The Cradle Mission Read online

  Furious over his mother’s black eye, Eric had wanted to tear out of the low-rent flat where they’d been living and charge after his dad, but his mother had told him he couldn’t leave, not on his birthday. Then she’d shown him the homemade cake she’d baked and given him the cross. Cain could still see the tears in her eyes as she’d hung the cross around his neck.

  “This is to remind you of the good in the world, so you don’t grow up to be like your father,” she said.

  And Eric hadn’t. He might not have followed the letter of the law, but he hadn’t deserved to die the way he had.

  Someone had to pay for his death. And if Cain found whoever had killed him, he would take care of them himself. To hell with his badge. He wanted justice. No—he wanted more than that.

  He wanted revenge.

  SIMON’S SMALL SOUNDS of hunger grew more incessant over the miles.

  “I’ll feed you when we reach the monastery,” Alanna promised. “We’ll be there soon, honey.” Alanna struggled to remain calm as she veered from the winding road onto the highway that led to Buford.

  Simon continued to fret over the next few miles, the countryside changing to suburbia. She glanced at her rearview mirror, trying to decide if the dark car was following her or if she’d finally succumbed to paranoia.

  When she’d left Cain Caldwell, she’d debated whether to return to the lake cabin, but she was afraid he’d show up, probing for more information on Simon. This morning she’d remembered Paul telling her that Eric Caldwell had helped women go underground through a local monastery in Buford, and she’d searched the phone book for a number. Thankfully, there was only one listed in the small town, although there were several others in and around the city of Atlanta.

  Headlights flashed ahead, nearly blinding her, but she managed to stay on the road, Simon’s cries escalating. “Hang on, sweetie, we’re almost there.” She checked the direcons, then the numbers along the street, grateful to see the side road that led to the monastery. She turned down the road, then steered the car into the long driveway, her stomach knotting as Simon’s wails increased. A huge stone structure surrounded by black iron gates sat back from the road, woods surrounding it. Although the building seemed imposing, she had no choice. She needed help and she had nowhere else to turn.

  Simon was screaming now, thrashing his fists and hands wildly. She stopped in front of the building, but darkness shrouded the stone structure, and the mixture of overgrown weeds and dead leaves and broken rock near the awning was not a good sign. Neither was the broken glass in the window to the side or the spiderwebs climbing like vines up the walls of the building.

  The building had obviously been abandoned.

  She was just about to drop her head and give in to tears when a dark sedan crept up the driveway toward her. Dear God. The car had been following her.

  Adrenaline and self-preservation kicked in. She shoved the car into Drive, hit the gas and took off, passing the car and flying toward the highway. She tightened her hands around the steering wheel as the screeching tires roared behind her. Swerving onto the main road, she drove like a demon.

  But a few minutes later, she bumped across the railroad tracks just before the railroad crossing warning dinged. Then the crossing rails lowered and trapped the sedan, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  The shrill sound of her cell phone cut into her reprieve. Alanna’s heart raced as she glanced at it. Was Paul calling her?

  Hands shaking, she answered it. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Hayes, this is a friend of Eric Caldwell’s.”

  Her breath hitched. “You worked with Eric?”

  “Yes. He told me about your call. I know he was supposed to meet you the day he died.”

  Relief spilled through her. “You work for the same organization as Eric?”

  “Yes. He gave me your cell number in case he couldn’t reach you.”

  “I went to the monastery but it was closed.”

  “I know. Meet me at the cemetery where Eric is buried.” He recited short directions in a clipped voice. “And make sure you’re not followed.”

  “I will. Thank you.” She checked her rearview mirror and drove toward the graveyard. Thank heavens Eric had told someone else about her. Maybe they could help her and Simon escape.

  CAIN HAD TRIED TO LEAVE the cemetery several times, but each time his legs had refused to work. Now he sat on the ground beside the fresh mound of dirt with his head down, so swamped with childhood memories of Eric that he could barely breathe.

  He caught the flicker of a gray parka in his peripheral vision and glanced sideways.

  Jane Carter, the woman with the baby, had come to Eric’s grave. Her frail figure stood like a ghost in the shadows of the trees only a few feet away. The baby lay bundled in her ar shivering form a staunch reminder of the terror he’d seen in her eyes that morning and the day before.

  He had to know why she’d come.

  And why she’d been drawn to his brother’s grave when she’d been in such a hurry to escape from him this morning.

  ALANNA ROCKED the baby in her arms, shielding him from the howling wind with her coat as she searched the graveyard for the man who’d phoned her.

  She spied a man sitting hunched over on the ground beside Eric’s grave. Was it Cain or the man who had called to help her?

  Gravel crunched behind her, the footfalls of someone approaching sending a chill up her spine. She turned around, half expecting the men in the black car to have dogged her, but the shadow of a woman deep in the heart of the knotty pines flickered. Alanna couldn’t distinguish the woman’s face or anything else about her, except that she wore black. Maybe she worked for the organization, too. Or was she just a mourner?

  Then the man turned and looked straight at her and she realized it was Cain. The anguish in his eyes nearly made her legs buckle.

  She couldn’t let him see her. Alanna pivoted and started back to her car, but before she reached it, Cain caught up with her and grabbed her arm.

  “I thought you were headed out of town.” Cain Caldwell’s hulking body towered over her, and Polenta’s warning rang in her head. Be careful of Eric’s brother. He had some military background, medical training. Don’t let him know about Simon.

  “I am. But I thought I’d stop and pay my respects to your brother.” Not much of a lie, but she was so rattled she couldn’t think.

  “So you knew Eric well?”

  She shrugged, not knowing how to answer. Eric had had a nice voice. She just prayed he truly hadn’t died because of her.

  A drop of sleet hit Cain Caldwell’s cheek, another pelted the ground below. Dead leaves fluttered into his black hair, across his leather jacket and onto the ground, but he seemed oblivious to the cold or the weather. Except for the black irises of his eyes. They burned with an intensity that seared her.

  “Your brother was a good man,” she said, knowing in her heart it was true. He had planned to help her. No questions asked.

  “Yes, he was.” His jaw twitched slightly, the only indication her comment had affected him. “Not everyone realized that, though. Sometimes he liked to straddle the line of the law.”

  “He…I’m so sorry he’s gone.”

  Again that twitch in his jaw. “Tell me why you’re here.” His gaze flickered over her. Then Simon.

  As if Simon realized he was being scrutinized, he squirmed in her arms, one fist sneaking out of the blanket. She tucked it back and soothed him, not wanting the cold air to touch his skin.

  “I…I need to go.” She gestured toward Simon. “I don’t want him to get sick.”

  She moved quickly to escape him, but Cain pulled her toward him, holding her so close his breath bathed her face. He’d obviously neglected to shave, and the dark stubble of his beard looked abrasive. She heard his teeth grind as he clenched them.

  “It’s no coincidence that someone murdered my brother the same day you showed up needing help,” he said in a low growl. “Tell me what you’re af
raid of and who you’re running from.”

  She had no idea what to do or what to tell him. But his fingers dug into her arms tighter, almost to the point of pain. If he thought she had caused his brother’s death, would he take his anger out on her? Would he turn Simon over to the scientists searching for him or expose his birth circumstances publicly?

  A shudder coursed through her. She could not let him do that to Simon.

  His grip tightened as he stared deeper into her eyes. The way the guards on Nighthawk Island had handled her, their brutal force and threats suddenly rushed back, haunting her. She jutted her chin in the air, hoping the shiver in her body didn’t betray her show of bravado. “I’m running from men like you.” She purposely lowered her eyes to his hand where his fingers held onto her.

  His gaze dropped to his hand, too, and he went still. He released her so suddenly that she stumbled backward, then caught herself and leaned against the tree to calm her nerves.

  “I’m sorry.” His apology gushed out, so quick and gruff that she blinked to make certain she’d heard it. Then she saw him glance at the bruises on her wrist, and his anger transformed into regret. He held his hands up and frowned at them, then stepped away from her, as if to give her the freedom to leave if she wanted. “I won’t hurt you.”

  She nodded stiffly, as uncomfortable with this tender side as she had been with his gruff exterior.

  “I simply want some answers.” He jerked his head toward the mound of his brother’s grave. “He was my baby brother. My…my only family.” He cleared his throat, pain lacing his thick voice. “I…I have to know who killed him.”

  Alanna closed her eyes, the raw grief in his words pulling at her heartstrings. How could she help him without endangering herself or Simon? Polenta’s warnings reverberated over and over in her head. She couldn’t trust him…

  “A…an ex-boyfriend is after me. He…” Lies tumbled through her mind. What would he believe? What would make him want to help her, not harm her or Simon?

  “He’s the one who hit you?”

  She nodded, shame washing over her for deceiving him. But Simon’s safety was the only thing that mattered. “I’m afraid he’ll hurt the baby.”

  “The baby’s his?”

  Before she could answer, a gunshot pierced the air. Cain pushed her and Simon behind a tree, and they both hit the ground, shielding Simon with their bodies.

  Chapter F

  Cain’s jaw snapped tight. Who were these thugs? Why would they try to gun down an innocent woman and baby?

  He pulled out his own weapon and aimed, then fired, sending the bullet into a tree only a few feet from the men’s heads. Jane screamed and the baby cried out.

  The men froze. He fired again, this time hitting a lower tree branch that splintered and fell to the ground. He aimed the next one into the ground at the bald man’s feet. He reached for his cell phone to call for backup, but the men turned and ran toward their car, both heaving for air and looking over their shoulders in fear. His gaze swung back to Jane. She had scrambled behind a low bush, trying to quiet Simon but to no avail. Cain waited several seconds until the men’s car tore from the parking lot, then slipped as quietly as he could toward her. Seconds later, she raised her head and peered through the brush, cuddling Simon close as she searched for the men. He gently placed his hands on her arms. “Jane—”

  She jerked to a standing position, ready to run.

  “It’s okay now, they’re gone.” She was shaking so badly he did the only thing he could.

  He pulled her and Simon into his arms and offered her comfort.

  ALANNA FELL INTO Cain’s arms, knowing she should resist but unable to help herself from accepting the safety of his strong embrace. She’d been running scared for days with nowhere to turn, and she had come so close to losing Simon.

  The phone call had been a setup. How had the men gotten her number and known about her contact with Eric? She should get rid of the phone—

  Paul. Dear God, she couldn’t. It was her only way of staying in touch with him.

  Simon seemed to calm, his cries quieting. Cain stroked his back in slow rhythmic motions, murmuring soft words of reassurance.

  A tear threatened to escape but she blinked it back. She couldn’t allow herself the weakness.

  “Are you all right?” Cain asked softly.

  Alanna nodded against his chest, finally pulling away enough to look into his eyes. Simon angled his head toward her, then toward Cain as if to ask why someone would try to hurt them. Alanna kissed the baby gently on the cheek. “It’s okay, Simon. Everything’s all right now.”

  “Who were those men?” Cain brushed at a leaf caught in her hair. “And don’t tell me one of them was your old boyfriend.”

  She clutched Simon’s pudgy finger and disengaged herself from Cain’s arms, already missing his warmth and strength. “I don’t know.”

  “Why are they after you?” His voice was low, but his gaze dared her to lie.

  “I…my ex-boyfriend must have hired them to find me.”

  “To gun you down?” Not that he hadn’t seen it all before. But he didn’t believe her.

  “He wants meo come back.” She stumbled backward. “He’s obsessed…”

  Cain steadied her. “Come on, you’re going home with me tonight.”

  “No—”

  “Don’t argue with me, Jane. You damn near got yourself killed. No telling what could have happened to Simon.” He reached out and laid a palm against Simon’s cheek. “The baby needs a safe place for a while. And I want some answers.”

  “Thanks for rescuing us, Cain, but I can’t stay with you.”

  He took her arm and ushered her toward her car, ignoring her protests. But as they reached it, he pulled her past the door. “We’ll come back for your car later.”

  “No.” She might need to escape later. She needed her own wheels. “I can’t leave the car here.”

  “Then I’ll send one of my buddies after it.”

  One of his cop friends? “Then you’d have to tell them about me and Simon.”

  “Yes. And if you’ll give me the name of this old boyfriend and a description, I’ll issue an APB for him.”

  She halted, gathering all her strength to remain still when he tried to urge her forward. “You can’t do that, Cain. Please. Just let me go.”

  “I’m not letting you drive off tonight with Simon. And if you don’t level with me about Eric, I’ll haul you in for withholding information in a murder investigation.”

  “Please, Cain, no.”

  “This obsessive boyfriend of yours might have followed you here and killed my brother.” He hesitated, obviously reading the panic in her face.

  But his steely gaze didn’t waver. “If you don’t want me to call the police in, then when we get back to my place, you have to tell me what’s going on.” He gave her directions to the cabin.

  She reached for the door handle. Cain grabbed it first, wrapping one arm around her. “And don’t get any ideas about running, Jane. I’m going to be right behind you.”

  CAIN’S PULSE CLAMORED as he jumped in his Jeep. Sleet pelted the windshield, the bitter wind picking up. Trying to stay on Jane’s tail, he turned on the defroster as the car flew over the ruts in the dirt road.

  The same small dark green Honda turned off the dirt road onto the highway and he caught a glimpse of black inside—was the woman following her?

  Peering through the fogged windshield, he stayed right behind Jane’s Toyota. He tried to get a good look at the person in black inside, but the Honda suddenly pulled into a convenience store and he realized he must have been wrong about the car following Jane.

  Still he called in the plates along with Jane’s. A few minutes later, he learned the Honda belonged to a woman named Phyllis French. She had no priors, no record, nothing unusual about her at all.

  ar Jane drove belonged to a doctor named Paul Polenta. He had no record either, and the car hadn’t been reported stolen. So who was
this Polenta guy? Was he the old boyfriend who’d been stalking her? Another lover?

  DAMN.

  Irritated, Phyllis slipped into the convenience store, grabbed a disposable cup and filled it with coffee. The man Alanna Hayes had gone to see was either a cop or working with them. She’d recognized the standard weapon and the badge clipped on his outside coat pocket.

  The cop was also following Alanna.

  He’d spotted her as well.

  So had Alanna Hayes at the graveyard, though the woman had no idea who she was or that she wanted Simon just as badly as the men searching for her.

  Phyllis stirred cream into the coffee, then added a packet of sugar. The cop hadn’t seen her face. And even if he had, he couldn’t know anything about her connection to the Hayes woman. No one did.

  As far as the scientists back on Nighthawk Island were concerned, Phyllis had disappeared from their lives after her miscarriage. But she hadn’t. She’d suspected something strange about their work. Then she’d found out about those fertility treatments….

  Why the hell would Alanna Hayes go to the police? The stupid nurse had to know the danger in doing so. She would have been better off going to the press. And if she’d told that cop her story, why hadn’t he taken her in for kidnapping?

  Brahms’s “Lullaby” floated into her head. She’d hummed the song to her unborn child during her pregnancy. She’d intended to sing her baby to sleep with it every night. But now Alanna had Simon, cuddling and rocking him at night, when it should have been her.

  Those bastards on Nighthawk Island had kept Simon from her long enough.

  Phyllis would make them pay.

  Grabbing a newspaper from the bin on the wall, she stepped to the counter to pay.

  “Will that be all, ma’am?”

  Phyllis nodded.

  “Four fifty-five.”

  She threw down a five-dollar bill, then rushed out the door. She’d already lost precious minutes hiding in the store. She couldn’t afford to waste any more, or she might lose her only connection to Simon.