surprise, Jenny let go of her and held out her hand. After a slight hesitation Shawn took it and led her farther into the room. He met Kelley’s eyes over the child’s head.
No separation anxiety today? Kelley was so relieved that she felt her whole face brighten.
Shawn’s return smile was smug but brief. He looked toward Jenny. “You can choose the animals you’d like to work on,” he said. “And maybe one of these days your mama and I can talk about the animals, too.” He raised a light brown brow at Kelley, then turned his back and led Jenny from the room.
Kelley watched with bemusement and delight.
“Wow!” Marge joined her, grinning after the man and child as they walked into the adjoining playroom. “He’s something, isn’t he? Even Jenny is responding to him.”
“He’s something, all right,” Kelley agreed. “He…well, he doesn’t strike me as the typical day-care worker. Do you know his background?”
“Sure,” Marge replied. “He was in the military—army, I think. He got out after a couple of hitches and is now in college studying child psychology. He wants to work with kids, so he’s here earning a little money and learning about children on a school internship.”
“I see,” Kelley said, though she was puzzled. He didn’t seem the type. But obviously she was wrong.
Maybe one day she would take him up on that offer to have coffee in the cafeteria—so they could discuss his drawing talent, and the way he worked with kids.
Now, though, it was time to leave the child-care center.
This morning seemed to be the start of a good day.
IT CONTINUED THAT WAY, too, for a while.
She ran into Juan Cortes, who gave her a hearty, “Good morning.” She’d noticed the usual treats in the KidClub, so she thanked the janitor but reiterated her offer to bring some soon.
Next, she passed hospital administrator Louis Paxler on his way to his office. He actually managed a civil greeting.
Then the day began to deteriorate. She saw her ex-husband at the nurse’s station talking with Cheryl Marten. They both seemed engrossed in conversation, and Kelley attempted to slip by unseen.
No such luck. “Good morning, Kelley,” Randall said in his usual contemptuous, booming voice.
A couple of nurses seated behind the tall U-shaped desk looked up in interest. Damn. They had an audience.
“Good morning,” Kelley said neutrally.
“Which patients are you seeing here today?” Randall had turned to face her. As usual, he was dressed immaculately in a pristine white lab jacket, a stethoscope around his neck. His silvery hair was combed as perfectly as an actor on a set playing a doctor’s might be.
None of your business. “A couple of influenza cases and an infection.”
“Take care that they survive,” he said in mock concern.
Kelley’s chest constricted. She’d done all she could to help those poor influenza patients who’d died several months ago, yet she knew Randall was a major source of the rumors that she’d messed up.
She’d told herself over and over that he was wrong.
But if so, why did so many people listen to him?
“They’ll be fine, thanks, Randall,” she said coolly, not rising to his bait.
“I’m sure,” he said.
Cheryl smirked over her shoulder. Kelley could have smacked her. She was the one who had left little Jenny alone the night of the fire, then had lied about it. Implicated Kelley.
“If something happens to them,” Cheryl said, “I’ve got a friend in the fire department. I’ll alert him that our records department is in jeopardy again.”
Oh, Lord. Kelley had heard that more than once, too—that she’d set the records room on fire to destroy the charts that would reveal what she’d done wrong in her treatment of those patients.
There was just one little flaw to that reasoning…but she hadn’t revealed it to anyone.
For one thing, it would have sounded defensive.
For another, she would be revealing something that she actually had done wrong.
Without saying another word, Kelley hurried down the hall toward her first patient’s room.
And ignored the murmuring behind her.
THAT EVENING, AS HE prepared to leave KidClub for the day, Shawn was damned disappointed.
Of course he would be. He’d been trying to think of a way to talk to his chief suspect, Dr. Kelley Stanton, alone, and she hadn’t been the one to pick up her daughter.
He should have been pleased that he’d gotten the opportunity to meet her ex-husband.
The condescending ass. Randall Stanton hadn’t been alone, either. Nurse Cheryl Marten had been with him.
“I’m going to leave now, Shawn.” Marge Ralston’s vivacious voice interrupted his thoughts.
He turned. “Are all the kids gone?”
She nodded, and her dark curls bounced round her pretty, animated face. “Yes, we’re the last ones here.” She looked cute, cleaned up without the usual kid-proof smock over her knit top. She hesitated, then said, “I’m going to grab a bite to eat on the way home. Care to join me?”
“Another time.” He flashed her a friendly smile. She was a chatty woman, and he figured he had already gotten from her all she knew about the flu epidemic and the fire in the records room.
Which amounted to zilch.
“Okay.” She looked disappointed. But though she would probably be good company, he knew better than to date someone when on assignment.
Unless she was part of the assignment. Like Kelley…
“You’ll lock up when you leave?” she asked.
He nodded. “See you tomorrow.”
He wasn’t ready to leave the hospital yet. He needed more information, and not just reports generated by people officially on the investigation, no matter how competently they had handled it so far. He needed to get a feel for what had happened.
It was what he was good at.
Yet it had been awhile. He would have to prepare himself for what he would find. What he wouldn’t find. And the way his own damned gut always twisted into knots at arson fire sites.
Once he was sure Marge was gone, he headed down the empty hall.
SINCE THE FIRE, Kelley hadn’t trusted Randall to pick up Jenny when he said he would, though she called to remind him.
As a result, she found herself on her way to KidClub late that evening. Later than anyone should be there.
As late as it had been the night of the fire, when Jenny had been there alone….
“No,” she whispered aloud. Her daughter wouldn’t be there. Though Randall had manufactured an excuse for not having retrieved Jenny himself that night, surely not even he would be stupid enough to forget about her now. Or to send his beloved, lying assistant Cheryl to fetch his daughter.
In any event, Kelley would make certain no one was around.
That no one had left Jenny.
When Kelley reached the closed door of the child-care center, she tried it. It was locked. She stood still and listened, just in case. She heard nothing from inside. No whimpers from outside. No menacing crackles or crashes.
Except… There was a noise from the direction of the former records center.
Even