"That address says Chicago."
"That's where I lived until recently. Come on, you must have seen my name on the mailbox over yours. The landlord's name is Rick Shrader. I can give you his phone number. Help me out here."
She stared at him doubtfully, then the baby let out a howl of protest. A second later the woman released the chain and opened the door, allowing Matt his first full glimpse of his neighbor. Barefoot, in faded blue jeans, a short-cropped bright yellow sweater, and a lacy white veil, she made quite an impression. But it wasn't just her crazy attire that caught him off guard, it was her gold-flecked brown eyes and the sun-streaked blond hair that cascaded halfway down her back when she self-consciously pulled off her veil.
"It's not what you think," she murmured.
"I wasn't going to ask."
She gave him an embarrassed half smile. "Good."
"So, wedding night fantasy with the boyfriend?"
"I thought you weren't going to ask."
"Sorry."
She stepped around him and knelt down next to the baby. "Oh, you sweet little thing. Who are you?"
The baby began to cry louder, tiny fingers closing into fists as it squirmed in its seat.
"I think it wants to get out," Matt said.
The woman undid the straps and slowly pulled the baby into her arms, a somber expression in her eyes as she looked at the infant, then at him. "Are you telling me that this baby was just left here in the hall?"
"It sure looks that way."
"I don't understand."
Matt shrugged. He certainly didn't have an explanation.
"She's so precious," the woman murmured as the baby nuzzled into her chest.
Matt cleared his throat as he realized he was staring at his neighbor's breasts with fascination, and she was once again regarding him with suspicion.
"Are you sure you don't know who she is?" the woman asked.
"I wasn't even sure it was a she."
"Pink sleeper, pink blanket, pink socks. I think it's safe to say she's a girl. Maybe one of your girlfriends left her for you."
Matt stiffened. "No way. That baby is not mine. I can guarantee you that."
The woman patted the baby's behind. "One thing is for sure. She's soaking wet. You should change her."
"Or you. After all, she's in the middle of the hallway, maybe even closer to your door than to mine." He inwardly groaned at his lame comment. "Didn't you hear her crying? Why didn't you open your door?"
"I was listening to music. I didn't hear a thing," she explained. "Fine, I'll change her, but you're not going anywhere," she added as she saw him edging toward his apartment.
She stood up with the baby in her arms. "Rick Shrader did tell me you were an okay guy, so I guess you can come in. But I'm warning you I've taken self-defense. So don't think you can try anything with me."
Matt had to bite back a smile. She was barely five foot three if she was an inch. He had almost a foot on her, and he didn't doubt for a second that he couldn't take her anywhere he wanted to go. But judging by the fierce expression in her eyes, he'd be better off agreeing, so he simply held up his hand in submission.
"All right, but you know Tae Bo aerobics doesn't really qualify for self-defense," he drawled.
"Just bring the car seat and the bag with you."
Matt followed her into her apartment, expecting to see something similar to his place, something clean and utilitarian with perhaps a feminine touch. What he saw was sheer chaos, layers and layers of white fabrics, silks and satins adorning the couch and the love seat, spools of threads, stacks of lace, a sewing machine in one corner, and a mannequin in the other. There were bridal magazines on the coffee table, boxes of pearls and beads, and swatches of ribbons on the floor in a discarded heap. It was a single man's nightmare. Maybe that was it. Maybe he'd fallen asleep on his feet. Maybe he was dreaming.
"I have to wake up," he said. "Just wake up."
She stared at him uncertainly. "Have you been drinking?"
"No."
"Really? You look like you have a hangover."
"I haven't had much sleep the last three days. I've been too busy pulling a city official's hand out of the till. You can read about it in the morning paper, by the way."
"Oh, I don't get the newspaper," she said with an offhand toss of her head.
"You don't get the paper?" Everyone got the paper. It was part of life, a ritual as important as eating and drinking and sleeping. "Why don't you get the paper?"
"The news depresses me. Can you see if there is a diaper in that bag?"
"The news may be depressing, but it's important. How can you manage your life if you don't read the paper, if you don't know what is going on in the city you live in, the world that surrounds you?"
She cleared her throat. "Okay, I lied. I read the paper every morning."
"Now, you are lying. What is wrong with you?" He didn't understand how anyone could not read the newspaper.
"Right now I'm holding a stinky baby. That's what's wrong with me. Did you find that diaper yet?"
Matt set the bag down on the floor and dug through it, wishing he'd never come home at all. He'd been looking forward to peace and quiet, some downtime after the stress of the last few days, but here he was right back in the middle of somebody else's mess. Relieved to find a disposable diaper in the bag, he pulled it out and handed it to her.
She cleared off the end of one couch and laid the baby down, then quickly changed her. She didn't seem to have any problem with the baby's flailing legs and arms or the shrill crying that continued until she fixed the last piece of tape.
"You look like you've done that before," he commented.
"A few times. I baby-sat when I was a teenager." She picked the baby up and offered her to him. "Do you want to hold her now?"
"No. No." He shoved his hands into his pockets and took a step back, almost tripping over a large spool of lace.
"Sorry about that." She gave the spool a nudge with her foot. "I'm on deadline."
"For what? Are you getting married in the morning?"
"I'm doing the alterations on a wedding dress. I have a bridal shop on Union Street. Devereaux's is the name. Do you know it?"
"I don't make a habit of knowing where the nearest bridal shop is."
She offered him the first genuine smile he'd seen all night. "I bet you don't."
"What is your name anyway?"
"Caitlyn Devereaux."
"So why isn't all this stuff at your shop?"
"Because Tiffany Waterhouse moved up her wedding date. It turns out she's pregnant, and she absolutely cannot go down the aisle looking like a watermelon -- her words, not mine. I brought her dress home to finish because she's getting married at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning instead of in four weeks as she'd originally planned. And her family is very well connected, so I don't want to disappoint her."
Matt looked at the yards and yards of material draped over the couch. "She must be really fat."
"That's just her train, a six-foot trail of lace that goes down the aisle after her," she added at his blank expression. Caitlyn moved the baby from one shoulder to the other. "She still isn't happy. I wonder if she's hungry."
"I wonder who she is."
"We should call the police."
"I suppose." Even as he agreed, he felt the same prickly uneasiness he'd experienced earlier. Why would anyone leave a baby in his hallway?
"She's so young," Caitlyn murmured, caressing the baby's head with her fingers. "She can't be more than two months old. How could anyone just put her down and walk away? Especially her mother." She shook her head in bewilderment. "How could they do that?"
Matt had a hundred answers, but there was something about Caitlyn -- an innocence, maybe -- that made him instinctively want to shield her. Hell, it probably had something to do with all the white lace in the room.
Before he could reply, Caitlyn walked up to him and pushed the baby against his chest. "Hold her for a second. I want to look through that bag and see if I can find a bottle or instructions or something."
Before Matt could protest, he found himself wrapping his arms around a tiny baby who felt so small, so fragile in his arms, he thought he might break her. And when the baby began to squirm and whimper, Matt awkwardly shifted his feet and patted her back. He looked to Caitlyn for relief, but she was still digging through the diaper bag.
"Hey, I could use some help here," he said.
"I found some formula ... and a bottle," she added triumphantly, holding it up like a trophy. "A little water, and I think we can make her a lot happier."
Matt followed her into the adjacent kitchen. No way was she leaving him alone with the baby. He found her kitchen to be as chaotic as the living room -- cookie jars with faces on them, pasta noodles in colorful glass containers, magnets of every shape imaginable on the refrigerator, and a couple of potted plants on the windowsill, some looking half dead despite the freshly watered soil. Apparently, Caitlyn didn't like to throw anything away.
With the clashing bursts of color, the room felt warm and cozy, inviting. Probably too inviting, Matt decided. Definitely too inviting, he added silently as Caitlyn came over to him. As she put the bottle into the baby's mouth, her blond hair drifted against his chest and arm. She was so close he could smell flowers in her hair and mint in her breath, then her breasts grazed against his arm as she maneuvered the bottle in the baby's mouth, and his heart skipped a beat. Her femininity called out to him like a siren, and he felt his body harden, a completely unwelcome reaction considering the fact that he was holding a baby and Caitlyn was a perfect stranger. Perfect being a big part of the problem.
"Here you go, sweetie," Caitlyn cooed. 'Take a sip. There's a good girl."
"Don't you want to hold her?" Matt asked, feeling more uncomfortable by the second.
Caitlyn hesitated, then said, "I don't think so."
"Are you sure you don't know who this baby is?" he asked her again as they returned to the living room.
"Of course I don't. Why would you ask that?"
"She seems to like you."
"Well, I'm a nice person. Babies can sense goodness."
"Then I must be a nice person, too. She's not crying anymore."
"We'll have to see how she feels about you when she's done sucking on her bottle," she said with a wry smile. She knelt down on the floor next to the diaper bag and began searching through it, much the way he had done a few minutes before.
"There's no note in the bag. I already looked," he told her.
After a minute, Caitlyn sat back on her heels and frowned. "What mother leaves her baby without even a note?"
Matt pulled the bottle out of the baby's mouth as she stopped sucking and appeared to be done. "What do I do with her now?"
"Put her over your shoulder and pat her back until she burps."
"I think you ought to do that."
"Fine. Let me grab her blanket. She might be getting cold." As Caitlyn pulled the baby blanket from the straps of the car seat, something fluttered to the ground.
"Oh!" She reached for the piece of paper, then looked into Matt's eyes. "There is a note."
Matt felt his body tense. "What does it say?" he asked shortly, having trouble getting the words out of his mouth. He had a bad feeling about this -- a very bad feeling.
Caitlyn read silently, the tension growing with each passing second.
"What the hell does it say?" he demanded.
She looked up at him through troubled eyes. "Someone named Sarah wants you to take care of her baby."
"Sarah." He breathed her name like a long-forgotten scent.
"Who is Sarah?"
He stared at Caitlyn, knowing she'd asked him something, but he couldn't concentrate, couldn't focus. Sarah? How could it be? He remembered the eerie sensation he'd felt walking up to the apartment building, as if someone was watching him. And the phone call, the woman's voice ... had it been Sarah? My God! Had she actually been standing outside his apartment?
Matt strode across the room, thrust the baby into Caitlyn's arms, then dashed out the door.
"Hey, where are you going?" Caitlyn cried. "You can't leave me with your baby."
San Francisco-1952
The fire started easily, a small spark, a whisper of breath, and the tiny flame leaped and crackled. It slid quickly down the length of rope, growing in size and beauty with each inch it consumed. It wasn't too late to stop it, to have second thoughts. A fire extinguisher was nearby. It would take just a second to grab it and douse the small flames. But the fire was so beautiful, mesmerizing -- gold, red, orange, black -- the colors of the dragons that had promised so much: prosperity, love, good health, a second chance, a new start.
The fire began to pop, the small sounds lost in the constant boom of firecrackers going off in the streets of San Francisco in celebration of the Chinese New Year. No one would notice another noise, another spark of light, until it was too late. In the confusion of the smoke and the crowds, the dragons and the box they guarded would disappear. No one would ever know what had really happened.
The flame reached the end of the gasoline-soaked rope and suddenly burst forth in a flash of intense, deadly heat. More explosions followed as the fire caught the cardboard boxes holding precious inventory and jumped toward the basement ceiling. A questioning cry came from somewhere, followed by the sound of footsteps running down the halls of the building that had once been their sanctuary, their dream for the future, where the treasures of the past were turned into cold, hard cash.
The cost of betrayal would be high. They would be brothers no more. But then, their ties had never been of blood, only of friendship -- a friendship that some would think had died this night of fire, but in truth had died much earlier.
There was only one thing left to do, grab the dragons and their box of secrets. The back door offered an escape route. The wall of fire would prevent anyone from seeing the truth. No one would ever know who was responsible.