Assumed Identity(31)
“If you don’t mind. You can get a look at our suspect...er, person of interest there and see if he’s your guy.”
Robin hadn’t missed the detective’s slip. “He’s not the man who attacked me,” she reiterated, getting the idea it was up to her to prove that. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”
Torn between anticipation and anxiety at the chance to see if Detectives Montgomery and Fensom had tracked down the right Lonergan, Robin sat down for ten minutes to give Emma the bottle she needed. Then she burped her and changed her diaper before wasting another five minutes trying to track down Emma’s yellow hat. “Where is it?” She emptied out the contents of Emma’s bag and the hamper. “Never mind.”
Ignoring the phone ringing on her desk and from every extension in the front and back of the shop, she pulled out a shopping bag from a weekend excursion to the Plaza and opened up a new outfit she’d bought for Emma’s six-month picture. She left the flowered shirt and overalls in the bag and tied the matching sun hat onto Emma’s head. “Happy early birthday, sweetie. It clashes a little, but it’ll do.”
She was packing the stroller and heading out when Mark stuck his head through the swinging doors. “Robin? Phone.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I think it’s one of those reporters.”
“Would you tell him to...” Wait. If that was Gabriel Knight calling back about his news article, then she needed to have a discussion that made it clear that any mention of her daughter was off limits in any follow-up stories. “Never mind. I’ll take it in my office.”
By the time Robin had rolled the stroller back to her desk, Mark had transferred the call to her private line. She picked up the phone. “This is Robin Carter.” Several seconds of answering silence passed and she checked the lighted line on the phone to make sure they were still connected. “Hello? Is this Mr. Knight?”
She heard a sharp intake of breath before a woman’s voice spoke. “You don’t deserve to have that baby.”
A brief moment of confusion at the unexpected accusation was replaced by the chill that ran down her spine. “Who is this?”
“You aren’t her real mother. Her real mother wouldn’t put her in harm’s way like you did. She could have died.”
The words were slightly slurred, yet frighteningly articulate. A chill flowed through Robin’s body, sapped her strength. She obeyed the sudden weakness in her knees and sank to the floor beside the stroller—needing to see Emma’s bright blue eyes, needing to hear the soft, rhythmic sucking of her thumb, needing to touch the precious reality of her miracle baby.
“I’m on my way to talk to the police right now,” she warned, sounding braver than the fearful knot in her chest felt. “Who are you? Don’t you dare speak to me about my daughter.”
“Your daughter?” The woman laughed. “I know the truth about that baby. You don’t deserve her. He should have killed you when he had the chance.”
“Who are you? Why are you saying these hateful things? What do you want?”
Robin jumped at the loud click that ended the call.
The first thing she did was pick up Emma and hug her tightly to her chest, rocking her back and forth and pressing a kiss to each cheek, taking strength from the scents that had become as familiar to her as breathing. “You are my daughter,” she vowed, needing to hear the words herself as much as she wanted to reassure the infant who couldn’t understand those words yet. “I’m not leaving you. I’m not letting anyone take you from me.”
The second thing she did was strap Emma back into her stroller and head out the front door, turning up the sidewalk toward the Shamrock Bar. Detective Montgomery would want to hear about the call, right? That CSI last night had said the accomplice who cleaned up after the Rose Red Rapist’s attacks was a woman. Were those vile threats related to the assault? Even if the caller was just some crank drunk who’d been reading the morning paper, the message was disturbing.
Robin wasn’t ashamed to admit that her sense of independence and security had been rattled again. She needed to feel safe.
She needed to find Jake.
Chapter Six
Jake shrugged into his insulated gloves and lifted the two cases of bottled beer. The strain on his muscles was as welcome a distraction as the blast of cold air from the walk-in fridge had been.
He’d had a fitful morning of sleep, plagued by images of Robin Carter soaked to the skin, tearing at his clothes while he tangled his fingers in her soft, sable-brown hair and plundered those bewitching lips and other parts of her body with a hunger he hadn’t indulged since the day he’d woken up without a past. The erotic dreams had been as disturbing as the violence that normally haunted his sleep, and had required a cold shower to wash most of them out of his head.