Lara frowned. Jack had worked awfully hard on this, but it wasn't his case to solve. It was a police matter.
She winced as she scanned the report in the sixth folder. The girl had been a student at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The seventh girl was missing from Princeton, New Jersey. If Apollo was kidnapping girls across state lines, then the case belonged to the FBI.
Even so, she had to hand it to Jack. He was one hell of an investigator. She wasn't even halfway through all the folders, and she was skimming through them fast. She needed hard copies of all these reports so she could compare them to one another. And she needed hours to study the material.
What she needed was a copy of all this. She started to e-mail herself the entire Apollo folder, then hesitated. Would Jack mind? Surely not. He'd said in his phone message that he meant to show her all this information. They were working the case together. She clicked on Send.
"Hello."
She jumped in her chair and spotted a little blond-headed boy at the door. He looked like the boy from the surveillance video. "Hello."
He tugged at his blue-and-green-striped T-shirt. "My name is Tino."
Of course. Constantine Draganesti. "How do you do? I'm Lara Boucher."
He gave her an angelic smile. "I heard about you."
"Great." She turned off the laptop and rose to her feet.
"Tino!" a woman's voice called. "Oh, there you are." An older woman appeared in the doorway and noticed Lara. "I'm sorry. I hope Tino wasn't disturbing you."
"No, not at all." Lara approached them. "I'm Lara Boucher."
"Oh, I've heard about you."
Not again. Lara extended a hand. "How do you do?"
"Very well. My name is Radinka." She shook hands and didn't let go. She peered closely at Lara, then smiled. "Yes. You and Jack will be very happy."
"Excuse me?"
Radinka released her hand, then yelled over her shoulder. "Shanna, you'll never guess who's here."
"Coming." A woman emerged from the nursery, pushing a baby stroller. She was blonde and a little plump from having recently given birth. The babe was a tiny newborn with pink, delicate skin and a fuzzy cap of black hair.
Lara leaned over the stroller for a closer look. "What a beautiful baby." A girl, she figured, from the baby's delicate features. The pink blanket was another clue. She raised her gaze to the baby's mother. "Hi. I'm Lara Boucher."
"Oh. I've heard about you."
"That's what they all say," Lara muttered.
Shanna laughed. "Don't worry. It was all good. By the way, I'm Shanna. My daughter's Sofia. And you met my son, Constantine?"
"Yes." Lara smiled at the little rosy-cheeked boy.
"She's the one for Jack," Radinka announced.
Lara gulped. "I–I wouldn't say that. I hardly know him."
"Well, we'll just have to gossip about him then, won't we?" Shanna's eyes sparkled with humor. "Robby said you were very pretty. He was definitely right."
"Connor said you were trouble," Constantine added.
"Tino." Shanna frowned at her son, then turned to Lara. "Connor's just worried about Jack getting hurt. We're all sorta like family around here. Would you like to have supper with us? We were just headed for the cafeteria."
"I'm gonna have macaroni and cheese!" Tino pranced around the hall.
"I'd love to come, but Howard might expect me to stay put." Lara motioned toward the conference room.
"Oh, don't worry about that." Shanna waved a dismissive hand. "He'll see you on the monitor and know you're with us. Come on."
Lara grabbed her handbag, shut the conference-room door, and accompanied them down the hall toward the foyer. She hadn't eaten yet, so she was hungry, and she was eager to hear some of the gossip Shanna had referred to. At the same time, she figured she'd better eat light. Jack had a date planned for later that night, and it might involve dinner. And other things…
They went down the length of the foyer, then turned right, then left, then another left. The halls were lined with windows on one side, and Lara realized they were circling around a courtyard and landscaped area. The setting sun cast a glare off the windows and lit up the bright red and pink geraniums that bloomed in pots around the courtyard.
In the nearly empty cafeteria, they settled at a table with the baby stroller parked at one end next to Shanna. Lara sat across from her and ate a small salad while she admired the two-week-old baby.
"You want to see what I can do?" Tino asked.
"Of course." Lara figured the little boy wanted some attention, too.
"Tino." Shanna shook her head, frowning.
"Oh. Okay." His shoulders slumped, and he pushed his macaroni around his plate.
Shanna watched him, still frowning, then her face brightened. "I know. You wiggled your ears the other day. You can show Lara that."
Tino sat up, grinning. "Yeah." He turned to Lara. "You want to see?"
"I'd love to." Lara laughed when the little boy's ears moved slightly. "That's amazing. I was never able to do that."
"I can read, too," Tino boasted.
"That's wonderful." Lara pushed back her empty salad bowl. "How old are you?"
"I was two in March." Constantine gulped down some milk,
Two? Lara would have guessed he was more like four, but then she didn't know very much about children.
Sofia suddenly let out a wail, and Shanna lifted her from the stroller. "There, there." She paced around the table, cuddling the baby. "You just had your dinner. Can't you let your mama have hers?"
Lara realized Shanna was only halfway through her meal. Radinka wasn't finished either. She pushed back her chair and stood. "I'll hold the baby."
"Oh, thank you." Shanna transferred the baby to Lara's arms. "She likes to be carried around. I guess it reminds her of being inside of me."
"I don't remember being inside you, Mama," Tino said.
Shanna chuckled as she sat down to finish her supper. "You used to roll around, doing somersaults."
"Cool." Tino attacked a bowl of red Jell-O cubes.
Lara strolled slowly around the table, enjoying the incredible softness of the baby against her chest. Sofia gazed up at her with clear blue eyes. Lara smoothed a hand over the baby's head and felt the downy black hair. Jack's children would have hair like this.
She sighed. What on earth was she doing, imagining Jack's future children? As crazy as it was, she couldn't seem to get too upset. There was something about holding this baby that made her feel very calm inside.
"You're good with children." Shanna scooped some mashed potatoes into her mouth. "Jack is, too."
"He would make an excellent father." Radinka pointed her fork at Lara to add emphasis.
Lara snorted, but she couldn't help but smile. "You two are a couple of matchmakers. But as good-looking as Jack is, I doubt he needs any help in the romance department." She hoped they would come back with something like Jack hasn't been seeing anyone for years. Jack's been as chaste as a ninety-year-old monk.
Shanna reached for her glass of iced tea. "I have to admit, Jack is a very good-looking man."
"Youth," Radinka muttered and shook her head as she cut up the last of her steak. "What's really important is character. Jack is a good man. He's kind, loyal, and dependable."
That sounded all fine and dandy, but Lara still wondered how many busloads of women had chased after Jack. She continued to walk around the table. "I suppose a guy with both good looks and good character would have a lot of women pursuing him."
"I suppose he would." Shanna's eyes twinkled.
Lara blushed. She was so obviously fishing.
Shanna chuckled. "Don't worry. I've never known Jack to have a girlfriend. He always comes to parties alone."