Courting Disaster (17 page)

She frowned. He was making it very difficult for her to help him. “If you insist,” she said finally. “But just let me say that I've been giving my conversation with Gail a lot of thought—too much, considering that our party is in only four days!
Still, I keep going back to Hannah's apartment and how she made no preparation at all for the baby. It's unnatural—unless she never expected to bring the baby home.”

Paavo had to agree. He jotted a new word on his list: adoption. “It goes along with what Gail said—that she'd agreed to give it up for adoption.”

She told him about the Vandermeers' visit to the Athina, how upset they were to learn Hannah had been gone several days and no one had contacted them. “What if Hannah and Tyler were planning to let the Vandermeers adopt their baby? She might have changed her mind, and that's why she called Stan. To hide from the Vandermeers as well as from Tyler. Maybe he met the Vandermeers at the Athina, learned they wanted to adopt, and made a deal.”

Paavo tapped the eraser against his desktop. “You may be right. Stan was perfect. She saw him as someone Tyler couldn't track down. Except that he did. That must be why she ran. Or he snatched her, wanting to convince her to give up the baby.”

“But how did he find her?” Angie asked. “Stan has an unlisted phone number, he's not listed on Google or anything. I can't even remember him ever introducing himself to anyone at the Athina.”

“But you probably gave your name, right? Maybe you even told them about your job on KQED.” At her nod, he continued. “That's it then. That's why you were followed, why the ruse with the taxi. Someone—Marsh?—wanted to know where you and Stan lived so he could get to Hannah.”

It made sense, Angie agreed. “Hannah went for a walk alone, and if he'd been watching the apartment, he could have grabbed her, taken her
to his apartment. She could have gotten free and killed him,” Angie cried. “Good God, I hope not.”

“It hangs together, but it's also pretty far-fetched,” Paavo said. “Not many people want to give up their babies, or have potential parents show up out of the blue. Unless…” He stopped, staring at his list as something niggled in his memory.

“Unless…” Angie's eyes widened. “What if all this isn't as much out of the blue as we think?”

She told him about her and Stan seeing the owner and the cook carrying what looked like cradles from the boat to the restaurant. “We assumed they must be some strange kind of fish crate, but what if they really were baby cradles?”

“Shelly Farms had been looking at case law about smuggling,” he remembered, then shuddered at the thought. “Let's hope these people aren't involved in baby smuggling, Angie.”

She nodded as the ugliness of it struck her.

“What was the name of the people who asked about Hannah? Vandermeer, was it? Do you have a first name?”

“Hers was Frieda, which is odd enough, but I remember thinking his was even weirder. Like an old-time movie star. Rock? Tab? Lance? Yes—that's it. Lance Vandermeer.”

Paavo keyed “Lance Vandermeer” into California's criminal database. Several clicks and the man's rap sheet appeared—two assaults and a “misappropriation of funds” charge, which was
dropped or it would have meant his “third strike”—and a lifetime in jail.

Angie stared at it, stunned. The only thing she could say was, “Wow.”

 

Surprise, then delight filled Stan's face as he opened the door. “Hannah! Thank God! Are you all right?” He took a step forward as if to hug her, but something in her eyes stopped him, and he stepped aside to allow her to enter.

She eyed him and then the room. It was a mess, and so was he. It had been bad enough when she was there to share the burden of taking care of a baby and trying to keep up an apartment and clothes, and diapers, formula, food for him since he had no time to go out, and somehow try to find time to sleep, but now, doing all that alone, he was ready to drop.

Cautiously, she walked inside. She'd spent the past few hours at a homeless shelter where she ate, cleaned up, and had her hands bandaged. “Where's Kaitlyn?”

“In her crib, asleep.” He stared her as if she'd just dropped out of the sky. “She's fine. What happened to you? I was so worried.”

Now it was her turn to back away. “Were you?”

“Sit down.” He gestured toward the sofa. “You're acting strangely.”

She remained standing and rigid. “I want Kaitlyn.”

“You want to take her and leave?” Stan was shocked.

“That's right.”

“Hannah, what's wrong? Tell me what happened.”

She pulled out a knife and shakily pointed it at his heart. “I'm leaving and taking my baby with me.” Then she burst into tears.

Angie was frantic. All her time, it seemed, was being taken up helping Stan care for the baby and trying to keep him calm about Hannah. And now that Tyler had been killed and Rebecca Mayfield suspected Hannah, things were worse than ever. Stan was a basket case, wondering if he should contact somebody in authority about Kaitlyn. With Angie's engagement party startlingly near, desperate times called for desperate measures.

She went to the one person she knew she could count on at such a time: Connie Rogers.

“You want me to do
what
?” Connie cried when Angie arrived at her apartment that evening. “No way!”

Connie lived just a few blocks from her shop in an old comfortable building that, fortunately, allowed dogs, since she'd recently acquired one. Lily was curled up on the sofa, her head on Connie's lap, eying Angie with sadness and grave disappointment in her big brown eyes.

Angie usually brought her a gourmet doggie
biscuit. Today, though, she'd forgotten. She felt guiltier than a war criminal.

“It's not really breaking and entering,” Angie said, trying not to look at Lily. “I've got a key.” She remembered her father using that same line many times.

“It's still sneaking into a house uninvited and going through someone's personal papers—even if it is your own mother!”

“I'm begging you, Connie,” Angie said. “I need someone to watch from the windows in case they come home. That's all.”

“This is ridiculous.”

Angie heaved a sigh of relief. She knew she was winning. When Connie ran out of rational arguments, she turned to the ridiculous factor. As if Angie cared!

Fifteen minutes later, Connie relented and the two were off, Angie at the wheel.

She parked near the back of an empty lot over two blocks from her parents' home. There was so little street parking in this neighborhood her Mercedes would stand out like a beacon anywhere else—not to mention her license plate: GR8COOK.

She and Connie had to stop and pick stickers out of their shoes and pantyhose after they trooped through the weed-covered lot to the sidewalk. Once there, they hid behind a rhododendron and waited until they saw a Rolls-Royce pass—Serefina at the wheel and Sal clutching the dashboard. Tonight's ballet was one Serefina had been especially interested in seeing. Sal looked upon it as penance.

“Let's go,” Angie said, and the two hurried to her parents' home. She unlocked the door and disarmed the alarm. Fortunately, her parents hadn't changed the code in years.

Once inside, she headed for the study and Serefina's desk. “Here are her to-do lists,” Angie called excitedly as Connie went through a stack of papers she'd found on a low wooden cabinet.

“Good,” Connie said, “because there isn't much here but a lot of old historical papers.”

“Historical? Since when is Serefina interested in history? Is it Italian?”

“No. San Francisco seafaring, as a matter of fact.”

“Weird. Must be another of her crazy volunteer groups. Hmm, here's a receipt from Juliette's. It's a boutique that Serefina loves—they carry a lot of plus sizes, but don't mark them that way. Very clever marketing. Serefina is convinced she's a ten, and has no idea why she doesn't fit in that size at other stores.”

“I think I should start shopping there,” Connie said.

“You pay a price for that deception,” Angie said. “You'd have to sell a lot of teacups, believe me.”

“In that case, I'll keep going to sales at Macy's and cutting off the size labels.”

“Ah, thank God!” Angie held up another receipt. “She isn't buying my cake from Diamond Pastry. Looks like she's going to Victoria's. Great! Their Italian rum cake is my favorite. I hope that's what she's ordered. To think I once actually worried about a purple cake. How silly was that?”

“Purple cake? Or do you mean purple cow? Wasn't there some kind of nursery rhyme about one? You should start boning up on them, since the way Stan is acting, I think Hannah and Kaitlyn will be next door for quite a long time.”

“You may be right, I—”

Angie stopped talking. She heard a noise.

“My God,” she whispered. “They're back! You were supposed to be watching!”

“I can't do everything!” Connie wailed, papers in hand. “Anyway, it's not as if your parents will call the cops on you.”

“No, I'll just hurt my mother's feelings so much she won't talk to me and my engagement party will be ruined!” Angie wrung her hands. “We've got to hide.”

“Hide?” Connie looked around.

“Come on.” They darted down the hall. In the kitchen, they'd almost reached the back door when they heard a key in the lock. Angie did an about-face and ran into Connie. “They're coming in the back way!” she cried, pushing Connie into the hall.

“But we heard them…” Connie pointed toward the front of the house.

They stood in the hall. Connie was right, hadn't they just heard someone in the living room? “This way.” Angie pulled her into the dining room. There was a swinging door between the dining room and the kitchen.

Angie slowly pushed it open, hoping the kitchen was empty. The door suddenly stopped moving. Odd. She was trying to figure out what had happened to it when the door began opening on its own, and toward her.

She and Connie backpedaled, eyes glued to the self-propelled door.

Suddenly it opened all the way and a strange blond woman dressed in black walked into the dining room.

Angie and the stranger gaped at each other. The blonde jumped back into the kitchen.

Connie ran in the other direction.

Angie stood there, not knowing what was going on when the kitchen door swung open again.

Angie grabbed a candlestick to protect herself, but this time Connie stuck her head into the dining room. “Come on. Let's get out of here!”

“Isn't the woman in the kitchen?” Angie asked, confused.

“You mean the maid?”

“She's not the maid! I've never seen her before in my life,” Angie cried. “What was she doing in my parents' home?”

“Maybe she's a friend. They're home, right?”

Angie blanched. “Right. And they might find us! Hurry!”

The two darted out the back door and crouched down behind a vine-covered pergola while Angie caught her breath. Come to think of it, it was odd that she hadn't heard her mother talking. Serefina talked nonstop when she was in the house, even when alone.

“Something's very wrong here,” Angie said, worried.

“You're right. Let's go home,” Connie suggested.

“I mean something's
really
wrong.”

“What can you do?” Connie asked. “No, don't answer that!”

They slowly crept away from the house. “Okay, first things first,” Angie said, bending forward so her head wouldn't show above the shrubbery. She grabbed Connie's shoulder and pulled her down as well. “You put the papers you were holding back on top of the cabinet, didn't you?”

Connie, bent over, said, “Well…”

“Are you telling me you didn't put the papers back where you got them?” Angie's tone had climbed so high she was lucky the neighbor's dog didn't bark.

“You said to hurry!” Connie cried, now irritated as well as uncomfortable.

“I said I didn't want to be caught!” It was hair-clutching time. “Now she'll know we were looking at her stuff.”

“Maybe she'll think someone else did it.” Connie tried to sound reasonable. “Like the blonde. Let's go. My back hurts!”

“We can't go! We've got to go inside and put the papers where they belong.”

“I want to leave,” Connie wailed. “I know this is your parents' home, but I don't like this.”

“You're such a moan artist!” Angie was beside herself.

“Moan artist! Well, excuse me for living! I'm dragged here to help you and don't complain one little bit, and you—”

“Stop!” Angie clutched Connie's arm as they stooped behind some hibiscus bushes. “I saw someone moving back in those bushes.”

“How can you see anything? We're facing the ground!”

“I wonder if my mother is out here sneaking around for some reason, and that's why we didn't hear her in the house.”

“Why would she be hiding in her own garden?” Connie sounded as if Angie had taken leave of her senses.

“I don't know, except that she's got to be furious with my father. She was already upset with him about something, and I know she was looking forward to this ballet. Now, if he made her come home, and some strange woman's lurking around the house…”

“Wouldn't she just go alone?” Connie asked. “It wouldn't be the first time, from what you've said. And if I end up hunchbacked because of this, I'm never going to forgive you!”

“Go alone? While my father returns home to meet some woman? Is that what you're suggesting?” Angie asked hotly as she began to sneak from bush to tree, making her way toward the side of the house where she'd seen the movement.

“I'm not suggesting anything. I meant I want to straighten up.”

“No!” When they got closer, Angie saw the blonde again, pointing a telephoto lens camera at the house and taking pictures. Angie looked toward the window. The interior lights were on, and she could see right into the library at her father.

Outraged, Angie snuck closer to the woman, and once near, reared up and sprang from the bushes. “What the hell do you think you're doing?” she cried, and yanked the camera away.

“How dare you!” the woman shrieked, and
pulled on the camera's straps, which she hadn't let go of. She nearly yanked Angie off her feet, but Angie hung on tight.

“What are you doing, taking pictures of my father?” she yelled. “Who are you?”

“Mind your own business, you spoiled brat!” The woman raised her hand and swung. Angie raised her arm in time to protect her face from the slap.

Her arm hurt from the blow. It hurt badly, in fact. She couldn't believe anyone would do such a thing to her, especially not this Peeping Tomasina. Fury rose, the world went red, and she launched herself at the woman, knocking her flat on her back.

The woman grabbed Angie's hair, and Angie grabbed hers, both shrieking and kicking. They started rolling in the dirt.

Connie screamed, hopped about, and tried to get close enough to pull the woman off Angie, but whenever she'd get close, she had to jump out of the way or risk being kicked, gouged, or slapped herself. In desperation she ran toward the house. “Mr. Amalfi! Sal! Help!”

From around the side came not Sal, but Paavo. He stared at Connie with surprise and horror.

“It's Angie,” she cried, and pointed toward the part of the garden where no people were seen, only puffs of dirt rising above the bushes.

Paavo ran toward the yelps and squawks. Not far behind him was Salvatore.

Paavo lifted Angie up by the waist and swung her away from Elizabeth Schull. Schull looked at
him, then got up and started to run. He set Angie on her feet and took off after Schull, catching up with her after only a few steps.

Angie was fuming and started after Paavo when her father grabbed her arm. “Don't,” he said.

“What's going on?” she cried. “She was in the house! When she saw me she left, and now she's taking pictures.”

He shrugged. “Must be a burglar casing the place. Paavo will take care of her.” He picked up the woman's camera. “This is probably evidence of what she's been up to.”

Angie noticed that Paavo had kept going.

“Where's he taking her?”

“Jail, I suppose,” Sal said.

“I'm going to go see.”

Sal's grip tightened. “No, you're not. Come inside. Let's get you cleaned up.”

“But—”

“You don't want Paavo to see his bride-to-be looking like a female mud wrestler, do you?”

They turned toward the house. “You're lucky you don't have a black eye or something,” Connie said, walking beside Angie. “You two were really going at it.”

Visions of appearing at her party in her beautiful dress, her hair perfect and her eye multiple shades of blue, black, green, and purple, made Angie shudder. “Don't even talk about such a thing,” she said, furious to discover a broken fingernail.

Paavo came back alone after Angie had washed her face and hands and brushed the twigs, leaves,
and weeds from her hair and clothes. She and Connie were sitting in the Italian provincial living room with Sal, sipping brandy and sodas.

“That was fast,” Angie said to Paavo. She stood as he entered. “Don't tell me you let her go?”

He held her shoulders, checking her face and making sure she was all right before giving her a quick kiss and hug. Sal's black eyes bored into his back the whole time. “A patrol car arrived. They've got her. I wanted to be sure you're okay.”

“I can hold my own,” Angie announced, chin up, her arms around his waist.

“That, I already knew,” Paavo said with a smile, starting to draw her close again when he heard Sal's voice.

“Here's film from her camera.” Sal held the roll out for Paavo.

“Thanks.” He put it in his pocket.

“All right, you two.” Angie's pointed gaze went from one man to the other. “What's going on? Where's Mamma?”

“Your mother went to the ballet,” Sal said, then met Paavo's eye as he said, “I felt sick and had her turn around and drop me off back home. Then Paavo showed up looking for you.”

Paavo nodded to Sal before facing Angie. “That's right. I have the evening off.”

“But I didn't tell you I was coming here,” Angie said.

“I must have just guessed it,” he answered.

She turned to her father. “Who was the woman? It wasn't just chance that she was lurking around.”

Sal was all wide-eyed innocence. “No? Seems like chance to me. I have no idea why any woman
would want to do that. Or maybe it's that I'm still such a handsome old coot. Did she say anything to you about why she was out there, Paavo?”