The Baby Scheme Read online

  Alli pocketed it, grabbed the box and her laptop and scooted out the door. Maybe she’d sell the story to a magazine, or she might use it as leverage to find a job at a bigger paper. One way or the other, she was going to help Mrs. Hernandez and her career at the same time.

  Let Payne Jacobson dig up his own stories. She hoped he dug his own grave while he was at it.

  ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, KevinVickers drove slowly past a two-story house, noting the fresh paint job and elegant landscaping. The location, just off San Michel Way, in a neighborhood only a step down from a nearby row of mansions, was pretty much what he’d expected for a well-to-do retired obstetrician.

  A few days earlier, a young widow named Mary Conners had arrived at his office after receiving a blackmail demand for twenty thousand dollars. She couldn’t pay, she’d told him in tears, and she didn’t want to lose her little boy.

  She and her late husband, unable to conceive, had tried in vain to adopt a child in the United States. Agencies had rejected them because of a drunk-driving arrest on her husband’s record.

  It had seemed like a miracle when her gynecologist and his partner had offered to help them adopt a baby through an orphanage they knew of in the CentralAmerican country of Costa Buena. Three years ago, they’d joyfully welcomed their son.

  Now, less than a year after her husband had died from an aneurysm, an unidentified phone caller had informed Mary that the orphanage illegally bought and sold babies and falsified documents. If she didn’t pay up, she’d be reported to the authorities, who might deport her son.

  Mary had confirmed via the Internet that the orphanage was being probed by its home country. She’d spotted Vickers Investigations in the phone book and asked him to find the extortionist. At first, she’d only wanted to persuade the man to accept a lesser amount because of her financial status, but he had pointed out that if she yielded once, more demands might follow.

  He’d suggested contacting the police and putting a trace on her line, but she’d refused, even though he’d assured her the police had neither the authority nor the desire to take away the baby. She’d become so distraught that he hadn’t pressed the issue. Besides, the blackmailer, who’d been smart enough to scramble his voice, would almost certainly be using an untraceable phone.

  Instead, Mary had begged Kevin to try to track down the blackmailer by other means and threaten him with prosecution. He’d agreed, although he’d warned that if the call had originated from another country, there wasn’t much he could do.

  The extortionist had allowed her until Friday to come up with the funds. That made for a week to catch him.

  Kevin had quoted Mary the lowest rate on his pay scale; he always gave people a break if they won his sympathy. He’d also been known to bill a little extra on occasion for a bad attitude.

  She’d insisted that under no circumstances should he notify the authorities. Kevin had agreed, as long as he didn’t have to violate any laws.

  He’d decided to start his fieldwork by paying a surprise visit to Dr. Joseph Abernathy, now retired as a gynecologist, to ask about his still-practicing partner, Dr. Randolph Graybar, and their involvement in the baby ring. He hoped to find out how the blackmailer might have gained access to information about adoptive families.

  He circled the block, alert for any suspicious activity. Even in an apparently peaceable community, taking heed of details could mean the difference between life and death.

  Kevin had no illusions about the potential for danger. Thanks to California’s stiff restrictions on concealed-gun permits, he was about to walk unarmed into a meeting with a man who might be either an innocent bystander or a blackmailing baby seller. He hadn’t even been able to arrange for backup. Although his agency was profitable enough to bring in a second detective, he’d had no luck finding anyone qualified.

  As he made a second circuit of the block, a gray van passed him going the other way. The bright June sunlight showed two shapes in the front seat, but Kevin couldn’t make out any details.

  He parked half a block beyond the house to avoid attracting attention. His midpriced white sedan contrasted with the expensive models around it, but at least he’d had the car washed and detailed.

  When he got out, he could smell the ocean less than a mile away. He heard a dog barking and noted that it was too far off to pose a threat.

  On the short walk to Abernathy’s house, a red sports car with a bent antenna and a back seat crammed with junk caught Kevin’s eye. He guessed it belonged to a kid home from college, although not the doctor’s. According to his bio on the Web, his two children had long ago reached adulthood.

  The walkway that bisected Dr. Abernathy’s lawn ascended in a series of steps past flowering bushes to an entrance secluded beneath an arched cover. About to mount the porch, Kevin froze at the scraping sound of the latch opening. He’d come too close to duck out of sight. He’d have to brazen it out.

  “I’m grateful to you for talking to me and I’m sorry if you took it the wrong way,” said a smoky female voice that stroked his sensibilities like black velvet. He’d heard the voice before. “I assure you, I have no intention of printing anything until I learn all the facts.”

  Onto the porch emerged a willowy figure he had no trouble identifying even though he hadn’t seen her in several years. A breeze fanned her chestnut hair and, although she was glancing back at someone, he knew her eyes appeared slate-colored indoors but jade in sunlight.

  Kevin’s mouth twisted at his foolishness. Alli Gardner had always irritated him with her refusal to lay off when he didn’t care to discuss a case. As far as he was concerned, her eyes might as well be mustard yellow.

  Before he had time to wonder what brought her here, she stumbled into him. As his hands closed around her upper arms, he felt the pressure of her thigh against his and caught a flash of mirth on her generous mouth.

  “Well, well,” said the reporter, “if it isn’t my favorite dick.”

  Behind her in the doorway appeared a man in his seventies. “Who are you?’ he demanded.

  “Kevin Vickers, private investigator.” Setting Alli firmly away from him, he dispensed one of his cards. “I’d appreciate a few words with you, Doctor.”

  Abernathy’s frown deepened. “I’m not talking to you and I shouldn’t have talked to her. Whatever you think is going on, it doesn’t involve me.”

  “I’m here on behalf of one of your former patients,” Kevin said. “I’m sure you’d be concerned if you knew…”

  He halted, registering the sudden acceleration of an engine on the street. Before he could react on his instinctive sense of danger, a sharp crack! rang out.

  “In!” Grabbing Alli, he pushed her and the doctor into the foyer and slammed the door. The last thing he observed was a gray van disappearing around the corner.

  “Is somebody shooting at us? Nobody’s hurt, are they?” The reporter spared a glance at both men before adding, “That was amazing! Like something out of a movie!” Her face had the feverish look he’d seen on rookie cops whose adrenaline rush overwhelmed their common sense.

  He’d been wrong about Alli, Kevin reflected. She wasn’t just a loudmouthed annoyance. She was a pain in the neck who would likely get killed.

  “A car backfired,” the doctor said, although he sounded breathless. “I’m sure that’s all.”

  Did he believe that or was he trying to avoid summoning the police? “Sir, it sounded like a gunshot to me,” Kevin replied.

  “Serene Beach doesn’t have drive-by shootings,” the doctor insisted.

  Kevin could hardly argue, since he didn’t intend to call the police. As for Alli, she stood observing the two of them as cheerily as if she were watching a sitcom.

  He returned to his purpose for coming here. “Doctor, you may have information that could help one of your former patients, a woman who’s already suffered more than her share of tragedy.”

  “As I said, I’m not interested in talking to you.” Sharply, the doctor add
ed, “I don’t wish to be disturbed again, by anyone.”

  This seemed like a strong reaction for a man convinced he’d only heard a car backfire, Kevin thought sardonically. “Suppose I told you that a child’s future depends on it?”

  “Some people will say anything to get what they want.” The man regarded him stonily. “Both of you—out of here, now!”

  Alli quirked an eyebrow without commenting. The doctor’s hostility didn’t faze her. It didn’t inspire her to move toward the door, either.

  Kevin knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of her persistence. His sympathies lay with the doctor.

  “Please keep my card.” He would have liked to mention his client’s name, but Alli’s presence dissuaded him. “Whoever fired that shot—and it was a shot—knows where you live. They could come back.”

  “I’m not going to waste time worrying about someone with carburetor problems, and, unless you’re a mechanic, you shouldn’t, either.” The doctor opened the door, but, Kevin observed, he stayed clear of the gap. “Don’t bother me again. And that interview was off the record, young lady.”

  “Too late to change your mind!” she sang out, and scurried away.

  Kevin kept his voice low as he put in one last plea. “My client is a widow, she can’t afford to pay blackmail and she doesn’t want to lose her son. Think about it.” He followed Alli onto the porch.

  As the latch clicked behind them, he noted a black-and-white cruising along the street, apparently on routine patrol. Even if the officer hadn’t received a report of gunfire, his presence made the shooter’s return unlikely.

  Kevin surveyed the front of the house for a bullet hole and examined the ground for a casing, without success. He would have liked to retrieve some evidence, even if he couldn’t make immediate use of it, but either the bullet was buried somewhere or the shooter had fired a warning shot, trying to frighten rather than injure.

  Regardless, he wondered how the assailant had found them and how far he—or they—would go to stop this investigation. Kevin hoped the doctor had been right about a car backfiring.

  Alli waited for him on the walkway, her head cocked and one hand on her hip. A silky pantsuit skimmed her body. “Looks like we’re working the same case, Detective.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.” As he moved past, she fell in beside him. Had he really expected her to give up that easily? Kevin mused.

  “Illegal adoptions and blackmail. Sound familiar?” she asked.

  “I’m looking for missing medical records,” he improvised. “They’re for a lawsuit against an insurance company.”

  “Yeah, sure.” She paused beside the red sports car, then apparently thought better of it and kept pace with Kevin. “We ought to share what we know. It might help us both.”

  “My work is confidential.” He clicked open his lock.

  She produced a creased business card, crossed off the newspaper’s name and wrote a phone number on the back. “I’m freelancing these days. Here’s my cell number.”

  He made no move to take the card. “What happened to your job?”

  “It didn’t give me enough scope.” She proffered the card again. He ignored it.

  “I’m about as likely to call you as Dr. Abernathy is to call me,” he told her.

  Reaching past his jacket lapels, she tucked it into his shirt pocket. Through the fabric, her fingers left a warm imprint against his chest. “Exactly my point, Detective. I’ve got a half-hour taped interview with him, and that’s your best chance of hearing what he has to say. Think about it.”

  With a wave, she headed to her car. Stopping beside it, she mouthed the words “Call me!” before slipping inside.

  Kevin gritted his teeth. He had other people to contact. Maybe he’d get back to her…but only if he ran out of leads.

  And assuming someone didn’t put a bullet through one of them first.

  Chapter Two

  Transcribing the interview with Dr. Abernathy took most of the afternoon. Until now, Alli hadn’t spent much time working in her studio apartment, and the noise from the pool outside proved distracting.

  Also, she kept pausing as she mentally replayed the interview and, especially, the scene at the end, which wasn’t on the tape. She still couldn’t believe someone had shot at her, but the more she considered it, the less she bought the idea of a backfire.

  In retrospect, too, that gray van struck her as familiar. She must have seen it near the office earlier without paying much attention.

  She wished she had someone to discuss this with, but the only person who came to mind was Kevin Vickers. In fact, he came to mind a little too often.

  She had to admit he was sexy. A woman couldn’t help admiring a tall, dark, moody kind of guy, one with a freshly laundered scent and a muscular build, could she?

  Alli pictured herself grabbing him by the tie, tumbling him backward across a bed and ripping off those starched garments. Breaking down that prickly exterior and transforming him into a lusty male animal would be much more fun than arguing with him. However, it didn’t appear she would have the chance to do either.

  At last she finished the transcription. She had to write on her laptop because it was all she had, but she didn’t dare dial up to the Internet to look for a job or check out Dr. Graybar’s background because Payne would be able to trace her every move. Just thinking about him made her blood pressure soar.

  First chance she got, she was going to take her computer in to be debugged, Alli resolved. In the meantime, she didn’t plan to let fear isolate her in this small apartment.

  She dug through papers strewn across her thrift-store desk. Surely somewhere in the pile lurked a coupon from the local copy shop, which rented computers with Internet access. Although the library also had a few, they were almost always busy.

  The coupon eluded her. Alli did find a half-price sandwich deal from the Black Cat Café, a nearby hangout. It was after five o’clock and her stomach sounded a warning growl. Okay, she’d make the sandwich her first order of business and then she’d draw on her limited funds to surf some job-related Web sites at full price.

  Besides, she was feeling stifled in the bland unit with its worn carpeting and tiny kitchenette. If she’d bothered to do more than hang a few posters on the wall, that might have helped, but a used foldout sofa, a tired bureau and a scarred coffee table didn’t exactly brighten the place.

  As she drove, Alli’s thoughts returned to the phone call she’d received yesterday morning. Rita Hernandez had sounded angry and frightened at the same time as she’d described how a caller had tried to extort twenty thousand dollars from her to keep silent about the supposedly illegal adoption of her four-year-old daughter.

  “I don’t even know if it’s true!” she’d protested. “But how can I go to the police? I’ve read about cases like this. If there’s anything hinky about how a baby was acquired for adoption, even though the person had nothing to do with it, sometimes immigration insists on sending the child back to complete strangers.”

  Although only thirty-nine, she had chronic health problems that precluded a pregnancy, she’d explained. She and her husband had been turned down by adoption agencies because they feared her ailments would interfere with parenting. However, that hadn’t proved to be the case.

  “We love our daughter and she loves us,” she’d said tearfully. “Then this jerk calls and demands twenty thousand dollars. We’re struggling to pay the rent and health insurance. He’s given us a week to come up with the money, but it’s impossible. What are we supposed to do?”

  Alli had jumped at the chance to help her. Also, she saw a story here that went beyond Rita’s personal situation. The doctors who’d arranged for the adoption must have helped lots of other couples. Were they being blackmailed, too? If so, by whom?

  During the interview, Dr. Abernathy had appeared dismayed to learn that the orphanage might be operating illegally and seemed horrified about the blackmail. Although Alli wasn’t thrilled at the way
he’d clammed up at that point, she tended to believe in his innocence.

  She wished Kevin weren’t so pigheaded about pooling their resources. It simply made sense, from her point of view. But he’d always had a hardheaded attitude toward the news media.

  Inside the Black Cat, Alli’s senses took a moment to adjust to the dim lighting and the chatter bouncing off hardwood surfaces. Once she could see, she spotted a couple of familiar faces. The café was popular with the Outlook staff.

  People nodded in her direction, but no one waved her over to a table as they might have done a few days before. The reason was obvious: J. J. Morosco and Ned Jacobson sat in one corner, having drinks.

  Judging by the printouts and charts littering their table, she guessed the two editors were reviewing plans for the news operation. The other staff members must be afraid that their jobs, too, would go on the chopping block.

  Luckily, she didn’t have to worry about supporting a family, Alli reflected as she waited at the take-out counter. That was one of the many advantages of staying single and child-free.

  She was ordering pastrami on rye when Larry emerged from the café’s back room with another photographer, Bob Midland. Noting the editors, he muttered, “I’ll wait for you outside.”

  “You got it,” Alli said. As the counterman rang up her bill, the managing editor glanced her way. “Hi, J.J.,” she called breezily. “How’s it hanging?”

  The entire room fell silent. Ned averted his face.

  “Fine,” the M.E. answered politely.

  “See you around.” After paying for her order and collecting the takeout sack, she strolled outside.

  Alli had learned long ago that the best way to handle an awkward situation was to tough it out. During her school days, her cocky attitude might have alienated some teachers, but it had rallied her spirits while she moved around the country with her mother, a graphic artist whose jobs were often temporary.