The Newlyweds (7 page)

“So what do we do?” Bridget asked.

He shrugged. “It's been a while since we've had any indication our baby seller is still operating. The investigation of Children's Connection has to have slowed down his activity significantly, and he's got to be feeling
the heat. If he's got clients waiting, or babies he's keeping an eye on, he's going to have to come out of the woodwork soon. So I guess all we can do is wait for him to hopefully approach our colleagues soon. And
we
do our best to dig discreetly for more info that might lead us to him sooner.”

Bridget nodded, but looked thoughtful. “So then we'll wait. And we'll dig. And we'll hope our guy is starting to get desperate.”

 

Everett Baker was starting to get desperate. As he sat in his office in the accounting department of Children's Connection, staring at the pile of papers on his desk but seeing none of them, his head swam with regrets and what-ifs. His life seemed to have become a massive boulder rolling down a mountainside at breakneck speed, and he had no idea how to stop it. In the past year and a half, everything had seemed to go wrong. And that was saying something, since his life had never really been “right” to begin with.

What had started off several months ago as a surefire way to make easy money was blowing up in his face, and he didn't know what to do to stop it. And the man he'd thought was his friend was turning out to be anything but. He and Charlie Prescott had seemed to have so much in common when Everett first met him at the bar that night. But now Charlie was acting like a common criminal.

No, an uncommon criminal, he thought further. Because only the lowest of the low tried to murder someone.

Murder.
The word circled around in Everett's head like a bad dream. He'd nearly been involved in
someone's murder. And not just anyone—but Nancy Allen. Nurse Nancy, he thought with an affectionate smile, who'd started off as an easy mark and a way to get information to feed his and Charlie's schemes, but who over the months had become so much more. When had he fallen in love with her? Everett asked himself. But try as he might, he couldn't pinpoint the moment when that had happened. Probably, it had been gradual, growing a little more every day. He only knew he cared for Nancy more than he'd ever cared for anyone, and miracle of miracles, she seemed to care for him, too.

He still couldn't believe Charlie had broken into Nancy's apartment and tried to kill her. But hadn't Charlie told Everett he was going to do just that? Thank God Everett had been there to stop him. But he hadn't stopped things with Nancy. Not that he'd wanted to stop that—it had felt so good to hold her and kiss her, even though he'd been totally unprepared for the romantic developments. He'd been even less prepared for the realization of how much he had come to care for her and how much he wanted things to work out for the two of them. But there was little chance now that he would find happiness with Nancy. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Oh, what a mess. Where had everything gone wrong?

That night he'd met Charlie in the bar, they'd hit it off so quickly, and so well. Charlie was the first friend Everett had made in a long, long time. Now, though, Charlie was just one more bad thing to happen, and that meeting had been the genesis of everything that was spiraling out of control. Though really, if Everett was going to be honest with himself, he had to admit that even before Charlie had entered the picture, his life had been ripe for something to go wrong. In many ways, his entire
existence had been nothing
but
wrong, thanks to Lester and Joleen Baker. His parents, such as they were.

Or, at least, the only parents he could ever remember having. Everett had been flummoxed when Joleen told him on her deathbed in St. Louis that he wasn't her biological son, that her husband Lester—who'd abandoned both of them years before, when Everett was still in high school—had kidnapped him from the front yard of a home in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, half a continent away. His real name was Robbie Logan. He'd been stolen from his biological parents more than two decades ago.

Her revelation had helped Everett make sense of some things—the fact that he didn't resemble either of the Bakers, and the deep-seated bitterness he'd always harbored for them. Of course, they'd been emotionally and verbally abusive the whole time he was growing up, and that was how he had always explained his anger and resentment toward them. But after he'd learned the truth, it had made even more sense.

More than anything, though, hearing Joleen reveal his origins had made Everett understand better the fleeting, nebulous memories that had plagued him since childhood. There had been times when he was able to remember a smiling woman who sang to him at bedtime, and a tall, laughing man who used to lift him high into the air. But he'd always assumed those memories were actually fantasies, because the people in them bore no resemblance to Lester or Joleen. He'd figured he must have made them up in an effort to dispel the pain of his reality. They were perfect parents he'd created in his mind to replace the damaged ones he had in his life.

Now, though, he realized those fantasies had indeed been memories, and that what he'd thought were made-up people were actually his parents—Leslie and Terrence Logan. He'd known that the moment he'd laid eyes on them, days after his arrival in Portland. They were the people from his fantasies. And they weren't a fantasy at all.

After Joleen's death, Everett had been drawn to Portland, the place from which he'd been stolen, as if a homing device had been activated in his brain. He couldn't have stayed away from here if he'd tried. And he
had
tried. After learning the truth of his identity, he'd done everything he could to uncover the circumstances of his abduction and to learn about his real family. And what he'd learned had made him realize he could never return to them. Because he would never be one of them.

He'd been taken from them when he was six, old enough that he should have had more memories of them than he did. All he could conclude was that he had been so traumatized by the kidnapping, and so brainwashed by the Bakers afterward, that he'd buried his memories deeply enough in his mind that they only came out in dreams and fantasies. Once he'd learned his real name, though, Everett had done his best to learn even more. Joleen had kept a scrapbook about the kidnapping that she'd given him to look at. But he'd also gone on the Internet to see what else he could discover about Robbie Logan.

And he'd discovered a lot.

He'd read story after story about the missing Logan boy, in Portland and other Oregon newspapers, as well as in newspapers as far away as New York and Miami. He'd discovered photos of his parents, distraught and aggrieved, archived news stories on dozens of different sites
about his disappearance. For months, Terrence and Leslie Logan had kept the investigation front and center of the Portland Police Department. They'd remained convinced that their son was alive and had sent out periodic pleas to the kidnappers to release him and return him to the two people who loved him more than anything else in the world. They'd offered millions of dollars of reward money for his recovery. Then, a year later, the police discovered the remains of a young boy erroneously identified as Robbie, and the Logans' quest had ended.

But even at that, their hopes hadn't been completely extinguished. Because Everett had found one newspaper interview with Leslie Logan that had occurred on the tenth anniversary of Robbie's kidnapping. In it, she had said that she still dreamed sometimes that he was alive, that she would be able to hold him in her arms, and tell him how much she loved him.

But that would never happen, Everett knew. Because yes, Robbie Logan was alive, but if Leslie found out the truth about him, she'd never want to hold him in her arms. And she certainly wouldn't be able to love him. Because Everett Baker wasn't Robbie Logan. Not by a long shot. Oh, they might share the same DNA, but they weren't the same person. According to everything he'd read, Robbie Logan had been a beautiful, bright, vivacious little boy, full of spirit and playfulness and good humor. He'd been precocious and creative and utterly fearless. A champion Little Leaguer, popular at school and well-liked by the other kids. A “golden boy.” That was how the newspapers had referred to him again and again.

Everett Baker, on the other hand, had been nothing but a disappointment to the Bakers. He'd been timid and insecure, withdrawn and insignificant. He'd been so
stupid, he'd often failed in school and had to take summer classes. He'd been awkward at sports, and the kids at school—those who'd noticed him—had called him everything from a freak to a psycho to a queer.

Robbie Logan could have been anything he wanted in life. Hell, he could have been president of the United States. Everett Baker, though…

Well, Everett was a criminal, plain and simple. And according to Charlie Prescott, he couldn't even do that right.

After learning more about the Logans of Portland and their missing son Robbie, Everett had told himself he could never go home again. His parents—his
real
parents—and the family they'd created after his disappearance were everything he wasn't—good, decent, likable people who deserved children like they had. Not a pathetic loser who hadn't even tried to escape his captors or uncover the truth of his own identity. It didn't matter to Everett that he'd been a terrified boy of six when he was stolen. If he'd been a real Logan, the kind of person his parents and siblings obviously were, he would have succeeded in finding his way home. Instead, he'd given up, hadn't even tried to put up a fight and had spent his life cowering in fear.

But even knowing he could never be a part of the Logan family, Everett had been drawn to Portland. After Joleen's death, he'd sold what few meager belongings they had left, had withdrawn his scant savings from the bank, and he'd driven thousands of miles to the city of his birth. And he'd heard about the Logans almost immediately, read an article in the newspaper within days of his arrival describing a star-studded, black-tie fund-raiser Leslie Logan had hosted for a local organization
called Children's Connection, where she volunteered much of her time and much of her husband's money. Everett had read on the Internet about how Children's Connection had helped the Logans rebuild their family after they'd lost their son Robbie, so reading about the event had been eerily in keeping with everything else that had brought him west.

And after reading about Children's Connection again, Everett had found himself wanting to see this magic place that created families. He supposed, in hindsight, there had been a part of him that wanted to reconnect with the Logans on whatever level he could. And as he'd sat there reading the newspaper, trying to figure out a way that might bring him closer to them, destiny had moved its holy hand upon his. Because Everett had opened the classified ads of the same newspaper to look for an accounting job, and had seen a listing that seemed perfect for him—at Children's Connection.

Once again, fate had stepped in and lurched his life into a new direction. And Everett, too dazed and befuddled by all his newfound knowledge, had been too stupid to remember that he was fate's whipping boy.

Because when he'd answered that ad, he'd been hired on the spot, asked if he could start work the next day, because they were in something of a bind at the agency. Naturally, Everett had said he could. And in less than a week, he'd both glimpsed his biological mother for the first time in nearly thirty years, and he'd stumbled upon a way to make potentially millions of dollars by misusing Children's Connection contacts. The first event had been body-numbing, the second had been mind-blowing. And both had given Charlie Prescott everything he needed to hatch the unholiest of plans.

Everett never should have responded to that ad in the paper. And he never should have listened to Charlie. He should have just done what he had come to Portland to do—see his real family, if only from a distance, and wonder what his life might have been like if the capricious hand of fate hadn't swooped down and smacked him when he was too young, too confused and too terrified to hit back.

No, he shouldn't even have done that, he told himself now as he gazed through his office window at the gray, drizzly day that seemed almost a manifestation of his current mood. In coming to Portland, he'd made a stupid mistake. The only way Everett Baker had been able to survive was to live his life by never looking back. Never looking back, and never looking forward. One day at a time—that was how he had lived since he was a little boy. That had been the only way he was able to stay sane and coherent during all the years of abuse and neglect at the Bakers' hands.

But coming to Portland had been the ultimate look back. And it had been the supreme mistake. Because now Everett was involved in things he had no business being involved in. He just wished he could remember when it had gone from bad to worse. And he couldn't help thinking that, like everything else in his life, worse would eventually—inevitably—go to worst.

And as he gazed out at the gray, ugly day, he got a very bad feeling that it would happen soon.

T
he first two weeks of Bridget's involvement in investigation went by without even the tiniest new development, something that frustrated her to no end. Even though she and Sam had played their parts well over several orchestrated visits to Children's Connection for every contrived reason they could, they'd learned little more than the FBI already knew. Even when Bridget had stepped up her own solo visits, ostensibly to visit with her mother or take her sister to lunch, there wasn't a peep out of anyone that might be construed as suspicious in any way.

And that made her crazy.

What made her crazier was spending her days pretending to be Mrs. Samuel Jones, millionaire's trophy wife. Sam, at least, had ongoing cases he could work, and most days he went to work at the field office as he
normally would. If anyone followed him—and Bridget sincerely doubted anyone would—they'd see him enter the Crown Plaza Building, which housed not only the FBI field office, but a fictional business created by the FBI called SBJ Steel International, Inc., whose CEO was none other than Mr. Samuel Jones, recently married millionaire who'd just relocated his business offices from Washington, D.C. But Bridget wasn't a local FBI agent, and she had no cases to keep her occupied. So she spent her days at her phony house, mostly being bored out of her gourd.

Because if there was one thing Bridget Logan was
not,
it was idle. A type-A personality from the moment she'd emerged from the womb, kicking and squalling and demanding, she just couldn't take things easy. Even her hobbies—what few she had—tended to be those that kept her active: tennis and horseback riding, cycling, boating, being outdoors. And although she did call a few of her old friends to engage once or twice in such activities during those first two weeks, by the end of them, she was growing impatient for work. Because when all was said and done, work was life to Bridget. Without it, she just didn't feel whole. And although she spent a good bit of her time familiarizing herself with the particulars of the case thus far, it wasn't enough to keep her occupied the way she needed to be. More involvement, that was what she needed. That and movement. Of the case. Forward.

So, by the end of that second week, when nothing seemed to be happening to move the case forward, Bridget decided it was time for her to get it moving herself.

She and Sam had, naturally, taken separate bedrooms in the house—in entirely different areas of the house, in
fact, so that they'd be far enough removed from each other to maintain some semblance of personal privacy. It
wasn't
because there continued to be a certain level of animosity between them, in spite of the almost friendly way they had interacted that first night at the house. That first night had obviously been an anomaly, the result, she was sure, of her own fatigue and Sam's effort to make the best of a bad situation. Since then, they'd barely been able to be in the same room together without sounding and acting—and feeling and being—uncomfortable.

Bridget ascribed that to a simple chemical reaction—there was just something in each of them that rubbed the other the wrong way. Maybe they were too much alike, she'd reasoned, something that had caused both of them to want to be in charge of a situation where neither could be in charge. Or maybe they were too different, she'd reckoned, something that had caused both of them to want to approach the case in ways that clashed. Or maybe it was just that they simply didn't like each other, for whatever reason. In any event, over those two weeks, they'd done their best to stay away from each other when they could, and during those times when they'd been forced into each other's company, they'd done their best to at least look like they belonged together.

In spite of their efforts to avoid each other, though, there had been a handful of inescapable evenings when they both happened to be home at the same time. And those evenings had only reinforced how much they didn't
want
to be home at the same time. Whenever they were, an odd sort of tension suddenly erupted out of nowhere, and Bridget was confident they both felt it. Fortunately, those evenings had been few. Sam, she had noticed right away, was a lot like her in that he seemed
to work late frequently. And although she hadn't had a job to go to herself, she
had
done her best to stay out of the house in an effort to maintain her sanity.

So by the end of that first two weeks, there were no new developments in a lot more than just the case. There were also no new developments in the way she and Sam interacted. Or, more accurately, in the way she and Sam avoided interacting.

Therefore, that Friday morning, when she woke at her usual 6:00 a.m. without even having set her alarm, Bridget forsook her trophy-wife clothes and instead donned her rat-race clothes—in this case, a crisp white shirt coupled with soft gray trousers and matching suit jacket—and wove her hair into the fat braid she preferred for working. Then she hustled herself downstairs, hoping to catch Sam before he left for the office.

Because she intended to go with him.

The scent of strong, black coffee and the sound of movement in the kitchen wafted up the stairs to greet her as she descended, letting her know that Sam hadn't yet left. So Bridget squared her shoulders and prepared herself for the eruption of tension that would undoubtedly arise the moment she entered the room. And then she did her best to saunter confidently into the kitchen, making her way straight to the coffeemaker to pour herself a cup of hot bravado.

Sam was standing at the counter with a cup of coffee in his hand, the morning paper open in front of him, but he glanced up when she entered, his expression one of clear surprise. He, too, wore a white dress shirt and suit, though his was navy blue and had the added accessory of a wine-colored necktie. His dark hair, she noticed, was still damp from his shower, curling softly around
his ears and at the top of his collar in back. But there wasn't a hint of sleepiness or fatigue about him. He looked alert and sharp and ready for whatever the day might have in store for him. Clearly he was a morning person, too.

“You're up early,” he said as he watched Bridget pour herself a generous mug of coffee.

“Not really,” she told him as she returned the carafe to the warmer. “I always wake up at six. I've just tried to stay upstairs every morning until after you leave, to keep out of your way.”

She wasn't sure, but she thought he arched his eyebrows just the tiniest bit at that.

“So what brings you down today?” he asked.

She enjoyed a sip of the fragrant black brew, then lowered her cup and met his gaze levelly. “I'm going to work with you.”

Now his eyebrows definitely shot up. “Oh?”

She nodded, hoping the action looked more self-assured than it felt. “This case is going nowhere, Sam. Nothing's happening with the other agents
or
us. We need to do something to nudge things along.”

“Not that I'm arguing with you,” he said, “since I agree that things don't seem to be happening as quickly as we'd hoped, but how do expect to change it? We knew going into this that it might take a while.”

“I know, but I'm going nuts,” she said frankly. “I can't just be passive here. I thought I could be patient, but I've discovered that I can't. So I have an idea. I want to pass it by Pennington first, to make sure I don't step on any toes, but I think you and I need to start socializing more.”

Sam narrowed his eyes in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that since our job is to try and learn more about the goings-on at Children's Connection through the people who work there, then we need to start spending more time with the people who work there.”

He leaned back against the counter, giving her his full attention. “We're already making regular visits to Children's Connection,” he reminded her. “More than are necessary, really, when you consider what the usual couple experiences there. If we go any more often, we're going to raise suspicions. If we haven't already.”

“I'm not talking about hanging out at the agency,” Bridget said. “I'm talking about hanging out with the people who work there, someplace other than Children's Connection. Where they might be more amenable to chatting. Where they might have a drink or two to loosen their tongues.”

“I'm not sure I follow you,” Sam said.

“Look, if the investigation is no secret, then whoever's behind all this has to be majorly on his guard right now. Not only is he going to be careful about who he approaches with a baby for sale, but he's going to be careful about what he says and does around his co-workers.”

“Right,” Sam agreed. “Which is why the Bureau thought Bridget Logan, returning prodigal daughter, might have a chance of gleaning information that another agent—or other agents—wouldn't.”

“But even if I'm chatting up the people who work at the Connection while in the persona of my mother's daughter, I'm still in an atmosphere of professionalism that inhibits conversation. Do you know what I mean?”

Sam nodded. “People don't like to indulge in office gossip. Or they're afraid they might get caught indulging in office gossip and get into trouble.”

“Right,” Bridget said. “So if we can arrange some occasions where the employees of Children's Connection might mingle on a more social level, it might be easier to get people to impart more information.”

“So what do you propose?”

She shrugged, but the gesture was more one of restlessness than it was one of not knowing the answer. She'd lain in bed wide awake last night mulling over her idea, and she had more than a few suggestions. “If I were really Mrs. Samuel Jones, I'd be doing a lot of socializing,” she said. “And I'd make sure my husband was with me. Hey, you've just arrived in my hometown, after all. And you've just opened new offices. People like us would be going out of our way to get our faces out there to meet people and make connections. At the very least, I'd be doing some entertaining here at my home, to extend a welcome to my husband's new colleagues. And I'd invite a lot of people he didn't know so that he could expand his social and professional horizons. And since I haven't been home for a while, I'd rely on my parents to help me with the guest list. Especially my mother. And
a lot
of my mother's acquaintances and connections are through—”

“Children's Connection,” Sam supplied for her.

“Bingo,” Bridget said with a smile. “And speaking of my mother,” she continued, “if I
were
actually her newly returned, newlywed daughter, my mother would be doing a lot to introduce me and my new husband around town. She'd make sure we got to know all of her friends from her pet project, where she volunteers so much of her time.”

“Children's Connection,” Sam said again.

Bridget nodded. “Yep. Between me and my mom, I
think we can probably find a number of opportunities that will offer Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Jones the chance to mingle freely with quite a few employees from Children's Connection, in settings that will lend themselves to a much freer exchange of dialogue. And that, in turn, might make it just a little easier for Special Agents Logan and Jones to do the job they've been assigned to do.”

Sam said nothing for a moment, clearly giving much thought to Bridget's proposal. Judging by his initial expression, though, he didn't seem to much care for the idea of the two of them being more social as a couple. Probably, she thought, because it would necessitate them spending more time together. And although she was no more enthusiastic about that than he obviously was, she knew it was necessary if they wanted to uncover the information Pennington had indicated he wanted them to uncover.

“But I thought we were newlyweds,” Sam finally said halfheartedly, clearly struggling with whether it was more important to catch the bad guy or keep his distance from Bridget.

And oh, wasn't
that
just an incredibly flattering thing to realize? she thought. How difficult a call that that would be for him to make. Not that she hadn't been struggling with the same call herself since making the decision to become proactive in the case, because she wasn't exactly thrilled at the prospect of spending more time with him, either. But it didn't make it any easier to stomach his own obvious unwillingness to be anywhere near her.

How they felt about each other was in no way significant, she reminded herself. All that mattered was catching the bad guy, so what was the big deal anyway?

“And newlyweds are supposed to keep a low profile, aren't they?” he asked, bringing her thoughts back to the matter at hand.

Nevertheless, his remark stumped her. “A low profile?” she echoed. “What for?”

In response to her question, his gaze skittered away from hers. He turned his body away from her, too, to place his cup on the counter. Then he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and ran the pad of his finger nervously around the rim of his cup. He was fidgeting, Bridget realized. He was uncomfortable about something. Something other than the usual just being in the same room together. But what else could he be uncomfortable about?

“Because,” he said softly, “newlyweds are supposed to be, you know, preoccupied.”

She still wasn't following him. “Preoccupied? By what?”

When he lifted his gaze to hers again, it was only long enough to have it bounce away. Then it ricocheted over everything else in the room that wasn't Bridget. “By, you know, other things.”

“What other things? What are you talking about?”

He emitted a low growl of clear frustration. “I'm talking about
other things,
” he repeated. “You know.
Newlywed
things.
Wedding-night
things.
Honeymoon
things.”

“Ohh,” she said aloud. “
Those
things. Sex things.”