Authors: Alexa Grace
Lane purposely waited until midnight to visit the hospital where he thought Mandy delivered her baby. He knew there were fewer employees on the night shift and he might get one of them to talk about Mandy Morris. In addition, if he could find a birth certificate, he'd find the baby's father.
He headed toward the nurse's desk where two nurses worked on a computer. They were so intent, neither saw him approach their area. He watched the nurse closest to him. She looked like she was in her thirties with highlighted brown hair shaped into a bob. She wore glasses that kept sliding down her nose as she typed. Finally, she noticed him and jerked slightly in surprise. She rose and approached him. Her name tag read Danielle.
"I'm sorry I didn't notice you. I'm afraid visiting hours are over."
"Not a problem. I was enjoying watching you work, Danielle." Lane gave her his best flirtatious smile and was pleased to see her blush. He needed information from her that she was not supposed to give him and waiting weeks for a subpoena for Mandy's medical records was not an option. Lane pulled out his badge as well as Mandy Morris's photo.
"Do you remember this young lady? She gave birth about six weeks ago?"
She glanced at his badge then the photo. She lingered more than a second as she eyeballed the photo, frowning slightly, and biting her lower lip. In that moment, he knew from her body language she remembered Mandy. She looked nervously over her shoulder at the other nurse who was ending a phone call. A buzzer sounded from a patient's room and the other nurse responded she'd take care of it, and headed down the hall.
"Danielle, I think you recognize Mandy Morris. Why don't you tell me about it?"
"I'm sorry..."
"I'm Detective Lane Hansen. But you can call me Lane." He reached for her hand to shake and squeezed it gently sending another blush to her face. He shot her a reassuring smile. "Tell me about Mandy."
She glanced nervously over her shoulder obviously looking for the other nurse who was nowhere in sight. "I remember her. She had her baby boy here. One night I overheard her crying and I went to her room. I held that poor girl for fifteen minutes as she sobbed. She wanted to hold her baby and she said the day nurse told her it wasn't a good idea since she was giving him up for adoption. I went down to the nursery and brought him back to her. She rocked him back and forth on the bed for hours. I told her she could change her mind and keep him. She said she didn't think the adoption agency would let her."
"What's the name of the agency?" Lane asked as he pulled out his notepad.
"Forever Homes Adoption. They're a new agency here with their own clinic and everything."
"Did you see the baby's father? Did he visit her?"
"I don't think that poor child had any visitors."
"Danielle, I need the name of the baby's father."
"I can't give that to you. The privacy laws prevent me from..."
"She was murdered. The killer dumped her body like garbage in a wooded area. The baby's father may be her killer. I need to find him." He knew he was screwed if she didn’t give him the name. A subpoena for the records could take time he didn’t have.
Just as she was about to respond, the other nurse returned and sat in front of her computer. Danielle moved to a filing cabinet and pulled out a manila file folder. She looked at him with her index finger pressed against her lips, her eyes pleading with him not to say anything. She placed the file on the counter near him, opened it and pulled out a white sheet of paper. With her finger, she pointed to a section of the birth certificate that listed the baby's father — Billy James. Lane jotted the name in his notepad and smiled at her.
"Lane, it was nice talking to you." She patted his hand and glanced at the file as she closed it. "I hope you find what you're looking for."
Back at the Comfort Inn, he threw his jacket on the bed and opened his laptop to search for Billy James. He opened his driver's license database and found a Billy James, twenty years old, who listed an apartment address not far from the I.U. campus. Bingo. This had to be him.
He then went to Google where he spotted the entry that listed Billy James, I.U. student on Facebook. The profile photo matched the one from the driver's license database.
Lane clicked on the link and entered the Facebook world of Billy James. He looked at his photo albums, most of which included an intoxicated Billy toasting beer cans with his drinking buddies. Another album held several photos of Billy with a raven-haired young woman who wore a lot of makeup. Definitely not Mandy Morris.
He jotted down Billy's apartment address and planned a surprise visit. He'd learned that unexpected interrogations elicited the most information. He grinned. He was looking forward to it.
Frankie Douglas sat in her red sports car in a business parking lot next to a pizzeria on Kirkwood Avenue in Bloomington, watching the building with her camera within reach. Insurance scam assignments were lucrative for her small private investigation company and this one was turning out to be a gem. Her focus was Jerry Richards, a man who hadn't worked in three years and was living on his insurance company's disability checks. Her mission was to discover whether Mr. Richards was indeed physically disabled. Thus far, she had taken photographs of him mowing his lawn with a push mower, jogging around his neighborhood, playing basketball with his son, and wrestling with a large dog in his front yard. She'd followed him to Bloomington for some additional photographs before she met with the insurance company.
Frankie yawned and stretched as much as she could in her small car and daydreamed about the bills she'd pay off with the hefty check she'd get for this job. She poured a cup of coffee from her thermos and listened to the birds chattering to each other in oak trees lining the street. She pulled out the newspaper she'd plucked from her front porch earlier, and began reading a story on the front page about a young girl's body found in a wooded area near Kramer. It was a strange place to dump a body. The wooded area was near the old and the reportedly haunted Mudlavia Hotel located near Kramer. The hotel and spa had been built by a natural spring and in its day and served as a popular place to stay for the rich and famous. It was destroyed by fire in the 1920s, but haunted or not, that didn't stop curiosity seekers from visiting it throughout the years.
She noticed movement outside the restaurant and saw Jerry Richards lifting a keg of beer from the back of a Budweiser truck. She grabbed her red digital camera and got several shots of Jerry carrying the keg into the restaurant. Poor Jerry, too disabled to work, but able to lift and carry heavy beer kegs. Right. She chuckled to herself and went back to her newspaper. A couple more photographs and she'd head home. Not bad for a day's work and it wasn't even noon.
Taking another sip of coffee, she flipped to the local section. Suddenly her car door ripped open, and a large hand squeezed on her arm.
“Ouch, you’re hurting me.”
"Who are you?” A livid Jerry Richards leaned in just inches from her face. “Why are you taking pictures of me?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. Let go of my arm." She tried to pull her arm out of his grip, but he just squeezed harder and pulled her out of the car then pushed her against the side and waved his finger in front of her face.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" He rammed his index finger into her shoulder, pushing her against the car.
"Sir, please calm down." Though she was angry he was touching her, she used a soft tone of voice and spoke slowly in an effort to calm him. "I can see that you are upset about something."
"Damn right I am. I saw you taking pictures of me. I saw you!"
"Sir, if you must know, I'm a bird watcher and I was taking a photo of a White-Breasted Nuthatch that is nesting in that tree," she said as she pointed.
"Bullshit!" He screamed.
Lane steered his SUV down Kirkwood Avenue en route to Billy James's apartment. He'd just choked down two sausage and egg McMuffins and was toying with his GPS when he noticed a red sports car that looked just like the one belonging to Frankie Douglas. He shook his head. Great. Just great.
When I sleep, she haunts my dreams, now I'm imagining her while awake.
Why would she be this far from home? As he got closer, he saw a tall blonde woman being pinned against her car by a guy who looked like he'd been eating way too many donuts. The woman was gorgeous. The woman
was
Frankie.
He flipped on his emergency lights, squealed his brakes, shifted lanes, and did a U-turn at the next traffic light and raced back. By the time he slid his SUV behind her red sports car the guy was screaming and hammering her with his index finger. No freaking way.
He eased out of his car, removed his navy suit jacket, loosened his tie, and moved toward them. Frankie was talking calmly and seemed to have the situation somewhat in control so he paused when he reached the back of her car.
"Hand over the camera, bitch!"
It became obvious to Frankie that her calming methods weren't working and Mr. Jerry Richards was heading to the land of out-of-control.
"I am
not
giving you my camera."
Richards pushed her to the ground, then reached into her car, snatched her red digital camera off the passenger seat, and shoved it in his jeans pocket.
Frankie dusted herself off and stood to face him. "Unless you want to get arrested for theft, you'll give my camera back to me."
"Go to hell!" Richards shouted before he pushed Frankie hard against the car.
Before Lane could move, Frankie grabbed Richards's thumb bending back his wrist until he shrieked with pain. She jerked Richards's arm behind his back and dropped him to the ground. Still gripping his arm, she pushed her knee into his back to hold him in place.
Lane eased up next to her dangling a pair of handcuffs on his thumb. "Need these?"
She grabbed them from him and snapped them around Richards's wrists. "What are you doing here, Lane?"
"I'm on a case and I might ask you the same thing."
"On an assignment. Mr. Charming here has been bilking his insurance company for disability for the past three years. Does he look disabled to you?"
"No, I don't think so. And I think you can get off him now." Trying not to grin, he held her arm to help her to her feet.
"He has my camera in his pocket," said Frankie as she pointed toward his front jeans pocket.
"Sounds like theft. Do you want me to call it in?"
"Not sure."
"Let me up, you bitch, or you'll regret it." Richards squirmed and tried to roll over.
"Shut up!" Both Lane and Frankie barked in unison.
Lane pulled her to him with his arm around her waist and started picking leaves and sticks out of her hair.