Page 42 of Entranced
Where the walls were pale blue and painted with sailboats. Where the crib by the window held a circus mobile.
Just as he’d said, she thought as her mouth went dry. Exactly as he’d said.
Then she tossed all that aside and reached down for the crying David.
“Oh, baby.” She pressed her face to his, drying his cheeks with her own. “David, sweet little David.” She soothed him, brushing his damp hair back from his face, grateful the agent’s back was to her so that he couldn’t see her own eyes fill.
“Hey, big guy.” She kissed his trembling lips. He hiccuped, rubbed his eyes with his fists, then let out a tired sigh as his head dropped to her shoulder. “That’s my boy. Let’s go home, huh? Let’s go home and see Mom and Dad.”
Chapter 7
“I’ll never be able to thank you. Never.” Rose stood looking out her kitchen window. In the courtyard beyond, her husband and son sat in a patch of sunlight, rolling a bright orange ball around. “Just looking at them makes me …”
“I know.” Mel slipped an arm around her shoulders. As they watched in silence, listening to David laugh, Rose brought her hand up to Mel’s and squeezed tight. “They look real good out there, don’t they?”
“Perfect.” Rose dabbed her eyes with a tissue and sighed. “Just perfect. When I think how afraid I was that I’d never see David again—”
“Then don’t think. David’s back where he belongs.”
“Thanks to you and Mr. Donovan.” Rose moved away from the window, but her gaze kept going back to it again and again. Mel wondered how long it would be before Rose would feel comfortable with David out of her sight. “Can you tell me anything about the people who had him, Mel? The FBI were very sympathetic and kind, but …”
“Tight-lipped,” Mel finished. “They were good people, Rose. Good people who wanted a family. They made a mistake, trusted someone they shouldn’t have trusted. But they took good care of David.”
“He’s grown so. And he’s been trying to take a few steps.” There was a bitterness, a sharp tang of bitterness in the back of her throat, at having missed those three precious months of her son’s life. But with it was a sorrow for another mother in another city with an empty crib to face. “I know they loved him. And I know how hurt and afraid she must be now. But it’s worse for her than it was for me. She knows she’ll never have him back.” She laid her fisted hands on the counter. “Who did this to us, Mel? Who did this to all of us?”
“I don’t know. But I’m working on it.”
“Will you work with Mr. Donovan? I know how concerned he is.”
“Sebastian?”
“We talked about it a little when he stopped by.”
“Oh?” Mel thought she did nonchalance very well. “He came by?”
Rose’s face softened. She looked almost as she had in those carefree days before David’s abduction. “He brought David his teddy bear, and this cute little blue sailboat.”
A sailboat, Mel mused. Yes, he would have thought of that. “That was nice of him.”
“He just seemed to understand both sides of it, you know? What Stan and I went through, what those people in Atlanta are going through right now. All because there’s someone out there who doesn’t care about people at all. Not about babies or mothers or families. He only wants to make money from them.” Her lips trembled then firmed. “I guess that’s why Mr. Donovan wouldn’t let me and Stan pay him anything.”
“He didn’t take a fee?” Mel asked, struggling to sound disinterested.
“No, he wouldn’t take a dime.” Recalling other duties, Rose opened the oven to check on her meat loaf. “He said Stan and I should send what we thought we could afford to one of the homeless shelters.”
“I see.”
“And he said he was going to think about following up on the case.”
“The case?”
“He said … something like it wasn’t right for babies to be stolen out of cribs and sold off like puppies. That there were some lines you couldn’t cross.”
“Yes, there are.” Mel snatched up her bag. “I have to go, Rose.”
Surprised, Rose shut the oven door. “Can’t you stay for dinner?”
“I really can’t.” She hesitated, then did something she rarely did, something she wished she could do with more ease. She kissed Rose’s cheek. “There’s something I have to take care of.”
