know.” He punched numbers into the phone as he crouched beside the Buick and looked under the chassis. “A woman was just accosted by an armed man in the alley behind Elite Employment Agency on Sixth. No, nobody’s injured. The man lost possession of his weapon. I’m looking at it right now.”
Lacey’s knees began to shake, and she had to lean against the side of her car. Katie began to feel like deadweight in her arms, and, to her horror, she felt herself losing her grip on the little girl.
“Whoa, now.” The man rose quickly to his feet and caught Katie as she started to slide out of Lacey’s arms. “I’ve got her.”
Lacey waited for Katie’s wails to start, but to her surprise, the little girl just stared up with bright, curious eyes at the man in the suit. Bracing herself against the side of the car, Lacey held out her arms. “I’m all right. I can take her back now.”
He ignored her outstretched arms and opened the passenger door of her car. Nodding toward the seat, he said, “Why don’t you sit down right there, and then I’ll give this cutie back to you.”
It was a good idea, so she sat sideways, her feet still on the pavement. The man handed Katie back to her, and the little girl wriggled around until she was facing the stranger.
Katie was smitten, Lacey realized with some surprise, glancing up at the man, who was still making funny faces at Katie. Now that she wasn’t drowning in adrenaline, Lacey could see why. Their rescuer was a good-looking man, with a mobile face that seemed made for smiling. His exertions had mussed his short, sandy-brown hair, revealing a tendency to curl.
His gaze shifted away from Katie and settled on Lacey, warmth shining in his hazel-green eyes. Sympathy tinged his voice when he spoke. “Feeling a little less shaky?”
“Yes, thanks.” The moan of sirens in the distance seeped through the sound of traffic noise. “That must be the cops.”
“Must be.” The man smiled faintly. “I’m Jim Mercer.”
“I’m Lacey Miles.”
His smile spread. “I know. I’ve seen you on TV.”
“Oh.” She still felt strange when people recognized her, even though she had just finished her third year on air with the news network. “I haven’t thanked you. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t shown up and chased that creep away.”
He glanced at the tire iron she’d dropped by the car. “Probably brained the guy,” he said wryly.
She laughed, even though nothing about the past few minutes was funny.
The sirens grew louder, and the flash of blue and cherry lights lit the gloom of the alley. A second later, a white-and-blue Frederick Police Department cruiser pulled up behind Lacey’s car.
The next half hour proved to be almost as stressful as the attempted ambush, as Lacey had to answer dozens of questions, first from the responding officers, then from the detective who arrived a few minutes later. Because of the cold, the detectives took them inside the employment-agency building to ask questions, but the warmer temperatures didn’t do much to improve Katie’s mood. She cried every time Lacey tried to put her in the stroller, so Lacey ended up answering the detective’s questions while bouncing a fretful Katie on her knee.
“He was wearing a mask,” Lacey answered for what felt like the tenth time. “I didn’t see his hair or his eyes. He was pointing a gun at me. I just saw the gun.”
At the other end of the conference-room table, Jim Mercer was answering questions posed by another detective, who looked bored and sleepy. Jim glanced her way once, his eyes soft with concern. A warm sensation spread through her chest in response, catching her off guard.
He’s a stranger, and you are in no position to feel anything for a stranger, she reminded herself. Trust no one.
Detective Braun finally closed his notebook and held out a business card. “We’ll see if we can get anything off the weapon. But even if we can track it with the serial number, it’s possible it was stolen. However, you can call me if you remember anything else, and I’ll be in touch if we’re able to track anything down on your assailant. It’s just—”
“I understand.” She took the card. “I know there’s not much to go on.”
“You might want to call a friend to drive back to Virginia with you,” he suggested. “So you’re not out there alone.”
She nodded even though she knew there was nobody she could call. Her work had been the center of her life for the past ten years, to the point that it consumed her life almost entirely. The low pay and bad hours paying her dues on the local level, then the big move to the occasional national gig and, finally, a regular investigative slot on a national network—all those steps up the career ladder had taken a big toll on the rest of her life.
She’d always thought there would be time later, time to rebuild friendships and family ties that had suffered during her upward climb.
Now Katie was all she had left, and she had absolutely no idea how to be a mother to her sister’s child.
“Do you think it could be connected to the bombing?” she asked Braun as he started toward the conference-room door.
He stopped and looked at her. “It’s possible. But this attack seems pretty random.”
“Someone set a bomb in my car. My sister and her husband were killed because they borrowed it. Maybe you remember that bombing—Marianne and Toby Harper? Ring any bells? And now, two weeks later, I’m accosted at gunpoint. I’m not sure I’d call that random.”
Braun looked both sympathetic and frustrated. “I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am. You may be right. It may be connected. I plan to make a call to the DC police and compare notes with the lead detective in the bombing case. Maybe we can come up with a more solid connection.”
As he left the room, Lacey tucked Katie closer, breathing in the warm scent of powder and baby shampoo. Meanwhile, she thought, Katie and I are sitting ducks.
* * *
“AND YOU’RE SURE you didn’t make out anything about the license plates?” Detective Marty Ridge stifled a yawn.
“No,” Jim answered, trying not to let his impatience show. If he’d seen a license plate, he’d have described it in detail. But the plate on the green Chevy van had been obscured with mud. Probably on purpose. He couldn’t even be sure whether they were Maryland or Virginia plates.
“Well, we’ll have to hope the weapon gives us something to go on,” Ridge said in a tone that suggested Jim’s testimony was going to be no help at all.
Jim stifled a grimace of annoyance and glanced down the table at Lacey Miles and her niece. The little girl was fussing despite her aunt’s attempt to soothe her. From the expression on Lacey’s face, she didn’t know how to comfort the child, which made him wonder just how much she knew about taking care of a baby.
“Call if you think of anything else.” Rising, Ridge handed Jim his card, but from the look on his face, it was something he did out of habit rather than any real hope that Jim could add anything to the investigation.
After
