into him, Niall could not walk out that door and abandon this baby himself. So, understanding as much about children as his medical books could teach, he tucked his gun into its holster, pulled his phone from his pocket and picked up the baby in its carrier. He spared a glance at the soft wood around the deadbolt catch, debating whether or not he should retrieve the decorative bead jammed there or report Lucy as a missing person. Making the crying infant his first priority, Niall closed the door behind him and carried the baby into his apartment before dialing the most knowledgeable parent he knew.
The phone picked up on the third ring. “Niall?”
“Dad.” He set the carrier on the island in his own kitchen and opened a drawer to pull out two clean dish towels. A quick glance at his watch indicated that perhaps he should have thought this through better. “Did I wake you?”
“It’s three in the morning, son. Of course you did.” Thomas Watson pushed the grogginess from his voice. “Are you still at the hospital? Has there been a change in Dad’s condition?”
“No. The doctors are keeping Grandpa lightly sedated. Keir will stay with him until one of us relieves him in the morning.”
“Thank God one of my boys is a doctor and that you were there to give him the treatment he needed immediately. We should be giving thanks that he survived and no one else was seriously injured. But knowing that the bastard who shot him is still...” Thomas Watson’s tone changed from dark frustration to curious surprise. “Do I hear a baby crying?”
Niall strode through his apartment, retrieving a towel and washcloth along with the first-aid kit and a clean white T-shirt from his dresser. “Yes. Keir will contact me if there is any change in Grandpa’s condition. I told Grandpa one or all of us would be by to see him in the morning, that the family would be there for him 24/7. I’m not sure he heard me, though.”
“Dad heard you, I’m sure.” Niall could hear his father moving now, a sure sign that the former cop turned investigative consultant was on his feet and ready for Niall to continue. “Now go back to the other thing. Why do you have a baby?”
Niall had returned to the kitchen to run warm water in the sink. “Can I ask you a favor?”
“Of course, son.”
“Dad, I need newborn diapers, bottles and formula. A clean set of clothes and some kind of coat or blanket or whatever babies need when it’s cold. A car seat, too, if you can get your hands on one at this time of night. I’ll reimburse you for everything, of course.” Niall put the phone on speaker and spread a thick towel out on the counter, pausing for a moment to assess the locking mechanism before unhooking the baby and lifting him from the carrier. “Good Lord, you don’t weigh a thing.”
“The baby, Niall.” That tone in his father’s voice had always commanded an answer. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
“It’s the neighbor’s kid,” Niall explained. “I’d get the items myself, but I don’t have a car seat and can’t leave him alone. Oh, get something for diaper rash, too. He needs a bath. I can use a clean dish towel to cover him up until you get here, although I don’t have any safety pins. Do you think medical tape would work to hold a makeshift diaper on him until you arrive?”
“You’re babysitting? I never thought I’d see the day—”
“Just bring me the stuff, Dad.”
Another hour passed before Thomas Watson arrived with several bags of supplies. His father groused about bottles looking different from the time Olivia had been the last infant in the house and how there were far too many choices for a feeding regimen. But between the two of them, they got the baby diapered, fed and dressed in a footed sleeper that fit him much better than Niall’s long T-shirt. At first, Niall was concerned about the infant falling asleep before finishing his first bottle. But he roused enough for Thomas to coax a healthy burp out of him before drinking a little more and crashing again. Niall was relieved to feel the baby’s temperature return to normal and suspected the feverish state had been pure stress manifesting itself.
The infant boy was sleeping in Thomas Watson’s lap as the older man dozed in the recliner, and Niall was reviewing a chapter on pediatric medicine when he heard the ding of the elevator at the end of the hallway. He closed the book and set it on the coffee table, urging his waking father to stay put while he went to the door.
He heard Lucy McKane’s hushed voice mumbling something as she approached and then a much louder, “Oh, my God. I’ve had a break-in.”
Niall swung open his door and approached the back of the dark-haired woman standing motionless before her apartment door. She had turned silent, but he knew exactly what to say. “Miss McKane? You and I need to talk.”
“The man wasn’t following me,” Lucy chanted under her breath for the umpteenth time since parking her car downstairs. She stepped off the elevator into the shadowed hallway, trying to convince herself that the drunken ape who’d offered to rock her world down on Carmody Street wasn’t the driver of the silver sports car she’d spotted in her rearview mirror less than a block from her condominium building a few minutes earlier. “He wasn’t following me.”
Maybe if she hadn’t spotted a similar car veering in and out of the lane behind her on Highway 71, she wouldn’t be so paranoid. Maybe if her voice mail at work didn’t have a message from her ex-boyfriend Roger that was equal parts slime and threat and booze.
“Guess what, sweet thing. I’m out. And I’m coming to see you.”
Maybe if it wasn’t so late, maybe if she’d felt safe in that run-down part of Kansas City, maybe if she wasn’t so certain that something terrible had happened to Diana Kozlow, her former foster daughter, who’d called her out of the blue yesterday after more than a year of no contact—maybe if the twenty-year-old would answer her stupid phone any one of the dozen times Lucy had tried to call her back—she wouldn’t feel so helpless or alone or afraid.
Fortunately, the silver car had driven past when she’d turned in to the gated parking garage. But the paranoia and a serious need to wash the man’s grimy hands off her clothes and skin remained. “He was not following me.”
She glanced down at the blurred picture she’d snapped through her rear window the second time the silver roadster had passed a car and slipped into the lane behind her on 71. Her pulse pounded furiously in her ears as she slipped the finger of her glove between her teeth and pulled it off her right hand to try and enlarge the picture and get a better look at the driver or read a possible license plate. Useless. No way could she prove the Neanderthal or Roger or anyone else had followed her after leaving the rattrap apartment building on Carmody, which was the last address she had for Diana. Not that it had been a productive visit. The super had refused to speak to her, and the only resident who would answer her questions about Diana was an elderly woman who couldn’t remember a young brunette woman living in the building, and didn’t recognize her from the old high school photo Lucy had shown her. Ape man had been willing to tell her anything—in exchange for stepping into the alley with him for a free grope.
None of which boded well for the life Diana had forged for herself after aging out of the foster system and leaving Lucy’s home. Lucy swiped her finger across the cell screen to pull up the high school photo of the dark-haired beauty she’d thought would be family—or at least a close friend—forever. “Oh, sweetie, what have you gotten yourself into?” she muttered around the red wool clasped between her teeth.
She glanced back at the elevator door, remembered the key card required to get into the building lobby.
“Okay. The creeper didn’t follow me,” she stated with as much conviction as she could muster. “And I will find you, Diana.”
She was simply going to have to get a few hours’ sleep and think this through and start her search again tomorrow. Except...
Lucy