The Bounty Hunter's Baby Search
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Tara Taylor Quinn
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HarlequinChapter 1
Kelsey had a baby and it’s in wrong hands. The typed, unsigned note shook in Haley Carmichael’s trembling fingers as she quickly looked both ways, up and down her quiet neighborhood. Who’d left the note stuck to her front door? Glancing at the sheet of plain white paper, its edges ragged from being torn out of a notebook, she was momentarily blinded by the stab of pain brought on by her deceased sister’s name. Haley quickly turned around and closed the door safely behind her.
And then, standing alone in the entryway, heart pounding, she read again. Kelsey had a baby and it’s in wrong hands. She’d had it right the first time.
Kelsey had a baby?
Haley leaned back against the wall, sliding down to sit on the cool tile floor, shaky knees pulled up to her chest. She hadn’t seen Kels in months, but they’d talked on the phone regularly. Her sweet, gorgeous, somewhat misguided, bit of a gold-digger sister had said she’d finally found the man of her dreams. Not only was he rich, but he was also smart and sensitive, he liked to watch old movies with her, to take long walks, to have romantic dinners by candlelight and to talk about current affairs, too. Mostly, he liked her. When she got upset, making a bigger deal out of most anything—as she had a definite tendency to do—the man was patient with her. Tender.
And he’d gotten Kelsey pregnant?
Because Kelsey hadn’t wanted to jinx anything, she’d said she wasn’t telling anyone who the guy was until she had a wedding ring next to the two-carat diamond he’d already placed on her finger.
But Kelsey would have told Haley if she’d known she was pregnant—
Right?
With a confirming nod, accompanied by a resurgence of the resilient strength gained from growing up with her sensitive sister and mother—drama queens, she’d unfortunately called the two of them at one point in her life—Haley stood up.
Glancing at the bizarre note again, she dropped it on the floor. She shouldn’t be touching it. What if she’d messed up the fingerprints of whomever had left it on her door?
No way did Kelsey have a baby.
But why would someone leave such a note on the door of the older sister of a deceased woman?
Haley, who had the same naturally wavy blond hair, dark brown eyes and soft features of her mother and sister, had to put forth some effort to get anyone to notice her. Because, thankfully, she didn’t overflow with effervescence as the other two Carmichael women did. Or had done—past tense—in Kelsey’s case.
Haley didn’t exude, her little sister had once told her. Jet-setting Kelsey had then followed the statement with her usual clueless generosity, gently and sweetly sharing easy tips to correct the lapse. Tips Haley had immediately relegated to her “never in your life” memory bank.
Kelsey, who hadn’t had a mean bone in her body, had meant well. Her priorities—number one, always, to find a rich man to take care of her—were just vastly different from Haley’s. She’d come by them naturally, though. Gloria Carmichael, their mother, had preached them as gospel all the days of their growing up.
And standing in her foyer frittering was just like something her mother and sister would have done.
Note in hand, still by her front door, heart still pounding, she pulled her phone out of the bag she’d dropped to the floor and hit Speed Dial for her mother.
Gloria had flown home for Kelsey’s funeral, a small service with no casket due to the condition of Kelsey’s remains after the fiery crash that had killed her, but had immediately returned to the home of a wealthy female friend of hers in Florida where Gloria was recovering from her most recent relationship break up.
AKA, looking for her next rich catch.
If Gloria could just find someone wealthy who didn’t mind coming second to her love of money, she’d be a kind, respectful and faithful wife to him.
Unable, or unwilling, to deal with her mother’s acute reactions to emotional situations, Haley stopped short of telling Gloria about the note, but she did establish that her mother had absolutely not spoken to Kelsey for a few months before her younger daughter’s death.
For the first time in her life Kelsey had refused to let her mother come visit her and meet her fiancé. That unheard-of choice had created a rift between them that hadn’t yet been repaired.
A rift that would never be fixed now. That fact had become the focal point of Kelsey’s funeral and the gathering that had followed as Gloria had tearfully regaled every single attendee with the details of her severely broken heart.
The emotions were real. Haley didn’t doubt for a second that Gloria was devastated by her youngest daughter’s death. Or that the pain was more acute due to the rift.
And the drama...was hard to take.
And that was why Haley called the police without telling Gloria about the note. Or even letting on that she was stressed. She had to give all of her focus to the immediate situation, not be distracted from a possible endangered baby by her mother’s reaction to it.
A day later, Gloria Carmichael was completely relegated to the back of Haley’s mind.
“Now are you going to call him?” The question came from Jeanine Harbor, Haley’s next-door neighbor and best friend from college days. Still in her nurse’s uniform, Jeanine had stopped at Haley’s when she’d turned onto their street to find a police car in Haley’s drive—for the second day in a row.
Jeanine had arrived just as Detective Morrow had been telling Haley that there was no record of Kelsey Carmichael giving birth. Not in California, nor in Nevada, where she’d died in the car accident. Haley had been grateful for her friend’s presence at her side as Morrow had also told her that they hadn’t been able to lift any prints from the note that had been left on Haley’s door the day before.
His last bad news was that the department’s request to neighbors for surveillance video hadn’t turned up anything unusual in the area, or any video of Haley’s front yard, driveway or house.
“You need to call him, Haley.” Jeanine’s teddy bear emblazoned scrubs didn’t soften the blow her words sent through Haley. In her own mauve scrubs, standing in the foyer alone with her friend, Haley still didn’t respond to Jeanine.
Haley had been planning to run some errands on her way to work when the detective had called and asked to stop by. She’d really just wanted to make a quick trip to the drug store for new razor refills and head to her job as charge nurse of the emergency department. She was scheduled from three in the afternoon until three in the morning for the next two nights. And with it being a Friday in the beginning of June, beginning of summer break for kids when they were outside and active, they’d likely be busy.
Jeanine, who worked in the cardiac unit, had just come off two back-to-back twelves and needed to be home showering and heading to bed. Not standing just inside Haley’s front door worrying about a random, untraceable note.
But it wasn’t the note that was bothering either one of them.
It was the idea that a baby could really exist and possibly be in danger.
Someone had reached out to Haley for a reason.
The police had asked about any possible disgruntled patients from the hospital. Someone who might blame Haley for a painful diagnosis, or a lost life, but in her job, she didn’t get to the point of diagnoses. And she hadn’t lost a patient during her shift in months. Morrow found it more likely that someone from Kelsey’s past, from the family’s past, was pulling a cruel prank on her.
“I can’t believe I’m pressing this,” Jeanine spoke again. “Paul Wright is absolutely the last person I’d ever thought I’d suggest you seek out, but as much of an ass as the man is with relationships, he’s the best people finder there is, and he’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Haley nodded, feeling the seriousness of the situation escalating with her friend’s suggestion. Since Haley’s horribly painful marriage and divorce from Paul, Jeanine had been playing watchdog to make certain that Paul—compelling and mesmerizing to her as he was—never got another chance at Haley.
While Jeanine’s efforts had been sweet, Haley had known from the moment the marriage ended that Paul would never be bothering her again. He’d been as eager to put distance between them as she had.
Still, to hear Jeanine reiterating aloud, multiple times, what Haley had been thinking to herself—that she had to call Paul—severely increased the lump of dread filling her midsection. She could physically feel the muscles in her chest cavity tightening.
Could the whole thing be a prank?
More of the drama the Carmichael women were known for? Just one more reason for Paul to look at her with distaste? Already the tumult of intense emotions flowed through her.
With the life of her deceased little sister’s possible baby in the balance, could she risk not reaching out?
“I have to call him,” she said aloud, a shard of physical pain striking through her. She’d promised herself the day she’d signed the divorce papers that she never had to open that door again.
But she was older. Wiser. The eight years they’d been apart had been good to her, building within her a sense of her own identity, a confidence and strength that she was proud of. She could handle his disdain without a blink.
So why, most particularly in the midst of dealing with the alarm she felt over the note, did her friend’s compassionate nod feel like a nail in her emotional coffin?
The photo wasn’t even grainy. Not in the least bit. No, the dark-haired beauty was shown in such clear detail he could see the two small freckles just to the left of those soft, kissable lips. His memory filled in the woman’s mouth, covered by the surfer dude’s lips in the photo.
Paul’s memory had no way to fill in the guy’s fingers that were missing down the back of his ex-girlfriend’s bikini bottoms. His brain was too busy focusing on the photo’s time stamp. The previous September. Months before he and Sarah had split up.
He’d known she was cheating on him. Could have easily produced the proof himself. Blindfolded and asleep.
Instead, he’d waited until after they’d broken up and then had given the assignment to a junior skip tracer trying to break into the business. When you were looking for someone, or something, who didn’t intend to be found, you had to be able to come up with inventive ways to find things. To think outside the box.
Or, in Sarah’s case, just ask Surfer Dude for a glance at the SD cards from the surveillance camera of the guy’s private beach.
Paul had known. Hadn’t wanted the confirmation.
And then, weeks after she’d moved out, he had sent a PI after the information. Fitting that the email had arrived from the guy he’d hired in time for Friday night’s solitary dinner.
Go figure. The woman hadn’t loved him. Sarah had loved the mystery of his profession. She’d loved that he could work magic and seemingly produce things that no one else could. She’d loved the elegance of his beach house, the housekeeper who kept it running smoothly and the Jaguar he drove.
He didn’t kid himself about that.
Just as he was honest with himself, and had been with her, about the fact that he hadn’t loved her, either.
Not like he’d wanted to or had hoped he would.
For only the second time in his life, he’d been ready for a life partner. Unlike the first time, when the woman had blindsided him, the choice to get monogamously serious with Sarah had been driven by where he was in his life, rather than feelings for the woman in question.
There was no reason for him to glance at any of the other photos. He moved the first to the bottom of the stack in his hand, eyed the second. Another outfit. Different day. He knew that based on the cloud formation even before checking out the time stamp. December.
Christmastime. A black-tie affair on the beach, apparently. One attended only by the surfer dude and Sarah...
The ringing of his phone had him reaching in his pocket, but wasn’t enough to distract him from the photo.
The brief glance at the phone’s caller ID screen changed that circumstance in a heartbeat.
Haley Carmichael was calling him?
The irony of a call coming in from his ex-wife during the exact moments he was coming face-to-face with his most recent ex’s infidelity might have amused him in other circumstances.
Irony could come with some humor. A call from Haley would not. Of that he was certain.
He answered on the second ring. “Paul Wright.” As though he didn’t know the woman he’d once believed to be the love of his life was on the line.
He needed the distance the formality put between them. And really, she was a stranger. They didn’t know each other at all anymore.
“It’s Haley.”
Probably too late to acknowledge that he knew that. The only reason she was in his contacts was because he’d needed to know that he’d never be caught unaware answering a call that could be her.
There’d always been that possibility.
He’d told himself it would never happen.
Had felt better being prepared just in case.
And he’d still answered.
That hadn’t been in the plan.
Which was why he sat there saying nothing. Focused on remaining calm. He was over her.
She would not bring her maelstrom back into his world.
He’d rather live without love than get sucked into that tornado a second time.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Paul.” Her voice sounded thick. Like her mouth was dry. Or she’d been crying.
He still said nothing.
“I’ve been to the police. They’ve done what they can, but it didn’t help...”
The police?
She was in trouble?
He sat up straighter.
“Jeanine agreed that I should call you.”
The comment might have come off as manipulative, except that he knew how much Jeanine Harbor had grown to hate him. Haley had to be in real trouble if Jeanine had told her to call.
Haley’s troubles weren’t his problem anymore.
“You still there?”
Sort of. But he didn’t want to be.
And heard the beep signaling the dropped call before he’d had the chance to hang up.
