quick word to the blonde, then she started the engine and backed out of the parking slot.
Nina hurriedly climbed into her own car, hoping she wouldn’t be detected. But as the silver BMW approached Nina’s parking space, the blonde slowed the car, waiting for a truck that had backed out in front of her. Her window was still down, and as she drew even with Nina’s car, she glanced over, then away, then back again. Their gazes locked.
It was one of those life-defining moments. One of those impossible coincidences. It couldn’t really be happening, and yet there she was.
Nina’s breath left her in a painful rush as she stared at the woman behind the wheel. The hair color was different, as was her expression and demeanor. But her eyes…something about her eyes…
For one split second, both women seemed frozen in time. Then the blonde whipped her head around, and the car shot forward. But the shock on her face mirrored Nina’s. She’d recognized Nina, too, and for one very good reason.
The woman in the silver BMW was Karen Smith.
Chapter Three
“Sergeant Farrell, please.” Nina tried to catch her breath while she waited for the detective to answer his phone. She still couldn’t believe it had happened. How many times had she gone to that park since Dustin had disappeared, hoping to find him, hoping to see Karen Smith?
When the car first sped away, Nina had tried her best to follow, but once they’d left the park, traffic thickened on Memorial. The best she could do was keep the silver car in sight, but eventually even that proved fruitless. The BMW was much faster than Nina’s compact. Without warning, it had shot up an on-ramp to the freeway and was soon lost in the steady stream of traffic heading toward downtown while Nina sat on the feeder lane, stuck behind two 18-wheelers.
Dustin had been so close. So close! She’d actually held him in her arms!
Nina swallowed a sob. Her baby was alive! He’d appeared healthy and unharmed, and…dear God, she’d held him in her arms.
“Sergeant Farrell.”
Nina gulped air, trying to calm her racing heart. “It’s Nina. You won’t believe what just happened.”
“Nina.” His sigh was audible. “Haven’t we already spoken today?”
“Yes, but something wonderful has happened. A miracle.” She paused for another breath. “I saw Dustin. I saw my baby! I held him! All we have to do now is go get him. You’ll help me, won’t you? You have to—”
“Nina, slow down. What do you mean, you saw Dustin?”
“At Mirror Lake Park. I go there every day. A part of me has always hoped I’d find him, but today it happened. It really happened.” Nina gripped the phone so tightly her knuckles hurt. Soon her baby would be back in her arms. Soon Dustin would be home where he belonged. She pictured the yellow-and-white nursery, awaiting his return.
“You saw him in Mirror Lake Park.” Something in Farrell’s tone pierced the cloud of excitement surrounding Nina. She gripped the phone even tighter.
“That’s what I said. He was there with a woman, his nanny, I think, and she let me hold him. She called him John David. His last name is Baldwin, or Chambers, I’m not really sure which, but it doesn’t matter, because his real name is Dustin Fairchild. You believe me, don’t you?”
There was the briefest hesitation before Farrell said slowly, “You saw a woman in the park with a baby. What makes you think that baby was Dustin?”
“Because I also saw Karen Smith.”
“You what?”
At last she seemed to have gotten his attention. Nina let out a relieved breath. She’d gone about this all wrong. She should have told him about Karen Smith first, but her baby had been uppermost in her mind. No wonder Sergeant Farrell couldn’t make sense of her babbling.
“Let me start at the beginning,” she said.
“I think that might be a good idea.”
Nina quickly told him everything that had happened in the park, except the nanny’s accusation that Nina had refused to give the baby back to her. Nina’s actions had hardly been those of a rational woman, and she desperately needed Sergeant Farrell to believe her. More than anything, she needed him to believe her.
“I couldn’t keep up with the car,” she finished. “But I did manage to get the license-plate number.” She rattled off the number, then said, “You can trace the vehicle, right?”
Again Farrell hesitated. “Nina, are you sure about all this?”
“Of course I’m sure. I couldn’t be mistaken about something like this. My baby’s life is at stake.” Nina felt a wave of hysteria rising inside her, but with sheer force of will, pushed it back down.
“You said the woman in the BMW was blond. Karen Smith had dark hair. At least that’s what you’ve always maintained.”
“She could have dyed her hair or worn a wig. It makes sense she would have disguised herself. She was planning all along to steal my baby.”
“That part does make sense,” he conceded with a sigh. “But it’s still a little hard to swallow that you saw Karen Smith in the same park where you first met her. If she took Dustin, why would she go back there, knowing she might eventually run into you?”
“The nanny said they didn’t usually go to that park, but the baby’s mother—she called her Mrs. Baldwin—had an appointment near there. That makes sense, too, when you think about it. After all this time, Karen probably thought she was home free. It was a one-in-a-million chance that I saw her at all today.”
“You say her name is Baldwin?” Farrell seemed preoccupied, as if he were jotting notes to himself.
“Yes, and the man’s name is Chambers, but I don’t know what his relationship is to Dustin.” Was he a conspirator in her baby’s abduction? Nina shivered, remembering the man’s eyes, the menacing way he’d stared down at her. “You do believe me, don’t you? You are going to follow up on this, aren’t you?”
“I’ll check it out,” Farrell agreed noncommittally. “As soon as we find out who the car belongs to, we can decide where to go from there.”
“How long will that be?”
“I’ll run it through the computer as soon as we hang up. But look. You said it yourself. It’s a million-to-one shot that you and Karen Smith came face-to-face in that same park.”
“Meaning?”
He paused. “Don’t get your hopes up, okay?”
* * *
Nina was waiting at her desk when Sergeant Farrell called back a little later. She grabbed up the phone on the first ring.
“Did you find her?”
“I ran the plate number,” Farrell said. “The car is registered to a Mrs. Vanessa Baldwin. It’s a Houston address. River Oaks,” he added, naming Houston’s most prestigious—and expensive—neighborhood.
A flood of memories washed over Nina. Garrett’s family lived in a San Antonio neighborhood very much like River Oaks. The tree-shrouded streets and ivy-covered mansions had always seemed oppressive to Nina. She hated to think of her baby in such an atmosphere.
“What else did you find out?” she asked.
“Her husband, Clayton Baldwin, is vice president at Chambers Petroleum, which is owned by her father, a man named J. D. Chambers. Any of these names ring a bell?”
Nina frowned. “No. Should they?”
“From what I could gather, the Chambers family is pretty well connected in the petroleum industry, as well as in the