“Yes, yes, my nose scrunches when I am incensed, so Jackson has told me time and again.” She’d always heard a woman would marry a man most like her father, but it didn’t seem fair she’d met Jacksonbeforeshe knew this man.
She shifted on the chair, angling for a better position and new line of attack. “Now then, about Mrs. Coleman. As you already assumed, I have taken the case, but if you would only listen to the details I have discovered this morning, I think you might change your mind on the matter—or your stomach, as the case may be.”
His nostrils flared as he folded his arms. “I highly doubt it.”
Bullheaded man. A great quality for a police sergeant. Now, not so much. Rising, she planted her palms on his desktop. “But Father, just think if Jackson stole your very own granddaughter.”
He arched a single brow.
Blast. Once again she’d veered into the ditch of playing the family card. She straightened, annoyed at her mistake. “Imagine, then, if the baby you know as Isabella Jane Forge were abducted by a violent man. Would you not do everything in your power to return said baby to her rightful mother?”
“We don’t know if Mr. Coleman is violent. It’s Mrs. Coleman’s word against her husband. You don’t even know his side of the story.”
He spoke truth, but that didn’t mean she had to like it—and she most emphatically did not. “Which is why I should find him, don’t you see? Allow him to explain what’s going on. Doing such will either prove or disprove your gut feeling about Mrs. Coleman, so will you please reconsider this case?”
Unfolding his arms, he laced his fingers on the tabletop, gaze never once straying from hers. “At the moment, no.”
“Fine.” The word snipped out sharper than she intended, as petulant a sound as the stamp of her feet as she clipped to her desk. A churlish reaction, one that irritated her as much as it likely did her father. Perhaps she was a bit too emotionally attached to the case.
Pull yourself together, girl.
“If it makes you feel any better about the situation, Father, I did discuss the matter with Jackson. He gave his blessing as long as I only locate the father and baby—which is in no way illegal—then turn the case over to him if there appears to be any wrongdoing.” She lifted her chin. “And he charged me to let you know that’s what I am about, which I just did. So, there you have it.”
He arched a brow, his opposite eye narrowing. “You may be fooling yourself, but I don’t believe a word of that drivel. If you see a child in harm’s way, you will dive in headfirst to rescue it whether it is safe for you to do so or not. Whatever promise you made to your husband will be null and void.”
Drats. There was no point arguing over that.
So she ignored him, sliding out her notepad to organize her next steps. First a visit to Mr. Coleman’s former employer was in order. Then a cursory check with nearby hospitals to make sure no injured baby girls had been admitted, and after that—
Movement caught at the corner of her eye. She glanced up as her father strode to the coat-tree and retrieved his hat, folder tucked beneath his arm. “Where are you going?”
“I have a lead on another case.” He continued on to the door.
So, that explained the earlier deflection, but not completely. She set down her pencil. “Who? What? When did you acquire it?”
“I don’t have all the details yet, so I have not officially taken it on, but perhaps when you’re finished with your own case”—he flashed her a wink over his shoulder—“I shall tell you about this one.”
Charles Baggett doffed his hat as he strolled through the open door of Mr. Royden Bellow’s office suite. Then frowned. Why was it business offices were all the same? A stuffy anteroom, usually with a window and a nearby potted plant, a sturdy desk, a closed door with the name of a bigwig flourished in gold paint on a glass pane, and a clerk to keep out the riffraff. Bellow’s Glassworks was no different—save for a beagle sitting at attention by Bellow’s office door. Astuffedbeagle. Dead as a corpse on a slab at the deadhouse yet preserved and posed to look as if the dog might trot over and sniff his trousers. Apparently Mr. Bellow had a soft spot for this former pet and his wife didn’t, hence the hound in the office instead of the owner’s mansion.
Pulling his gaze from the dog’s glassy eyes, Charles faced the clerk. “I should like to see Mr. Bellow, please.”
The clerk peered up at him, both cheeks as abnormally red as if he’d been freshly slapped. “Have you an appointment?”
“No.”
“Then I am afraid that is impossible.” He tapped an open ledger with his finger. “Mr. Bellow is booked for the day.”
Charles glanced past the clerk’s shoulder. Behind the glass in the mahogany-paneled office sat the president himself—or so he assumed—ensconced behind a massive desk and eating some sort of pie. Clearly Mr. Bellow wasn’t booked at the moment.
Charles’ gaze drifted back to the cherry-faced clerk. “I do beg your pardon, but I suddenly realize that my name might be on today’s diary. How about you look? Baggett. Charles Baggett.”
“You might have said so to begin with,” the clerk grumbled.
The instant the fellow began running his finger down the day’s appointments, Charles dashed around the desk and rapped on Bellow’s door, ignoring the clerk’s ragged cries of “Stop! Stop this very minute! You are not allowed to—”
Charles cracked open the president’s door. “Might I have a word with you, Mr. Bellow? I vow I shall be brief.”
The president’s fork stopped midair. “Who are you? And how did you make it past my clerk?”
