Beth Cornelison - Baby Trouble

“Are you going out, Mr. Cass?” Marta asked in surprise. “Breakfast will be ready soon.”

He rasped, “I won’t be taking breakfast today. And you’d better send Laura’s up to her office. I suspect she’s going to be busy in there for a while.”

By noon, with her connections she’d probably know more about Nick Cass than he did. And she would definitely know everything there was to know about Nikolas Spiros. Every last ugly, selfish, tawdry detail.

He’d lost her. The lies had finally caught up with him. But, Lord, the cost of it . His eyes hot and his throat painfully tight, he stepped out of the house and drove away from the best things that had ever happened to him. He’d ruined it all. Everything that was good and right about his life retreated in the rearview mirror as he pulled out of the estate. If it was the last thing he ever did, he’d make this mess right. Put his family back together.

He thought he’d known hell before in a box. Hah! That had been a walk in a park compared to the hell embracing him now. A hell of his own making.

* * *

Laura was hanging on by a thread. The phone wouldn’t quit ringing, and she was developing a horrendous headache. How on earth had she never connected Nick to Nikolas Spiros? She should have recognized him in Paris, and sometime in the past year she definitely should have searched for disappearances of men matching Nick’s description six years ago. But no. He hadn’t wanted to know, and she’d gone along with his plan to bury their heads in the sand and avoid facing whatever demons lurked in his past. She’d willfully ignored the signs that Nick was not what he appeared to be, had been so caught up in her own selfish bliss that she hadn’t asked any of the obvious questions.

Why didn’t he have any other family or friends he wanted to let know he was alive and free? Why was he so at ease living in the luxurious world she inhabited? Why did he flatly refuse to talk about his past prior to his memory loss? And the granddaddy of them all—why was he kidnapped and thrown into a box for five years? Who were his enemies, and why did they bear him so much malice that they chose to make him suffer rather than simply kill him?

At lunchtime, Lisbet apologetically poked her head into Laura’s office. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but Adam is hysterical and really needs to be with you. I’ve tried everything I know to calm him, but he’s panicked that something bad has happened to you and his father. Nothing will do but for him to see you.”

Laura stood up quickly. The needs of her children would always come first over her work … even if that work was investigating their father. She hurried to the playroom, where Adam was curled up in a sobbing ball in the corner, hugging the stuffed elephant that had been his special toy forever.

Laura stroked his back gently. “Hey, kiddo. What’s the matter?”

The child flung himself at her, wrapping his arms around her neck and squeezing her tightly enough that it was a little hard to breathe. Not that she complained. She hugged his shaking body. “Everything’s okay,” she soothed him, rocking back and forth.

“Daddy’s gone, and the bad man got him!”

“Daddy’s not gone. And the bad man definitely didn’t get him,” Laura declared.

Lisbet cleared her throat. “Begging your pardon, but Mr. Cass left the house before breakfast.”

Laura’s entire being clenched in shock. He’d left? Where had he gone? And for how long? She shoved back her panic, focusing for the moment on her son. “Adam, Daddy has some business to take care of. It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not. He told me to take care of you for him. And to be brave. He wouldn’t say that if he was coming back. He went to fight the bad man.”

“Well, honey, even if he did, Daddy will win. It’ll be okay.”

“No, it won’t!” Adam wailed.

“Do you need me to go help Daddy?”

Adam lifted his red, wet gaze to hers. “Can you do that?”

“Sure. I’m pretty ferocious, you know.”

“Daddy says you’re like a mama bear with cubs,” Adam replied dryly, his humor already so much like his father’s.

A burning knife twisted in her gut. She replied stoutly, “He’s right. Grrrr.”

Adam smiled reluctantly. But he wasn’t about to be diverted so easily. “You won’t let the bad man get you, too?”

“Never.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. Cross my heart, hope to die, alligator in my eye.”

“Alligator in your—” Adam giggled. “That’s silly.”

“Made you laugh, didn’t it?”

“Yes.” He waxed thoughtful once more. Impossible to distract, he was. Just like both of his parents on that score. “Where do you think the bad man is?”

“Hmm. I don’t know. But I’m really, really good at finding people. I found Daddy before, didn’t I? I’ll find the bad man, and I’ll find Daddy, again. I’d never let anything happen to anyone in our family. I’m a mama bear, and you and Ellie are my cubs. Don’t you ever forget that, okay?”

Adam nodded against her neck.

She closed her eyes and prayed for strength. She had to find Nick. Figure out what had gone so wrong so fast. And somehow, some way, put it right. Her children needed their father.

Laura was startled when Marta announced that Tatum Carter was at the house and waiting in the library to speak with her. Since when did lawyers make house calls? He must be panicked over Nick’s abrupt disappearance yesterday. Join the club .

She left her computer, which had been giving up a treasure trove of information on one Nikolas Spiros, and walked down the hall to the library. “Tatum. This is a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you today?”

“Tell me where Nick is. The feds are going to have my head on a platter if I lose their star witness for them. The trial starts next week.”

She replied quietly, “If I knew where he was, do you think I’d be standing here talking to you?”

“What the hell’s going on with him, Laura?”

She sighed. “I think we all underestimated the trauma he’s suffering from. And I think we all ignored the possible problems his memory loss could be concealing.”

“What’s your gut feel about him? Is he stable enough to put on a witness stand? If AbaCo skates on this kidnapping charge, it’ll be like letting Al Capone get off on the tax evasion charges that finally landed him in jail where he belonged.”

She wasn’t concerned about Nick’s stability as much as she was about the state of his heart. Had he already abandoned her and the kids and returned to his old life? Goodness knew, Nikolas Spiros had lived a life of glamorous excess that went well beyond even her wealth to provide.

She spoke with a conviction she was far from feeling. “If Nick goes on the witness stand, he’ll do what he has to do to put away his captors.” Even if it messes up his personal life? Costs him the Spiros fortune? She’d like to think he was that honorable, but at this point, she had no way of knowing.

“Where is he, Laura? What’s your best guess?”

“My best guess—” her best hope “—is that he’s gone away to deal with the fallout of his past and that he’ll be back when it’s resolved.”

“How long is that going to take? He’s got about a week to get his ducks in line.”

She shrugged. If only Nick had confided in her. Had let her help him. She had enormous resources, official and unofficial, at her fingertips with which to help him. She understood his impulse to protect her and the kids, to keep his new life far away from his old one. But she was still as frustrated as all get out at her current helplessness. If only she knew where he was!