Newborn Conspiracy (5 page)

Around the time Mia had undergone the insemination.

“Maybe Genevieve did get pregnant," Mia concluded, “Maybe that’s her connection to Brighton. She could have had your baby there."

Logan immediately shook his head. “If she’d found some way to overcome her infertility and have my baby, she would have told me. In fact, she would have been delighted to tell me because she would have thought that would get us back together. It wouldn’t have. I would have taken care of my child, but that care wouldn’t have extended to the mother."

Mia didn’t believe that last part. After all, he was trying to protect her, a stranger. However, she didn’t have the bad blood with him that Genevieve apparently did. They only had a severe case of dislike of each other.

She hoped it continued.

Mia needed all the emotional barriers she could get to make herself immune to this man that her body seemed interested in. Because she could still feel the tingle of his touch on her breast.

Damn him.

He glanced at her and took the final turn into her secluded neighborhood. “But you’re right about one thing" he continued. “Maybe that’s how Genevieve is connected to Brighton."

Now, it was Mia’s turn to shake her head. “I don’t understand."

“Genevieve could have been the one who arranged to have the semen transported from Cryogen to Brighton. That’s how she intended to get pregnant,"

“And then somehow I got the semen by mistake?" Mia shook her head. “That seems like a huge blunder for a medical center to make."

“We’re talking about Brighton," he reminded her. “They made a lot of mistakes. Some intentional and some because they were trying to cover up their crimes."

He took the turn into her driveway. Her house wasn’t a typical burbs kind of place, Mia had bought the three-bedroom ranch-style house because of the privacy. The house was positioned amid several sprawling oaks, shrubs and hedges. Tonight, amid those oaks and in front of her house, she could see a woman.

Mia’s heart started to race.

“It’s all right," Logan assured her, “That’s Collena Drake."

Mia got a better look at the woman when they came to a stop directly in front her. The tall, too-thin blonde seemed oblivious to the winter wind. She wore a black coat, unbuttoned, and her bare hands were exposed. The wind whipped at her shoulder-length hair and her clothes.

She seemed pale and frail. As if she wasn’t all there.

“Collena," Logan greeted as he stepped from the car. “I’m glad you came."

After checking that Tanner was still asleep in his carrier in the backseat. Mia also got out, and Logan made introductions that Collena dismissed by dropping a little bombshell.

“Ms. Crandall, I’ve been going through the Brighton files, and I don’t think the things that happened with your insemination were accidental."

Okay. Even though Mia and Logan had just played around with that theory, it was a different thing hearing it continued."So, what went wrong?" Mia asked.

Collena Drake opened her mouth to answer, but that was as far as she got. Mia saw the woman’s eyes widen, and she tried to figure out why Collena had that reaction.

Mia caught just a glimpse of the car out of the corner of her eye. A slow-moving gray car. The same vehicle from the parking lot of the pediatric clinic. This time, the passenger’s side window was lowered about halfway. Not enough, though, to see inside the darkened interior.

Everything happened fast.

Almost a blur.

Logan yelled for them to get down. But he didn’t wait for her to comply. He dived at Mia and knocked her to ground. He didn’t stay there. He came up, with his gun drawn and ready to fire.

But it was already too late.

There was a thick, heavy blast from the open window of the gray car. The brutal sound tore through the otherwise quiet community and slammed right past where Mia had just been standing.

But Mia was no longer there and the bullet hit Collena Drake instead.

And the gunman continued to fire.

Logan cursed, took aim and returned fire.

He didn’t stop with one shot. He sent a barrage of bullets at the gray car, all the while kicking himself for not having done more to protect everyone.

Now, Mia and Tanner were right in the path of danger and Collena Drake was down, perhaps dying.

He could blame himself for that. And later, he would. But right now, he had a more immediate problem that required his complete concentration. The gunman, or perhaps gunmen, inside that gray car could still be trying to kill them.

Logan sent two more shots into the car. One slammed into the passenger-side door, right where a gunman would be sitting if there was indeed more than one of them. The next bullet shattered the partially lowered window. The safety glass webbed into a sheet of broken pebbles and collapsed into the interior of the car.

The gunman was wearing a black ski mask.

That was the only glimpse that Logan got of the lone person shooting at them before the driver stomped on the accelerator and the car sped away, Logan’s instincts screamed for him to go in pursuit. Adrenaline and anger made him want to strike out, to retaliate, to get the SOB who’d put Collena, Mia and Tanner in danger.

But he couldn’t leave them.

“The baby." Mia cried out, trying to get out from beneath him.

Logan literally had her flattened on the frozen winter ground so that she couldn’t move and she obviously wanted to get up. He understood that. The baby was in the car and they had to make sure he was okay.

“The car’s bullet resistant," Logan assured her.

But that didn’t assure her at all. Actually, it didn’t assure him, either. Nothing would at this point except seeing for himself that his son hadn’t been harmed.

Keeping her eyes off his gun. Mia continued to struggle to get up and, once he made sure that the gunman’s vehicle was no longer in sight, Logan moved off her. She rushed to check on Tanner.

Logan kept watch for the gray car, in case the gunman decided to return for another round, and he scrambled across the ground toward Collena.

She was alive, but bleeding from the bullet she’d taken in the shoulder. Blood had already spread across her clothes and it was hard to tell the exact point of impact, but the injury looked close to her heart.

“Tanner’s okay," Mia shouted to him.

And despite everything else going on, Logan felt immediate relief."Stay in the car," he ordered.

The bullet-resistant car would be safer than trying to get them into her house. Especially since he hadn’t had a chance to check her place to make sure that no one was lurking inside.

The last thing they needed was to mil into another murder attempt.

He took out his phone, called 911 and requested police and an ambulance. He also called for backup from two of his own men. They’d likely get there faster than the police.

“I’ll be okay." Collena mumbled.

Logan hoped that was true. Still, he didn’t like what he saw when he pulled down the collar of her sweater and spotted the wound. The bullet had missed her heart, thank God, but her collarbone appeared to be shattered and she was bleeding out fast.

He took her neck scarf from her coat pocket and pressed it to the wound."The ambulance will be here soon."

“Can I do something to help?" he heard Mia ask.

The car door was open just a fraction, enough for him to see Mia cradling Tanner to her chest.

The baby was fussing, probably because his nap had been disturbed, but he looked unharmed.

Logan said a quick prayer of thanks, “I need to get Collena to the front seat," he told Mia. He purposely kept his gun at his side so that she wouldn’t see it and have a panic attack.

Mia nodded, reached over the seat and fully opened the front passenger-side door. Logan lifted Collena as gently as he could. She moaned and grimaced from the pain.

Logan lay her inside on the leather seat while he continued to apply pressure to her wound. It wasn’t an ideal way to treat a gunshot victim, but at least the vehicle would protect them from the cold and perhaps even a subsequent attack. In the meantime, he would do what he could to keep Collena from bleeding to death, “Are you okay?" he asked Mia.

Their eyes met. For a second. He saw the fear and concern."I wasn’t hurt."

Maybe not physically. But this attack was the stuff of present and future nightmares. It would stay with her.

And him.

The only good thing he could see in all of this was that Tanner was too young to remember what they’d just experienced.

Logan heard the sirens in the distance. It wouldn’t be long now before the police arrived and before Collena could get the medical treatment she needed.

“Someone doesn’t want us to learn the truth," Collena whispered.

Logan had to agree with her about that."We need to know who." So he could go after this idiot with every ounce of the rage he was feeling for the person who’d endangered his child.

“I’m close to getting that name " Collena added."I’ll have it soon"

“I don’t doubt that we’ll find the truth. But for now, just stay quiet. Conserve your energy."

Collena shook her head and ran her tongue over her chapped bottom lip. Her breath was ragged and thin."The police found two sets of files at Brighton—the legal set the Brighton owners and investors created for the world to see. The real files were encrypted with different codes for different files. This afternoon, I finally broke the code on Mia Crandall’s file."

That got his attention. Mia’s, too. She peered over the seat at the woman.

“There’s one notation that really stood out," Collena continued. She waited until she took a deep breath."In Mia’s file there was a notation about a surrogate request. A client paid a huge sum of money for the use of a surrogate with red hair and brown eyes, I don’t know who this person is yet—they were identified by yet another code."

Logan got a really bad feeling about this.

“What was that doing in my records?" Mia asked.

Collena wearily shook her head. "I’m not sure, exactly. And it’s more complicated."

The sounds of sirens drew closer and Logan spotted the ambulance when it turned into Mia’s drive, “Complicated," Collena repeated. "Because Brighton took money from both you and this other person who made the request. In fact, this person paid nearly ten times what you did, and I think the reason for that was the surrogate wasn’t supposed to know she was a surrogate. The client wanted to keep the arrangement a secret."

Mia shook her head. "Why?"

“No reason given. At least, no reason that I’ve been able to get from the encrypted files."

Logan groaned.

Because he knew the reason.

He knew.

MIA WAS STILL SHAKING. Just as she’d done at the police station. And while giving her statement to the sergeant about the shooting. The shaking had continued on the ride from the police station to the hospital to check on Collena.

Of course, it’d only been three and a half hours since she’d seen a woman gunned down in front of her own house. It might take weeks before the shaking stopped and her body returned to normal.

Thankfully, Tanner wasn’t having the same panicked reaction she was. He was sleeping soundly after his second nursing since the ordeal. She hadn’t minded the extra feeding. In fact, Mia had welcomed it. It got her out of the hospital waiting room and into a private lounge off the nurses’ station where she could finally have some downtime and try to smother the brutal images of that gunman.

Mia heard the sound of someone moving around in the nurses’ station so she snapped up the cup to her nursing bra and lowered her sweater, just in case someone walked in, but she didn’t put Tanner back in his carry seat. She needed to hold him a few moments longer because he was the ultimate reminder that she couldn’t fall apart. Nor could she give into old fears and panic. She’d have to stay strong for her son.

She checked Tanner’s diaper and discovered he was still dry. Then Mia reached for her diaper bag, so she could get ready to leave her temporary’ sanctuary, only to realize she didn’t have the bag with her.

Oh, mercy. Not only were Tanner’s extra diapers in there, so was her wallet and cell phone.

She got up, searched around the fold-up chair where she’d been sitting. No bag. So she latched on to the carrier with her left hand and went back into the nurses’ station. She immediately spotted the diaper bag on the floor next to the station desk.

She also spotted the pair of nurses seated at the desk, one of whom had shown her to the private lounge. The woman was now on the phone, and the other nurse was discussing something with a young couple standing directly in front of the desk. The nurses probably hadn’t noticed the diaper bag because it was tucked just out of their sight.

Mia also noticed the tall, lanky man in the passageway by the nurses’ station.

Even though he was dressed in green scrubs and likely a doctor or nurse, her heart went into overdrive. Simply because he was there, partially blocking her view and path, he felt threatening. It was a familiar reaction, one she couldn’t totally control and she stepped back into the lounge. But he didn’t even glance in her direction.

“Collena Drake will be in recovery soon?’" he asked the nurse on the phone.

She checked the computer screen in front of her, nodded. "She should be on the way to the PACU in the next ten minutes or so," she said. The woman continued her phone conversation as the man walked away.

The PACU, the post-anesthesia care unit. That meant, hopefully, that Collena had come through the surgery just fine.

Mia waited to make sure the man was gone, then cursed her wussy reaction. She couldn’t keep doing this. She had to try to maintain some kind of normalcy for Tanner and that wouldn’t happen if she thought of every stranger as the bogeyman.

She only hoped the shooter wasn’t anywhere near the hospital. And while she was hoping, Mia added a wish that Collena Drake would be all right. She had enough guilt without adding Ms.

Drake to the list. After all, the woman had been shot while trying to help Logan and her.