Lullabies and Lies - By Mallory Kane Page 0,11

driver, she backed out and speed-dialed her home number.

Lillian answered on the first ring.

“Lil! Thank God! Are you all right?”

“Of course, darling. Why? Has something happened?”

Sunny took deep, calming breaths. “No. It’s nothing. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

The impatient driver leaned on the horn again.

She put the car in gear, her throat closing with emotion. Her baby was still alive.

But she couldn’t resist cutting her eyes back to the paper lying on the passenger seat. Two words stood out like beacons.

For now.

BY THE TIME Griff returned to the interrogation room, Sunny Loveless had disappeared.

Looking out the window, he’d seen her plunk a piece of paper out from under her windshield wipers. A quick scan of the parking lot told him a lot of other vehicles also had pieces of paper struck on their windshields, too, but his gut told him he’d just watched Sunny Loveless pick up a second message from the kidnapper.

Carver walked in.

“Where’s Ms. Loveless?” he asked.

Griff pointed out the window and voiced his suspicion about the note.

“But there’s notes on all those cars.”

“Yeah. I know.” He turned toward the door. “This might be the break we need. Get CSU down there, now, and have men check the side streets and talk to possible witnesses.”

“I’ll get someone to stop Ms. Loveless and take that note into evidence.”

“No. Not yet. Send an unmarked car to make sure no one follows her, and see that she gets home safely. Tell them to stay invisible.”

He turned his attention back to Sunny. As he watched, she paused with her foot on the brake, and glanced out her open car window and up toward the second floor. From where he stood he could make out her tortured face and bowed shoulders. Her jerky movements telegraphed her pain.

She was wondering if he’d seen her take the note.

He considered sprinting downstairs to her car and stopping her. With very little effort, he could force her to give him the note.

But what if whoever had left it was watching her? The last thing Griff wanted to do was put her or her baby in more danger. So he decided to wait until he figured out just what she was hiding. He’d visit her at her home later, after he’d had a chance to review the specific case files that had been taken in the break-in.

This kidnapping was a puzzle. Ms. Loveless didn’t have the kind of money that attracted kidnappers. Her adopted daughter’s mother, Brittany, was a high school senior. The father was a construction worker who was subsequently imprisoned for statutory rape. He’d been released two months earlier, and had tried to contact Brittany, but her mother had called the police. Carver was checking on his whereabouts now.

In fact, Carver had detectives following up on all of Loveless Inc.’s cases, most of which had turned out just as advertised—with happy endings. Carver himself was checking out the three vaguely threatening phone calls Loveless Inc.’s published number had received since the break-in.

So if the kidnappers didn’t want money, or revenge, what did they want? If Griff wasn’t so certain Sunny had been contacted, he’d think the baby had been stolen by one of the numerous emotionally disturbed women who snatch a baby to keep for their own.

After she’d pulled out of the parking lot, he bounded out of the room and made quick work of the service stairs. When he burst through the fire door and out into the parking lot, he stepped over to a nearby car and grabbed the note stuck beneath its windshield wiper. He looked at it.

The paper was blank.

Gravel crunched as Carver walked up beside him.

“I’ll be a son of a gun.” Carver’s deep voice boomed. “There’s nothing on it. Not one word.”

Griff crushed the paper in his fist as he looked around at the other cars.

“I’ve got CSU coming. So you were right. The kidnapper was in our parking lot, right under our noses.”

Griff flipped the paper over. Nothing on the other side, either. “Somebody was.”

“What do you think they want? Ransom?”

“This doesn’t feel like a kidnapping for ransom. I’m afraid that in one of her hearts-and-flowers investigations, Ms. Loveless uncovered something damaging about someone. Something they’re desperate to keep hidden.”

“Well, if that’s so, why not go after her directly? Why steal her baby? Taking care of a baby ain’t easy.”

Griff nodded. “It puts the abductors in a dangerous position, too. Few things are more noticeable than an infant.”

Nauseating fear suddenly filled him. They could keep Sunny hanging