The Newlyweds (18 page)

“I'll be your backup,” she said, as if reading his thoughts.

He shook his head. “You can't.”

“Why not?”

“Because you can't be anywhere near the meeting place. If he saw you—”

“He won't see me.”

“We can't risk it,” Sam insisted. “If he saw you, he'd run. He'd know something was wrong, and he'd take off. And we might never see him again.”

She inhaled a deep breath and released it on a ragged growl. “Men,” she muttered. “You just don't think we women can do anything, do you?”

Sam had to smile at that, even though he figured his amusement would rile her even more. “Actually, I think you can do a lot,” he told her.

But he made himself stop before he added,
especially in the dark.
Somehow, he didn't think she'd take the comment in the spirit in which he intended it. Plus, they couldn't afford to get sidetracked right now, and just thinking about what Bridget could do in the dark made Sam want to drop everything and turn the lights down low.

“We have to do this Baker's way,” he said again. “And he wants to see me alone. Even if you're not there for the takedown, Bridget, you're as much a part of this investigation as anyone, and everybody at the Bureau knows that.”

“I want to be in on the interrogation once we have him,” she said.

“You will be.”

“I want to help nail that bastard to the wall.”

“I'll hand you the hammer.”

She sighed again. “And I want you to be careful, Sam.”

He was across the room in a half-dozen quick strides, but he stopped before pulling her into his arms the way he wanted to. Things had just been so weird since the night they'd made love that first time. First they'd decided to forget about it and call a halt to both the investigation and any further contact they might have with each other. Then, when they'd realized they would still be working together, they'd decided to be matter-of-fact about what had happened and enjoy what little time they had left. And they had. They'd enjoyed it a lot. Every opportunity they'd had.

But they hadn't spoken of it again. They'd talked about every aspect of the case until they could recite every detail from memory. But even though they'd turned to each other physically every night, they hadn't said a word about those nights on the mornings following them.

Sam had no idea where he stood with Bridget. And, truth be told, he just wasn't sure where she stood with him, either. But now she was telling him to be careful. That had to mean something. Didn't it?

“I will,” he told her. “Even if things seem to be unraveling with this black-market baby ring,
this
deal will go down exactly the way it's supposed to. And we'll have him, Bridget. We'll have him.”

She nodded, but she still looked worried. “When does Baker want to meet with you?”

“Tomorrow,” he told her. “After work. Seven o'clock sharp. He gave me the address, a motel just north of town. He said he'll have a healthy baby girl for us whose mother is a high-school student who can't care for her. He said he's taken care of all the legal fees, that he'll have her birth certificate and a certificate of adoption with him, all signed by the proper authorities. All I have to do is give him the money to cover the fees and to reimburse the mother for her hospital expenses—yeah, right—and our business will be done.

“It will be fine, Bridget,” he added. And then he gave in to his impulse and reached for her. He cupped his hand over her shoulder, just intending to give it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. Instead, he pulled her into his arms and wrapped her in a fierce embrace. And where he'd feared she might balk or worse, try to push him away, instead she folded herself into him, roping her arms around his waist, hugging him tightly to herself.

“Baker's an accountant, for God's sake,” he murmured into her ear. “And there's no evidence to indicate that he's ever been violent.”

“I should be there, too,” she said against his chest. “You shouldn't be doing this alone.”

“I'll be thinking about you the whole time,” he told her. And he knew that he would.

She squeezed him tighter. “Be careful,” she said again.

And all Sam could do was promise once more, “I'll be fine, Bridget. I'll be fine.”

 

Everett Baker felt sick to his stomach. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table, then at the sleeping infant buckled into a car seat that sat in the middle of the bed. He and Charlie always used this motel for their exchanges, because it was never busy and the manager didn't seem to care what went on, as long as he got paid. The place wasn't especially accommodating, however, in spite of the sort of establishment it was. A remnant of the Eisenhower era, when state highways were still the way to travel, it sat off the beaten path, well away from the Interstate, and was surrounded by towering pines and a picnic area. There wasn't another building in sight for miles. The interior was clean, if not stylish, the beige paint, brown furniture, green carpet and orange bedspread probably original to the place. Mass-produced artwork of a generic seascape hung over the bed. Ugly, but it met their needs. They'd never had any problems before. Usually everything went off without a hitch.

But Everett was only doing everything Charlie had told him to do. He'd made contact with a couple on the waiting list at Children's Connection, and he'd offered them a child the way he always did, fast-talking it into what sounded like a perfectly legitimate enterprise. He'd called the couple the way he always did and told the husband to meet him at the motel he and Charlie always used, and to bring the usual amount of money to cover
the usual fees. Everett was doing what he always did, as far as Charlie was concerned.

He'd just neglected to tell Charlie that the couple in question this time was related to Leslie Logan.

Everett had thought and thought and thought about what he could do to free himself from Charlie's baby-selling operation once and for all, without fear that Charlie would retaliate by hurting—or killing—one of the Logans. Finally he'd realized that the only way he would be able to achieve that would be to ensure that Charlie got caught and sent to jail. And it would be best if Everett himself got away. So tonight, when he finished what he had to do here, he'd be going on the run. And if he never saw Portland again, it would be too soon.

He'd deliberately approached Bridget Logan and her husband and offered them one of the babies Charlie had in pipeline, knowing full well that they—or at the very least, Leslie Logan—would alert the authorities to the matter. Everett was confident that the motel was being watched right now, with—he glanced at his watch—twenty-five minutes to go before Samuel Jones's arrival. Everett only hoped everything went down according to plan.
His
plan, he meant. Not Charlie's.

He glanced at the baby again to find her sleeping like…well, a baby. Whoever was caring for the little ones in Russia seemed to take good care of the children. But then, the children were worth tens of thousands of dollars apiece, so of course Charlie's Russian connection would see to it that they were well cared for. He had to protect his investment.

But Everett had a lot invested in this baby girl, too. And she was about to pay off, with something far more valuable than a briefcase full of cash. She was about to
win Everett his freedom from a life of crime that he'd never wanted and had come to despise. He smiled in spite of his anxieties as he watched the baby's mouth work at something she was dreaming about. In her little pink sweat suit and booties, she looked so tiny, so fragile. How could he have been involved in something that would sell her to the highest bidder?

The knowledge of what he had degenerated to made him sick. It didn't matter that this baby would have doubtless had a good life with whatever family bought her, or that they would have doted on her and pampered her like a princess. The end didn't justify the means. No matter how Everett looked at it, he had become someone who bartered in human lives. He was even an accessory to kidnapping. Which made him no better than Lester Baker, the man who had stolen Robbie Logan and ruined Everett's life.

How had he come to this? he wondered as he watched the baby sleep so peacefully, oblivious to the enormity of what was happening to her. All he had ever wanted was to lead a quiet life and be left alone. He'd come to Portland to see his family, not destroy it. Yet thanks to his involvement with Charlie, the Logans had been miserable for months, watching their pet project, Children's Connection, sink deeper and deeper into trouble, and watching their loved ones suffer all manner of misfortune. All Everett had wanted when he'd agreed to Charlie's schemes was to win himself a friend and make a little money. Instead, he'd become a criminal.

He wished he'd never come to Portland. Wished he'd never even found out the truth about his identity. Now that Joleen was gone, he could have made a quiet, decent life for himself in St. Louis. Maybe, eventually, he
would have even met a nice woman, someone like Nancy, and settled down to start a family of his own. And how would he feel if someone came along and stole a member of that family away from him forever?

Thinking about Nancy just brought on a fresh set of fears for Everett. Because he realized he
had
met a nice woman with whom he might have settled down to start a family, and he'd blown it by getting tangled up in something he never should have agreed to. In addition to everything else he'd become, he was going to lose the only woman he'd ever loved. Once Nancy found out what he'd been involved in, she wouldn't want anything to do with him. He'd have to see her before he left town, try to explain to her why he'd done what he had and hope she understood. He wished he could try to explain to the Logans, too, but he knew that would be impossible. If they ever found out what their cherished Robbie had become…

Everett shook his head. No, he thought. No. Then, as if it weren't enough to just think it, he said the word aloud. “No.”

He wasn't Charlie Prescott. He had a conscience and the capacity to care for other people. And that was why he had arranged this exchange with the Joneses. Everett would stop Charlie's operation right now, and he'd make sure Charlie went to jail for the rest of his life. By now, the feds would have connected Everett to the black-market baby ring, and they'd be investigating him thoroughly. He'd left more than enough incriminating evidence in his apartment for the authorities to find that would connect Charlie to everything that had happened. And maybe, if Everett played it right, he'd escape from the authorities himself and go into hiding someplace
where they'd never find him. Maybe he'd even figure out some way to explain it to Nancy and convince her to come with him. Maybe…

Reiterating his decision made Everett feel better about himself. He glanced at his watch again. Twenty minutes until Samuel Jones arrived, and who knew how many law enforcement officials out there watching the motel. He looked at the sleeping infant again, and although he realized he couldn't return her to wherever she had come from, he could make sure she was discovered by someone who
would
know what to do with her. Not wanting to give himself time to change his mind, Everett picked up the phone on the nightstand and punched the zero that would connect him to the front desk. And when the raspy voice of the old woman answered, he said, “This is room twelve. Someone's abandoned an infant here. Call the police right away.”

And once the old woman sputtered out that she would do just that, Everett collected the few things he'd brought with him—except for the baby—and bolted through the door.

He was careening out of the parking lot, spewing gravel in his wake, when he saw a big black Mercedes with Samuel Jones sitting in the driver's seat turning into the parking lot. Their eyes met once. Then Everett stepped on the accelerator and squealed away, giving the engine all the gas he could. And because he intended to never look back again, not once did he glance into his rearview mirror.

He didn't dare.

A
t 7:00 p.m., Bridget was at her parents' house, pacing like a caged animal. She'd gone there ostensibly to have dinner with her family, but she couldn't have eaten anything if she'd tried. Her parents and sister and brothers—and the women who loved those brothers—had kept up a lively conversation at the dinner table, but their accounts of work and bits of social gossip had gone in one ear and out the other. Even the charming stories about their children hadn't kept Bridget occupied for long. Nor had the antics of little Cole when he'd tried to lure Auntie Bridget into play.

“I can't now, Cole,” she'd told her young nephew-to-be. “Auntie's just got her mind on other things right now.”

He'd shrugged in that philosophical way of children and run along. The grown-ups, too, had retired to the den for coffee. So preoccupied with
thoughts of Sam and his meeting with Everett Baker, Bridget hadn't been able to sit still, had kept jumping up for one reason or another. Jillian needed more coffee. Her father needed another slice of cheesecake. That pillow on the love seat needed fluffing. That picture over the chintz chair was crooked. And look, is that a piece of lint on the Aubusson? Where's the vacuum? And heck, while she was at it, why didn't she just dust the entire house and do a few loads of laundry? Leslie Logan, the only one present who knew the reason for Bridget's edginess had had to practically wrestle her daughter to the ground to prevent her from scrubbing and waxing the floors and polishing the silver, assuring her that their housekeeper had all the household chores under control.

When the phone rang at seven-thirty, Bridget nearly jumped out of her skin and bowled over her brother Eric to answer it, but it was only a friend of her father's, inviting Terrence Logan to play tennis the following weekend. And when the doorbell rang at seven-forty-five, Bridget bolted to answer it, only to find a trio of Girl Scouts selling cookies on the other side. She scared them so badly with her sudden and zealous—and, doubtless, wild-eyed—appearance that she ended up ordering a dozen boxes of each type of cookie to assuage her guilt. By eight o'clock, when there was still no word from Sam or anyone else at the Bureau, Bridget was fit to be tied. Preferably to a concrete pylon. That was scheduled to be dumped in the Willamette River.

“It shouldn't be taking this long,” she told her mother when Leslie came to join her at the living-room window. Bridget stared out into the swiftly falling darkness, seeing not the amber-lighted street outside, but Sam in
a suburban motel, crumpled on the floor in a pool of blood. “Something's gone wrong, I can feel it.”

“Don't borrow trouble,” her mother told her. “Probably, in all the excitement and chaos of the arrest, Sam just hasn't had a chance to call you.”

“Then someone else should have,” Bridget said. “Someone must know something. Better yet, I should have been there with him. I should have had his back.”

“You know you couldn't,” Leslie told her. “And I for one am glad you're here instead.”

She draped a slender arm across Bridget's shoulders, then turned her daughter to face her. Leslie's eyes were damp with emotion, faint lines fanning out from their edges. Her mother had aged visibly in the last year. Oh, certainly she could still pass for a much younger woman, but the troubles at Children's Connection had clearly had an impact on her.

And it wasn't just the troubles with the foundation, Bridget made herself admit. It was also the upheaval some of her children had seen recently, too, such as David's misadventure in Russia and Peter's marriage to Katie Crosby. Yes, those things had ultimately ended well, but they must have been trying on her mother and father both when they were happening. And now Leslie must be thinking about how her youngest daughter had finally come home, but would only be turning around to leave again soon.

Her parents weren't getting any younger, Bridget thought. And her brothers were all marrying and starting families. She was going to be an aunt so many times over during the coming years. And she and Jillian had become closer over the past few weeks than they'd ever been as kids. It had felt good to be home again, she had
to admit. Only now was Bridget realizing how much she missed her family when she was thousands of miles away from them. There was just so much going on here now, she thought. A whole new generation of Logans was on the horizon. The family was growing and blending, and there would be countless new adventures and events to enjoy. But she wouldn't be around to see any of it. She'd be somewhere else, thousands of miles away, and she'd be working.

While her parents grew older and more frail, Bridget would be working.

While her nieces and nephews were growing from babies to toddlers to children to young adults, Bridget would be working.

While Sam Jones built a life here in Portland, probably with another woman who would love him to distraction, Bridget would be working.

And at the end of her life, when she was an old, old woman, sitting in a rocking chair, she'd look back on her life and see that it had been full of working. Not living. Not loving. Not enjoying her family. Not being happy.

Work. That was all Bridget would ever have to show for her life. She'd go to her grave leaving nothing behind but a memory of herself. And that memory wouldn't even belong to her family, because she'd be spending so little time with them. That memory would belong to her co-workers. They'd think about what a great job she did winding up cases. They wouldn't think about how she had changed or affected or enriched someone else's life. They wouldn't think about how she had changed or affected or enriched her own. She Was a Good Worker—that was what Bridget Logan's tombstone would say.

She turned around to survey the room again. Her
brother David sat on one sofa, holding little Natasha in his lap, the baby patting his face with one chubby little hand, David laughing at the sloppy caress. His fiancée Elizabeth snuggled close to him, her arm looped through his, holding on to him as if she never wanted to let him go. Eric and Jenny sat with little Cole between them, Eric laughing good-naturedly as Cole pointed to pictures in a book and deliberately misidentified them in the goofiest ways. And Peter and Katie stood on the other side of the room, gazing into each other's eyes, Peter's hand opened tenderly over her belly where their baby grew inside her. Even her father was gazing at Bridget's mother from his seat nearby, as if he didn't want the woman he loved ever to be out of his sight.

They all had such rich lives, Bridget thought. Because they all had people to share those lives with. They all worked, too, but at the end of the day, they left work behind and came home to their families. And then they lived their lives. They worked so that they might live. They didn't live so that they could work. They'd achieved the proper balance and were better people because of it.

Oh, how could she have been so stupid?

Tears filled her eyes as she pulled her mother close and hugged her as hard as she could. “I love you, Mom,” she said. And to her shame, she realized she couldn't remember the last time she had said those words to either of her parents. “Oh, I love you so much.”

Her mother seemed taken aback at first, but then she threw her arms around Bridget and hugged her back. “I love you, too, sweetie,” she said. “And I'm going to miss you so much after you leave.”

“I'm not leaving,” Bridget said impulsively. And the
moment she said the words aloud, she realized they weren't impulsive at all. She'd been thinking them in her subconscious for a while now—she must have, otherwise it wouldn't feel so good, so right, to say them aloud now. She'd left home nearly ten years ago because she hadn't thought there was a place for her here in Portland—she'd thought she had to find it somewhere else in the world. Now she understood, though, that everything she had ever needed or wanted had been here all along. Her family. Her roots. Her memories.

Her Sam.

But was he hers? she asked herself. Was he really? The way she had become his? Oh, the two of them really needed to talk. They needed to stop pussyfooting around the things they wanted and just say them outright. She wanted to be with Sam. Forever. She loved Sam. And she would love him forever. She needed him to know that. And she needed to know how he felt about her, too. As soon as she was in the same room with him again, she vowed to tell him everything. How much she loved him and how she didn't want to be without him. How she wanted to build her life here in Portland and how much she wanted Sam to be a part of that life.

Her thoughts and plans were interrupted, however, when her mother pushed her to arm's length but didn't let go of her. In fact, Leslie only strengthened her hold on Bridget. “What did you say?” she asked.

Bridget laughed once, a nervous sound. “I'm not leaving,” she said again. “I'm staying here in Portland.”

Leslie's mouth dropped open at the revelation. “But what about your work?”

Bridget laughed again, with more certainty this time and less anxiety. “Oh, who cares about work?” she said.
“I've got something so much better than that. I've got my family.”

And I've got Sam,
she added to herself. Because she did have Sam. Inside her, in the deepest, most secret part of her heart. He was locked there tight, and there was no room for anyone else. Except maybe her family. The family she had now, and the family to come. Because Bridget intended to be around for all of it. She just hoped Sam would be there with her. She hoped he would want her as much as she wanted him. Hoped he would love her as much as she loved him.

She had to talk to him.

Where was he?

And why didn't he call?

 

The telephone rang at 1:00 a.m. on the dot. Bridget knew that, because she was sitting at the kitchen table in the house she'd been sharing with Sam, nursing a cup of coffee and watching the second hand creep slowly around the numbers, one by one. She'd been watching the clock for three solid hours, ever since coming home from her parents' house without having heard a word about the investigation. She'd called the Bureau before she left, but they'd sworn they didn't have any news for her, that Sam hadn't reported in since leaving to meet with Everett Baker and they'd call her as soon as they knew anything.

Liars,
she thought. Somebody down there knew something, whether Sam had reported in or not. They just weren't saying anything to anyone until they had something they could report to the media.

God, how could she have ever thought she could work for such people for the rest of her life? People who put procedure before the person, who thought the work
was more important than the people who performed it. How could she have ever thought she was one of them, when she knew it was the people who mattered?

It was one person in particular who mattered most.

Before the first ring was completed, Bridget was snatching the cordless phone from the table and pushing the talk button. “What?” she asked without even greeting whoever was on the other end.

“It's Pennington, Logan,” the Special Agent in Charge greeted her.

Bridget swallowed hard and told herself to be calm. “How's Sam?”

“He's gone,” Pennington said.

Her heart leaped into her throat. “You mean he's left town, right? Not that he's…” She couldn't even say the word. She couldn't even think it. It wasn't possible.

“Right,” Pennington said, and the breath left her lungs in a long, painful whoosh. “Something went wrong with the exchange,” he said. “We're still not clear on what. Somehow Baker must have made Jones for law enforcement, because when Jones pulled into the parking lot, he saw Baker pulling out, burning rubber.”

“Oh, my God. With the baby?” Bridget asked, praying he didn't have the infant with him.

“No,” Pennington assured her. “He left the baby sleeping in the motel room. Called the front desk before he left and reported the child as abandoned. Then he fled in his car. Something must have alerted him to the fact that it was a setup. Or maybe he just got scared. In any event, he left the child where she was and took off. Jones went after him, but Baker got away.”

“Dammit,” Bridget hissed. If only she'd been there. Maybe it would have gone down differently.

“Actually, I was thinking of a different word,” Pennington said crisply. “But it doesn't bear repeating.”

“Sam?” Bridget asked, knowing the one-word query would say everything she needed to say.

“At the same time Jones was supposed to be meeting with Baker, we had other agents closing in on Prescott at his apartment thanks to an anonymous tip that thoroughly incriminated him. Baker went there after fleeing the motel, presumably to tell Prescott what was going on, but he interrupted the raid, and when he saw the place crawling with agents, he turned his car around and fled again. Two of our agents followed, but they lost Baker, too.”

“What happened with Charlie Prescott?” Bridget asked.

Pennington hesitated a moment, then said, “He's dead.”

“Dead?” Bridget echoed incredulously.

“Our agents had cuffed him and were leading him out to a car when Prescott lunged for one of them and un-holstered the agent's weapon. He drew on our agent, so another agent returned fire. Our guys are all fine. But Prescott is dead.”

“Did you find out who he was working with in Russia?”

“We did,” Pennington told her. “Thanks to files we found on his home computer, we've linked Prescott to a man in Moscow who goes by the name of Vladimir Kosanisky. He's a nasty piece of work, with a long criminal record. We've alerted authorities in Russia, and they've taken him into custody there.”

“But Baker's still at large,” Bridget said unnecessarily.

“We've sent out bulletins about him all over the county and surrounding areas,” Pennington told her, “and we've distributed his photo to all the news outlets
and law-enforcement agencies, all the bus stations, airports, train stations, you name it. I don't think he'll get far. But for now— What?” he said, obviously speaking to someone in the room with him. “Are you sure? Absolutely. Get right on it. Logan,” he said into the receiver again.