Not Quite Mine(Not Quite series)

Chapter Twenty-Two





Patrick called her at work. He was arriving at the hotel and wanted to know if he could meet her there within the hour.

He had information and wanted to deliver it to her in person.

Katie’s hands shook as she spoke quietly into the phone. “Do you know who she is?”

“I need confirmation…but I think you may be able to do that for me. Is your suite being used?”

“No. I’ll call the hotel and tell them to let you in.”

“Good,” Patrick said into the phone. “Oh—and, Katie, come alone.”

Now the hair on the nape of her neck stood on end. Her first thought was to drag Dean along. They were both waiting for this information. They both wanted to know the answers.

“Why?”

“Because you’re my client. And I think it’s in your best interest to hear the news first. Trust me.”

She ran a hand through her hair, something she never did. “OK.”

Patrick hung up and her insides pitched in protest. What does he know? Who is the mom?

Why did he think she could identify the mother?

     





There obviously had to be some connection to her and maybe even someone else that Monica or Dean could identify. If that were the case, then Patrick was right in her being alone when they spoke.

Katie took advantage of the fact that Dean was busy with an inspector who would monopolize most of his afternoon.

Thirty minutes after Patrick’s phone call, Katie wrote a quick note and posted it on Dean’s phone in his office.

Finished here early. I have a few products I want to see before I order. SYAH.

SYAH was their own acronym for “See you at home.” So far, no one at work knew they had moved in together. It wasn’t a secret that they were seeing each other, but they didn’t go around kissing or fondling at work.

Jo had made a few comments about the two of them being much more relaxed than previous weeks. Katie bunted right back with questions about how Steve Bowman was doing. Jo’s cheeks had grown red and she busied herself with her work and avoided any further comments.

Jo and Steve were obviously into each other, but Katie wasn’t clear if the two of them had even shared a meal outside of the shindig Dean had put on weeks ago. Not that it mattered to her. She and Jo were cordial, but Katie doubted they could be real friends.

Katie drove in silence to the hotel and called ahead to let them know she was coming.

The suite hadn’t changed…yet the marble floors felt cold, the colors of the room sterile. Without family pictures or a few misplaced items filtered about the room, it just wasn’t home.

Dean’s home with its rustic lines and masculine edge made her more comfortable than the finest silk. She wouldn’t mind a few extravagant extras…like a cook and a housekeeper. But those things could wait. Dean had actually talked about live-in help once they had everything with Savannah settled.

That day might be today.

She checked the time on the clock and tapped her foot. The receptionist at the front desk was supposed to call her when Patrick arrived.

As the minutes ticked past the hour he was supposed to get there, her pulse sped up and she started to pace the room.

The knock on her door made her jump.

Katie drew in a deep, calming breath and blew it out slowly before opening the door. She painted on a smile and hoped her nerves didn’t show.

Only the hall was empty.

A sense of déjá vu swam over her. Her gaze snapped to her feet.

There was a note on the floor that read, Look up!

When she did, she noticed a domed camera over her head. A noise drew her attention down the hall. Patrick stood several feet away with his hands tucked into his signature black jacket.

“What’s this?” she asked waving the paper.

“It’s evidence of a flaw in your hotel security.” He pushed away from the wall to join her. “Mind if I come in?”

“Of course not.”

Inside the suite, Patrick removed a seven-inch tablet from an inside pocket of his jacket.

Katie noted the gun he had strapped to his side. A gun she assumed he had, but hadn’t seen until now. She couldn’t help but think he showed it to her now to emphasize his point.

Patrick set the tablet down and picked up the phone on a hall table. He handed her the cordless handset and said, “Call the desk and ask if I’ve arrived.”

Katie’s eyes drew together. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

Katie waited for the receptionist to answer. When she did, her cheerful voice said, “What can we do for you, Miss Morrison.”

“Yes, eh…” She glanced over at Patrick and stuttered, “D-did Mr. Sanderson arrive yet?”

“No. I’m sorry, Miss Morrison. We’ve not had anyone call on you yet. We’ll be sure to let you know when he’s on his way up.”

Katie frowned. “OK. Thank you.” She hung up the phone. “I don’t understand.”

Patrick sat in one of the chairs and encouraged her to sit as well. “They don’t know I’m here. I’ve already checked into the hotel under an alias.”

“So you came up without them knowing.”

“Obviously. Which is exactly what Savannah’s mother did.”

Katie sat and leaned forward. “I’m listening.”

Patrick rubbed his hands together with a smile. “The first day I visited your suite in Houston, I walked in like I owned the place. No one stopped or questioned me until I made it to your room. Through normal routes, your security was stellar. Nice to see they weren’t flunkies who couldn’t make it into the local police detail.”

“Good to know.”

Patrick turned on his digital device and played a video clip of him walking through the hotel in Houston. He entered and exited an elevator and let himself into Katie’s suite without incident. Within seconds, security was at the door. One man had a gun in his hand.

“The clip is spliced together to show how I walked into your room. But notice here…” He paused the clip, showing an empty hall. “And here.” He paused it again. “I’m not in range of the camera. The angle I came out of the elevator gave a clear picture of me. Easily identifiable.”

“When I looked at the clips of the night Savannah was left, I didn’t see anyone come out of an elevator,” Katie told him.

“I know. I’ll get to that in a minute. Here is another day I went to your suite. This was when I ran into your brother. I went ahead and ran the tape of him coming up and into the room. It’s all seamless. Yeah, he pushes in and out of view, but for the most part he’s undeniably there.”

She mumbled an acknowledgment of his words.

“Now…keep watching.”

He fast-forwarded the clip. “I haven’t spliced any footage together,” he told her. Once he hit a twenty-minute marker, he slowed the clip down to normal speed.

The door to her suite opened and out walked Patrick and Jack…together.

“Were you in there the whole time?”

“No. I surprised your brother after he arrived.”

“But I didn’t see you go in.”

“Exactly.”

Katie sat back in her chair. “So how did you get in?”

“Apparently rich people love their privacy nearly as much as they do their security.”

Katie nodded. “I can agree with that.”

“The angle of the cameras aren’t directly on the door to the suite. You’ve lived in hotels most of your life. I’m sure you’ve snuck in late at night before.”

“Yeah, when I was a kid. We’d hug the wall and slip inside.” A friend of hers who was sleeping with a would-be rock star had told her about the hotel cameras. There were nights when she was a teenager that she snuck in, or had someone else sneak in. Katie had stopped hiding from the cameras years ago.

“I snuck into your suite by staying out of direct line with the cameras. The motion detectors inside the room would have triggered, notifying security that someone was in your room, but that didn’t happen because Jack was already inside.”

“I think there are motion detectors in the halls, too,” she told him.

     





“Yeah, but the only thing security will do once the motion detectors are tripped is look at the video feed. If they don’t see anything, or the inside of the room isn’t tripped, they’ll most likely ignore it. The night the mom left Savannah, you and Monica were home. Security would ignore the motion detectors entirely with the two of you walking in and out.

“OK…so how did the mom get into the foyer? She didn’t use the elevator.”

“There are usually two penthouse suites in your bigger hotels. The one in Houston across from yours was vacant the night of the wedding. So we know that the mom wasn’t in there. There was no footage of a woman with a baby walking the halls of the hotel late at night. But there isn’t a multitude of cameras in the staff areas. My first thought was the mom used a fire escape. A stairwell. But they are all locked on the main floors. You can come down a stairwell, in case of a fire, but you can’t go up. Chances are there is some kind of trigger on the doors, something electronic, that opens the locks if the fire alarm is screaming.”

“There weren’t any alarms going off that night. Besides, taking the stairs up twenty-plus floors with an infant is a long hike.”

“Right. But if the mother was staying in the hotel…say a few floors below yours…not such a chore, if she could gain entry to the upper floors.”

Katie murmured her agreement. She hadn’t considered that.

“I don’t think she hiked up the stairs at all,” Patrick said.

“She didn’t?”

“No. She used the staff elevators. A trick you might know something about.”

Katie’s eyes widened. Yeah. She knew how to get around the hotel without detection. She’d grown up in them. “How would she know where the staff elevators even are? They aren’t on a guest map of the hotel and they’re not accessible from the inside of the guest halls.”

“How she knew about the staff routes I can only assume. Someone told her about them is my guess. Who knows, maybe the mom worked in a hotel at one point. I considered that angle for a while. Thought maybe mom was a maid, someone who knew who you were…left her baby for you to raise.”

Katie had considered that scenario as well. “But the letter…a staff member wouldn’t know those details about me.”

“I agree.”

“So the mom befriended a staff member? Learned the lay of the hotel from someone working in Houston?”

Patrick shook his head. “Doubtful. Look, this is what she did. She rented a room at the hotel and arrived a day early. You never saw her arriving or leaving the hotel because she didn’t do it on the day you were looking at the videos. There are five hundred thirty-three rooms at the Houston Morrison. She knew you wouldn’t look for a single woman registering without a child.”

“I didn’t even consider that she was a guest. I figured she dropped the baby and ran.”

“She obviously brought the baby in later. Somehow, she got her hands on a room service staff uniform. Not very hard to do. The laundry service is seen going in and out of the hotel daily. She could have gotten her hands on one either on site by finding the staff room or by following a truck to where the laundry is washed. Either way, she manages to get a uniform. This tells me a couple things about our girl. She’s smart, and very determined to keep her identity a secret.”

“Obviously.”

“As a guest, she then orders room service. A tray arrives and the waiter leaves the rolling cart in the room to be picked up later. Instead of asking room service to clean up her mess, or leaving the cart in the hall, she keeps the food on the plates and waits. She waits until she knows you’re back in your room. She then changes into a uniform and loads up Savannah…under the cart and hidden by the tablecloth…and wheels her down the hall to the service door. She travels the path to your suite in a service elevator and waits outside the penthouse hall door. She hears you and Monica coming home and then tucks in behind the camera angle before knocking on your door and leaving Savannah.”

Katie pictured everything Patrick was saying…easily mapping out the woman’s path. “So she was hiding behind the service door the whole time Monica and I were standing in my doorway.”

“Yep.”

“Do we have any footage of her?”

Patrick moved from his chair to the sofa and sat beside her before turning on his tablet. “I do. In one shot, she’s wearing what is clearly a wig…in another she’s not.”

Katie clenched her fists in her lap. She’d waited forever for this moment. “Do I know her”

“You have to tell me.”

Patrick played the footage. “I looked through hours of this…hallway footage of room service trays being rolled in and out of rooms. There aren’t that many single women checking into the hotel who aren’t a part of a convention. There weren’t any going on when all of this was happening. I only had to focus on a few floors. Here is the tray being rolled in.” Katie watched as guest services arrived at a room and stepped inside. The person who opened the door was out of the frame.

The tape cut and started back up again. “Here it’s after midnight.”

Sure enough, a woman with dark hair was leaving the room pushing the tray. Her head was down but that didn’t stop Katie from squinting her eyes to try and see her features. She was petite…for a new mom. About the same height as her. The woman in the video kept looking around as if she was nervous.

Patrick voiced what she saw. “She’s nervous.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

She pushed the cart through an unlocked service door. With the exception of the penthouse level, the others weren’t locked. If a diplomat visited or a security need arose, they could be, but in Houston that wasn’t needed at the time Savannah was being delivered.

The woman hesitated at the service door and looked up.

Patrick froze the image. He zoomed in and the quality started to fade, but her features were still visible.

Katie swallowed hard and her hands started to tingle.

It can’t be.

“Do you know her?”

Katie bit her lip. “I need to see another picture. Her hair isn’t right.”

“Like I said. It’s a wig.”

Patrick moved the images forward. When the woman was seen again, she was careless about her face. The wig was gone, and she was all but running, holding her stomach, as she made her way back to her room.

Patrick stopped the film again and zoomed in.

There, with tears streaming down her face was a woman Katie had never met but knew a whole lot about.

“It’s Maggie. Dean’s ex-fiancée.”

Her entire body started to tremble.

Patrick turned off the tablet and set it down. “Dean is your boyfriend?”

She nodded wordlessly. “I just moved in with him.”

“Did he know Maggie was pregnant?”

Katie blinked a few times. Her mind went numb. “No.” He would never have allowed Maggie to have his child without him.

She stood and started to pace off the energy swarming her body.

     





Savannah was Dean’s daughter. His biological daughter.

More his than hers.

“Dean and I dated over a year ago,” she found herself explaining to Patrick. “He used to sneak up to my suite during the time we were together. He must have mentioned that to Maggie.”

“It did look as if Maggie knew the routine of the hotel. But unless Dean drew her a map, she had to have figured this out by herself.”

She thought of the note left with Savannah at the door. “It makes sense now. Dean knew I couldn’t have children.” It hurt to think he’d told his fiancée about her. She wanted to be angry with him but all she could feel was shock.

“I still don’t know why she gave Savannah up. Maggie called off their wedding and didn’t give him much of an explanation as to why.”

“She was pregnant. Maybe she freaked. Women get emotional when they’re pregnant,” Patrick said.

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe their breakup had more to do with you than it did Dean. Either way, I think we know who the mother is…and in light of the timeline, we know who the daddy is. From what I’ve discovered, Maggie is living with her aunt just north of Los Angeles.”

“How far away?” she asked.

“Hour and a half. Two, tops.”

Just yesterday the fabric of her life felt as if it were being sewn at the edges to hold everything together. Dean welcomed her and Savannah into his home and she’d never felt more comfortable in her life.

Outside of her father’s home when she was a child, Dean’s was home. More than Monica’s…more than the suite in a Houston hotel she called her own. The information Patrick delivered dripped acid onto that fabric. The fabric smoldered and left gaping holes.

“What should I do?” she asked almost to herself.

Patrick moved from the couch and placed a supportive hand on her shoulder. “Does he love you?”

Katie’s gaze flickered in Patrick’s direction. “I—I…we just reunited.”

“You’re a smart woman, Katelyn. Smarter than many of my clients. Would Maggie deliver her child to you as a tool to get Dean back?”

“She left him,” she snapped. “Common knowledge.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. My brother and Dean are best friends. Jack and Dean’s story of her exit was virtually the same.”

She barely noticed him stroking her back in comfort. “You can wait…see if Maggie comes to you.”

“Wouldn’t she have done that by now?”

Patrick didn’t meet her eyes when she looked at him. “If she had a nefarious reason for leaving Savannah with you…and she wanted to avoid any possibility of prosecution of child abandonment, she’ll get in touch with you soon.”

“How can you know that?”

“Texas laws differ from California. A mother can leave a child with a responsible adult for up to six months before the state considers it abandonment.”

“We’re both in California.”

Patrick moved his head to the side. “Doesn’t matter. She left Savannah in Texas. The papers for legal guardianship…the birth certificate were drawn up here in California. Maggie was careful in how she executed this entire ordeal. With the lawyers you could afford to hire, she would be hard-pressed to get Savannah back if she wanted to. And after six months, it’s all but ironclad. If she’d left Savannah here in California, there would be even less legality she could stand on.”

Katie blinked away the moisture in her eyes. “Savannah’s nearly three months old.”

Patrick offered a sympathetic look. “If it helps…I don’t think she’s coming back. She meant for you to have this child. I think it will be up to you to confront her.”

“And if I don’t?”

Patrick shrugged. “After six months you can relax. Even if she came after you for guardianship at that time, any lawyer worth their bar exam could get you custody.”

Katie ran both of her hands over her face and turned away from him. “None of this answers the question of why.”

“No. You asked for an identity. I told you when we started that I would find out who…how…but I’m not inside the head of this woman and I don’t know why she left you her child. It could be that she felt she wasn’t ready for parenthood. Or she couldn’t raise the child of a man who didn’t love her. Women are like that. For those answers you’re going to have to ask her.”

She cringed at the thought.

How could she talk to the woman Dean had been engaged to, the woman that could give him children…did give him a child?

When Katie had heard of Dean’s engagement, a part of her heart, her soul, had shattered.

Katie remembered those first and only days of knowing that, inside her, a life formed. A life created by her and Dean. And then that awful night had come.

At first, there were a few spots. She quickly looked up her symptoms on the Internet and realized that many women spotted during their first trimester.

But it wasn’t spotting.

Within an hour, she knew there was a problem.

She called Dean, frantic. Told him to meet her at the hospital.

He held her as the doctor told her she’d lost their child. Something inside her was broken and she knew it. A week later her regular doctor sat beside her and Dean and told them that Katie couldn’t carry a child to term. Her inhospitable uterus would reject any pregnancy she could possibly conceive. The fact she already had was no surprise according to the doctor.

Katie had stopped listening at that point.

She would live a life without children.

The man she loved…the man who looked at her deeper than anyone ever had, wanted children. Wanted that life.

Hurting beyond reason, Katie did what she needed to do.

She wove lies and drove Dean away.

Straight into Maggie’s arms.

And now Katie was raising their child.

How could she face Dean and not tell him?

His own child was under his roof and Katie was the fraud. The thought of life without Savannah…without Dean, made her sick.

“Do you want my advice?” Patrick asked.

“God, please.” She had no idea which way to turn.

“Wait. Irrational decisions are rarely the right ones. Take a few days to digest this information before you do anything.”

She turned to him. “I live with Dean. It’s not like I can avoid seeing him.”

Patrick rolled his eyes. “You’re a woman. Plea some womanly issue and keep your distance while you figure out what to do.”