Rita Herron - Unbreakable Bond

“Do you remember those nurses’ names?”

Nina rubbed her temple again. “I don’t know last names, but one nurse was Jane and the other Carrie. I saw both of them outside the hospital after the fire, but they claimed they didn’t know where Peyton was.”

Slade frowned. Was it possible someone had taken the baby from the nursery before it caught on fire?

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.”