Assumed Identity(38)

That stopped her. “A courtroom?” Keeping Emma and the stroller behind her, she turned to face him. Maybe six feet tall. Brown hair, green eyes, clean-shaven. Black suit and white shirt like an executive or an attorney would wear. She knew the type. But she didn’t know him. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Mr....?”

“Houseman. William Houseman. My friends call me Bill.”

“Are you a reporter, Mr. Houseman?”

“No.” He reached inside his suit jacket and handed her a business card. Robin was half afraid to take it at first, but she supposed a man who meant her harm wouldn’t so readily identify himself.

She verified his name on the card. “A banker?”

“What I do for a living isn’t important. I just want you to have my contact information.”

This one-way familiarity was getting on her nerves. Robin folded the card in her fist. “How do you know me? And don’t give me that family story again. We’ve never met.”

Bill Houseman leaned to one side and smiled down at Emma. When he wiggled his finger in Emma’s direction and elicited a chortle, Robin pulled the stroller closer to her body. “Actually, your daughter and I are family.”

A chill shivered down Robin’s spine despite the sun shining down on her. Was this another threat? “I’m her family. We have to go.”

“I need only a few minutes of your time.”

Traffic was picking up as employees in the nearby office buildings got off work. Robin hurried to catch up with a group leaving the business in front of her, but Houseman grabbed her arm. Robin shrugged him off. The people ahead were quickly disappearing into a parking garage. She wasn’t going to catch them and Bill Houseman apparently wasn’t going to leave her alone.

“Ms. Carter, you and your daughter are in great danger.”

The matter-of-fact statement stopped her in her tracks. “Is that a threat?”

“Why? Do you feel threatened?”

With a strange man following her? She took off again. “What do you think? Do you know something about what happened to me last night?”

“I think you’ll want to have this conversation in private.” He didn’t slur his words or ramble the way the woman on the phone had. Yet the effect was the same. This man was a stranger—and he knew a lot more about her than any stranger should.

She’d already passed a couple of buildings, but the intersection up ahead and her shop half a block beyond that seemed miles away. What would be her closest escape route? Going on to her shop? Back to the bar? Straight out into the middle of traffic where he couldn’t follow? With no promising option in sight, Robin spun around, trying a more confrontational tactic to get rid of the man strolling behind her. “Did you read about me in the paper? How did you find me?”

“I knew you long before you made the headlines, Ms. Carter.” He called her bluff, smiling as he walked past her. But he stopped and turned in front of the stroller. “That’s a beautiful baby. What did you name her?”

When he knelt in front of Emma, Robin jerked the stroller back. “Get away from her.”

He smiled and rose to his feet. “I think she looks like a Hailey.”

“What did you say?” The blood drained from Robin’s body, leaving her ice cold. That was Emma’s birth name—before the adoption. He did know her daughter. This wasn’t supposed to happen. “She isn’t Hailey anymore. She’s my daughter. If you want to talk to me, call my attorney and make an appointment.”

With fear flagging every step, Robin pushed the stroller around him.

He grabbed her arm as she hurried past, tightening his grip when she tried to shake him off. “This can’t wait. I have a favor to ask.”

“Let go. If you’re who I think you are, you’re not supposed to have any contact with me. I’ll call the police. I know a detective back in the Shamrock Bar. He’s there right now.”

“Do you really think you ought to be taking your daughter into a bar?” She could smell the cigarette smoke on his breath as he whispered against her ear. “What kind of mother does that? Do you really have this child’s best interests—?”

“The lady said to let her go.” Jake Lonergan’s deep, menacing voice filled the air, washing over Robin like a protective hug and silencing the accusation in Bill Houseman’s voice.

Houseman’s grip tightened before he released her and stepped back. “I have business with Ms. Carter.”