"Yes, he did. It's difficult to forget love." He caught her as she took a stumbling step forward. "Not now, Mel. We'll go call Devereaux."

"He knew me." She found her voice muffled against a cool linen shirt. "I'm all right," she insisted, but she didn't try to break away.

"I know you are." He pressed his lips to her temple, stroked a hand over her hair and waited for her tremors to pass.

It was one of the most difficult things she'd ever done, standing on the sidewalk in front of the house with the blue shutters and the big tree in the yard. Devereaux and a female agent were inside. She'd watched them go in, through the door opened by the young brunette. She'd still been in her robe, Mel remembered, and there had been a flicker of fear, or perhaps knowledge, in her eyes as she bent to retrieve the morning paper.

She could hear weeping now, deep, grieving tears. Her heart wanted to hold rock hard against it, but it couldn't.

When would they come out? Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she paced the sidewalk. It had already been too long. Devereaux had still insisted that they wait until morning, and she'd had hardly a wink of sleep at the hotel. It was well over an hour since they'd gone inside.

"Why don't you sit in the car?" Sebastian suggested.

"I couldn't sit."

"They won't let us take him yet. Devereaux explained the procedure. It'll take hours to do the blood test and the print checks."

"They'll let me stay with him. They'll damn well let me stay with him. He's not going to be with strangers." She pressed her lips together. "Tell me about them," she blurted out. "Please."

He'd expected her to ask, and he turned away from the house to look into Mel's eyes as he told her. "She was a teacher. She resigned when David came to them. It was important to her to spend as much time with him as possible. Her husband is an engineer. They've been married eight years, and have been trying to have a child almost since the start. They're good people, very loving to each other, and with room in their hearts for a family. They were easy prey, Mel."

He could see in her face the war between compassion and fury, between right and wrong. "I'm sorry for them," she whispered. "I'm sorry to know that anyone would exploit that kind of love, that kind of need. I hate what's been done to everyone involved."

"Life isn't always fair."

"Life isn't usually fair," she corrected.

She paced some more, casting dark, desperate looks at the bay window. When the door opened, she shifted to her toes, ready to dash. Devereaux strode toward her.

"The boy knows you?"

"Yes. I told you he recognized me when he saw me yesterday."

He nodded. "He's upset, wailing pretty good, making himself half-sick, what with Mr. and Mrs. Frost carrying on. We've got the woman calming down. Like I told you, we'll have to take the boy in until we can check the matches and clear up the paperwork. Might be easier for him if you went in for him, drove along with Agent Barker."

"Sure." Her heart began to pound in her throat. "Donovan?"

"I'll follow you."

She went inside, fighting to shield her heart and mind from the hopeless weeping beyond a bedroom door. She walked down a hallway, stepping over a plastic rocking horse and into the nursery.

Where the walls were pale blue and painted with sailboats. Where the crib by the window held a circus mobile.

Just as he'd said, she thought as her mouth went dry. Exactly as he'd said.

Then she tossed all that aside and reached down for the crying David.

"Oh, baby." She pressed her face to his, drying his cheeks with her own. "David, sweet little David." She soothed him, brushing his damp hair back from his face, grateful the agent's back was to her so that he couldn't see her own eyes fill.

"Hey, big guy." She kissed his trembling lips. He hiccuped, rubbed his eyes with his fists, then let out a tired sigh as his head dropped to her shoulder. "That's my boy. Let's go home, huh? Let's go home and see Mom and Dad."

Chapter 7

"I'll never be able to thank you. Never." Rose stood looking out her kitchen window. In the courtyard beyond, her husband and son sat in a patch of sunlight, rolling a bright orange ball around. "Just looking at them makes me…"

"I know." Mel slipped an arm around her shoulders. As they watched in silence, listening to David laugh, Rose brought her hand up to Mel's and squeezed tight. "They look real good out there, don't they?"

"Perfect." Rose dabbed her eyes with a tissue and sighed. "Just perfect. When I think how afraid I was that I'd never see David again—"

"Then don't think. David's back where he belongs."

"Thanks to you and Mr. Donovan." Rose moved away from the window, but her gaze kept going back to it again and again. Mel wondered how long it would be before Rose would feel comfortable with David out of her sight. "Can you tell me anything about the people who had him, Mel? The FBI were very sympathetic and kind, but…"

"Tight-lipped," Mel finished. "They were good people, Rose. Good people who wanted a family. They made a mistake, trusted someone they shouldn't have trusted. But they took good care of David."

"He's grown so. And he's been trying to take a few steps." There was a bitterness, a sharp tang of bitterness in the back of her throat, at having missed those three precious months of her son's life. But with it was a sorrow for another mother in another city with an empty crib to face. "I know they loved him. And I know how hurt and afraid she must be now. But it's worse for her than it was for me. She knows she'll never have him back." She laid her fisted hands on the counter. "Who did this to us, Mel? Who did this to all of us?"

"I don't know. But I'm working on it."

"Will you work with Mr. Donovan? I know how concerned he is."

"Sebastian?"

"We talked about it a little when he stopped by."

"Oh?" Mel thought she did nonchalance very well. "He came by?"

Rose's face softened. She looked almost as she had in those carefree days before David's abduction. "He brought David his teddy bear, and this cute little blue sailboat."