That my grief over losing the baby was causing my…confusion about the birth.”
Sister-in-law? “You’re married?” he asked, unable to hide his surprise—or dismay.
She shook her head. “Widowed. My husband died a year ago.” She looked away. “Are you going to take my case, Mr. Rawlins?”
He didn’t correct her. He was still mulling over the fact that she’d had a husband. And the man had died a year ago. Just before Slade had met her? He felt as if she’d sucker punched him. “There are a few things I need to know.” That was putting it mildly.
“I will tell you everything I can.”
An odd answer, he thought, all things considered. “I’ll need you to agree to an examination by a doctor.”
“To prove that I recently delivered a baby.”
He nodded.
She didn’t seem offended. “What else?”
“I’ll need the name of your doctor during your pregnancy, and I’ll want to talk to the doctor at the hospital who allegedly delivered your baby.”
“I didn’t have a doctor during my pregnancy. I was seeing a midwife.”
He lifted a brow at her. She didn’t seem like the midwife type. “Was that your idea?”
She flushed. “Actually, my sister-in-law suggested her. The woman is highly regarded as one of the top midwives in the country. Her name is Maria Perez. She just happened to have bought a place near here and was on a sabbatical. I was very lucky to get her.”
He stared at her. Something in the way she said it caught his attention. It almost sounded rehearsed. And too convenient. “You have her number then?”
Holly came up with the number from memory. He wasn’t sure why that surprised him either.
“Something else. Why did you drive fifty miles over a mountain pass in a blizzard on Christmas Eve to hire a private investigator?”
“I went to Dry Creek to the last-minute-shoppers art festival at the fairgrounds to look for promising new artists for my gallery. I go every year.”
Again, the lines sounded rehearsed. Or as if they weren’t her own. Was the art festival where she’d been last year before she’d come stumbling out of the snow and into his headlights?
“Although, this year I almost didn’t go,” she added with a frown, a clear afterthought.
“So why did you?”
She shook her head. “My sister-in-law thought it would be the best thing for me.”
He wondered about this sister-in-law who knew so much. “And do you hire a private investigator every year?” he asked, the sarcasm wasted on her.
“Of course not. I never intended to hire anyone. I was driving by and I saw your sign through the snow and—” She looked up at him and shook her head. “I don’t know why I came to you. I just had this sudden need to know the truth and there you were.”
“No matter what that truth is?” he had to ask.
“No matter what you discover,” she said, but he heard a slight hesitation in her words. She sounded scared and unsure. He couldn’t blame her. He felt the same way.
He went for the big one. “What about the father of your baby?”
“I don’t see what that has to do—”
“If your baby really was stolen, the father of the baby seems the prime suspect.”
It was clear she’d already thought of this. She nodded. “I…” She licked her lips and swallowed. “I don’t…”
“You don’t know who the father of your baby is?”
“I know what you must be thinking.”
He doubted that. “Surely, you have some idea or can at least narrow it down.”
“Are you familiar with alcoholic blackouts?”
He stared at her. “You’re an alcoholic?” The only thing he’d ever seen her drink was cola.
“Let’s just say I don’t remember getting pregnant and leave it at that for now.”
He studied her for a long moment. Was it possible he knew more about the conception of their baby than she did? “When can you see a doctor?”
Relief washed over her features at his change of subject. “The sooner the better,” she said.
“No problem. I think I can get you an appointment this afternoon.” Dr. Fred Delaney had delivered both Slade and Shelley and had been a friend of the family for years. He would make time for this, Slade knew. Dr. Delaney was also on his list of people to talk to about his mother. “Is that too soon?”
“No.” She rose as he got to his feet.
He considered telling her about the two of them. That after doing the math, he figured the baby had to be his. But first he had to know if there really had been a baby.
He started to leave and stopped. “Last night, when you came to see me at my office…”
“Christmas Eve,” she said, then waited for him to go on.
“There was a Santa bell-ringer in front of my building. Maybe you saw him?”
She shook her head, frowning as if wondering what that had to do with anything.
“I think he had my office staked out. I saw him on a cell phone as you were leaving. I think he’d been waiting for you.” He saw her pale, her hand trembling as she grasped the back of the chair he’d been sitting in for support.
“Then they know I’ve come to you,” she said, fear making her blue eyes darken.
“They?” he asked, just to clarify.
“The people who took my baby.”
The monsters in the painting.
If “they” existed outside this woman’s mind.
The Santa bell-ringer, on the other hand, had been real. He described the Santa as best he could, hoping she’d recognize the guy as someone she knew. But while the man hadn’t been hiding behind a monster mask—he had been hiding under a beard and hat and possibly a whole lot of padding. Like the monsters in her painting, real or not, Santa hadn’t wanted to be recognized either, it seemed.
“I can’t place him from your description,” she said.
He nodded, not surprised. “You just might want to be…careful.” He wanted to warn her, but he didn’t have any idea against what—or whom. The bottom line was: if those monsters in her painting existed, then Holly Barrows was in danger.
“You
