she ordered.
“Emma. They were pictures of Emma. I’m so sorry.”
“You sold pictures of my daughter?” Robin felt her own face heat up. She was livid. He got a break on cheating her business. But exploiting her daughter? “To some stranger?”
“Not lewd ones. Nothing illegal. Just pictures of her sleeping, or in her swing.” Mark didn’t seem to know whom he should be more afraid of. “The guy wanted them for his sister. She lost a baby and was really sad. He thought the pictures would cheer her up.”
“What guy?” Jake demanded.
Another terrible thought had Robin turning about the room. “Where’s Emma?”
“I left her with Shirley, the lady from your shop,” he assured her before resuming the inquisition. “What guy?”
“I don’t know his name. He came to the shop a couple of times while you were on maternity leave. Bought flowers. Paid cash. Left pretty quickly when he found out you weren’t there.” Mark’s face was as red as the checks on his tie now. “I was getting the money to pay you back. To get some cash back into the accounts before you figured out what I was doing.”
“Can you describe him?” Robin asked, as anxious to get eyes on her daughter as she was to find the truth. “The police can ask you these questions, too.”
“I don’t know. Brown hair. Business suit. Too buttoned-down and uptight for my tastes.” Robin tugged on Jake’s arm again, and this time he let Mark go. She grabbed Mark by the scruff of his starched collar herself and opened the door. She swept her gaze through the lobby, searching the line of waiting guests for one in particular. “There.” She pointed to Brian Elliott, leaning down to hear a comment from his assistant. Mark knew Brian, didn’t he? She’d dated Brian Elliott for almost two years before she’d broken it off. What other man in a suit showed up at her shop on a regular basis? “Is he the man you sold the pictures to?”
“No.” With Jake flanking his other side, she didn’t think Mark was lying. “Are you going to tell the police about this?” Mark dropped his voice to a pleading whisper after she released him. “Please. Yes, I was skimming business away from you—but I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Emma.”
Brian’s questioning gaze found hers across the lobby, but she quickly shook her head and turned away. She never answered Mark. She was deep in thought, thinking through all the men she knew. And how far too many of them, like every male guest here, wore business suits. Robin looked from acquaintance to acquaintance, from stranger to stranger, in the lobby, wondering if any man here had an interest in her and her daughter.
While she was distracted by wary suspicion and fear, Jake scooted Mark along his way toward the door again. “Get out of here. And if you’re thinking of skipping town before you pay the lady back, I will find you.”
Mark scuttled away, ignoring the curious looks and questions from the people he passed. He even blew off Leon when he stormed past him out the door.
Robin jumped at the brush of Jake’s fingers against her back. “Now, can we go?”
She had a very bad feeling. Like the answer to whoever had threatened her was right here under her nose. Only she wasn’t seeing the right picture. Only one thing would reassure her now. She spotted Shirley chatting with one of the ushers next to the table where Emma’s carrier sat. “Emma?”
Jake guided her through the line of guests to the table set up beside the vestibule doors. “I’ll get your coat and her bag. Be right back.”
Robin thanked Shirley and dismissed her as Jake fetched their things. It almost made her smile to see that he’d set Emma’s carrier on the Vanderhams’ gift table. Emma truly was a gift in Robin’s life, and the thought Mark taking pictures, of a stranger wanting to buy those pictures—of anyone wanting to separate Robin from the child who’d given her her first taste of true love—filled Robin’s eyes with tears, instead.
But the smile won out when Emma saw her and squealed a happy laugh.
“Hey, sweetie. Are you watching all the people...?” Robin’s voice trailed away when she saw the moisture on Emma’s cheek. But Emma wasn’t crying. Robin immediately wiped off the cool wetness. There was a smear of something on her pink-and-white blanket, too, as though someone with a dirty wet hand had touched it.
“Jake?” Her knees wobbled. Who