.

The checkup didn’t take long. Dr. Delaney came out of the examining room and motioned for Slade to follow him into his office.

“Close the door,” he said as he went around behind his desk.

Slade didn’t like the look on the older man’s face.

“She delivered a baby in the last month or so. Is that what you wanted to know?”

Sweet heaven. Slade felt light-headed. His baby. Holly had been telling the truth.

“There was quite a lot of tearing,” Dr. Delaney continued. “The baby could have been overly large. Either there wasn’t time for an episiotomy or…one just wasn’t done. I would imagine she was in a lot of pain during the delivery.”

Slade felt a cold anger fill him. “You’re saying the delivery wasn’t handled properly?”

Dr. Delaney blinked. “I would have no way of knowing that. The baby could have come too quickly for anything to be done.”

“Or the doctor could have bungled it.” Slade knew how doctors hung together. Especially when the word malpractice started floating around.

“Do you know who delivered this baby?” Dr. Delaney asked in answer.

He shook his head. Maybe a midwife. Maybe monsters. “But believe me, I intend to find out.”

It wasn’t until he and Holly left the office that Slade realized he’d forgotten to ask Dr. Delaney about the man in Marcella Rawlins’ life.

“Are you all right?” he asked Holly once they were outside.

She looked over at him and he sensed something different about her. She didn’t look as much like a sleepwalker. “Did you get the proof you needed?”

“Yes. I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.” All of it, including the pregnancy and delivery without him.

“Where to next?” she asked, her eyes glinting with what appeared to be a combination of anger and stubborn resolve. This wasn’t easy for her, he could see that. But she wasn’t backing down. It reminded him of the Holly Barrows he’d known. And that was something he didn’t need to be reminded of.

He hadn’t planned to take her with him, but he changed his mind. “The hospital. I want to find out who supposedly delivered your baby.”

Dr. Eric Wiltse didn’t look anything like a doctor. He wore jeans, a T-shirt and a Carhartt jacket. His face was tanned and his sunbleached hair hadn’t even started to gray at the temples. It was pulled back in a ponytail. How he’d ended up in Dry Creek, Slade could only wonder. His office was in the new building at the edge of town but this morning he was making rounds at County Hospital, a small fifteen-bed hospital with an even smaller staff because of the holiday.

“Dr. Wiltse?” Slade inquired, although he’d already seen the man’s name tag. He stepped in front of Wiltse, blocking his way.

The doctor, not much older than Slade, seemed more annoyed than surprised as he glanced from Slade to Holly. He didn’t seem to recognize her.

“We just need a moment of your time,” Slade said, pushing open a supply-room door and shoving the good doctor in.

“Hey, what the—” That was all Dr. Wiltse got out before Slade grabbed a handful of the man’s shirt and shoved him against a shelf full of towels.

“I understand you were the emergency-room doctor the night Holly Barrows delivered her baby,” Slade said. “I don’t have a lot of time and even less patience.”

The doctor’s eyes widened as he took in Holly again. “This is against all hospital pol—”

“The delivery. Were you assisted? Did you deliver the baby by yourself? If you want, Ms. Barrows here will sign whatever papers you need to release you from any oaths you might have taken, doctor.”

“And who will keep me from filing assault charges against you?” the doctor asked, jerking free of Slade’s grasp. But he didn’t try to leave the supply room. Nor did he look like he was going to put up a fuss.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you,” he said to Holly. Memory loss seemed to be going around. “When did you deliver?”

“Halloween night. I was told my baby was stillborn.”

His eyes narrowed and he nodded, recollection sparking in his expression. “Yes. You look…different.” His gaze came back to Slade’s, a hardness to it. “I assume you’re the father?”

Slade assumed the same thing, but said nothing.

The doctor continued. “Yes, I remember now. The male infant was stillborn.”

A son. Slade felt sick, filled with a terrible sense of loss. The baby had been stillborn. His baby. His baby and Holly’s. And, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, the sister-in-law had been right. In her grief, Holly had come up with this crazy story about monsters, a secret room and a baby who had lived and was stolen and replaced with a stillborn.

“Then you delivered the baby,” Slade said, feeling sick.

The doctor looked surprised as he glanced from Slade to Holly and back again. “She had already given birth when she was brought in, more than likely without any help, from her condition.” His look said he thought Slade would have known that. “She was unconscious and suffering from hypothermia. I stitched her up and tried to make her comfortable the best I could.”

Slade stared at him. “She didn’t give birth here? Then where?”

“I have no idea. I was told that both mother and infant had been found in that condition and some good Samaritan got them to the hospital.” His accusing tone made it clear he wondered where the father of the baby had been during the delivery.

Was there even the slimmest chance that Holly’s memories could be real? That their baby was still alive somewhere? He tried to hold down the surge of hope, but it was impossible. However, he reminded himself, this still didn’t rule out the possibility that Holly had given birth alone for whatever reason. She would have been frightened and in a great deal of pain and then when the baby was stillborn, she would have had a monstrous amount of guilt—as well as tearing.

“This good Samaritan, do you know where we can find him?” Slade asked.

“You would have to ask the admitting nurse. I was called in just to check them both and pronounce…” He glanced at Holly, a practiced look of sympathy coming to his gaze. “…the baby stillborn.”

“You’re sure it was hers?” Slade said.

The doctor blinked. “Who else’s baby would it have been? Both mother and child were covered in blood and it was obvious she’d just given birth.”

“Then the umbilical cord was still attached?” Slade asked.

Dr. Wiltse looked uncomfortable. “The cord had been severed, but I assumed the mother had done that herself before she passed out.”

“Is that normal—to pass out after a delivery?”

The doctor shrugged. “It’s possible. It was also cold that night. She was experiencing some hypothermia.”

“Could she have been drugged?”

Dr. Wiltse blinked. “I wouldn’t know. We don’t routinely check for drug use.”

“Is there any way to find out?”

The doctor seemed to consider this for a moment. “We always do blood typing on both mother and baby, but we only keep the samples for seven days after the birth.”

Blood typing. “Would the blood typing confirm the baby was hers?”

“Possibly. It would depend on the blood type of the mother and father compared to that of the baby.”

Slade glanced over at Holly. She looked pale and scared. “Where do we find the admitting nurse from that night?” he asked Wiltse. “Also we’ll need a copy of the blood typing.”

“You might try the front desk,” the doctor said, straightening his clothing as he brought himself up to his full height. “It’s the novel way we do things around here, rather than in supply closets.” He glanced past Slade to Holly. “I’m sorry about your loss.”

She nodded, and Slade pushed open the door to let the doctor pass. “Thanks.”

At the front desk, Holly asked for a copy of the blood typing on her and the stillborn baby. She filed out a written request form and was told to check back the next day since that office was closed for Christmas.

The nurse on duty didn’t want to, but finally agreed to take a look at the admittance sheet from Halloween.

“I remember that night. It was pretty slow early, but then as usual we got real busy,” the nurse said, checking the schedule. “Carolyn Gray was the admitting nurse.” She checked the admittance sheet. “Nope. It doesn’t say anything about who brought in Holly Barrows or her infant. Sorry.”

“Is Carolyn Gray working today?” Slade asked.

“Called in sick.” There was suspicion in the nurse’s tone. But anyone who called in sick for work on Christmas would be suspect.

“It’s urgent we speak with her.”

It took a little coaxing but they finally got Carolyn Gray’s address and phone number. She lived in an apartment house on Cedar and Spruce streets called The West Gate. The nurse at the desk tried Carolyn’s home phone number but there was no answer.

“She probably has it unplugged,” the nurse said, obviously not believing that any more than Slade did. Except he was hoping for Carolyn Gray’s sake that she really was sick.

On the way to The West Gate, he tried Holly’s midwife again on his cell phone. He’d been trying all morning with the same result. No answer. He was ready to hang up when a female voice came on the line.

“Maria Perez?”

“No, I’m the caretaker,” the woman said.

“The caretaker? Has Ms. Perez left town?”

After a long silence, the woman said, “I’m sorry, but Maria Perez was killed in a car wreck.”

He sucked in a breath. “When was that?”

“October. I’m just taking care of the place until the estate is settled.”

“Can you tell me when exactly she was killed? Was it on Halloween?”

“No, the day before. Would you like a member of her family to call you?”

“No, that won’t be necessary.” He clicked off the phone and glanced over at Holly, who was waiting expectantly. “Maria Perez was killed in an automobile accident the day before Halloween.”

“Then she couldn’t have been one of the monsters,” she said.

“No.” But had someone seen to it that Maria Perez wasn’t at the birth?

Holly stared out at the passing town, visibly shaken by the news. He didn’t have the heart to tell her what he feared they’d find at Carolyn Gray’s apartment.

Chapter Four

The West Gate was about as upscale as Dry Creek got. A half-dozen two-story apartment buildings with bay windows and balconies painted the recent color of choice: tan. Slade idly wondered what kind of money nurses made these days as he and Holly found Carolyn Gray’s unit, knocked at the door and waited. To neither of their surprises, Carolyn Gray didn’t open the door.

“Keep an eye out,” he told Holly as he pulled out his lock-pick kit and went to work on the door. It was a simple lock and Carolyn hadn’t set her dead bolt.

“Are you sure about this?” Holly asked with obvious apprehension as he opened the door.

“Carolyn?” he called softly.

No answer.

Holly followed him deeper into the apartment.

He had a bad feeling that Carolyn Gray was probably the only one who’d seen the person who’d brought Holly and the baby to the hospital, especially if most everyone else had been busy that night. If Holly was right about her baby being born alive and then stolen, that person wouldn’t want to be identified.

By the time he pushed open the bedroom door, he’d pretty well convinced himself that they’d find Carolyn Gray murdered. Holly’s paranoia was definitely catching. And quite possibly with good reason.

Instead of finding a body though, he found the place had been cleaned out. And in a hurry! Empty drawers hung open, abandoned clothes hangers were piled like pick-up-sticks on the closet floor. Carolyn Gray was gone and it didn’t look as if she’d be back. But had she left on her own?

After finding nothing of interest in the apartment, they left.

“There’s a chance I’m not crazy, isn’t there?” Holly said quietly as she climbed back into his pickup.

“Yeah.” A slim chance at this point. But a chance. The same chance that he might now be looking for his own very-alive baby. He didn’t want to think what had happened to Carolyn Gray.

“Did you have any tests done while you were pregnant?” he asked, hoping for at least one that might prove the stillborn wasn’t hers.

Holly shook her head. “Maria, my midwife, didn’t feel it was necessary.”

“So you didn’t know the sex of your baby?”

“No.”

And there were no tests anywhere as proof. How convenient. Other than the blood tests taken at the hospital.

He drove back to Dr. Delaney’s office, where they’d left her SUV. “I want to talk to your sister-in-law,” he said as he pulled into the parking lot next to her car. “She was there, you said, when you woke up at the hospital. Did you call her? Or did one of the nurses?”

Holly seemed startled by the question. “I don’t know. I never even thought to ask.”

“I’d like to see your sister-in-law alone, if that’s all right with you.” He could feel her gaze on him.

“I should tell you that Inez might be difficult.”

“You told her you were hiring me?” he asked, wondering if this Inez person was the one who the Santa bell-ringer had been talking to last night.

She shook her head. “I just mentioned to her that I didn’t believe the stillborn baby was mine, and that I was concerned about the blanks in my memory. I didn’t mention hiring you because I didn’t even know myself that I was going to until I did.”

“You didn’t mention the…monsters?”

She shook her head and looked appalled at the idea. “Can you imagine what Inez would do?”

He couldn’t, but obviously she could and it wasn’t good.

“I was thinking about your painting,” he said. “One of the monsters seemed smaller than the other two. Do you think it’s possible it could have been a woman?” He could feel her gaze.

“Yes, that’s true, one is smaller.” She sounded surprised that he’d noticed. Or surprised that she hadn’t.

“But the painting doesn’t prove anything. I mean, how can I be sure it’s even a real memory?”

She had a point there. But he found it hard to believe anyone could conjure up something like that.

“You aren’t thinking it could be Inez, are you?” she asked suddenly. She seemed to find the idea laughable. “When you meet her you’ll see why that isn’t possible. She can barely get around.”

He’d have to take her word for it. Until he met the woman.

“But I do wish now that I’d never said anything to her about any of this.” She let out a sigh and he wondered why she’d confided in him about monster memories—and not her sister-in-law. “You have to understand,” she said slowly, “Inez is from an older generation and a very conservative family. My getting pregnant only a month after Allan died was considered a family scandal. Inez doesn’t want me making it any worse by pursuing what she sees as lunacy brought on by guilt, grief and postpartum depression.”

A possible explanation, one Slade himself had definitely considered. But so far they had no idea where Holly had given birth. Or if the baby taken to the hospital with her was actually hers. And the only other person who might know anything had left town in a hurry. Or had been taken out of town. It was enough to make him definitely suspicious.

Holly’s story was crazy. It was a leap to think that some other woman had given birth that night at about the same time and close by in order to make the baby switch. Quite the coincidence. Or maybe not. Just like the midwife getting killed in an auto accident the day before Holly gave birth.

“I hope the blood typing will prove that the baby isn’t…yours.” He’d almost said ours. “Otherwise, we might have to have the body exhumed for DNA testing.”

She looked shocked—and scared. “Inez will never allow it. She had the infant buried in the family plot. She even named the little boy after her brother, Allan Wellington.”

The sister-in-law had named the baby? “Wellington? Not Barrows?”

“Barrows was my maiden name. I never took Allan’s name,” she said, and looked away from him out the side window at the passing houses. “We were married less than a week. He was older than I was.”

Whoa. She married some old guy who died only a week into the marriage? That didn’t sound at all like the woman he’d known. But he reminded himself, he’d never expected her to steal his money and files and skip out on him either. So he couldn’t rule out the possibility that Holly had married Allan Wellington for his money. He just hoped he didn’t find out that she’d offed the guy.

She fell silent as if she wished she hadn’t offered as much information as she had. He wondered if she was worried about what he thought—or suspected. Or if the concern he saw in her expression was over the possibility of riling her sister-in-law.

“You always do what your sister-in-law wants?” he had to ask, studying her. The Holly Barrows he’d known before wouldn’t have let some old biddy boss her around.

She seemed surprised by the question. “Inez has a way of wearing you down,” she admitted, a sadness to her tone as she opened her side of the pickup to get out.

He glanced around to make sure there was no one around her vehicle, not sure who he was looking for. He doubted he’d recognize the Santa bell-ringer without his beard and hat. But there were few people on the streets with most of the stores closed for the day.

“I’ll call you later,” he said as she got out. He waited until she drove away, his mind racing. Who was this Inez Wellington that she had so much power over Holly? And Allan Wellington, this man Holly had married, why did his name sound familiar? Something told him the marriage hadn’t been a happy one. Or maybe he just wanted to believe that.

He picked up his cell phone and dialed Chief L. T. Curtis.

“What do I need to get a body exhumed?”

“This isn’t about your—”

“No.” Slade had put his mother’s murder on the back burner, but hadn’t forgotten about it by any means. “It’s for a client of mine. She gave birth recently. There is some question as to whether the baby might have been switched and the wrong baby buried.”

Curtis was silent for a moment. “It’s happened before. Were these babies born at County Hospital?”

“No, it’s complicated,” Slade said, not really wanting to get into the details or to involve the police at this point. “What would I need for an exhumation?”

“Enough information to talk a judge into giving me a court order.”

In other words, proof. The one thing Slade was real short on.

“I assume this is about that plate you needed run?” the chief asked.

“Yeah. I’m getting the blood typing from the hospital tomorrow and I hope it’s questionable enough for a court order.”

“I thought she didn’t give birth at the hospital,” Curtis asked.

“No, but she did go there right after the birth and they routinely take both the mother’s and baby’s blood.”

“This is one hell of a time to ask for an exhumation,” Curtis noted.

“Yeah,” Slade agreed. “I’ll check back with you, but meanwhile I’ll be at Shelley’s. I’m house-sitting until she gets back from her trip to Tobago.” Shelley’d had the chance to spend the rest of the holiday with some friends on the Caribbean island, and Slade had insisted she go. He felt better having her out of town right now.

“Too bad you didn’t go with her,” the chief said, and hung up.

Slade shook his head as he clicked off his cell phone, started his pickup and headed for Paradise.

INEZ WELLINGTON lived some thirty miles from Dry Creek in a condominium in a fancy gated community known as Paradise West. Slade had been born and raised in Montana in a time when only a jack-leg log fence—and often not even that—separated the men from the cows. Because of that, he was contemptuous of gated communities and pitied the frightened people who lived behind the bars.

A stoop-shouldered thin woman with a shock of white hair and small dark eyes opened the door. Inez looked to be in her early seventies and had the pinched face of a woman who hadn’t got what she wanted out of life. She leaned on a gold-handled cane and eyed him suspiciously.

“Yes?” she said, even though she knew who he was and why he’d come because he’d had to call even to get in the gate.

“I’m Slade Rawlins, the private investigator Holly Barrows hired,” he said again, just so there was no misunderstanding.

But from the look of obvious contempt in her gaze, it was clear she knew exactly who he was and why he was there.

“Yes,” she said, motioning him in and triple-locking the door behind him. “The only reason I’m bothering to see you at all is for Holly.”

Somehow he didn’t believe this woman did anything for Holly’s benefit. He stood in the small stone foyer. From what he could see of the rest of the condo, the decor was as severe and cold as the woman herself. A few plaques hung on the wall, tributes to one Wellington or another. Obviously a bunch of overachievers.

He couldn’t see the Holly Barrows he knew from the two months they’d spent together last year marrying into this family. He couldn’t help but be suspicious and wondered just how old Allan Wellington had been.

“I need to ask you a few questions,” he said, hoping the old bat would at least offer him a drink.

She pursed her lips as she shuffled past him and into a sitting room, the tip of the cane tapping the floor. She didn’t head for the ornate mirrored bar, but took a straight-backed chair and offered him one that looked equally uncomfortable. It was.

“This is such a waste of time and money,” she complained as she brushed at her spotless slacks.

“How long have you known Holly Barrows?” he asked, getting right to it. He didn’t want to stay here any longer than he had to.

Inez lifted a thin, veined, pale hand from the arm of her chair. “About two years.”

“Did you meet her before or after your brother Allan met her?”

She pursed her thin colorless lips, her hand dropping to the arm of the chair. “We met her at a party, I believe, the same night. Did she also tell you they had hoped to have children? Unfortunately, Allan succumbed to a weak heart before he could produce an heir.”

An heir. Slade made a mental note to see how much money Holly Barrows had come into after her husband’s rather quick demise and was disgusted with himself for his suspicious nature.

“And how old was Allan?” he asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

The old woman stiffened. “Fifty-one.”

“You had the same mother and father?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Of course, we did. I was the firstborn. My mother had trouble conceiving. It’s one of the reasons Allan dedicated his life to infertility. He was a change-of-life baby, a miracle. Not that it is any of your business.”

“I just want to get the lay of the land, so to speak. Holly, is what, twenty-eight? That’s quite the age difference.”

Inez raised her nose a little higher. “Allan was a very vital fifty-one. Age doesn’t always matter if two people are right for each other.” She seemed to choke up. “We had no idea there was anything wrong with his heart.”

He wondered if Holly had known and mentally kicked himself for suspecting she had. He dropped the subject of age difference, more convinced than ever that Allan and Holly had been anything but “right” for each other. “I take it Allan didn’t have any children from an earlier marriage?”

She made a face as if suddenly smelling something unpleasant. “Allan’s first love was his career. He was much too busy to even consider marriage, then he met Holly.” She made it sound as if Holly had hexed her poor unsuspecting brother. A definite possibility, he thought, as a man who too had been hexed by her.

“You say Allan and Holly met at a party? What party was that?” he asked.

“I can’t see what any of this could possibly have to do with your…investigation into the death of Holly’s baby,” Inez said. “That is what this is about, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “I was just curious.”

And it appeared Inez wasn’t about to satisfy any more of that curiosity.

“On Halloween night you got a call to go to the hospital,” he said. “Who placed that call to you?”

“One of the nurses, I assume. She said she was calling from County Hospital and that Holly had delivered her baby.”

“Then she led you to believe Holly had had the baby at the hospital,” Slade asked.

“Well, of course she did,” Inez snapped. “Where else would she have had the baby?”

“Well, that’s the question isn’t it? The doctor says she didn’t deliver at the hospital. Someone dropped her and the baby off.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

He could see Inez was the type of woman who believed what she wanted and nothing was going to change her mind.

“Did you see Holly the day she had the baby?”

“No, I hadn’t seen her for a couple days. But the baby wasn’t due for another week or so.”

“The baby came early then?” Was it possible the people who had delivered Holly’s baby had induced the labor? Especially if they’d planned to take her baby and had known another woman who was about to deliver a stillborn baby?

He knew that sort of thinking was way out there. But until he found out where Holly had given birth, he had to wonder if anything wasn’t possible.

“What difference does any of this make?” Inez demanded. “The baby didn’t live. Allan Junior is buried next to his father. There is nothing more to be said about this.”

“His father? Allan Junior? But the baby isn’t his, right?”

“Playing up to Holly’s delusions isn’t helping her,” Inez continued as if he’d never spoken. “She’s come up with this fantasy about another baby out of guilt. She had another man’s offspring when she knew how badly poor Allan wanted a child. Of course, she feels guilty.”

Slade could see that Inez was doing her best to make Holly feel that way. But as much as he didn’t want this old witch to be right, he was also smart enough to know that the other baby, the one Holly thought she remembered, might be nothing more than a guilt-induced fantasy.

But the mystery still remained as to where Holly had given birth.

The elderly woman got to her feet with no small effort, signaling that their “meeting” was over. “It’s just a case of guilt, grief and postpartum depression for the dearly loved husband she lost and the child she conceived only to appease that loss.”

Slade didn’t move. Guilt, grief and postpartum depression. The exact words Holly had used and in the same order. The words echoed, making his skin crawl.

“What if Holly’s right?” he asked quietly. “What if that baby in the ground isn’t hers? What if someone has her child?”

“Then good riddance,” the old woman snapped, her face contorting into a mask of meanness. “That baby should never have been conceived in the first place. As far as I’m concerned, it’s dead and gone and Holly’s licentiousness is buried with it.” She took a ragged breath, anger putting two slashes of scarlet into her otherwise gray face. “Nor will I hear of this so-called investigation of yours going any farther. Holly gave birth to a stillborn baby. That’s the end of it.”

It surprised him, not how she felt about Holly’s baby, but that she’d bury the child as Allan Junior in the family plot.

“I’m afraid it isn’t up to you,” he said slowly getting to his feet. He could see that she wasn’t going to take the exhumation well, if it came to that. “If Holly wants to keep looking for her baby then she has that right.”

Inez Wellington narrowed her gaze to pinpoints of darkness as she glowered up at him. “I won’t see my brother’s memory derogated any more than it has been. If Holly continues to behave irrationally, I shall see that she goes back to the sanitarium.” She smiled at his surprise. “So she didn’t tell you about her breakdown after Allan’s death?” She leaned on her cane, a triumphant, self-satisfied look on her pinched face. “Holly committed herself. Since she left the doctor’s care without a proper release, those commitment papers are still valid.” She smiled. “Let me show you out, Mr. Rawlins. Unless you want to see your client locked up indefinitely, you and I won’t be crossing paths again.”

The intercom buzzed. He saw her glance at her watch, frown, then look at him. The intercom buzzed again. Someone was at the gate.

She walked to the front door, the intercom continuing to buzz, and waited for him. He could see the irritating sound was wearing on her and wondered why she didn’t answer it.

Then it struck him: she didn’t want him to know who it was!

He stopped to admire one of the commendations on the Wellington wall of fame. Dr. August Wellington had been honored for his work during World War II. How nice.

“Good day, Mr. Rawlins,” Inez said pointedly as she opened the door.

“Shouldn’t you get that?” The buzzing was getting to him as well. But now he really wanted to know who was at the gate. He waited, pretending to admire another one of the awards.

Glaring, she reached over and hit the intercom. That was the problem with gated communities. The damned guard at the gate.

“Yes?” she demanded.

The loud voice of the overweight guard who’d let Slade in echoed through the entryway. “Dr. O’Brien from Evergreen Institute is down here. He says it’s of utmost importance.” It was obvious Dr. O’Brien had been giving the guard a hard time from the tone of the man’s voice.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.