Not Quite Mine (Not Quite #2)(46)
Author: Catherine Bybee

He’d been unsuccessful at infiltrating the hospital records where Savannah was born. Although he was working on a hack to find the information anyway, he didn’t want to go to jail to determine who the birth mother was. The best option was to get back into the hotel and attempt to access Katelyn’s room without a key to the elevator or her room.

He cased the outside of the hotel like a thief. He watched a pair of window washers with a shrug. A new mother wouldn’t dare that route. But a fire escape wasn’t unthinkable. Twenty-four floors might be a little much for a new mom. But then who said the mother dropped off the baby? It could have been someone hired to do the job.

Patrick’s gut said differently.

This mom, the one who took so much care leaving Savannah outside a door without any chance she’d be left there for long, had been close by when Katelyn and Monica stumbled upon Savannah. This mom wouldn’t have given someone else the chance to f**k that up.

But how?

That was what he struggled with.

There were service workers moving in and out of the hotel without notice. Food service, linen service, florists, and the occasional man or woman that appeared anticipated. The ebb and flow of the hotel was like water flowing through a river, expected and sometimes forceful.

Patrick made a note: Mom could have easily penetrated the building through service entrance if dressed appropriately.

Inside the hotel lobby, he moved to an arrangement of chairs and sat with his cell phone in his hands. No one bothered him, noticed him…spoke to him.

After thirty minutes of sitting, he picked himself up and moved to a coffeehouse inside the hotel and ordered a simple coffee, black.

He noticed a service hallway alongside the restaurant, a passage he’d found the first time he’d spent time wandering the hotel, and walked toward it. The cell phone in his pocket made noise right on time and he lifted it to his ear.

In the receiver was nothing but static. He walked through the service door talking into his phone and acting distracted. The plain tile floors of a back corridor, which none of the hotel guests ever saw, met his feet as he marched down one hall to another. Soon there were extra folding beds lining the halls and carts used to carry any number of things throughout the building.

“I thought you were meeting me here!” he all but hollered into the phone to no one. “I’m at the hotel now.” He twisted down another corridor and found two elevators.

Service elevators.

He turned in a circle and looked around him, acting confused. “What the f**k?” he said aloud in case there were cameras with audio watching. He punched the up button on the elevator and talked into the phone. “Upstairs? Where?”

The deserted hall wasn’t surprising. It wasn’t check in, check out, or mealtime. If there was a quiet time in a hotel, it was now. The service elevator made a noise and opened. He acted as if he were still talking on his phone and stepped inside. He pressed the uppermost floors and took a seamless ride to the top.

He stepped into a similar bare corridor and twisted around until he found a stairwell. The door opened easily and he shuffled up…toward the penthouse.

“Bingo!” he said as he stepped into the short hallway of Katelyn’s hotel home.

He tapped his pockets and put his phone away.

The mother didn’t make it inside the room. Only the corridor. He once again looked at the adjacent door to the vacant penthouse suite.

The mother could have rented it. Yet according to the online files he’d hacked into, it was vacant the night of Jack and Jessie’s wedding.

So where had the mother hid?

In the service hall.

Patrick let himself into Katelyn’s suite for a second time in a month.

Fresh flowers met his nose.

But that wasn’t all.

There, in the middle of the room, was a man wearing a cowboy hat and a frown.

“Who are you?” The stranger all but yelled the question.

Patrick plastered a smile on his lips and met the somewhat familiar man’s hostility with a smile. “A friend of Katelyn’s,” he said, using the same excuse he’d done before.

The man glared beyond him to the door. “She’s not here.”

Patrick thought of removing his jacket, but his service revolver was holstered and visible so he simply smiled. “Yeah, I know. She said I could crash here when I’m in town.”

The other man pushed up his Texas-issued cowboy hat on his brow and crossed his arms over his chest. “She did, did she?”

“She did. Who are you?” Patrick decided to act like a lover.

The man wasn’t dressed as a hotel employee and he acted as if he owned the place. Katelyn had made it clear Patrick wouldn’t encounter anyone in her room.

“Who are you?” The question was a shout.

“Ben Sanderson. Who the hell are you?” Best to act the pissed lover.

“Jack Morrison. Her brother!”

Oh, f**k!

Chapter Nineteen

Dean’s palms itched. Outside of the office or car hunting, he’d not spent a moment alone with Katelyn since the day he’d learned about Savannah.

That was all about to change. Knowing that Monica wasn’t home and he wouldn’t be interrupting “girl time,” he made a quick stop at home for a shower and a change of clothes after work, then headed straight over to Katelyn’s.

He parked his truck in a guest parking spot and walked up the not-so-quiet path to the apartment. Someone in the complex was playing music too loud, and someone else shouted something about taking the trash out.

Apartment living wasn’t something he ever had to endure. His parents lived well, invested in sound stocks that didn’t crash when Wall Street fell. His father’s upbringing was in rural Texas where his grandfather worked on an oil field. Hard work and Prescotts went hand in hand. Somewhere in the chain Dean’s father had moved from blue to white collar and passed that on to his children.

Dean knew how to do most of the jobs he expected of his employees, but he managed his staff better by acting as their mentor in the physical work.

Standing outside the apartment building was as foreign to him as it must have been to Katelyn the first time she’d come here.

Yet this was where she chose to stay…at least for now.

Dean knocked on Katie’s door and rocked back on his heels.

He rubbed his hands on his jeans and thought maybe he should have something with him, something to offer Katie…food…wine…diapers?

Katie opened the door wearing a pair of sweats—designer sweats, but cotton pants nonetheless—with Savannah on her arm. Katie hesitated and offered him a smile.