Find My Baby Read Free Page A

Sam! I wouldn’t hurt him. Ever.”
    Kayla couldn’t control herself any longer. Her hands shook as she grabbed the detective’s arm. “Please.”
    But the woman just sat there looking at her with total distrust.
    Kayla dropped her head in her hands. There had to be a way. Had to be.
    Lifting her head, she said, “I need to use the restroom.”

Chapter Two
    Thirty minutes later, Kayla slumped in the back seat of a yellow cab, drew a deep breath, and wondered what to do next. She had to find a safe place to hide until she could formulate a plan to search for Sam.
    Where would that be?
    She had no close friends. No relatives. She sat up as a thought came to her. There was one. And Kayla knew where she lived.
    “Where to, Lady?” the driver asked.
    “Do you know where the Wal-Mart is off I-45?”
    “There’s a couple. Which one?”
    She told him and sat back. Aunt Nester lived a few blocks from the big box store; at least she had when Kayla was younger. Her mom had made the comment more than once that Nester would die in that house, that she had no ambition to move, or to travel.
    It sounded wonderful to Kayla, whose life had been spent moving from one town to another while her mother searched for whatever she was trying to find. Whatever it was, she never found it, and had died of cancer in a in a small town with no friends or relatives to mourn her passing.
    Her aunt was twenty years older than Kayla’s mother. So that made her at least seventy. Was she still alive? Was she too old to help? Would she take one look at Kayla and turn her out?
    The questions pounded in her head as the cab sped down the Texas freeway. They were there all too soon.
    “It’s after midnight, Lady. Store isn’t open. You sure you want out here?”
    Kayla nodded, then paid him with the emergency money she always kept in the lining of her shoe and stepped out into the cold night air.
    Orientating herself, she started out for the six-block walk.
    By the time she knocked on her aunt’s door, her teeth were chattering from both cold and from anxiety.
    “I’m coming.” A woman’s voice came from inside. “Who is it?”
    “Aunt Nester, let me in.”
    “Do I know you?” the voice spoke through the door.
    “Please, Aunt Nester. It’s Kayla. Let me in. I can explain.”
    “Kayla?” she asked in a disbelieving voice. “Meredith’s daughter?”
    “Yes! Please. Hurry!”
    She was freezing and didn’t know how much longer she could handle the cold. But thank God, her aunt was still here, living in the same house she’d lived in when Kayla’s mother was growing up.
    Nester opened the door. Kayla fell in.
    “Good Lord, child, you’re frozen.” And took a step back. “You are Kayla. You’re the spitting image of your mother.”
    Kayla stood in the warmth, let it wash over her, soothe her. The woman who stared at her as if she were either a mirage or a wild woman looked nothing like Kayla’s mother.
    She looked down at herself; her sweats were torn and dirty, her body shaking. What must this aunt she hadn’t seen in years think?
    Seeing the concern in the older woman’s eyes, Kayla ran to her, wrapped her arms around her neck. “Please help me, Aunt Nester. I’m in trouble. I had nowhere else to go.”
    Nester’s arms went around Kayla, and despite the circumstance of her dilemma, warmth stole over her. The warmth disappeared for a moment as her aunt rushed into the next room, then came back with a quilt and wrapped it around Kayla’s shoulders. “It’s all right, child. Come. We’ll sit in the living room and you can tell me all about it.”
    “Please help me, Aunt Nester. They kidnapped me and stole Sam. I escaped, but someone tried to kill me. Now the police think I killed my baby.”
    Aunt Nester gave a startled gasp, then looked as if she didn’t know where to begin to ask questions.
    Kayla shouldn’t have come here. Aunt Nester was too old to get involved in something so horrible and so dangerous. What was she