Unbreakable Bond (4 page)

Fortunately she didn't seem to notice.

“Where do we start?” she asked.

Reining in his sudden bout of lust, he forced his mind back to the case. “I'll put out some feelers across the States, search the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Web site, check into adoptions that occurred around the time of the fire. I'll question nurses, hospital staff and other locals at the scene that night.” He hesitated. “I'll also have to question your father, and William Hood and his family.”

“They won't be happy that I've opened this up again,” Nina said.

Slade shrugged. He already didn't like her father or the Hoods. “I don't give a damn who I piss off, Nina. I'm on the case now, and I will find out exactly what happened to your baby girl.”

He just hoped to hell she could handle the truth when he did.

Fatigue from dredging up the past pulled at Nina, but hope fluttered wildly in her chest. Slade would be opening up old wounds between her and her father, and her and the Hoods, but she'd survived their disdain before and she would again.

At least someone was finally going to ask questions.

“Does your father live in town?” Slade asked.

“No, he's in Raleigh.” She gave him her father's contact information, including his work number at the bank. “I'm out of school for the summer and want to accompany you when you talk to him.”

He arched a brow. “Are you sure that's a good idea?”

No, but she wanted to see her father's reaction. “I can handle it.”

He gave a clipped nod. “What about William and his family?”

“They're in Winston-Salem. William took over his father's law practice there.”

Slade jotted down the name of the firm, then ran his hand through his hair. “What was the name of the doctor who delivered your baby?”

Fresh pain burned her stomach at the mere mention of his name. The delivery had been harrowing enough, but he had been a strong proponent of adoption. “Dr. Don Emery.”

“Does he still live and practice in Sanctuary?”

“Yes, I think so, although I haven't seen him in months. I tried to talk to him several times, but like everyone else, he encouraged me to move on.”

Slade's mouth tightened slightly. “I know this is difficult, but think back to the night of the delivery and the day after. Did you notice anything strange, anyone suspicious at the hospital?”

“God, I was so scared that night and was in such a panic, that I don't remember much. Just that I knew my baby was coming too early, and that I was afraid for her.”

“You were in labor?”

She nodded. “I'd developed complications. They rushed me to the operating room and took her immediately.” Her heart quickened at the memory. “She wasn't breathing at first, and they had to give her oxygen. She was so tiny and weak that I didn't know if she'd make it…”

His eyes held compassion as she paused to pull herself together.

“What about the next day? Did you notice someone watching the nursery, looking at the babies?”

Nina massaged her temple as she struggled to force the details of the hospital stay to the surface. “Not that I recall.”

“Did anyone make an odd comment to you about keeping the baby?”

Nina grimaced. “Dr. Emery agreed with my father and encouraged me to give Peyton up for adoption. They both thought that she needed two parents. A couple of nurses also mentioned that adoption might be a good idea.”

“Do you remember those nurses' names?”

Nina rubbed her temple again. “I don't know last names, but one nurse was Jane and the other Carrie. I saw both of them outside the hospital after the fire, but they claimed they didn't know where Peyton was.”

Slade frowned. Was it possible someone had taken the baby from the nursery before it caught on fire?

 

S
LADE BIT BACK HIS
thoughts. He hated offering Nina false optimism.

“So where do we start?” she asked.

Slade checked his watch. “It's already getting late. I'll start putting out contacts on the Internet tonight, call a couple of friends who might be able to help look into the adoption angle, and drop by the hospital and see if the administrator and Dr. Emery are there.” He paused. “Tomorrow I'd like to talk to your father and meet the Hood family.”

Nina gripped the armrest. “Let's get started.”

Slade sighed. “Nina, why don't you go home tonight and rest.”

“No,” she said in a pleading tone. “I know this is difficult for you to understand, but I feel…lost in that house alone right now.”

Hell, the trouble was he
did
understand. He knew how the silence could eat at you, how a person's absence could feel like part of you had been ripped out. How the walls could scream at you with recriminations.

“All right,” he said gruffly. “But remember, we may not find anything.”

She took another sip of water, then wiped her mouth. “Thanks. I appreciate your candor.”

“Let me talk to Derrick, then we'll head to the hospital.” He stood, then strode down the hall to McKinney's office.

Derrick was on the phone when he knocked, but ended the call and gestured for him to enter.

“I need to ask you a favor,” Slade said bluntly.

Derrick pointed to the chair beside his desk. “You're taking on the case for Nina Nash?”

Slade took the chair. “Yes.”

Derrick frowned. “You know that baby may not have survived.”

Slade's gut knotted. “I know. But after hearing Nina's story, it's possible that someone could have kidnapped the baby in the chaos.”

Derrick folded his arms. “What can I do to help?”

“Talk to your wife, Brianna, for me.”

Derrick arched a brow. “How do you know Bri?”

“I lived at Magnolia Manor when I was a teenager for a while. We met there. I heard she's a social worker now with an adoption agency.”

The realization of where he was headed dawned in Derrick's eyes. “She was,” Derrick said. “But she's taken a leave of absence to stay home with the baby.”

“But Brianna has contacts, right?” Slade asked.

“Probably.” Derrick narrowed his eyes. “You know that adoption records are sealed?”

“Yes, but Brianna must have a friend who can look back through files quietly. Nina's baby was premature,
and had trouble breathing. Handling an adoption for a preemie with medical problems would be tricky—and memorable.”

“That's true,” Derrick said. “I'll talk to her and see if she can help.”

“Let me know if she finds a lead and I'll look into it.”

Derrick agreed, and Slade thanked him and headed back to his office.

Nina was waiting when he returned, and she sat quietly as they drove to the hospital. That quiet strength roused his protective instincts.

Worse, her scent, some sweet fruity fragrance, stirred his desires.

But he tamped them down. Nina Nash was a case, nothing more. Slade would never give his heart to a woman. Loving and losing was too damn hard.

First his mother and sister. Then his men…all the people he'd cared about and failed.

He veered into the hospital parking lot and parked, and they walked silently inside. He introduced himself to the receptionist. “Is your hospital administrator in?”

She frowned and checked the schedule. “Dr. Lake has gone home for the day. He'll be in tomorrow at nine.”

“How about Dr. Emery?”

She punched in a number, spoke into the phone then turned to them. “He's with a patient, but you can go to his office on the second floor and wait there.”

“Thanks.” Slade coaxed Nina to the elevator, noting the tense way she held her shoulders. When they passed the nursery, grief and a wistfulness settled in her blue
eyes. Newborns filled the bassinets; pink and blue blankets indicating the gender, while a young couple stood goo-goo-eyed, waving at their son through the window.

The intensive-care part of the unit was housed in a separate room beside the regular nursery, and one tiny infant plugged with tubes and wires lay inside an incubator, kicking wildly.

“He's a fighter,” Nina said softly as she paused for a moment to watch. “Just like Peyton.”

He pressed a hand to her back in comfort, and she stiffened slightly, then inhaled and moved on down the hall to Dr. Emery's office.

Slade surveyed the room as they stepped inside. Medical journals and books overflowed a wall-to-wall bookshelf behind a massive cherry desk that was neat and orderly.

Nina slid into a chair, but Slade stood with his arms folded and studied the man's credentials on the wall between the windows. UNC. Duke. A third wall held a bulletin board decorated with photos of children he'd delivered.

“Is your baby's photo here?” he asked.

Nina's shoulders stiffened as she shook her head. He gritted his teeth, regretting the question. Some people reacted to a person's death as if they'd never existed at all.

A minute later a bushy-haired, freckled man around five-eleven strode in. The moment he saw Nina, a frown swept across his craggy face. “Nina?”

“Yes, Dr. Emery, I'm back.” She gestured toward Slade. “This is Slade Blackburn. He's with Guardian Angel Investigations.”

Dr. Emery's eyes narrowed, his thick, graying eyebrows crinkling.

“I need to ask you some questions about the night of the hospital fire,” Slade said without preamble. “I want to know exactly what happened to Peyton Nash.”

 

N
INA TRIED TO STUDY
the doctor with an objective eye. But too many times he'd encouraged her to stop asking questions, so many that his dismissal of her had roused her suspicions.

“Honestly, Nina, you've hired another private investigator?” Dr. Emery asked, his tone reeking of exasperation.

“Yes, she has,” Slade said. “And I'd like to hear your version of what happened to Peyton.”

The doctor fiddled with the stethoscope around his neck, then sank into his office chair as if weary of her. “Nina knows exactly what happened, Mr. Blackburn, but she refuses to accept the truth, that her baby was lost in that fire.” His frown accentuated the deep grooves carved by age bracketing his mouth. “It was sad, horrific, tragic,” he continued. “But it happened.”

Slade simply stared at the man. “According to Nina, nurses rescued three other infants. Why not her baby?”

“That I don't know,” the doctor said. “I spoke with the nurses later, and they all agreed that the baby wasn't in the nursery when the fire broke out, that they thought she had been taken to another area for tests.”

“They told me they didn't know where she was,” Nina said, contradicting him.

A spark of temper darkened Dr. Emery's eyes. He shuffled a stack of papers on his desk, restacking them
in an attempt at stalling. “I didn't want to add to your distress at the time, Nina, but I had ordered heart tests for your infant. I suspected your baby had a hole in her heart as well as underdeveloped lungs, and that she wasn't going to make it.”

Nina's breath caught in her throat. “So she might have been somewhere else in the hospital, not in the unit when it burned down.”

“We've been over this,” Dr. Emery said as if talking to a child. “She did not survive.”

“How can you be so sure?” Slade asked. “Did forensics ever prove the infant was in the fire?”

Dr. Emery glared at Slade. “No, but the place, the ashes…it was impossible to identify all the bodies.”

“How about security tapes?” Slade asked.

“The explosion knocked them all out.” He sighed. “Mr. Blackburn, you're doing Miss Nash an injustice by dredging up the past and raising her hopes. She needs to let her daughter's death go so she can heal.”

Slade's jaw clenched. “You tried to persuade Nina to give up her baby for adoption, didn't you?”

The man curled his hand around a stress ball on his desk and squeezed it. “Yes. She was young, unemployed and single.”

“But she wanted to keep the baby,” Slade said.

“She was immature. And her father didn't intend to support her or the child. I was trying to think of the baby.
If
she made it,” he continued, “there would be medical bills, therapy.” He shot a condescending look at Nina. “Miss Nash was not equipped to handle those expenses, much less raise a handicapped child.”

“That was my problem, not yours,” Nina said bitterly.

Dr. Emery pushed away from his desk. “I was, as always, looking out for my patients.”

Slade slapped a fist on the desk. “Well, someone didn't look out for Peyton Nash that night, did they?”

Dr. Emery paced to the window, agitated. “You have no idea how traumatic it was. The hospital staff did everything possible to save the patients.”

Slade folded his arms. “And maybe you saw that chaos as an opportunity to take Peyton, to give her to someone else you deemed as a more appropriate parent. Or hell, maybe you sold her for the money.”

Hot fury heated the doctor's cheeks. “How dare you imply such slander. I have an impeccable reputation. And I've lived and worked here in Sanctuary all my life.”

Slade stood, towering over him. “I don't like the fact that you've stonewalled my client and dismissed her questions without adequately responding.”

“I have answered them, but Nina is obsessive and delusional,” Emery argued.

Nina flinched, but Slade continued, his voice cold and harsh, “I don't think so. And I don't intend to accept anything you say at face value or leave this case alone, not until all of our questions are answered to my satisfaction.” He gestured to Nina. “And if I find out that you withheld information or that you've been lying, I'll be back, and I will hold you responsible.”

Fear flashed in the doctor's eyes for the first time since Nina had known him. Was he afraid because Slade was right—did he know something that he wasn't telling them?

 

S
LADE GROUND HIS TEETH
as he and Nina left Dr. Emery's office. “Let's see if any of the nurses you mentioned are here.”

Nina nodded, and they walked to the nurses' station. “Excuse me,” Slade said. “Do you have a nurse named Carrie or Jane working here?”

A middle-aged dirty blonde with green eyes glanced up from the desk. “Yes, Carrie Poole, but she won't be in until tomorrow. And Jane is on vacation and won't be back until next week.”

“All right,” Slade said. “We'll be back tomorrow.”

“What do you think?” Nina asked as they exited the building and walked to his car.

“I don't know yet, Nina,” Slade said. “I don't like Emery, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's lying.”