"Mrs. Rosekind?" Chris knocked, then pressed the doorbell. "Helen Rosekind? It"s the police. Please open the door and come talk with us."
Grace could hear footsteps behind the door. "Come back later. I"m busy with work."
"Helen," Grace said, "we need to talk with you, and we"re not going away. We have a warrant to search your apartment."
The lock clicked, and the door swung in. Helen stood just inside the door, her eyes wary.
We"re halfway there, Grace thought. Worries about a hostage standoff began to fade. A typical infant abductor didn"t like confrontations, and she didn"t want to hurt the baby.
Helen"s solid, steady demeanor had fled and in its place was a flicker of fear. "I"ll talk with you, but you can"t come in. I have confidential insurance records inside, and it"s my job to keep them secure."
"Don"t worry about your paperwork, ma"am." Sgt. Balfour"s tone was rea.s.suring. "We"re trying to locate a missing infant. What can you tell us about Annabelle Green?"
Helen folded her arms across her chest. "She"s a very sweet baby. I can tell you that her mother wasn"t able to take care of her," she said with a hint of her former confidence.
"Is that right?" Balfour moved closer, his hand pressing on the door. "How well did you know Chelsea Maynard?"
"She and her husband hired me as a nurse to care for their baby." Helen suddenly realized that the sergeant was pressing into the apartment. In a sudden panic, she pushed the door. "No, you can"t come in here. I need to secure my files."
Balfour"s hand stopped the door from closing, and he gave it a hard shove, knocking the woman off balance.
"No! I told you, this is not a good time," Helen insisted.
"This is the only time," Grace said as she and Chris moved into the apartment.
"They can"t do that!" Helen complained to the sergeant.
Grace ignored the woman"s objections, knowing Balfour and Viloria would do their best to restrain her.
She moved through the rooms in a flash.
The office set up in a corner of the living room was just as she"d remembered it, with a computer and a file cabinet and stacks of boxes.
In the kitchen, the kettle was just beginning to boil. Grace ignored it, disappointed that there was no infant seat, no outward sign of Annabelle in the tidy room.
The bedroom was the jackpot.
The breath caught in Grace"s throat when she spotted a crib beside the double bed.
"That"s it." She rushed forward to reach down into the ravine between the bars, but the crib was empty.
A changing pad was spread out on the floor. A box of wipes was open. The Diaper Genie sat at the ready. All signs indicated that a baby had been here recently.
"Where"s the baby?" Chris asked.
"Good question." When Grace swung around, the little alcove in the corner caught her eye. The small nook was just big enough for a dressing table. But the wall above it was the showpiece-certainly Helen"s pride and joy. It had been behind Grace when she entered the room, but now the photographs of newborn babies, each blown up to fill a full page, drew her close.
"Look at these babies." There were six of them, newborn infants with sleepy eyes and pinched faces. Each photograph had a handmade caption taped beside it.
"Conner, Bayside, Queens," Chris read. "Hayley from Long Island. Joseph and . . ." He pointed to a photo on the right. "Here she is: Annabelle, New Roch.e.l.le."
All these photos . . . Grace"s mind swam with the possibilities.
"They"re all from this area. We"d know if these kids were missing."
"So maybe they"re safe at home with their parents," Chris said. "But they were all candidates to be abducted."
"And Annabelle just happened to be the unlucky one. I"ll bet a little digging will show that Helen has worked with these families-either as a baby nurse or as an insurance rep. I don"t know how she got the photos, but this woman has had a plan for a long time." She turned away from the shrine to babies and opened the closet door. "The question is, where is Annabelle?"
"I"ve got a feeling Rosekind can tell us," Chris said.
They faced her in the hall.
"Tell us where the baby is," Chris demanded.
"We know you abducted Annabelle Green." Grace didn"t filter disdain from her voice. "Where is she?"
"I don"t know anything about Annabelle Green." Helen"s arms were crossed, her eyes dark beads of annoyance. "But if you don"t get out of my home right now, I"m going to sue you all."
"Remember what I said, Helen?" Mike"s gentle tone held a hint of warning. "We have a warrant."
"You have a crib that"s been used recently. We found a half-used bottle of prescription sedatives in the medicine cabinet. Did you mix the other half into those m.u.f.fins you left for Chelsea Maynard?"
"I don"t know what you"re talking about."
"How about these baby bottles, Mrs. Rosekind?" Angie Viloria appeared in the kitchen door. "There are half a dozen baby bottles in the fridge that match the ones stolen from Annabelle Green"s home."
Something dark slid into Helen"s eyes. A wicked slice of delusion. "Those are for my baby." She looked from Angie to Grace, eliciting sympathy. "You know how it is. Sometimes I have to pump breast milk for Lily."
"Your baby . . ." Grace stared at the woman, wondering how they"d gotten to Crazy Town. "Helen." If that"s your name. "You need to tell us where the baby is. Now."
The malice flew from her eyes, and suddenly Helen seemed pathetic once again. "I don"t know what you"re talking about."
"Let"s take a ride to the precinct," Sgt. Balfour said. "Sometimes, in a different environment, things seem clearer."
Viloria snapped handcuffs on Helen Rosekind, and Chris and Grace taped off the apartment, setting up a crime scene. The forensic unit would sweep through here this morning; it would take a little longer for the IT unit to start sorting through files and data on Helen"s computer.
Grace watched from the bedroom window as Viloria and Balfour put Helen Rosekind into the backseat of their patrol car.
"Where did she leave the baby?" Grace asked as Chris searched through dresser drawers. "I wouldn"t be so worried if I didn"t see a glimmer of crazy in her eyes. Along with her weird answers."
"I know what you mean. Lights on upstairs but n.o.body home."
Grace called Chelsea Maynard; the woman had been left hanging, and though she didn"t have the best news, they were getting closer.
"Helen Rosekind was more than your nurse," she told Chelsea. "She works for Sounder Health Care. She"s also Janet Walker."
"Helen is Janet? That"s . . . that"s crazy."
"We"re at her place now, taking her in for further questioning." Grace bounded down the stairs, leaving the rest of the apartment for the more thorough forensic team. "We found your breast milk, as well as photos of Annabelle and other infants from the metro area. It looks like a baby has been here recently, but Annabelle is not here now."
"And she won"t tell you where Annie is?"
"She says she doesn"t know." As Grace descended the porch, she scanned the crowd gathering around the police cars pulled up at odd angles in front of the house. Moms were there with their kids. A few neighborhood walkers. A handful of older folks. So far, mostly neighbors.
A man wheeling a stroller cut through the crowd, a strong sense of urgency in his movements. He maneuvered around an elderly couple and came over to the cops.
"Hold on," Grace told Chelsea.
"Hey, what"s going on?" The man was tall-probably six feet-with a gut that hadn"t seen much exercise. He pointed up to the house. "That"s my apartment. My fiancee is in there."
One look at the baby in the carriage, and Grace knew.
Chris"s brows shot up. "Is it? Is it her?"
Grace nodded. "It is." She had memorized those steely blue eyes, that double chin . . . even the shape of her head under her pink hat.
She lifted the phone. "Chelsea? We"ve found her. Annabelle is here and she"s safe."
"Oh, dear G.o.d. Leo . . . Leo, they found her!" Chelsea"s gasp for air dissolved into rapid-fire questions. "She"s okay? You"re sure? Where are you? Is she awake? Where did you find her?"
"She"s safe now." Grace gave her the address and reminded her to drive safely. "She needs her parents to be in one piece."
She put her phone away, bent down beside the stroller, and drank in the sight of Annabelle Green. The baby"s cheeks were bright with color, probably from the cold, but her stern eyes were alert and observant as Grace smiled.
"Look at you, calm as could be. We"ve been looking all over for you."
Annabelle"s mouth curved, imitating Grace"s smile. She seemed to be well cared for, clean and warm. She wore a cute pink beanie on her head and a little quilted jacket zipped up to her double chin.
"So you"re Ralph Rosekind?" Chris asked.
"What? No. Ralph Amicci. We"re not married, but we"re getting married soon."
Getting married soon. Grace wondered if Helen has used the baby as a means of getting Ralph Amicci to marry her.
"And what"s the name of the woman you"re marrying?" Chris asked.
"Janet Rosekind."
"Figures." Chris shook his head. "Yet another new name combination. She just can"t keep it simple."
"Why are all the cop cars here?" The man"s irritation was mounting. "What"s this about?"
"We"re police detectives," Chris said. "And your girlfriend is under arrest for the abduction of the baby you"ve been pushing in the stroller-Annabelle Green."
"Come on, Annabelle." Grace unbuckled the strap and lifted the baby out.
"Her name is Lily, and what the h.e.l.l are you doing?" Amicci demanded.
"I"m recovering a child that was kidnapped earlier this week." Grace rested the baby on her shoulder and moved away from the irate man.
"What the h.e.l.l? She"s our baby. My girlfriend gave birth last month."
"Yeah?" Chris asked. "Were you there for the birth?"
"I was out west, on my route. I drive a truck."
"Let me tell you something about babies, Mr. Amicci." Grace rubbed Annabelle"s back, instinctively resting the baby on her hip. "This child is nearly three months old. See how she"s holding her head up on her own? And even her size. Most newborns are only eight or nine pounds. This baby is not a newborn."
"I"m telling you what I know, and I know that you"ve got my daughter, Lily, in your arms, detective. What you"re doing is wrong. You can"t just come in and take a man"s daughter away."
"She"s not your daughter," Chris said flatly, "and if you don"t calm down, we"re going to have to take you in cuffs, too."
"I don"t care if you arrest me. I"m coming down to the station to file a complaint. Where"s Janet? She"ll straighten everything out."
"She"s in the back of the patrol car." Chris went over and opened the rear door. "But I don"t think she"s going to give you the answers you want."
"Janet!" Amicci bent over, one hand on the roof of the cruiser. "What the h.e.l.l? These cops say Lily isn"t ours."
Janet-formerly Helen-blinked into the pale winter sunlight, then switched to indignant mode. "This is all a mistake. She"s mine."
"Don"t fall for that," Chris told Ralph. "Your girlfriend picked this baby from a group of infants she"s worked with. Haven"t you seen the baby shrine on the bedroom wall? Annabelle"s photo is up there."
"Those are kids that Janet has helped. She makes sure their families get the insurance coverage they need."
"Ya think?" Grace wondered if the big guy could really be so naive.
"They"re marks," Chris said. "I"d say your fiancee has been watching these kids since they were born, trying to figure out which would be the best infant to swoop in on and steal."
Ralph Amicci shot a look at his fiancee. "Tell him, Janet. Tell him the truth."
"The truth is that Chelsea Maynard is a raving lunatic. An incompetent mother. When I heard she was thinking of killing her baby, I knew what I had to do. Annabelle is better off with us."
"What"s with everyone calling her Annabelle?" Amicci sputtered. "You said you named her Lily."
"Your girlfriend has a thing about changing names," Chris said.
Ralph went to the curb and bent down to get in her line of vision. "You were pregnant all those months. If this baby belongs to someone else, what happened to our baby?"
"Of course Lily is ours." And there was that scary shift again, madness slipping into her eyes. "Don"t worry, Ralph. This will all be straightened out. When the truth comes out, everyone will know that I did the right thing for my baby."
"For our baby, right?" There was such earnestness in Ralph"s tone, Grace felt bad about the heartache in store for him.
The baby gave a little squeak in her ear, and Grace felt her squirm. Growing restless. She patted the back of Annabelle"s little quilted jacket and paced with her, moving out of earshot of the suspect.
All for the best.
Helen-Janet-what"s-her-name would be off the streets, and this little bundle of joy would be safe and sound, back with her parents.