Dylan and the Baby Doctor

She poured it into a mug and handed it to him, then grinned. “Part of the service this time. After this, you’re on your own.” She winced as the radio screeched static. “Whoops! Got to go. I swear Billy Ray does that just to shoot my nerves to hell.”

Dylan went into Justin’s office and settled into the chair in front of the computer. He flipped through his notebook until he found the instructions Justin had given him for logging on. For the next few hours, he searched for any trace of Paul James, any mention of him no matter how insignificant. Credit information showed a man who paid his bills, mostly on time. He had no police record. There were no mentions of him in the Miami press.

He got on the phone and called a contact who could trace any credit-card activity. He woke the man out of a sound sleep, but by dawn he had a callback. Paul James wasn’t using his credit cards, at least not so far. His last charge had been made a week ago, in Miami. He’d bought three new suits on sale at an upscale department store.

“Anything?” Justin asked, coming in and dropping wearily into the chair opposite Dylan. He looked as bad as Dylan felt.

Dylan shook his head. “Nothing. The credit-card trace was a bust, though I have to wonder why a man who planned on kidnapping his son would go out and buy three expensive new suits.”

“Maybe he figured his next shopping trip would be a long time coming,” Justin suggested.

“Or the sale was just too good to pass up,” Dylan said lightly.

Justin’s expression turned thoughtful. “Almost sounds like a man who doesn’t intend to be gone all that long, doesn’t it?”

“He can’t be planning to take his son back to Miami,” Dylan protested. “He’d go straight to jail for violating the custody agreement.”

“Right. So, either he is just trying to scare Kelsey, or he wants something from her, or we’re dealing with a nutcase who has no intention of taking his son anywhere except away from his mother.”

“To punish her,” Dylan said, following Justin’s logic with a sick feeling in his gut. “I hope to heaven you’re wrong about that.”

“So do I,” Justin said. “So do I.”

“Kelsey, you have to get some sleep,” Lizzy said at dawn.

“I can’t. As long as I don’t know where Bobby is, I can’t sleep. What if he calls again?”

“I’ll wake you,” Lizzy promised.

“No. I don’t know how Paul will react if someone else answers the phone. He might hang up. He might get angry and hurt Bobby.”

“I just don’t see him hurting Bobby,” Lizzy countered. “That hasn’t been his pattern, Kelsey. It’s the one thing I don’t think you need to worry about.”

“I can’t help it. He sounded so edgy before. If he’s been out of pills for a couple of days, he’s probably in withdrawal. People do crazy things when they’re coming down, things they otherwise might not do. Even the fact that he took Bobby in the first place is out of character. Paul never broke a law in his life until he got hooked on the painkillers. I never even saw him jaywalk. Heck, he’d dash two blocks just so his parking meter wouldn’t run out. On the rare occasions when he got a parking ticket, he paid it the same day. Now he’s violating a court order. That’s the pills at work.”

Already jittery from nerves and lack of sleep, she jumped when the phone rang. She snatched it up. “Bobby? Is that you?”

“Sorry,” Dylan said. “It’s just me. I wanted to check in.”

“Oh,” she said, sighing heavily.

“Anything happening over there?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you get any sleep?”

“Not a wink.”

“Kelsey, you’re not going to do Bobby any good if you collapse. If you don’t want to go to bed, at least nap on the sofa for a bit.”

“I can’t,” she said simply. “Have you found anything?”

“Not yet, but I will,” he said with reassuring confidence. “You just hang tight. Is Lizzy still there?”

“Yes.”

“Let me talk to her a second, okay?”

Kelsey handed the phone to Lizzy, then listened openly to her end of the conversation. Lizzy’s gaze settled on her and she nodded several times, murmuring agreement to whatever Dylan said. Kelsey figured she was the primary topic of conversation.

“I’ll try,” Lizzy promised before hanging up.

“I suppose you’re to try to get me to get some sleep,” Kelsey said.

“He has a point. I was saying the very same thing before he called.”

“I can’t sleep,” Kelsey protested.

“I could give you something.”

“Absolutely not,” Kelsey said, horrified. After all, it was pills that had gotten them where they were now. The tranquilizer she had agreed to take the night before was one thing, but sleeping pills were another. Add in something to wake her back up again and she’d be on a roller-coaster. Who knew where it would end up? She could be in worse shape than her ex.

“You’re not going to get hooked like Paul,” Lizzy said, as if she’d read her mind.

“How do you know?”

“Because you don’t have the same kind of obsessive personality he has.” Lizzy clasped her shoulders and gazed into her eyes. “Sweetie, you need some sleep. If and when Paul does call again, you have to be thinking clearly. You can’t be all strung out with exhaustion.”

“And I can’t be groggy with sleep, either.”

Lizzy uttered a sigh of resignation. “Okay, at least go take a nice, warm bath.”

Kelsey didn’t want to leave the phone for a second, but she could see the sense in Lizzy’s suggestion. A bath might relax some of the tension. And she would feel better in some fresh clothes, more in control.

“Okay,” she agreed. “But I’ll take the portable phone up with me.”

Once she got upstairs, she considered taking a nice, invigorating cold shower instead, but the lure of a bath was more than she could pass up. She filled the tub with bubbles and sank into it up to her chin. The scent of lilacs, a distant memory from childhood summers in Maine, surrounded her. The water felt wonderful lapping gently against her skin. Her eyes drifted closed.

A soft tap on the bathroom door snapped her awake. Glancing down, she had just noticed that the bubbles were also a distant memory now, when the door inched open and Dylan poked his head in.

“You okay in here?” he asked, his gaze settling on her face for an instant, then drifting down.

Kelsey felt her nipples pucker under the intensity of his stare. A gentleman would have turned away, but he seemed to be frozen in place. There was enough heat in his gaze to warm the now-chilly bathwater. She couldn’t seem to muster up the required indignation. Finally, he swallowed hard and backed out.

“I’ll be out here when you’re dressed,” he said, his voice sounding choked.

As if her brain had finally clicked into gear, it registered that he wouldn’t be there unless something had happened. Kelsey scrambled from the tub. Without bothering to dry herself, she pulled on a heavy terry-cloth robe and belted it as she flung open the door. Dylan was standing guard just outside, leaning against the wall.