Lullabies and Lies Read online

  She shoved him. “If you won’t help me, get out of my way!”

  In self-defense, Griff reached for her again, pinning her flailing arms to her sides.

  “Let go of me!”

  “Shh,” he whispered. “Shh. We’ll find her. We’ll save your baby. I swear.”

  He pulled her closer, his heart pounding at the feel of her supple body in his arms. He was bound by his badge to find her child, and he knew the best way to do that….

  “Emily needs me,” she whispered against his neck, her breath warm, her tears at first hot, then quickly cooling against his sensitized skin.

  Clenching his jaw, he gripped her upper arms and set her away from him.

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Are you letting me go?”

  He shook his head in defeat. “Sunny, I’ll help you… We’ll go together.”

  LULLABIES AND LIES

  MALLORY KANE

  For Denise Zaza

  With gratitude and respect

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mallory Kane took early retirement from her position as assistant chief of pharmacy at a large metropolitan medical center to pursue her other loves, writing and art. She has published and won awards for science fiction and fantasy as well as romance. Mallory credits her love of books to her mother, who taught her that books are a precious resource and should be treated with loving respect. Her grandfather and her father were both steeped in the Southern tradition of oral history, and could hold an audience spellbound with their storytelling skills. Mallory aspires to be as good a storyteller as her father. She loves romantic suspense with dangerous heroes and dauntless heroines. She is also fascinated by story ideas that explore the infinite capacity of the brain to adapt and develop higher skills.

  Mallory lives in Mississippi with her husband and their cat. She would be delighted to hear from readers. You can write to her c/o Harlequin Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

  Books by Mallory Kane

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  620—THE LAWMAN WHO LOVED HER

  698—HEIR TO SECRET MEMORIES

  738—BODYGUARD/HUSBAND

  *

  789—BULLETPROOF BILLIONAIRE

  809—A PROTECTED WITNESS

  *

  863—SEEKING ASYLUM

  *

  899—LULLABIES AND LIES

  *

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Sunny Loveless—This lovely private investigator believes in happy endings, until her six-month-old daughter is kidnapped. Now her baby’s life hangs on her ability to keep the kidnapper’s identity a secret.

  Griffin Stone—This FBI agent specializes in missing-child cases. He will die to save Sunny’s baby, with or without her help, but in his broken heart he knows there are no happy endings.

  Janie Gross—This plain Jane successfully operated a baby-selling ring for years, until Sunny started digging into her past.

  Bess Raymond—Jane’s old nanny has a secret, one she’d give her life to protect. Will she sacrifice Sunny’s baby rather than lose her own daughter?

  Hiram Cogburn—The down-on-his-luck ambulance chaser didn’t know what he was getting into when he agreed to help his former college buddy deflect Sunny’s investigation.

  Burt Means—Sunny’s testimony put her adopted baby’s biological father in prison, and Means is the type to hold a grudge. But how far will he go for revenge?

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Prologue

  0 hour

  Sunny Loveless laughed as Emily reached for the silver rattle. “Not now, sweet Emily Rose,” she said. “We’ll play Drop the Rattle when we get home. I have to pay the nice lady for the groceries.”

  Emily gurgled happily.

  The grocery clerk grinned. “So you get pureed peaches tonight, Emily? You are growing so much. Sunny, I swear she’s bigger every time I see her.”

  “Six months old last week,” Sunny said proudly.

  “It doesn’t seem that long since you brought her home.”

  Sunny smiled, remembering the day Emily became her daughter. “I know. She was so tiny. Not even a week old. My lawyer had everything arranged for the adoption by the time she was born.” She looked down at her happy baby. “Isn’t that right, Emily? Every little thing.”

  Sunny’s heart took flight when Emily smiled and waved her arms. Six months ago, she’d never have believed she could love so much. Her heart felt full to bursting.

  “Here you go.” The clerk handed Sunny her purchase. “I double bagged it for you. Be careful out there. That rain’s really coming down.”

  “I will. Thank you, Callie.”

  Sunny rolled the grocery cart to the rear door, slung the bag over her arm and unbuckled the infant safety seat from the grocery cart. Then she fished out her car keys and looked out at the dark wet parking lot. The streetlights were nothing more than pale circles through the downpour.

  “Okay, Emily. Let’s make a run for it.” She took a good grip on the infant seat and smiled at Emily before pulling the hood up to protect her from the rain.

  Shouldering the door open, she lowered her head and hurried toward her car, pressing the remote key lock. She threw open the rear door and tossed the grocery bag inside. Then she set Emily’s infant seat into the waiting car carrier and buckled the straps.

  Water dripped down her daughter’s face. She wiped it away. “Oh Emily, you’re soaked. We’ll have to take a bath when we get home, won’t we?”

  Sunny felt the rain intensify, driving through her cotton top and tailored slacks. She shivered. She was soaked, too.

  “Good thing it’s only a few blocks, right, sweetie?” She straightened and took a step backward to close the car door.

  A noise, barely audible over the roar of the rain, reached her ears. Shoes, crunching on gravel.

  She started to turn. Suddenly, something came down over her head, blinding her.

  She screamed and pushed at it.

  A blow to the back of her knees knocked her to the ground. She went down hard, scraping her palms and knees on the asphalt.

  “No!” she screamed, and gulped a mouthful of wet, smelly wool. She clawed at it, kicked, tried to fight the thing attacking her.

  Something slammed into the small of her back. She lost traction. Her hands and feet scraped along the asphalt as a bony knee forced her flat.

  Rough hands jerked the blanket away and grabbed her hair. Sunny couldn’t see because of the rain, but she heard Emily cry. “Stop it! Help!” she cried, but the knee in her back kept her from taking a whole breath. Brutal hands slammed her head against the asphalt.

  Two leather-covered fingers pushed something into her mouth. It tasted like paper.

  “Chew on this, Loveless.” The voice had substance but no tone. It was a whispered growl.

  Her head was slammed into the pavement again, dazing her. Then silence.

  Rain splashed in her face. She heard the crunch of gravel again, and a car started and pulled away.

  She tried to rise but her hands and feet slipped on the wet asphalt.

  “Help!” she cried, knowing her voice was too weak for anyone to hear.

  With all her strength, she pushed herself up onto all fours.

  “Emily!” She crawled over to the backseat of her car.

  “Hey, sweetie. You okay?” She pulled herself to her feet and leaned in to check on her baby.

  The infant
seat was gone.

  Emily was gone.

  “Emily?” she called, feeling around on the seat, checking the floorboard. “No! Emily!”

  It couldn’t be! She had to be here.

  Dazed and shivering, Sunny remembered her assailant’s words.

  Chew on this.

  Paper. She clawed the piece of paper out of the corner of her mouth and spread it open, holding it under the car’s dome light.

  The paper was wrinkled and wet. She wiped her eyes.

  You’ve messed with the wrong person this time Loveless. Tell the police anything about me and your kid will die.

  …your kid will die.

  Horror shattered her soul.

  “No!” It was a prank. A nightmare. She pushed wet hair out of her face. “Emily!” she screamed, her baby’s name ripping from her throat.

  A hand gripped her shoulder and she shrieked, but it was the grocery clerk.

  “Sunny! I was on my way home. What’s wrong?”

  “My baby! Someone knocked me down and took Emily!” She sobbed and closed her fist around the note.

  The clerk gasped. She pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call the police.”

  “No! Wait!”

  But the woman was already dialing.

  You’ve messed with the wrong person…your kid will die.

  What was she going to tell the police?

  Chapter One

  15 hours missing

  “The case is in Nashville?” Special Agent Griffin Stone took the file from his boss and opened it.

  Nashville. Just the name of his hometown started a hollow ache in his chest. He’d never intended to go back there.

  “I’d rather not—” he started, but Mitch Decker was still talking.

  “It’s a missing child, a six-month-old infant. The mother was assaulted and the infant grabbed about eight thirty last night outside a grocery store near her home.”

  The ache in Griff’s chest intensified. “Why isn’t the local agent handling it? Or CAC?”

  “The local agent is a rookie. And the Head of the Crimes Against Children Division asked specifically for you, and I agreed,” Decker said quietly, his tone carrying both authority and compassion. “He knows your history with Nashville, and your experience with missing children.”

  In Griff’s mind, those two facts made him unsuitable for the job. “I’d have figured that after the Senator’s son—” The bitterness in his voice scraped his throat.

  “That wasn’t your fault.”

  Not your fault.

  He’d known those words would come back to haunt him someday. He’d been fourteen the first time he’d heard them. He hadn’t believed the FBI agent then, and he didn’t believe Decker now.

  “I was too slow. Waiting for backup was a mistake.”

  “Waiting for backup was your only option. The kidnappers could have still been in there.”

  Self-disgust wormed its way through him. “No, it wasn’t my only option. If I’d gone on in—if I’d gotten to him five minutes earlier—Senator Chapman’s son would be alive.”

  Decker stood and came around the desk. He placed a hand on Griff’s shoulder. “You did everything right. And as always, you went far beyond the call of duty.”

  Everything right. Yeah. Griff was sure that gave a lot of comfort to the Senator when he walked past his son’s empty bedroom night after night.

  “Look, Griff. I wouldn’t send you if I wasn’t sure you can handle it.”

  Decker’s belief in him was the only thing that kept Griff from begging him to send someone else.

  He cleared his throat. “So what’s the interest of the Division of Unsolved Mysteries in this case?”

  “A little over a month ago, someone broke into Sunny Loveless’s home, sabotaged her computer and took her case files. Since then—”

  “Case files?” Griff interrupted. Despite his aversion to anything connected with Nashville, the words piqued his interest. He looked down at a faxed copy of a newspaper article, catching Decker’s nod out of the corner of his eye.

  “Ms. Loveless is a private investigator.”

  “Loveless, Inc.,” Griff read. “We specialize in—”

  Decker’s mouth turned up in a wry smile. “Happy endings. I saw that.”

  No such thing. The response sprang automatically into Griff’s head, surprising him. When had he become that cynical? Cynicism implied a loss of hope. The ache in his chest intensified.

  Who’d have thought he had any hope left to lose?

  “Apparently her specialty is reuniting families, friends who have lost touch, that kind of thing. She’s only had her license for two years.”

  “Two years. Still, she could have racked up a few disgruntled customers.”

  “Yeah. All the information we have on her previous cases is there.” Decker crossed his arms and propped a hip on the corner of his desk. “Anyhow, as I was saying, since the break-in, there have been several seemingly unrelated threats and incidents. There are notations about them in the file.”

  “Phone calls, vague threats.” Griff turned a page. “Some mild vandalism that may or may not be related.” He looked up. “Sounds like whoever took her case files has been using the information in the files to harass her—or maybe to blackmail her.”

  Decker nodded. “Now, her child has been kidnapped. Nashville PD is asking for the FBI’s help.”

  “So they believe the abduction is related to one of Ms. Loveless’s cases? What about her family? The baby’s father?” Griff flipped pages. “Here it is. Ms. Loveless adopted the infant at birth. Biological mother is a teenager.” He turned another page, and scanned the information. “Is she married? Divorced? Other children?”

  “No. Ms. Loveless has never been married. She was a foundling herself. Adopted by an older couple who have since died. I suspect that explains her happy endings business. The baby she adopted is the child of a runaway teen she located—one of her cases.”

  “Which one?”

  “June of last year. Elliott.”

  “Here it is, Brittany Elliott, a fifteen-year-old, ran away with her twenty-year-old boyfriend. Loveless’s testimony put the boyfriend in prison.” The missing child’s biological father. Definitely a suspect.

  “Any contact from the kidnapper? A demand for ransom?”

  “Nothing—that we know of.”

  Griff raised his eyebrows at the tone in his boss’s voice.

  “The local police lieutenant isn’t convinced Ms. Loveless is telling the whole truth.”

  “He thinks the kidnapper has contacted her.” Griff stood, preparing to leave Decker’s office. “I shouldn’t waste any time. I’ll fly out this afternoon.”

  Decker rounded his desk and sat down as Griff turned toward the door.

  “Griff.”

  He looked back over his shoulder.

  “Good luck.”

  Back at his desk, Griff pulled his laptop toward him and opened his personal database of missing children cases. He’d started it fifteen years ago, using a spiral notebook and a pencil. Now it was computerized in a spreadsheet.

  He filled in the fields. Name—Emily Rose Loveless. Age—six months. Date of disappearance—June 20. Location—Nashville, Tennessee.

  He stared at the screen for a couple of seconds, then dropped his head between his hands. He wasn’t sure he could handle another missing child case.

  Ever since that day fifteen years ago when his baby sister had been kidnapped, he’d aimed toward one goal—to save as many children as he could. And, in all honesty, to atone. But few as his failures had been, each one had taken something from him, something the successes never quite replenished. Then, the death of the Senator’s son had eaten away too much.

  No matter how many children he saved, the hole inside him never got any smaller. Lately, he felt like an empty shell.

  Just a few weeks ago, after the Senator’s case, he’d talked with Decker about transferring to a specialty that was less emotionally
draining, like white-collar crime. With his master’s degree in criminal justice, and his eight years’ experience, he could work in just about any area.

  Now Decker, one of the few people in the world who knew Griff’s history, was sending him back to Nashville. To his hometown, where failure and guilt lurked, ready to ambush him at every familiar fork in the road.

  The imprint of Decker’s hand burned his shoulder, sending a clear message. His boss was depending on him.

  Shoving aside his feelings, he booked the next flight out and started preparing himself mentally. This wasn’t a personal mission, he reminded himself. It was an assignment.

  An important part of his job was to present a calm, comforting exterior to the missing child’s frightened mother.

  He called the Division’s computer expert. “Natasha, hi. Did Decker ask you to run a background check on Sunny Loveless?” He spelled her last name.

  “I was just about to call you. I’ll e-mail the intel to you so you’ll have it on your laptop.”

  “Good. Thanks.”

  He saw the icon appear that told him he had new mail. “Okay, got the e-mail. Thanks, Nat.”

  He hung up, then opened the file labeled LOVELESS and began to read.

  But he couldn’t banish the question that echoed in his brain and pounded into his chest with each heartbeat.

  Why did it have to be Nashville?

  18 hours missing

  BABY POWDER and the sour smell of spit-up milk. Ugh. Janie Gross nearly gagged as she lit a cigarette and took a deep puff. Her brand new Lexus stunk of baby. She’d have to get it detailed to get rid of the disgusting stench.

  At least Bess hadn’t balked at keeping the kid.

  Her old nanny had not been happy about Janie showing up with another kid, over three years after they’d agreed to quit the adoption business.

  Bess was such a sucker for a baby. The brat would have the best of care. And after fifteen years of Bess keeping kids while Janie made arrangements for their adoption, Janie knew for a fact that she could trust the old woman.

  She grinned at her own brilliance. Handing over the first kid she’d ever snatched to Bess to rear as her own was the best investment Janie had ever made. Lucky for Janie, Bess’s own little boy hadn’t been dead six months when Janie had shown up at her door that long-ago day with a screaming toddler in tow.