Unbreakable Bond

SLADE BIT BACK HIS thoughts. He hated offering Nina false optimism.

“So where do we start?” she asked.

Slade checked his watch. “It’s already getting late. I’ll start putting out contacts on the Internet tonight, call a couple of friends who might be able to help look into the adoption angle, and drop by the hospital and see if the administrator and Dr. Emery are there.” He paused. “Tomorrow I’d like to talk to your father and meet the Hood family.”

Nina gripped the armrest. “Let’s get started.”

Slade sighed. “Nina, why don’t you go home tonight and rest.”

“No,” she said in a pleading tone. “I know this is difficult for you to understand, but I feel…lost in that house alone right now.”

Hell, the trouble was he did understand. He knew how the silence could eat at you, how a person’s absence could feel like part of you had been ripped out. How the walls could scream at you with recriminations.

“All right,” he said gruffly. “But remember, we may not find anything.”

She took another sip of water, then wiped her mouth. “Thanks. I appreciate your candor.”

“Let me talk to Derrick, then we’ll head to the hospital.” He stood, then strode down the hall to McKinney’s office.

Derrick was on the phone when he knocked, but ended the call and gestured for him to enter.

“I need to ask you a favor,” Slade said bluntly.

Derrick pointed to the chair beside his desk. “You’re taking on the case for Nina Nash?”

Slade took the chair. “Yes.”

Derrick frowned. “You know that baby may not have survived.”

Slade’s gut knotted. “I know. But after hearing Nina’s story, it’s possible that someone could have kidnapped the baby in the chaos.”

Derrick folded his arms. “What can I do to help?”

“Talk to your wife, Brianna, for me.”

Derrick arched a brow. “How do you know Bri?”

“I lived at Magnolia Manor when I was a teenager for a while. We met there. I heard she’s a social worker now with an adoption agency.”

The realization of where he was headed dawned in Derrick’s eyes. “She was,” Derrick said. “But she’s taken a leave of absence to stay home with the baby.”

“But Brianna has contacts, right?” Slade asked.

“Probably.” Derrick narrowed his eyes. “You know that adoption records are sealed?”

“Yes, but Brianna must have a friend who can look back through files quietly. Nina’s baby was premature, and had trouble breathing. Handling an adoption for a preemie with medical problems would be tricky—and memorable.”

“That’s true,” Derrick said. “I’ll talk to her and see if she can help.”

“Let me know if she finds a lead and I’ll look into it.”

Derrick agreed, and Slade thanked him and headed back to his office.

Nina was waiting when he returned, and she sat quietly as they drove to the hospital. That quiet strength roused his protective instincts.

Worse, her scent, some sweet fruity fragrance, stirred his desires.

But he tamped them down. Nina Nash was a case, nothing more. Slade would never give his heart to a woman. Loving and losing was too damn hard.

First his mother and sister. Then his men…all the people he’d cared about and failed.

He veered into the hospital parking lot and parked, and they walked silently inside. He introduced himself to the receptionist. “Is your hospital administrator in?”

She frowned and checked the schedule. “Dr. Lake has gone home for the day. He’ll be in tomorrow at nine.”

“How about Dr. Emery?”

She punched in a number, spoke into the phone then turned to them. “He’s with a patient, but you can go to his office on the second floor and wait there.”

“Thanks.” Slade coaxed Nina to the elevator, noting the tense way she held her shoulders. When they passed the nursery, grief and a wistfulness settled in her blue eyes. Newborns filled the bassinets; pink and blue blankets indicating the gender, while a young couple stood goo-goo-eyed, waving at their son through the window.

The intensive-care part of the unit was housed in a separate room beside the regular nursery, and one tiny infant plugged with tubes and wires lay inside an incubator, kicking wildly.

“He’s a fighter,” Nina said softly as she paused for a moment to watch. “Just like Peyton.”

He pressed a hand to her back in comfort, and she stiffened slightly, then inhaled and moved on down the hall to Dr. Emery’s office.

Slade surveyed the room as they stepped inside. Medical journals and books overflowed a wall-to-wall bookshelf behind a massive cherry desk that was neat and orderly.

Nina slid into a chair, but Slade stood with his arms folded and studied the man’s credentials on the wall between the windows. UNC. Duke. A third wall held a bulletin board decorated with photos of children he’d delivered.

“Is your baby’s photo here?” he asked.

Nina’s shoulders stiffened as she shook her head. He gritted his teeth, regretting the question. Some people reacted to a person’s death as if they’d never existed at all.

A minute later a bushy-haired, freckled man around five-eleven strode in. The moment he saw Nina, a frown swept across his craggy face. “Nina?”

“Yes, Dr. Emery, I’m back.” She gestured toward Slade. “This is Slade Blackburn. He’s with Guardian Angel Investigations.”

Dr. Emery’s eyes narrowed, his thick, graying eyebrows crinkling.

“I need to ask you some questions about the night of the hospital fire,” Slade said without preamble. “I want to know exactly what happened to Peyton Nash.”

NINA TRIED TO STUDY the doctor with an objective eye. But too many times he’d encouraged her to stop asking questions, so many that his dismissal of her had roused her suspicions.

“Honestly, Nina, you’ve hired another private investigator?” Dr. Emery asked, his tone reeking of exasperation.

“Yes, she has,” Slade said. “And I’d like to hear your version of what happened to Peyton.”

The doctor fiddled with the stethoscope around his neck, then sank into his office chair as if weary of her. “Nina knows exactly what happened, Mr. Blackburn, but she refuses to accept the truth, that her baby was lost in that fire.” His frown accentuated the deep grooves carved by age bracketing his mouth. “It was sad, horrific, tragic,” he continued. “But it happened.”

Slade simply stared at the man. “According to Nina, nurses rescued three other infants. Why not her baby?”

“That I don’t know,” the doctor said. “I spoke with the nurses later, and they all agreed that the baby wasn’t in the nursery when the fire broke out, that they thought she had been taken to another area for tests.”

“They told me they didn’t know where she was,” Nina said, contradicting him.

A spark of temper darkened Dr. Emery’s eyes. He shuffled a stack of papers on his desk, restacking them in an attempt at stalling. “I didn’t want to add to your distress at the time, Nina, but I had ordered heart tests for your infant. I suspected your baby had a hole in her heart as well as underdeveloped lungs, and that she wasn’t going to make it.”

Nina’s breath caught in her throat. “So she might have been somewhere else in the hospital, not in the unit when it burned down.”

“We’ve been over this,” Dr. Emery said as if talking to a child. “She did not survive.”

“How can you be so sure?” Slade asked. “Did forensics ever prove the infant was in the fire?”

Dr. Emery glared at Slade. “No, but the place, the ashes…it was impossible to identify all the bodies.”

“How about security tapes?” Slade asked.

“The explosion knocked them all out.” He sighed. “Mr. Blackburn, you’re doing Miss Nash an injustice by dredging up the past and raising her hopes. She needs to let her daughter’s death go so she can heal.”

Slade’s jaw clenched. “You tried to persuade Nina to give up her baby for adoption, didn’t you?”

The man curled his hand around a stress ball on his desk and squeezed it. “Yes. She was young, unemployed and single.”

“But she wanted to keep the baby,” Slade said.

“She was immature. And her father didn’t intend to support her or the child. I was trying to think of the baby. If she made it,” he continued, “there would be medical bills, therapy.” He shot a condescending look at Nina. “Miss Nash was not equipped to handle those expenses, much less raise a handicapped child.”

“That was my problem, not yours,” Nina said bitterly.

Dr. Emery pushed away from his desk. “I was, as always, looking out for my patients.”

Slade slapped a fist on the desk. “Well, someone didn’t look out for Peyton Nash that night, did they?”

Dr. Emery paced to the window, agitated. “You have no idea how traumatic it was. The hospital staff did everything possible to save the patients.”

Slade folded his arms. “And maybe you saw that chaos as an opportunity to take Peyton, to give her to someone else you deemed as a more appropriate parent. Or hell, maybe you sold her for the money.”

Hot fury heated the doctor’s cheeks. “How dare you imply such slander. I have an impeccable reputation. And I’ve lived and worked here in Sanctuary all my life.”

Slade stood, towering over him. “I don’t like the fact that you’ve stonewalled my client and dismissed her questions without adequately responding.”

“I have answered them, but Nina is obsessive and delusional,” Emery argued.

Nina flinched, but Slade continued, his voice cold and harsh, “I don’t think so. And I don’t intend to accept anything you say at face value or leave this case alone, not until all of our questions are answered to my satisfaction.” He gestured to Nina. “And if I find out that you withheld information or that you’ve been lying, I’ll be back, and I will hold you responsible.”

Fear flashed in the doctor’s eyes for the first time since Nina had known him. Was he afraid because Slade was right—did he know something that he wasn’t telling them?

SLADE GROUND HIS TEETH as he and Nina left Dr. Emery’s office. “Let’s see if any of the nurses you mentioned are here.”

Nina nodded, and they walked to the nurses’ station. “Excuse me,” Slade said. “Do you have a nurse named Carrie or Jane working here?”

A middle-aged dirty blonde with green eyes glanced up from the desk. “Yes, Carrie Poole, but she won’t be in until tomorrow. And Jane is on vacation and won’t be back until next week.”

“All right,” Slade said. “We’ll be back tomorrow.”

“What do you think?” Nina asked as they exited the building and walked to his car.

“I don’t know yet, Nina,” Slade said. “I don’t like Emery, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s lying.”

Nina’s shoulders sagged, and he pressed a hand to her waist to help her in the car.

“But I meant what I said. I will find the answers.” He offered her a sad smile. “I just hope the answers are what you want to hear. But I won’t lie to you or B.S. you either.”

“Thank you,” Nina said, her eyes sincere. “I know some people think I’m unstable, but I’m not. I just have to know the truth.”

He stared at her for a long moment, grateful to hear the strength beneath the fragile-looking exterior. He had a feeling Nina Nash was a lot tougher than anyone had given her credit for.

Moonlight flickered off her creamy skin and highlighted her golden hair, and a surge of sexual attraction shot through him.

Damn. Not good.

Determined to avoid personal involvement, he jerked his eyes away from her, started the engine and drove back to GAI headquarters.

He parked and told Nina he’d call her in the morning. A storm cloud rumbled, threatening rain, and she thanked him again and climbed from the car.

“Get some sleep,” he called just before she turned away.

But her distressed look indicated that she didn’t expect to rest, that dreams of her daughter haunted her nights.

Slade had his own share of nightmares, and as much as he’d like to comfort her, he wasn’t a hero. The men he’d lost were.

But he would investigate.

Tomorrow he’d ask Gage and Amanda to pull all the police and medical reports from the hospital. Maybe Amanda could use her expertise to determine if Peyton Nash’s body had been among those in the fire.

NINA’S PHONE WAS RINGING as she let herself into her house. Thinking it might be Slade, she hurried to answer it.

But the voice on the other end of the line startled her. William.

“Nina, what the hell are you doing hiring a private investigator?”

Nina tensed at the rage in his tone. “How do you know I hired a P.I.?”

“Dr. Emery called. He’s worried that you’re having another breakdown.”

Nina gripped the phone tighter. “Well, I’m not. And what I do is none of your business, William. You gave up that right the day you walked out on me and our baby.”

“Listen to me, Nina. I don’t need some nosy P.I. in my business, especially asking questions about something that happened years ago.”

“Something that happened?” Nina said, her own fury mounting. “What happened was that your daughter went missing. That I was told she died, but that no one ever proved it or even bothered to look for her.”

“For God’s sake, you need psychiatric help,” William bellowed. “My mother tried to warn me, but I thought eventually you’d come to your senses.”

“Maybe you don’t want me asking questions because you have something to hide,” Nina said between clenched teeth.

William’s breath wheezed with anger. “If you make trouble for me, Nina, I’ll make sure everyone at the school where you teach knows just what a basket case you are. Do you think the people of Sanctuary will want an obsessive nutcase teaching their precious children?”

Adrenaline sizzled through Nina’s blood. “Are you threatening me, William?”

“Take it however you want, Nina, just leave me alone and tell that P.I. to do the same.”

Nina started to shout at him, but he slammed down the phone, cutting her off.

She stared at the dead phone in her hand, then dropped it into its cradle, paced to the mantel and picked up Peyton’s photo. “I won’t give up,” she whispered. “Not even if William did threaten me.”

In spite of her resolve not to do it, she walked into the bedroom, dragged on her nightshirt then slipped open the drawer where she’d stowed the tiny pink dress with the butterflies on it that she’d bought years ago. The outfit she’d planned for Peyton to wear home. She knew it was crazy to have kept it. Pathetic.

But she crawled in bed, pressed it to her chest and inhaled the sweet scent of fabric softener.

Then she closed her eyes and imagined her daughter coming home.

EIGHT-YEAR-OLD REBECCA Davis fumbled for her glasses, sweeping her hand across the desk in the bedroom at her foster parents’ house. Without the glasses, she was nearly blind. But at least the social worker had gotten her a computer with big print.

She hated the clunky glasses though. They were too big for her face, and some of the kids teased her and called her Four Eyes.

Other kids looked at her with pity just because she was handicapped, and she didn’t have a mommy.

She didn’t want them to feel sorry for her. She did want a mommy though.

She clicked on the keyboard, brought up her journal and began to type.

Mommy, I know you’re out there somewhere. I prayed that you would find me on Mother’s Day but that’s passed, so maybe you will on my birthday.

I don’t like it here. The house is dark and dusty. And Mama Reese says her knees hurt too much to play with me outside. Papa Reese’s cigarettes make my eyes itchy and watery and then I cough, and then he tells me to shut up. They don’t like my singing either.

I have to sing though. I dream sometimes that you’re looking for me. That you didn’t just leave me. That we just got losted from each other, and that you can hear me. That one day you’ll follow my voice and come and get me.

She swiped at a tear running down her cheek. Crying was for babies but sometimes she couldn’t help it. Sniffling and swallowing to hold back more tears, she finished the journal entry.

I know I look kind of dorky, and I’m little for my age, and I can’t run like the other kids. And one of my eyes looks funny because I can’t see out of it, but I take my medicine every day so I don’t have the seizures anymore.

I’m getting better in school, too. I’m only a year behind. I’ve been practicing my writing, and I can almost make the letters right now. I can pour my own cereal and make my own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And I don’t mind wearing hand-me-downs if you don’t have much money.

Please come and get me, Mommy. I promise not to be any trouble.

She saved her entry, then pulled on her pj’s and crawled in bed. Then she closed her eyes and prayed her mommy would hear her this time and come to get her as she began to sing….

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.