Found: One Secret Baby

An ice princess to match Lillian’s ice queen. He wished he’d let his stepmother fight this battle for herself.

But he’d promised Lillian he would find her grandchild before Charlie’s father did, and no small-time lady lawyer was about to freeze him out.

“Sorry my brother is a murderer, or sorry he’s my brother?”

“Take your pick. You know him better than I do.”

“You don’t know him at all. But that didn’t stop you from testifying against him.”

“I didn’t testify against him. I testified in support of Márya’s—Ms. Mendelev’s—petition for a court order to protect her from him.”

Márya. That explained the brief flash of fire in those green eyes when he called the dead woman “Maria.” But that was what Charlie called her. Why wouldn’t he know how to pronounce the woman’s name? Given Charlie, he probably called her whatever he damned well pleased.“How long had you known her when you testified?” he asked

“About four months.”

“That isn’t very long to determine the dynamics of a violent relationship.” The words left a nasty taste in his mouth, but he needed to break through Ms. Walker’s icy façade.

“I determined that as soon as I saw her broken arm. The yellowed bruises from the last time he’d beaten her pretty much backed up that conclusion.”

Morgan swallowed a bolt of anger at Charlie’s brutality. “So you took it upon yourself to intervene.”

“She begged me to help her.”

The woman paused, but her face yielded no clue to what might be going on inside her head. She’d be murder to face in a courtroom, a talent clearly wasted in this one-step-up-from-a-storefront family law practice.

“And she was pregnant.”

He allowed himself a thin smile. “So the investigator was right. There is a child.”

Ms. Walker lowered her eyes to the desk and shook her head. “She was three months’ pregnant and bleeding heavily.”

Damn. How could he tell Lillian that Charlie had managed to kill his own kid?

Morgan took out his smartphone and opened a file. “What hospital did you take her to?”

Ms. Walker was still staring at the desk. “Merced County General.” She spoke slowly, as if she needed to make an effort to remember, but that was ridiculous. All this had happened less than two years ago. Had her encounter with Charlie’s lady friend really been that traumatic?

“Why there?”

Laser-green eyes snapped back to his, brown specks turned to gold. “I found Márya hiding in a campground at Yosemite, which is in Merced County. Since your brother forced her to quit school and her job when he invaded her life, she didn’t have medical insurance.”

“But she filed for the order of protection in Los Angeles County.”

The tiniest shift in the woman’s ramrod posture. What didn’t she want him to know?

“It’s easier to hide in L.A.,” she said.

Rosalie hated to be reminded of those last months of Márya’s life. Her friend had lived in constant fear that Charlie would find her. She’d moved every week from one homeless shelter to another. If only she’d accepted Rosalie’s offer of a place to live until they got Márya’s visa straightened out so she could get a job.

If only … The words echoed through the silence left behind by her friend’s death.

Rosalie shook the memories off and refocused on the man who sat across from her.

How could Charlie Thompson have a brother who oozed wealth and power the way Morgan Danby did? Mr. Danby must have been four or five years younger than Charlie, and he didn’t look at all like the stocky, red-haired murderer.

But her visitor had said something about a trust fund. And someone had had enough money to hire the best criminal defense lawyer in L.A. to represent Charlie. The investment had paid off. They’d plea-bargained down to life with the possibility of parole. The idea that Charlie would ever walk free again tightened Rosalie’s stomach one more notch.

Another if only—if only she could have claimed attorney/client privilege and refused to answer Mr. Danby’s questions. But she’d known from the start she couldn’t be Márya’s friend and her lawyer at the same time. And given her situation now, she didn’t dare openly obstruct the efforts of Charlie’s family to find out whether he had a child.

“Ms. Mendelev had no permanent address in Los Angeles,” Mr. Danby said. “So apparently you weren’t a good enough friend to give her a place to hide, as you put it, after she ended her relationship with my brother.”

“Relationship?” Rosalie’s temper finally snapped. “Like the one between a boxer and his punching bag?”

The corners of his mouth twitched. No doubt he was pleased he’d broken through her self-control. She softened her face to assume a professionally neutral expression again.

“I offered to let Márya live with me, but she was a proud woman. And once she had the protection order, she thought she’d be safe. Her attorney, the staff at the shelters where she lived, and I all tried to tell her otherwise, but in her home country defying a court order was something done only by the very brave or the very stupid.” She paused. “Given how viciously he murdered a defenseless woman, I’d guess bravery isn’t your brother’s problem.”

Mr. Danby had the decency to flinch. “I’ve read the police report on the incident.”

She swallowed another jolt of anger. A woman’s death was much more than an “incident.” At least, it was in Rosalie’s world. She wasn’t so sure about Morgan Danby’s.

“Where did you get your information?” she asked him.

“A private investigator.”

Maybe she could use that somehow. “A private investigator who worked for you?”

He glanced away. “For my stepmother Lillian, Charlie’s mother.”

So this man didn’t share a gene pool with Charlie Thompson. A tightness in her chest she’d scarcely been aware of loosened and she could breathe freely again.

“You must know it’s not necessarily in the P.I.’s best interest to tell his client everything he knows.” She let that sink in. “But it is in his interest to find leads he could be paid to follow.”

She might have struck a nerve. After all, Mr. Danby was here himself, which meant someone had had enough sense to fire the P.I. She’d bet it had been Danby.

“Why should I doubt the investigator’s integrity?” he asked her in a slightly bored tone.

“Did he provide your stepmother with a copy of the coroner’s report on Ms. Mendelev?”

Morgan Danby flinched again. “I assume the investigator didn’t think that was something she needed to see.”

“A smart move on his part. But you see my point.”

“You’re suggesting the P.I’s claim that a child had survived was a ruse to squeeze more money out of Charlie’s mother.”

“Did he find any documentary evidence Ms. Mendelev had given birth?”

She held her breath, outwardly calm, inwardly hollow with fear.