All She Ever Wanted Part 18

"Go to h.e.l.l!" She cut the line.

He marched up the jetway, calling her again. She didn't pick up, and the call went to her voice mail. He shoved the phone into his pocket and started running.

Annie's cry rang through his mind, a haunting echo. He had to get to her.

Now.

By the time he got to his car in long-term parking, his pulse was thrumming and sweat ran down the center of his back, despite the cold. He thought about calling that detective and telling her that he knew who stole Annabelle, but he didn't want to take the time now.

He needed to see the cops in person, let them know how much of a threat Jennifer Green could be . . . let them know that he had heard Annie's distinctive cry.

He had heard it himself. Annabelle was with Jennifer-kidnapped by her!

Memories smacked Leo in the face as he tore out of the airport parking lot. Memories of horrible things Jennifer had done to him over the years. The time she went through his cell phone while he was sleeping and deleted the number of every female in his directory. The s.e.xual hara.s.sment complaint she filed against him at Sparklet when he asked for a divorce. The time he broke up with her and she sent him a gift box with a tiny coffin and a condolence card that read: I have AIDS. Although it had turned out to be false, he had gotten tested and walked around in a sick state for weeks. "It was just a joke," she said. "What happened to your sense of humor?"

Jennifer was a lunatic, but he blamed himself for ever falling for her, for confusing obsession with love. He just hoped that his mistake hadn't jeopardized his baby girl. He floored it onto the interstate, h.e.l.l-bent on getting home and finding his Annabee.

Chapter 24.

"The next-door neighbor is back," Officer Viloria called from the open side door. Her hat was in her hand, and her long dark hair was pinned at the back of her head, regulation style. At five feet two, Angie Viloria was a pet.i.te cop, but Grace had learned that size wasn't always helpful in law enforcement. Strong negotiating skills could bring a big man to his knees if you did your job right.

"Thanks." Grace grabbed her jacket and hurried around the kitchen table. "I definitely want to catch her." Chelsea Maynard was upstairs pumping breast milk, trying to keep it going, hoping the supply would be needed.

"No rush," Viloria said. "This one has 'cop buff' written all over her. She's talking with Sgt. Balfour, and I don't think she's budging anytime soon."

"Let's see if we can work her fascination to our advantage," Grace said, following Angie Viloria out the door.

With the arrival of the media and their vans with satellite dishes snaking up into the snowy sky, a carnival atmosphere had overtaken the street. The cops had moved their cruiser acting as temporary headquarters up into the driveway, establishing the sidewalk as a line of demarcation that the reporters were not allowed to cross.

Grace fixed her gaze on the woman who seemed to soak up Mike's every word, as well as the gestures of the two cops behind him. Pickler struck Grace as a woman who'd gotten caught in a time warp back in the eighties. Long hair, too much makeup, and clothes from the original "Let's Get Physical" video. Olivia Newton-John plus twenty years and fifty pounds. The conversation was punctuated by barking from a rat-like dog that scurried around, sounding an alarm.

"A real honest-to-goodness kidnapping on Maple Lane?" Louise Pickler's fake eyelashes batted the floating snowflakes. "That's quite a scoop. Now cut it out, ChiChi." She snapped her fingers at the dog, who circled behind her, then continued barking.

Someone hadn't heard of the leash law.

Pickler shot a curious look over at the Maynard-Green house. "And right next door to me. Should I be scared, officer?" she asked Balfour.

"It always pays to be cautious," Balfour told her.

"Ms. Pickler?" Grace stepped into the conversation holding up her detective shield. "I'm Grace Santos, a detective with the Missing Persons Squad."

"A lady detective?" Pickler tapped a finger on the tin of Grace's shield, as if testing it. "Just like on TV."

Grace forced a smile. "I'm wondering if you have a minute to talk with us about anything you might have seen around your neighbor's house."

"Sure. I can tell you a thing or two about Chelsea and Leo. I spend most of the winter down in South Carolina, but I see plenty when I'm here."

"We heard you had a place down there," Balfour said. "It's nice. I bet you don't miss weather like this."

"That's for sure."

"We were beginning to worry that you wouldn't be back until the spring thaw," the sergeant added.

Grace bit back a smile. Balfour was good at shooting the bull, loosening people up.

"I got back Monday. This morning I was just at the gym. It's the morning routine for ChiChi and me." Pickler adjusted the terrycloth headband holding down her hair.

"Really?" Grace stepped away from the small dog dancing at her heels. "Do they have doggy daycare at this gym?"

"ChiChi likes the gym, but he stays in the van." The dog was yapping rapid-fire, and she leaned down to swoop him up. "He goes everywhere with Mommy, don't you?"

ChiChi just panted, his ears twitching nervously.

The dog thing was annoying, especially with Louise calling herself Mommy, but it fit part of the profile of an infant abductor. That desire to have a child, so strong that the abductor set up a "fake" family with the stolen child.

"Ms. Pickler, would you like to step inside out of the snow?" Grace asked, pointing toward the woman's house. She wouldn't mind having a look inside.

"Do you have a search warrant?" Pickler asked.

When Grace's brows shot up, Louise Pickler grinned. "I'm just giving you a hard time. But we can talk out here." Pickler's eyes snared Balfour and the other cops talking by the cruiser.

Viloria was right; she was a buff. "Okay. What kind of relationship would you say you have with your neighbors?"

"I've always been a big help to Chelsea and Leo. Young couples starting out, they don't know anything about when to take the trash out or how you have to protect the parking spot in front of your house. I filled them in, but really? They don't want to hear it."

"So you'd say you have a good relationship with Leo Green and Chelsea Maynard?"

"Let's just say a good fence is important. I never complain when they play their music in the backyard in the summer. I figure they don't know that it drifts right up to my window. And I happen to know that they'd been ripping things out. Taking apart my friend Gloria's house, brick by brick. But I don't say anything. And that baby-they got a screamer for sure. You know, I went to South Carolina early last year because I couldn't listen to that baby howl anymore. That voice . . ." She pointed to her house. "It went right into my bedroom window. Cut a hole in my head."

Balfour scratched his jaw. "I can see where that would bother you."

Grace frowned. Mike was too kind.

"Not that you can pick your child the way you do a dog, but that baby . . ." Pickler winced. "She's a crier. She woke up ChiChi and me the other night, howling like a wild animal. She was so loud, I looked out and saw that the baby was out in the street. That was just crazy. So I called and reported it."

"Ms. Pickler, where exactly was the stroller?" Grace asked.

"Right there, plain as day." She pointed to the Green-Maynard driveway, the area under the carport. Not the street, but still not a safe place to leave your baby alone at night.

"And last night?" Grace asked. "Was the baby out in the stroller, crying again?"

"I don't know. I picked up some earplugs from CVS, and they worked like a charm." Pickler was looking back at her own house now, watching as a small woman in a parka backed up from the sidewalk and brought a microphone up to her face.

"That's my lawn you're on!" Pickler shouted. Her dog barked and twitched, no doubt eager to leap from her arms and drag the offending reporter from the lawn.

The reporter sidled back onto the sidewalk with a friendly wave. "Sorry! Just looking for a good angle."

"They'll have to pay a fee if they want to put my house on television," Pickler muttered. She stroked the dog, glaring at the woman Grace recognized as Suki Dinh from News 4 New York. "Maybe they want to talk to me. I could be on television."

Grace felt the interview slipping away. "Ms. Pickler, did you notice anything unusual in the neighborhood last night? A strange car on the street? Someone walking after dark?"

"No . . ." Pickler's voice was distant, her focus shifted to the news crew. "Louise . . ." Grace stepped into the woman's line of vision. "I'm trying to find a little baby who's missing. I need you to concentrate. Do it for Annabelle Green."

Pickler rolled her eyes. "I can't tell you anything if I didn't see anything."

"Maybe if we went inside . . . just another few minutes of your time . . ."

"That would be an invasion of piracy," Pickler said sternly.

Balfour cleared his throat, and Grace bit the inside of her cheeks to keep a straight face.

"Yes, I know my rights, detective." She adjusted her sweatband and turned toward her lawn. "I wonder what my story would be worth to them."

Grace wanted to stop her, but what could she do?

"Just make sure the camera gets your good side," Balfour called after her.

"Mike . . ." Grace glared at him. "Don't encourage her."

"She's got nothing for us, Grace. And if she gets an interview, maybe she'll incriminate herself."

"We'll have to watch the noon report. Though I don't know why she's so excited to get on camera when she's so secretive about her house."

"You heard her. It's an invasion of piracy." Balfour looked over at the two-story cape, a mirror image of the Green-Maynard house. "But there's something weird in there. When you get up to the porch, there's a bad odor."

"Mildew? Mold?"

"Something foul. And when you got a stink like that this time of year, in the cold, you know it must be potent. Maybe she's a bad housekeeper. Maybe worse. If you're going for a look in there, I'd recommend you suit up first."

As they talked, a car moved down the center of the street, negotiating among the parked cruisers and news vans a little too fast for comfort. When the car stopped in the street in front of Annabelle Green's house, both Grace and Mike turned to watch.

"Who the h.e.l.l is that?" Balfour asked.

The car bounced to a stop. The driver's door flew open and a dark-haired man in his twenties was out in a flash, running up the driveway.

"That's got to be Leo Green," Grace said. "The father."

Chapter 25.

It was like some macabre festival. Getting past the cl.u.s.ter of cop cars and news crews in the street in front of his house was like trying to find street parking at Yankee Stadium on game night.

He sneered when a cop stopped him halfway up the driveway. "It's my baby you're looking for. I'm Leo Green."

"Okay, sir. Go on ahead."

Leo lunged under the carport and leaped up the steps. Inside, it was warm and disheveled and oddly quiet. He could see the back of Chelsea's head, and from the way she sat alone in her spot on the sofa, you would almost think it was any ordinary day.

Except for the circus outside and the fingerprint powder darkening kitchen surfaces.

"Chelsea . . ."

She sprang up, more alert than he'd expected. Her blue eyes glistened with tears.

"What happened?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I fell asleep and . . . when I woke up she was gone, and I can't sort out the details in my head about whether I left her down here alone or put her in her crib or left her outside in the stroller. I can't remember and . . . she's gone." A tear streamed down her face, but her eyes remained locked on his, strong, determined, and frightened. "I'm so sorry. I can't believe I slept through it . . . whatever happened to her."

He closed the s.p.a.ce between them and folded her into his arms. "It's not your fault. We're going to find her. Where is that detective? Detective Santos."

"Right here, Mr. Green."

He eased away from Chelsea to glance back at the side door, where a pet.i.te woman in a brown coat stood beside a cop.

The woman, a brunette with intense black eyes, introduced herself as Grace Santos. The cop, Sgt. Balfour, was in charge of the police investigation.

"They took fingerprints," Chelsea said breathlessly. "And they used dogs. They tried to sniff out a trail, to see where she is, but it didn't work."

"The canines were inconclusive," the detective said. "Since Annabelle is an infant, we're focusing on finding witnesses who might have seen something in this neighborhood last night. A vehicle or someone near your home. We're also examining the circle of people who have had contact with her. In most cases, children are s.n.a.t.c.hed by someone they know, someone denied custody or visiting rights." Detective Santos suggested that they sit down to talk, but Leo couldn't.

"I think I know who took our daughter."

His words seemed to suck the air from the room.

"You do?" Chelsea's eyes burned with hope.

"My ex-wife, Jennifer Green." He turned away from Chelsea; he couldn't bear to see the accusation in her eyes. "She's moved back to Westchester, and she's been calling me. Persistent calls. I think she may have been stalking Chelsea and the baby."

The detective nodded. "How long were you married?"

"Less than a year."

"Did you have children together?"

"No, but she was pregnant once. She miscarried."

"And did the marriage end amicably?" Grace asked.