questioned. “On who?”
“You, for one,” Rooney readily admitted. He shucked off his overcoat, then his jacket, but the P.I.’s shirt was still bulky enough to have hidden a gun. Which he probably had. After all, Rooney had a license to carry a concealed weapon.
“A background check on me?” Dominic snapped.
Addison nodded. “The Dearborn Agency, too. After all the news about the baby farms, I thought I should just make sure everything was aboveboard,” she added, though Dominic’s mouth had dropped open.
“You thought I had something to do with all that baby farm mess?” Dominic continued, and after glaring at Addison and Rooney, he turned to Cooper. “I didn’t. I was Addison’s attorney for the surrogacy agreement, that’s all.”
“I’d like to see the agreement,” Reed said quickly.
There’d been a lot of color in Dominic’s cheeks, but some of that color faded after Reed’s demand.
“The agreement was stolen, right?” Rooney asked.
Dominic nodded. “I’m not sure when it happened. I looked for it after the sheriff called, but it wasn’t there.”
Not that Reed needed proof this was a bad situation, but if he did, that was it. Reed turned to the P.I. “How’d you know it’d been stolen?”
“I guessed, that’s how. Someone stole all the surrogate files from Dearborn, too. They also ransacked Addison’s apartment. I found that out on the drive over.” Rooney shifted his attention to her. “The San Antonio cops will be calling you soon about it.”
“Sweet heaven,” Addison mumbled. “The kidnappers likely took the copy from my aunt’s house, too.”
Yeah, and even by some miracle they’d missed it, the fire would have destroyed it. Someone wanted to be thorough about this, which made Reed wonder what exactly was in that surrogacy agreement.
Someone obviously had something to hide.
But what, exactly?
“What about the surrogate Addison hired? Any chance she could be involved in this?” Cooper asked.
“No,” Dominic said as Rooney answered, “Possibly.”
Reed gave each of them an explain that look.
It was Dominic who continued first. “I read a report on Cissy and several of the other surrogate possibilities from Dearborn. There was nothing in any of their reports to indicate criminal activity on her part.” Then he shook his head and lifted his shoulder. “Of course, someone could have falsified the reports I read.”
The lawyer was right. And heck, maybe it wasn’t just the report that was fake. It was possible that Cissy Blanco wasn’t even the surrogate’s real name.
“I’m on it,” Cooper volunteered, and he headed back to his desk, no doubt to make calls about the surrogate.
“You think Cissy was possibly involved in this,” Reed said to Rooney.
Even though the room wasn’t that warm, there were beads of sweat on his face, and Rooney wiped them away with the back of his hand. “I don’t have anything specific, but something’s not right with the Dearborn Agency itself.”
It meshed with what Cooper had said, too. “What have you found?” Reed pressed.
“That’s just it. I haven’t found much of anything. It’s a corporation, but it’s buried under layers of paperwork, and I can’t find out who actually owns it. When I asked the office manager about the owner and the board of directors, all I got was the runaround.”
That brought Addison out from behind him, but she turned toward Dominic, not Rooney. “And you didn’t know any of this?”
Dominic threw up his hands. “Why would I? You contacted Dearborn before you ever asked me to do the surrogacy agreement. I just assumed you had vetted them and trusted them.”
Reed looked at Addison to see if that was true. Apparently, it was. “A woman at the fertility clinic I used recommended Dearborn. So did my fertility specialist. I hired Dominic to make sure there were no holes or discrepancies in the contract I had to sign with them.”
It was a smart move on Addison’s part so she could ensure that she actually got the baby if the surrogate managed to become pregnant. However, the discrepancies might not be with the contract but with the agency itself.
Or with the lawyer who’d blessed the agreement.
“Who do you think tried to kidnap Addison?” Reed asked.
However, before their visitors could answer, a sound distracted Reed. Emily’s soft whimper. When he looked back at the baby, he realized she was staring at him. Studying him as he’d done to her earlier. Reed didn’t want to feel anything, not right now anyway, when he had so many questions to ask their visitors.
But he did.
He felt as if someone had knocked the breath right out of him. And maybe someone had. Emily. That tiny baby bundled in Addison’s arms had nearly brought him to his knees.
“Are you all right?” Addison whispered.
No, he wasn’t, far from it, but he needed to finish these interviews so he could sit down and try to process everything that’d happened.
Reed must have looked sick to his stomach, because Rooney took out a foil roll of antacids from his pocket and offered him one. When Reed shook his head, declining, Rooney popped two of them into his own mouth.
“I’m not sure exactly what’s going on here,” Rooney concluded, “but I don’t want to be caught up in the blame game. For the record, I only did the job that Addison hired me to do, and I’ll continue doing it unless she tells me to stop.”
“You might want to rethink that. All of this could be dangerous,” Addison said. Not exactly firing the man, but the warning was definitely warranted.
“Yeah, I’m gettin’ that. Kidnapping attempts, your place burned down and it all seems to lead back to either you...” He motioned toward Dominic before putting his thumb against his own chest. “Me. Or Dearborn. My money’s on the agency.”
Addison shook her head. “But who in the agency? The only person I dealt with there was the office manager, Donna Cannon.”
“She’s gone,” Rooney explained. “She quit about a month ago, and they’ve been using a temp ever since.”
Well, that explained why Cooper wasn’t getting a lot of answers. “Who do you think is behind Dearborn?” Reed asked.
“Gunther Quarles,” Rooney said without hesitation.
Dominic looked at the P.I. as if he’d gone mad. “Quarles is a judge.”
Reed knew the name. Not just a judge but a rich, respected one. In addition to his being a judge, Quarles’s family had a charity foundation for underprivileged kids.
“I know exactly what he is,” Rooney said. “But I don’t like the way his name keeps popping up in my investigation. He signed at least five of the recent adoption decrees from Dearborn.”
Now it was Reed’s turn to shrug. “I’d imagine he’s signed dozens of decrees like that. It’s his job.”
“I thought that at first, too, but if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find at least three of the birth mothers were teenagers and had spent some time in facilities run by Quarles’s foundation.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, either,” Dominic insisted. The attorney had never looked comfortable with this interview, but his discomfort went up a significant notch. He fingered his collar and then moved those fidgety fingers to the back of his neck. “It’s not a good idea to antagonize a man like Quarles.”
The