“So what are you saying?” Nina demanded. “Because they’re rich and powerful, the law can’t touch them?”
“I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying we have to proceed with caution. I’m saying you could be mistaken.”
“I’m not.” Nina could feel her anger building. Why wasn’t he listening to her? Why wasn’t he trying to help her?
Why did the rich and powerful have all the advantages?
She gripped the telephone in her fist. “I know what I saw.”
“Or is it what you think you saw? What you wanted to see? I’m looking at a picture of Vanessa Baldwin right now, and I have to tell you, Nina, she doesn’t look a thing like the sketch the artist drew of Karen Smith from your description. The hair, the mouth. Even the shape of the face. Everything is different.”
“Because she was wearing a disguise!” Nina exploded. “You’re a detective, for God’s sake. You must have seen this thing before. Look at the eyes. They’re a dead giveaway.”
After a slight hesitation, Farrell said, “Even if there is some resemblance, we still have one major problem. Why would a woman of Vanessa Baldwin’s stature risk stealing a child? She’s from a high-profile family. It would be next to impossible to pass someone else’s baby off as hers.”
Nina gritted her teeth. “I don’t know how she pulled it off, but it’s your job to find out. She has my baby, and I want to know what you’re going to do about getting him back.”
His voice was quiet when he spoke, as if her outburst hadn’t registered. “Do you read the paper, Nina? The Houston Herald?”
She frowned at the change of subject. “Sometimes. Why?”
“Did you read it today?”
She’d glanced through it that morning while having her coffee. “I scanned it.”
“There was a picture of Vanessa Baldwin in the society section this morning. You don’t remember seeing it?”
“No, I don’t,” Nina said angrily. “And what’s more, I resent all these questions. Shouldn’t you be questioning her?”
“Isn’t it possible you saw Vanessa Baldwin’s picture without even being aware of it, and that’s why you recognized her in the park? You’d just been holding her baby. You said yourself you felt some sort of connection with him. Then you see this woman, the baby’s mother, who looks familiar to you, and you think she’s Karen Smith. You want her to be Karen Smith.”
Nina’s heart thudded against her rib cage. How could he not believe her? What was she going to do?
“It was bound to happen sooner or later,” he explained. “You go to that park every day hoping to find your baby, hoping to see Karen Smith, even though you’ve always known in your heart the odds were next to impossible.”
“But not entirely impossible,” Nina insisted. “Because I did see her.”
“I keep coming back to the same question,” Farrell said softly. “If Karen Smith and Vanessa Baldwin are one and the same, why would she go back to that park? Why would she risk being seen?”
“Dear God,” Nina whispered. “You’re not going to do anything about this, are you?”
“Nina—”
“You’re afraid of them.” A hysterical sob rose in Nina’s throat, but she swallowed it back down. “The police won’t touch them because of who they are. People like that can do anything they damn well please, and to hell with the rest of us. Is that it? Well, I’m not afraid of them. I’ll get my baby back with or without your help.”
“Nina, listen to me,” Farrell said urgently. “You’ve got to get a grip here, or you could find yourself in a lot of trouble.”
His words echoed inside her. The man in the park had said the same thing to her. “I could be in a lot of trouble? What have I done?”
Farrell’s voice hardened with warning. “Nothing yet, and I want to keep it that way.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Nina said. “I can take care of myself.”
“I wish I could believe that,” he muttered. “Look, I’ll do some checking, find out what I can about Vanessa Baldwin and her baby. But, Nina, this has got to be done on the q.t. I don’t want harassment charges coming down on either of our heads, you got that? You stay away from Vanessa Baldwin, and for God’s sake, whatever you do, stay away from that baby.”
Chapter Four
“Oh, Mr. Chambers, it’s you. You startled me.” The nanny stopped in the nursery doorway when she saw Grant standing over John David’s bed. She looked flustered by his presence, and not a little guilty.
She entered the room hesitantly, and Grant straightened from the crib, where he had been trying to quiet the baby. “He was crying when I came in, Mrs. Becker. No one was in here with him.”
“Oh, please call me Alice,” she said with a breathless little laugh. “I just stepped out for a minute. Has the party already started downstairs?” Her gaze checked out Grant’s tuxedo, then quickly shifted to the crib, where John David was excitedly waving his arms and legs and blowing spit bubbles at his uncle with gusto.
“Actually I came a little early to see you,” Grant told her.
Her hand flew to the neckline of her dress, where a dull red flush crept upward, giving her a feverish glow. “Oh! What about?”
“I wanted to talk to you about the incident in the park this afternoon.”
“Oh.” Her tone dropped and so did her hand. “That woman, you mean.”
“Yes, exactly.” Grant hadn’t been able to get “that woman” out of his head. Something about her had seemed eerily familiar to him, and yet he was sure she’d been telling the truth when she said they’d never met. And when she’d assured him she meant John David no harm.
So why couldn’t he forget her?
She was hardly the sort of woman who would capture a man’s imagination. Her waiflike appearance was not the studied look of a fashion model, but rather that of a woman who had fallen on hard times. Her face had been too narrow to be striking, her features too nondescript to be memorable, and yet there had been something very unsettling about her, a sadness and desperation in her eyes that haunted Grant much like those of the begging children he’d seen in Third World countries. He wanted to put her out of his mind, and yet he couldn’t. Because like those starving children, the woman in the park had possessed something very rare. A quiet dignity and purity of soul that no amount of money could ever buy.
Grant found himself wondering what had made those eyes seem far too old and experienced for her face.
The nanny shuddered delicately. “I don’t mind telling you, she just about scared me to death. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t shown up.”
Grant shrugged. “I don’t think she meant the baby any harm. At any rate, I doubt we’ll ever see her again, so the whole episode is best forgotten. And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Did you mention any of this to my sister?”
The woman hesitated, calculating, Grant suspected, the answer he wanted to hear. There was something about Alice Becker that didn’t elicit his trust. He wondered just how thoroughly Vanessa and Clayton had checked out her references.
“I haven’t mentioned it to Mrs. Baldwin yet,” she finally admitted. “I was waiting for the right time.”
“Good,”