Hostage Midwife

“It’s Remington’s style, but my great-grandfather commissioned the painting from one of his contemporaries. The prospector’s face is actually a portrait of Great-Grandpa Spencer himself. At one time, the ass had the face of his number-one competitor.”

“Why was it changed?”

“After my great-grandpa drove the ass out of business, the painting seemed mean.” He pushed open the door to a large conference room with a polished oak table, leather chairs and several other paintings hanging on the walls. “That little one with the bronco rider is a Remington.”

“I like the historical touches. It’s very Old West Colorado.”

“Not really my taste,” he confided as he crossed the room. “I like light and modern with clean lines. The office I usually work from is in the mountains.”

“I thought you lived in Valiant.”

“My brother wanted me to fill in while he was out of town for a week.” His clever brother had also dragged him into the issues with Uncle Samuel. “I’ve got a condo here, but I live in Breckenridge. Most of my work is in the ski resorts.”

At the back of the conference room, he paused beside a door that appeared to be dark oak. His knuckles flicked against the surface. “This entire section of wall and the door is heavy-duty steel.”

“The security you were talking about.” She came closer. “Is the gold in there?”

“This is only the first step.” He flipped open a nearly invisible wall panel to reveal a keypad. After punching in a five-number code, he opened the door to a brightly lit room. The walls were lined with utilitarian shelves and file cabinets. “This is our secure area where we keep confidential paperwork, contracts and mapping information. We call it the vault.”

“I’m surprised,” she said. “I would have thought this information would be computerized.”

“We’re working on it. Some of these documents date back to the 1800s. If they ever got lost, we’d have a hard time replacing them.” He took her by the shoulders and situated her in front of a floor-to-ceiling section of smoky gray glass that was about twelve feet long. “Ready?”

“Amaze me,” she said.

He hit a switch and a light came on behind the glass, turning it transparent. Behind a wall of reinforced steel bars, the Valiant gold shone with a radiance that rivaled the sun. The stacks of fifty kilobars took up about as much space as a medium-size coffee table. Nick had seen the gold hundreds of times. He’d held the kilobars and felt their weight in his hands. Still, being this close always gave him a thrill.

Kelly whispered, “Can I touch it?”

“Afraid not.”

She leaned forward, almost pressing her nose against the glass wall. “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced the real color of gold before. It almost seems alive.”

He heard the excitement in her voice as she continued. “When I look at this, I can understand why gold has been coveted throughout history—from King Midas to the search for El Dorado.”

“And into the present day. Two months ago, an Ethiopian prince offered to purchase the Valiant gold.”

His family’s treasure was more than a showpiece; it was collateral. If Marian was right and the company was on the brink of disaster, they could sell the gold—a worst-case scenario.

She tapped the glass wall. “This doesn’t seem like enough protection.”

“The glass is reinforced and the steel bars are unbreakable. The only way to open these doors is with a code and two simultaneous fingerprints from Spencer heirs. That includes me, my brother, Uncle Samuel and a cousin who’s currently on an expedition to the North Pole.”

“What about your mother?”

“Mom passed away when I was just a kid.”

“I’m sorry…. Do I see a safe in the corner behind the gold?”

He nodded. “There’s family jewelry in there. Ironically, the diamonds are probably worth as much as the gold. It’s too bad those necklaces and rings are almost never worn.”

“A real shame.” She pivoted and looked up at him. “Diamonds are meant to be seen.”

He would have liked nothing more than to retrieve one of the ornate necklaces from the safe, drape it around her throat and make love to her on the Valiant gold. “I wish I could show you.”

“There’s something magical about precious gems. I got to wear a very valuable rented bracelet once.” She gestured gracefully. “Rubies and diamonds.”

“You must have been attending an important event.”

“The Governor’s Inaugural Ball. He’s a friend of my ex.”

Nick was getting curious about the ex’s identity. “I’m surprised I didn’t see you there.”

“I’ve always been good at fading into the wallpaper, even when I’m wearing diamonds.”

“You look plenty sparkling to me.”

He heard a loud pop. A gunshot?

Grabbing Kelly’s wrist, he pulled her out of the vault and shut the door. As he ran toward the exit from the conference room, he shouted to her, “Stay back.”

In the hallway, Marian poked her head out of her office and called to him. “The noise sounded like it came from your uncle’s office.”

“Was it a gun?”

“I think so.”

A moment ago, he’d thought the worst fate that could befall the Spencers was to lose the gold. He hadn’t considered physical harm to his family. At the door to his uncle’s office, Nick grasped the handle. It was locked. “Samuel, open up. Samuel? Are you all right?”

There was no reply. If there was a gunman in the office, Nick should proceed carefully. But if Samuel had been shot, they had to get in there and help him.

Marian grasped his sleeve. “Don’t you have a key in your office?”

“That’s all the way upstairs. It’ll take too long.”

In a few strides, he was at the glass display case beside the prospector painting. Fortunately, the case wasn’t locked. Nick reached inside and wrapped his fingers around a pickax from the 1800s.

At the door to his uncle’s office, he used the tool to break the latch before he kicked the door open. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air. There was no one in the room except for his white-haired Uncle Samuel who sprawled on the floor beside his desk. Blood spread in a dark stain on the beige carpet. A .45 caliber gun was in his right hand.

Nick knelt beside the old man and felt for a pulse. “He’s still breathing. Call 911.”

Kelly joined him on the floor. “Let me take care of him. I’m a nurse.”

“You deliver babies.”

“I’m also an RN. Step back, Nick.”

He gently removed the gun from his uncle’s limp hand and stood, looking down as Kelly tried to stop the bleeding from a chest wound.

The door had been locked. The windows were closed.

A set of blueprints lay on the desk. Across them, his uncle had written two words: I’m Sorry.

Chapter Three

Monday, 10:25 a.m.

“It’s not your fault that he died.”

“I know,” Kelly said.

Her friend Serena Bellows motioned for her to come out from behind the kitchen counter and join her in the living room. Picking her way through a minefield of toys and stuffed animals, Kelly made her way across the large room with the cathedral-style ceiling. Over the years, Serena and Nigel’s farmhouse on a twenty-acre spread had grown from a small cabin to a sprawling four-bedroom house.

Serena liked to say that the house had grown organically. The original cabin was long, flat and ranch-style. The living room and attached kitchen fit into an A-frame with solar panels on the roof. A Victorian tower housed Nigel’s home office. There were no predominant colors. Instead, the walls varied from room to room in a veritable rainbow.

“Sit,” Serena said. “Talk to me.”

Coffee mug in hand, Kelly sank onto the sofa. “I already told you what happened last night.”

“But you haven’t told me the whole story, and you need to let it out.” Holding her six-day-old daughter, Serena occupied a large oak rocking chair by the fireplace. She unbuttoned her turquoise muslin blouse and prepared to start breast-feeding. “I can feel your grief.”

Kelly couldn’t deny her sadness. Though she’d never met Nick’s uncle while he was alive, she would forever be connected to Samuel Spencer. For a few moments, she’d held his life in her hands. “I wish I could have done more for him.”

She’d worked hard to keep his heart beating and to stanch the bleeding from the gunshot wound. The paramedics had arrived eighteen minutes after Nick called 911. At that time, Samuel still had a pulse. Nick had gone with the ambulance while she and Marian had stayed behind to talk with the police. Less than an hour later, she’d learned that Samuel never regained consciousness and had died on the operating table. Logically, she knew that Serena was right and Samuel’s death wasn’t her fault, but it always hurt to lose a patient.

“Have you ever wondered,” Serena asked, “why people like you and me choose to be midwives and not surgeons?”

“Because medical school is really expensive?”

“As midwives, we get to help people. Most important, there’s almost always a happy ending.”

Kelly knew exactly what she was talking about. Unlike the nurses who worked in emergency rooms and faced life-and-death situations every day, midwives brought new life into the world. It was a great job. She loved hearing the first cries of a newborn, feeling the grip of a tiny hand around her finger and seeing a perfect cherub face.

Smiling, she watched her friend breast-feed her infant. For the first time this morning, she felt something resembling calm. Serena’s husband had taken the other three kids and Serena’s sister to the grocery store. Though Kelly enjoyed staying with the raucous family with the totally appropriate last name of Bellows, she needed her moments of silence. Leaning back against the yellow-and-green-patterned sofa cushions, she sipped her coffee and said, “This is nice.”

“Being around all these kids and animals drives you crazy, doesn’t it?”

“It’s different.” She had only one younger sister who had stayed in the Chicago area near their parents. “I’ve never been part of a big family.”

“You are now,” Serena said. “You’re one of us, and you’ll never be alone again.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a promise. If you ever need a friend, I’ve got your back.”

“That goes both ways,” Kelly said.

She and Serena had been buddies since freshman year at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Even though they’d lived apart, they were as close as two friends could be. But they weren’t family, not really. Kelly had always wanted children of her own.

Serena adjusted the baby at her breast. “Are you ready to talk about last night?”

She inhaled a deep breath and started talking. “My first reaction was panic. A ringing in my ears. Inability to breathe. Momentary paralysis. It was scary. We had to use a pickax to break the door down.”

“Then the adrenaline kicked in.”

She nodded. When she saw the wounded man, Kelly knew what needed to be done. Her mind was clear, and her hands were steady. She remembered procedures she hadn’t used in years. “It was only after the paramedics took him away that I became aware of what had happened. I had blood all over my clothes. The scarf you gave me was destroyed.”

“The Kelly-green scarf?”

“It’s so corny that you got me a Kelly-green scarf.”

“What happened to it?”

“I used it to stanch the blood flow.” The memory caused her hand to shake, and she set down the coffee mug. “That poor man committed suicide.”

“Are you sure about that? Most suicides don’t shoot themselves in the gut.”

“That was what the police said. They kept asking me if I saw powder burns on his shirt.” She’d torn away his clothing to get to the wound. “I couldn’t tell. There was too much blood.”

“Did the police think it was suicide?”

“There will be an investigation, for sure. But he was in a locked room with the murder weapon in his hand, and he’d left a note that said he was sorry.”

“How did you find out that he’d died?” Serena asked.

“Nick called.”

“Nick Spencer?”

Kelly nodded. “He called me on his cell phone from the hospital. The doctors had gotten his uncle into the operating room when his heart stopped. They couldn’t revive him.”

She didn’t know Nick well, but she’d recognized the pain in his voice. His words were flat and hollow as though he was speaking from the bottom of a deep well.

“What else did he say?” Serena asked.

“The paramedics told him that I did a good job. He thanked me for trying to save his uncle.”

Last night, she’d wanted to comfort him, and she was a little disappointed that he hadn’t called her this morning. Not that she had any right to expect him to contact her; she barely knew the man. Dealing with his uncle’s suicide, Nick probably had his hands full.

“Nick Spencer,” Serena said. “He’s big and tall, am I right? And good-looking?”

“Last night, he was wearing a tux.”

“Yum.” Serena tucked her breast back into her nursing bra. Cradling her infant, she gently rocked. “I think you should call him to offer condolences. Better yet, you should stop by his place and take him a homemade pie.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Well, he just might need a shoulder to cry on. Or a hand to hold. You know, human warmth.”

“Are you suggesting that I take advantage of a tragic situation to make a move on Nick?”

“I’m just saying that you’re both single and there must have been a reason you were alone with him on the ninth floor of the Spencer Building.”

“He showed me the gold.”

“Wow! Nigel is going to be so jealous. He does work for a client in that building, and he’s never seen the gold. Nick must really like you.” Serena was on a roll, talking fast. “This is excellent, really excellent. If you and Nick hit it off, you’ll be motivated to stay in Valiant, and I’ll have a partner. This is so, so, so perfect.”

Kelly chuckled. “So this is about giving me a reason to stay and be your partner. It’s all about you.”

“I’m thinking of you,” she said with a grin. “Honey, you could do a lot worse than Nick Spencer.”

Kelly couldn’t argue that point. Nick was handsome, sexy, funny, capable and rich. “If he’s such a catch, how come some other woman hasn’t snapped him up?”

“He’s only been divorced for a couple of years. From what I hear, he’s a devoted daddy.”

She didn’t know he had children. “How many kids?”

“Two daughters, I think they’re seven and four. Beautiful girls, I’ve seen them in Valiant with Nick but I think they live in Denver with their mom. Both girls have black hair and blue eyes like their father.”

The front doorbell chimed, and Kelly rose from the sofa. “Don’t move. I’ll get it.”

She rushed to the front door. The first ringing of the chimes hadn’t wakened the baby, and she wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be a second bell. She whipped open the door and looked out through the screen.

Standing on the covered porch was a man in a black suit. Though he couldn’t have been more than forty, his close-cropped hair was completely white. With his square jaw and angry eyes, he would have been intimidating if he hadn’t been standing beside a white goat with a black face and black splotches like polka dots decorating her round belly.

The goat, whose name was Fifi, tapped her hooves on the porch, rubbed against his trouser leg and bleated. She liked being around people, especially men.

Stifling a chuckle, Kelly asked, “May I help you?”

“Are you Kelly Evans?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about last night.” He reached inside his jacket pocket, took out a gold card case, peeled one off and held it toward her. “Y. E. Trask, private investigator.”

As she opened the screen door to take his card, Kelly decided that she didn’t want to invite him into the house. Grabbing her denim jacket from a peg by the door, she stepped outside. There was something about this man that she didn’t trust, and she wanted to keep him away from Serena’s family.

“There isn’t much to say, Mr. Trask. I already gave my statement to the police.”

“I wanted to hear your story. In your own words.” Fifi butted his thigh, and he lurched forward. The goat bleated. Trask cursed. “Aren’t these animals supposed to be in a pen?”

“Well, yes, but they’re good at escaping. If you pay some attention to her, she might leave you alone.”

“I’ve found the opposite to be true,” he said curtly. “If I pay attention to a female, she tends to stick around, even when she’s not wanted.”

This was a guy she definitely didn’t want to spend time with. “Fifi isn’t like that.”

“Don’t waste my time, Ms. Evans. Are you going to help me or not? The family has concerns.”

If he’d told her right away that he worked for the Spencers, she would have been more cooperative. Looking down the driveway, she spotted the family van approaching the house. In a few moments, Nigel and the kids would be back and they’d be surrounded by chaos. “Come with me. We’ll find somewhere quiet to talk.”

Waving to the van, she directed Trask across the farmyard toward the barn. Two spotted goats trotted side by side as though they had an important mission. One of the llamas strolled past the chicken coops, creating a flurry of angry hens.

Most people would have been amused. Not only was there a varied and interesting menagerie, but the lower two feet of the barn was painted with wild artwork by the kids. It was kind of adorable, but Trask was all business. His primary concern seemed to be to avoid stepping on anything ugly and messing up his wingtip shoes.

By the corral fence, she found a space. “Ask your questions.”

“You were the first person to touch Samuel after entering the room,” he said. “Is that correct?”

“Actually, Nick was the first. He found a pulse, and then I stepped in.”

“Assuming that Samuel committed suicide, can you speculate on how he did it?”

“He must have been standing because his body was beside the desk rather than behind it. He still had the gun in his hand. I’d guess that he turned the weapon toward himself and pulled the trigger.”

“He was still alive when you started treating him. Did he speak?”

“He was mumbling, but he wasn’t conscious.” The police had asked her about this several times, and she knew that a dying declaration would be important. “I’ve been trying to remember if he said anything coherent, but none of it made sense. First he said to close the door. He repeated the word ‘gold’ several times. And he talked about a heart of stone.”

When Fifi came toward them, Trask glared. His expression was so angry that Kelly thought he might pull a gun and shoot the cheerful goat. Fifi turned tail and bounded away.

“Is there anything else, Mr. Trask?”

“Concentrate, Ms. Evans. What did he say about the heart of stone?”

“It didn’t make sense.” She thought for a moment then shook her head. “Sorry. I’m not even sure if those were his words.”

“I don’t like surprises,” he said. “If you’re holding back, we’re going to have a problem.”

Was he threatening her? “Why would I hold anything back?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he focused his angry glare at her. She stared right back at him. Kelly wasn’t a silly goat like Fifi, and she refused to be intimidated.

She snapped, “Are we done?”

“I’ll be in touch.”

He pivoted and strode away from her. She imagined that being a private investigator wasn’t a pleasant job; you’d be spying on people, confronting them and serving them with legal papers. Y. E. Trask seemed to have exactly the right temperament for his work—hostile, aggressive and a little nasty.

It bothered her that Nick had sent Trask to interview her without letting her know. He should have warned her that a creepy white-haired man would show up on Serena’s doorstep and accuse her of holding back. Something about this wasn’t right. She decided to talk to Nick.

Her cell phone was in the pocket of the denim jacket she’d grabbed before coming outside. She pulled it out and redialed the number he’d used last night to call her from the hospital. When he answered, she almost hung up. What had she been thinking? Nick had just lost a close family member; she shouldn’t be bothering him because a private eye was rude to her.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Been better,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about you. I wanted to thank you again for the way you jumped in and tried to save my uncle.”

“I’m glad to help in any way I can. I tried to answer questions for your private investigator, but I think I made him angry.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The guy you sent out to Serena’s house. He’s an investigator working for your family. His name is Y. E. Trask. He has white hair.”

“Hold on.” She could hear him talking to someone else but couldn’t tell what he was saying until he came back on the line. “Kelly, nobody has ever heard of him. He doesn’t work for us.”

Who sent him? And why?

Chapter Four

Monday, Noon

During the drive from Valiant to Serena’s farm, Nick was steamed. He hated that Kelly was being harassed. She was completely innocent—a bystander who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When he got her phone call, he’d been tangled in a mass of corporate red tape generated by the lawyers, the police, his family and employees. Everyone looked to him—as the most senior member of the Spencer clan—to make the necessary decisions. Nick was expected to step up and take control.

Truth be told, he was probably the least informed person in the room. Working out of his office in Breckenridge, he managed to avoid most of the corporate decisions. That was his brother’s job. Unfortunately, Jared was still in Singapore.

At a mailbox painted with flowers and butterflies, he made a left turn and drove down a long, curving driveway. Hearing Kelly’s voice had given him a focus—a problem he could deal with. He needed to find out who had contacted her and why and, most of all, if she was in any kind of danger from this fake investigator.

Though he’d never been to the farm owned by Serena and Nigel Bellows, he knew he was in the right place when he saw the farmhouse—a mash-up of architectural styles that Marian had described as crazy. From modern A-frame to the Victorian tower topped by an ornate weather vane to the wild splashes of color painted on the barn, none of the construction made sense. And yet, he felt a genuine smile tug at the corners of his mouth as he parked and got out of his SUV.

In keeping with the fanciful atmosphere, a fat goat sashayed toward him, followed by a little blond girl wearing a yellow sweatshirt and a tiara. “You will be the prince,” she said to him. “You’re supposed to slay the dragon. It’s your job.”

He reached down and scratched the goat between her floppy ears. “Is this the dragon?”

“That’s a goat, silly. It’s Fifi.”

“And what’s your name?”

She flipped her hair away from her small, freckled face. “I’m Princess Butterfly.”

She was a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. He wanted to hug Princess Butterfly and her pet goat for reminding him that being irritated by lawyers and accountants was a sheer waste of time. If he wanted to get the job done, he had to step up and slay the corporate dragon.

Kelly raced around the corner of the house, wearing a red sheet as a cape and a cardboard hat with scales and spikes. Her brown sweatshirt was raggedy and oversized. Two other small children and a llama accompanied her.

“Hi, Nick.” She gave him a little wave, and then she roared. “The dragon is nigh.”

Princess Butterfly ducked behind him. “Get her.”

He braced himself and pointed imperiously toward Kelly. “No way, dragon. I banish you.”

She whipped off her cape and hat as she collapsed into the dirt. “Oh, no, I’m melting.”