Temptation - Brenda Jackson [60]
“Really, Sheila, why do you continue to get yourself in these kinds of predicaments? You know nothing about caring for a baby. How did you let yourself be talked into being any child’s foster parent?”
Sheila rolled her eyes. “I’m a nurse, Mom. I’m used to taking care of people.”
“But a kid? Better you than me.”
“How well I know that,” she almost snapped
Her mother’s comments reminded her that in two days she would hand Sunnie over to Bradford Price. He had called last night and they had agreed the exchange would take place at the TCC. It seemed fitting since that was the place Diane Worth had left her daughter—although for all the wrong reasons—that she would begin her new life there again.
Sheila wasn’t looking forward to giving up Sunnie. The only good thing was that Zeke would be flying in tonight and she wouldn’t be alone. He would give her his support. No one had ever done that for her before. And she couldn’t wait to see him again after almost two weeks.
Zeke paused in the middle of packing for his return home and met DEA Agent Mathis’s intense gaze. “What do you mean Rivera’s attorney is trying to get him off on a technicality? We have a confession from Diane Worth.”
“I know,” Mathis said in a frustrated tone, “but Rivera has one of the slickest lawyers around. They are trying to paint Worth as a crackhead and an unfit mother who’d desert her child for more drugs, and that she thought up the entire thing—the murder scheme—on her own. The attorney is claiming his client is a model citizen who is being set up.”
“That’s bull and you and I know it.”
“Yes, and since he drove from Denver to New Orleans instead of taking a flight, we can’t trace the car he used.” Mathis let out a frustrated sigh and added, “This is what we’ve been dealing with when it comes to Rivera. He has unscrupulous people on his payroll. He claims he was nowhere near New Orleans during the time Michael Price was killed. We have less than twenty-four hours to prove otherwise or he walks.”
“Damn.” Zeke rubbed his hand down his face. “I refuse to let him get away with this. I want to talk to Worth again. There might be something we missed that can prove that now she’s the one being set up.”
A few hours later Zeke and Mathis were sitting at a table across from Diane Worth. “I don’t care what Miguel is saying,” she said almost in tears. “He is the one who came up with the plan, not me.”
“Is there any way you can prove that?” Zeke asked her. He glanced at his watch. He should be on a plane right this minute heading for Royal. Now he would have to call Sheila to let her know he wouldn’t be arriving in Royal tonight as planned. He refused to leave Denver knowing there was a chance Miguel Rivera would get away with murder.
She shook her head. “No, there’s no way I can prove it.” And then she blinked as if she remembered something. “Wait a minute. When we got to New Orleans we stopped for gas and Miguel went inside to purchase a pack of cigarettes. The store clerk was out of his brand and he pitched a fit. Several people were inside the store and I bet one of them remembers him. He got pretty ugly.”
Zeke looked over at Mathis. “And even if they don’t remember him, chances are, the store had a security camera.”
Both men quickly stood. They had less than twenty-four hours to prove Miguel was in New Orleans when he claimed that he wasn’t.
Sheila shifted in bed and glanced over at the clock as excitement flowed down her spine. Zeke’s plane should have landed by now. He would likely come straight to her place from the airport. At least he had given her the impression that he would when she’d talked to him that morning. And she couldn’t wait to see him.
She had talked to Brad and she would deliver Sunnie to him at the TCC at three the day after tomorrow. It was as if Sunnie had detected something was bothering her and had been clingy today. Sheila hadn’t minded. She had wanted to cling to the baby as much as Sunnie had wanted to cling to her.
She smiled when her cell phone rang. She picked it up and checked caller ID. It was