Operation Bassinet Excerpt
Chapter One
Logantown, Pennsylvania
The lost Collingwood Hei
r
was alive and well and living beneath this roof.
Former L.A.P.D.
Detective Mitch Halloran stood on the front step of the modest house, a cold
spot forming in his stomach as he leaned on the doorbell.
He was dreading the
task ahead of him. He had to tell this family that their daughter wasn’t
theirs. That two female infants had been switched at birth. Whatever pride he
felt in proving himself right about the ransom note and the DNA sample that the
Find Riana Foundation had received eight days ago was lost in the sickening
reality that he was about to plunge this innocent family into a nightmare. With
the single-minded determination he’d learned from his grandfather who’d served
as a marine in the Korean War, Mitch told himself he’d make it all work out.
This wouldn’t be a repeat of the Lopez case. He’d do everything in his means to
get them back their own daughter.
Surely it wasn’t too
much to ask for two miracles.
The front door opened
and Mitch looked into one of the most appealing faces he’d ever seen. It
belonged to the woman he’d seen with Keely four days ago when he’d conducted
surveillance on the house to filch a sample of Keely’s DNA.
Eyes that were green
and gold and reminded him of a lucky marble his real dad had given him when he
was about six shimmered at him, laughter in their depths. A scattering of
freckles drifted across sexily curved cheekbones and dotted a nose that tilted
up at the end.
“What are you selling?”
she demanded, curling her hands into fists and planting them on her hips. She
was wearing a blue-and-green silky blouse that seemed kind of see-through and
Japanese and left him no doubts that she was wearing a skimpy blue bra
underneath. “I’m all yours if you’re hawking chocolate bars with almonds.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m
not soliciting. My name is Mitch Halloran and I’m the director of the--”
“No chocolate bars?”
she interrupted him, looking genuinely disappointed.
Mitch held out his
empty hands, his gut twisting at her cheery attitude. “Not a one. Sorry,
ma’am.”
“All right, then, what
do you want? I already signed one of the petitions for the new soccer fields.”
Mitch sighed. She
wasn’t making this easy. He handed her his business card. “Mrs. Shelton,
please. I’m the Director of the Find Riana Foundation. We’re searching for
Riana Collingwood, and I’d like to speak to you and your husband privately.
It’s very important.”
She snatched the card
from him, then held up her hand, palm out, like a traffic cop. “Stay here.” To
Mitch’s annoyance, she slammed the door in his face.
He sighed and leaned a
hip against the wrought-iron railing, wishing he hadn’t left his raincoat in the
car.
The chill of a November
wind bathed his cheeks, seeped into his chest. Mitch felt uncomfortably out of
place on this quiet street with its middle America working-class appeal. Having
grown up in a large metropolitan city, he hadn’t minded the noise and the pace
and the towering in-your-face size of New York City. But the tranquil
motion-picture perfection of this street bothered him.
Lights blazed in living
room and kitchen windows up and down the block. He could smell the scents of
meals lingering invitingly in the air. Halloween had come and gone. Fake
tombstones and bedraggled scarecrows populated the lush lawns and shreds of
gigantic spider webs and pieces of plastic skeletons dangled from bare tree
branches. It was nothing like the neighborhoods of stucco bungalows, concrete
driveways and parched yards he was used to in L.A.
Halloween was one of
the many holidays, along with Father’s Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas that he’d
grown to hate ever since Paddy, his grandfather, had died. The crime stats
always went up--murders, suicides, break-ins, robberies. He’d seen people
resort to desperate acts when the reality of their personal and family
situations failed to live up to the impossible expectations planted in their
minds by TV shows, movies and magazines.
Peace on earth.
Right. Most people would settle for peace in their own home a few nights a
week.
Holidays to Mitch were
a brutally painful reminder that he had no family.
The door opened behind
him. Mitch swung around. Stephanie Shelton had engaged the chain lock and was
eyeing him up and down suspiciously, a phone plastered to her ear.
“Turn around,” she said
to him.
“What?”
She made a circling
motion with her finger. “Turn around.” A tiny red heart was painted on her
fingernail.
“Hmm-hmph? No, not
Russell. I’d say more like Dennis--” she paused as Mitch
glowered at her. “Nice and . . . um, where did you work before you came to the
Foundation?” she asked sweetly.
Mitch propped a hand on
the door frame. “L.A.P.D.--the Robbery Homicide Division,” he replied, making
a mental note to have a little chat with the hot-line phone staff.
“It’s him.” The door
slammed in his face again. He heard the chain slip off, then the door popped
open. Mitch was annoyingly aware of the outline of her bra beneath that top.
Stephanie Shelton was slightly nutty and very hot. There was an intriguing line
of golden flesh visible between the hem of her shirt and the black leather belt
riding her hips. “Come in. The house is a mess, but that’s life.”
The house was not a
mess. It was lively and colorful and an irritatingly normal example of how
Mitch thought average nondysfunctional, middle-class families lived. He
followed her through an entryway cluttered with a child-size pair of red boots,
library books and Halloween decorations into a funky living room painted in
dramatic colors and furnished with a beige sofa piled with pillows and two
gargantuan armchairs. The armchairs covered in olive velvet made him think
someone had a grandmother who’d liked Victorian furniture. In an alcove off the
kitchen Mitch could see the child whose abandoned drinking cup he’d swiped the
other day--dancing along with a furry critter on the TV.
“Have a seat, Mr.
Halloran.”
“Is your husband home,
ma’am? I’d really like to speak to both of you.”
Those green and gold
eyes shone with dewy tears. “My husband died two years ago in a rock climbing
accident.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t
know,” Mitch said, caught off guard. The list of babies they’d been
investigating had been too long to do thorough background checks on each
family. They’d received confirmation from the lab about the DNA match less than
two hours ago.
He took a seat on the
sofa as Stephanie Shelton perched on the edge of one of those gargantuan chairs
and folded her arms across her chest, bringing even more attention to the color
of her bra beneath the transparent fabric of her blouse. “Why would someone
from the Find Riana Foundation want to talk to me? Wasn’t she the little girl
of that famous couple who were killed in an explosion last month?”
“Ma’am—”
“Please, stop calling
me that. Teachers and librarians swathed in polyester prints are ma’ams. My
name’s Stef.”
Mitch started to
sweat. Damn, she looked so defenseless--so your-best-buddy’s-younger-sister
nice. She’d already lost her husband. An image of her dancing around the
garbage can when he’d staked out her house four days ago, two fingers held up in
a two-point salute after she and Keely chucked a decaying jack-o’-lantern into
the can, shimmered vibrantly in his conscience.
His news was going to
kill her.
He cleared his throat
and told himself to remain unplugged from the drama. “Stef, are you aware of
the date Riana Collingwood was kidnapped?”
She frowned. “I think
it was the day after my daughter was born. I remember seeing it on the news a
couple of days after Keely and I were discharged and being relieved that we
weren’t still in the hospital. Of course, the Collingwood baby wasn’t born at
the same birthing center, but still, it made me nervous.” She shuddered. “I
couldn’t imagine how horrible it must be for that baby’s parents to have their
child taken like that. But I still don’t understand why you’re here. I didn’t
know the Collingwoods.” Her eyes were clearly puzzled.
In the other room Mitch
heard Keely singing a catchy tune about apples and bananas. He mentally cursed
a blue streak as the icy hole inside him bore painfully into his soul. There
was no way to put off saying the words that would change this woman’s life into
a living hell.
He laced his fingers
together. “Mrs. Shelton, I have evidence which leads me to believe that whoever
abducted Riana Collingwood switched her with your daughter.”
Stef Shelton started to
laugh. “This is a joke, right? My brother-in-law put you up
to it? He’s such a jerk--” The words died on her lips as her gaze met
his. Mitch looked steadily back at her, trying to stay as detached as possible,
while fear spontaneously combusted like twin gold flames in her eyes.
She wrapped her arms
around her middle as if trying to hold herself together. “Oh, my God! Oh, my
God! What are you saying?”
Mitch felt his stomach
catapult out of the wall of his torso and pass through a meat grinder as he
observed her every facial reaction, her every gesture, for the tiniest hint of
falseness. But there was none. His chest hurt as he drew in air and he
swallowed hard against the anger and the disgust that some lowlife scum had
destroyed this lovely young woman’s life.
She shook her head, her
eyes pleading with him. He steeled himself against a compelling urge to reach
out to her. The same type of sympathetic reaction that had had him unwisely
reaching out to Theresa Lopez two years earlier when her twelve-year-old
granddaughter had been kidnapped.
He’d seen his
grandfather in Theresa Lopez’s anxiety-lined face. Saw the thin fingers worked
to the bone to support a grandchild who was her sole reason for being. He’d
twisted himself inside out trying to bring Carmen home. But he’d lost precious
time chasing the wrong lead. By the time he’d realized his error and directed
searchers to the killer’s home, Carmen was dead and her killer, the
sixteen-year-old boy who did Theresa’s yardwork, had hung himself.
Theresa hadn’t deserved
to lose her granddaughter, nor did Stef Shelton deserve what had happened to
her. She probably helped old ladies across the street and baked cookies and
banana bread for her church’s bake sales.
“I wish to God I didn’t
have to tell you this, but that little girl in the other room is Riana
Collingwood. DNA tests have confirmed it.”
“DNA?” She glanced
toward the alcove, horror streaking her beautiful face like fissures in a broken
mirror. “What are you talking about? Keely’s my daughter! I labored thirty
hours bringing her into the world.” Her angry gaze shot back to him. “I should
know my own baby!”
Mitch struggled to
remain detached, with his fingers glued together, so he couldn’t give in to an
unprofessional impulse to offer a pair of arms to hold her up. She looked
whiter than a sheet of paper and about to crumple.
“There’s no mistake.
Riana’s family wants her back. I’m here to make sure that happens, and help you
find your daughter.”
