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“Shhh,” she said, her words slurred, her eyes mostly closed. “Big secret. His wife doesn’t know. He wanted to surprise her.”
“I’ll need his phone number so that I can tell him that you don’t want to give him your baby. That the deal’s off. It might be easier if I did it.”
“Would you do that for me?” Brittany’s damp eyes opened, luminous and rounded. “Or are you only playing big sis coming to the rescue? Or is the super intelligent sister, who has everything she ever dreamed of, baling out the screwup once again?”
Jenna took her sister’s free hand and squeezed it gently. “You’d do it for me.”
Brittany raised Jenna’s hand to press a kiss to her knuckles. “I don’t deserve you, Jenna. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Well, you don’t have to find out. You’re stuck with me for a very long time,” Jenna said her eyes filling. “And Baby Blakely is stuck with Auntie Jenna.”
“She’ll love you as much as I do,” Brittany said.
Jenna sank into the chair beside her sister’s bed, still holding her hand.
Brittany’s eyes narrowed. “Uh, Jenna, there’s a man behind you. Tell me you know him and that you’ll introduce him to me.” She brushed the tears from her cheeks and finger-combed her hair. Leaning her head toward Jenna, she whispered, “He’s super cute.”
“I heard that,” Cliff said with a grin.
Jenna chuckled. “Brittany, this is Cliff Cranston. I met him in the stairwell a few minutes ago and can’t seem to shake him.”
Brittany glared at Cliff. “Do you want me to chase him off?”
“No, sweetie,” Jenna said. “He’s going to help me find your baby.”
“Do you even know him?” Brittany demanded, her frowning gaze pinning Cliff.
“Not really,” Jenna said, shooting a glance over her shoulder at Cliff, standing back from the bed, close to the door, as if preparing for a quick getaway.
Brittany’s jaw dropped. “My sister, the FBI agent, inviting a complete stranger to help her solve a case?”
“When you put it that way, it makes me sound like I’m too stupid to live. Cliff’s a former Navy SEAL. They have top-secret clearances and have been entrusted with missions involving national security around the world. I think we can trust him.”
Her frown fading as her eyelids lowered, Brittany said, “Did he show you his secret handshake, frog tattoo and ID card? What proof?”
Jenna cocked an eyebrow toward Cliff. “Well?”
“I can show you the ID card they gave me to use in the VA’s medical system. Since I left before retirement, I don’t have an active or retired ID.” Cliff reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and extracted his VA medical ID card. He handed the card to Jenna, then shrugged off his jacket and pulled the hem of his T-shirt from his waistband.
“Whoa. Wait.” Jenna’s heart leaped, her pulse ratcheting. She raised her hand. “What are you doing?”
“Showing you my frog tattoo.” Before she could stop him, he pulled off his T-shirt and turned around so that she could see his back.
Her breath lodged in her throat at the broad expanse of muscles and the array of colorful tattoos etched across his skin. On his left shoulder was the skeleton of a frog. Besides the tattoos, several large and small scars were scattered across his left side and back.
Jenna forced air into her lungs, her pulse still hammering. “He has the ID,” she whispered.
“Good,” Brittany murmured. “Tattoo?”
Jenna shook her head. “Does the skeleton of a frog count?” Her gaze met Cliff’s.
A shadow crossed his face.
“Yeah,” Brittany said. “Real…deal…” Jenna glanced toward her sister.
Brittany lay motionless, her pale face marred by the gash near her temple and other bruises turning purple across her forehead, cheeks and chin.
When Jenna turned back to Cliff, he had pulled his T-shirt back over his head and was tucking it into his waistband.
