His Baby

Campbell was born the following year and Abby, almost four years after that.

Killian smiled at memories of his big-eyed, plump-cheeked baby sister, then straightened in his seat and put all thoughts of her out of his mind. He wanted to relax this weekend, to refill the well of his usually nimble mind and steady focus.

Thoughts of Abby, and, of course, her disappearance, wouldn’t allow that.

Daniel pulled around to the front of the house. Its cozy grandeur was somehow welcoming. To this day, Killian wasn’t sure what to call the architectural style. His father had referred to it as Seaside Victorian. Unlike the many slope-roofed and angular federal-style homes in the region, this one had large, long windows all around, a tower on one side and a circular porch on the bottom of the tower, one on the second level where the tower connected to the main part of the house, and on the back of the top floor with its view of the ocean. The frame exterior was painted a cheerful butter yellow.

Winfield opened the front door before Killian could open it himself. Campbell had hired the former boxer a year ago as a sort of butler-bouncer. Campbell resented Killian’s use of that term, insisting that Killian never took his vulnerability to theft or kidnap seriously.

Actually, Killian did. He’d thought about it every night since Abby had been taken almost twenty-seven years ago. But he didn’t want someone around to remind him that that kind of thing could happen. And he was a much less likely target than a fourteen-month-old child.

“What about Mom?” Campbell had asked when Killian had denied he himself could be a target. “Sure, you’re six foot three and trained in self-defense, but she isn’t. And you’re gone so much of the time.”

Killian had conceded. For their stepmother to have protection in the guise of a butler was a good idea, and he knew Campbell remembered Abby’s kidnapping, though he’d only been five and a half at the time. He was working out his own demons brought to life by the event.

So Killian cooperatively handed Winfield his briefcase and let him take his jacket.

“How are you, Mr. Abbott?” Winfield asked in a voice more suited to a boxing ring than a stately home. Though he was two inches shorter than Killian, he was probably twice as broad and all of it muscle. He had thin blond hair, pale blue eyes and a boxer’s nose.

He’d caused a few second looks when he’d first opened the door to guests a year ago, but his courtesy and kindness had since won everyone over.

“I’m good,” Killian replied. “How are you, Winfield?”

“Fine, sir. Though I’m worried about your mother.”

“Why is that?”

“She’s going to Paris, Mr. Abbott.”

Killian, in the act of looking through the mail on the hall table, blinked at him. “Paris? I thought she was going to the city for the weekend.”

“I was, I was!” High heels clicked down the marble floor as Chloe hurried toward them at a run slowed down by the beginnings of arthritis and her Prada shoes. She was small and graying, with a face filled with warmth. In a silk suit, with a hand-painted scarf trailing behind her, she was the picture of a society matron. “To stay with the Mitchells in their city condo and go to the theater. But their daughter’s with the Ballet de Paris, and she sent them tickets for her début—” she gave the word its French pronunciation “—next week and they’ve invited me along. You know how I love the ballet. And I can visit Tante Bijou while I’m there!”

Tante Bijou was legendary in their lives. Chloe’s mother’s sister had been in the Resistance during World War II, had written a much-acclaimed book about her experiences and had married five or six times—even Chloe had lost count. She was Chloe’s only living relative in France, and Chloe leaped at every opportunity to visit her.

“I was hired to protect you, Mrs. Abbott,” Winfield said politely. “How can I do that when you’re there and I’m here?”

Chloe rolled her eyes. They’d apparently been having this argument for some time. “I won’t have you coming with me and leaving the boys here defenseless.” Even she had difficulty keeping a straight face when she said that. Killian had boxed in college, Sawyer was a third-degree black belt and Campbell had a chip on his shoulder the size of Alaska and everyone seemed to know better than to mess with him.

Winfield faced her resolutely. “Mr. Campbell would insist…”

Killian patted Winfield’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Steve Mitchell was a marine,” he said.

“Sir, he’s in his sixties!”

Chloe slugged his arm. “So am I! And I’m hardly at death’s door.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“I’ve golfed with him,” Killian said. “He has quite a swing and considerable endurance. He’ll take care of the ladies.”

“I’ll be fine,” Chloe insisted.

Winfield opened his mouth to protest further, but Killian silenced him with an unobtrusive shake of the head.

Winfield appeared puzzled, but closed his mouth.

The doorbell rang and Winfield opened it to Steve Mitchell, who greeted Killian, then took Chloe’s bag. She followed him out to a shiny black Cadillac, chattering incessantly.

“The minute they’re out of sight,” Killian whispered to Winfield, “we’ll call your company and get someone to trail her and the Mitchells while they’re in Paris.” To his mother, he asked, “Where you staying, Mom?”

“At the Hôtel Clarion St-James et Albany. The duke of Noailles once entertained Marie Antoinette there, you know.”

He raised an eyebrow at Winfield, who nodded, the data obviously stored in his memory.

“Good strategy, Mr. Abbott,” Winfield praised under his breath.

“Never fight a battle you can’t win,” Killian replied, even as he blew Chloe a kiss.

That was good advice to apply to Cordie, he suddenly realized. But there was no such thing as a nonconfrontational way of dealing with her. She was a forthright, in-your-face kind of woman. Even Sun Tzu, the brilliant strategist, would have had difficulty dealing with her.

CORDIE FINALLY PUT her feet up at about eight o’clock. She sat on the sofa in her elegant, quiet-as-a-tomb apartment, alone except for her cat, and tried hard to be interested in the steaming square of lasagna on the tray in her lap. She’d anticipated it all afternoon, but now that she had the food, it made her stomach churn.

She put the tray aside and leaned her head back against the ticking-striped sofa cushion and wondered grimly if this was what had happened between her and Killian: that he’d found her less than interesting once he had her, and put her aside.

She hoped simple ego wasn’t at work, but she couldn’t believe he’d just lost interest in her. The kind of earnest determination with which he’d pursued her couldn’t simply evaporate. The fervent passion with which he’d made love to her couldn’t just cease to be.

A waning of interest had happened even before the Brian thing had given him an excuse to talk divorce. She’d caught glimpses of regret in his eyes, felt it in his touch when he pulled her to him on impulse and wrapped his arms around her, only to change his mind and push her away.

What had happened?

She’d racked her brain over the question all the time she’d spent in Scotland, but she hadn’t come up with an answer. And the problem couldn’t be solved without one. It would take time spent with him. Either the attraction that had drawn them together so explosively the first time would take hold again and last, or he’d react as he had the first time they’d met. In that case, she’d be on guard and able either to ward off his displeasure or figure out what brought it on and do something about it. Or not. But at least she’d understand.

Loving a man who didn’t want anything to do with her was tough. Before she’d met Killian at his stepmother’s fashion show for charity, she’d have considered herself the last woman on the planet who’d pursue a man who didn’t want her. But gut instinct told her that he did still love her and that his sudden withdrawal from her was a self-inflicted punishment for some imagined guilt over Abigail’s disappearance.

Kezia had told her the story shortly after Cordie and Killian’s Thanksgiving wedding. Kezia and Daniel had been working for the Abbotts less than a year one late December night when they were planning for a New Year’s Eve celebration in two days’ time. Killian, eleven years old, had been at a sleepover at a friend’s house, and Sawyer, nine, Campbell, five, and fourteen-month-old Abby were asleep in their beds. Kezia had been up late baking pies when she heard the screams.

She and Daniel had run upstairs to find Kate Bellows, the nanny, pacing the second-floor hallway, screaming. She wore a billowing silk robe, her gray hair hanging in one long braid. “‘She’s gone!’ she kept saying over and over. ‘She’s gone! I got up to go to the bathroom and checked the children like I always do—and she’s gone!’ For a minute, I didn’t know who she was talking about, until Mr. Abbott came out of Abby’s room and I saw the empty crib.

“Mr. and Mrs. Abbott searched the house like mad people,” Kezia had said, her eyes sad and focused on the memory. “Mrs. Abbott kept screaming Abigail’s name while Sawyer ran up and down the stairs looking for her, and Daniel and Mr. Abbott searched the grounds. Campbell and I cried.

“Mr. Abbott called the police, but they found no evidence of a break-in. They thought either the laundry chute or the dumbwaiter might have been entry points if someone had gotten into the basement. But the door was still locked from the inside, and none of the windows was broken. They interviewed the staff, thinking, I guess, that one of us might have kidnapped her, but that was preposterous. We all loved the children like our own.” Kezia paused and sighed heavily, spreading her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “They even sent the police to get Killian at five-thirty in the morning to see if he remembered seeing anyone around the place, or if any of the many tradesmen who’d worked on a plumbing and carpentry repair problem several weeks earlier had shown a particular interest in Abby. Killian was a sharp little boy and never missed anything. He didn’t remember anyone with an interest in his little sister, but he did recall the name of everyone who’d been in the house. Then…” Kezia drew a ragged breath. “I remember him turning to his father and telling him he was sorry he hadn’t been home. That if he had been, the kidnapping might not have happened. His father told him not to think that, that he’d been home and he hadn’t been able to stop it. But Killian was a dedicated big brother, and I think he carries guilt to this day.” Kezia swiped a hand across her eyes and went on.

“Then it was as though life in this house just stopped. There were no clues, nothing at all to go on, and the Abbotts just waited and prayed. At that point, they’d have been happy to get a call for ransom, to know that Abigail was alive and could be paid for and brought home again.

“They went on television and begged for her return. They spoke to any reporter who’d listen. And we all waited. No conversation in the house, no laughter and eventually no hope.”

“How horrible,” Cordie whispered.