Unbreakable Bond Read Online Free PDF Page B

and blue blankets indicating the gender, while a young couple stood goo-goo-eyed, waving at their son through the window.
    The intensive-care part of the unit was housed in a separate room beside the regular nursery, and one tiny infant plugged with tubes and wires lay inside an incubator, kicking wildly.
    â€œHe’s a fighter,” Nina said softly as she paused for a moment to watch. “Just like Peyton.”
    He pressed a hand to her back in comfort, and she stiffened slightly, then inhaled and moved on down the hall to Dr. Emery’s office.
    Slade surveyed the room as they stepped inside. Medical journals and books overflowed a wall-to-wall bookshelf behind a massive cherry desk that was neat and orderly.
    Nina slid into a chair, but Slade stood with his arms folded and studied the man’s credentials on the wall between the windows. UNC. Duke. A third wall held a bulletin board decorated with photos of children he’d delivered.
    â€œIs your baby’s photo here?” he asked.
    Nina’s shoulders stiffened as she shook her head. He gritted his teeth, regretting the question. Some people reacted to a person’s death as if they’d never existed at all.
    A minute later a bushy-haired, freckled man around five-eleven strode in. The moment he saw Nina, a frown swept across his craggy face. “Nina?”
    â€œYes, Dr. Emery, I’m back.” She gestured toward Slade. “This is Slade Blackburn. He’s with Guardian Angel Investigations.”
    Dr. Emery’s eyes narrowed, his thick, graying eyebrows crinkling.
    â€œI need to ask you some questions about the night of the hospital fire,” Slade said without preamble. “I want to know exactly what happened to Peyton Nash.”
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    N INA TRIED TO STUDY the doctor with an objective eye. But too many times he’d encouraged her to stop asking questions, so many that his dismissal of her had roused her suspicions.
    â€œHonestly, Nina, you’ve hired another private investigator?” Dr. Emery asked, his tone reeking of exasperation.
    â€œYes, she has,” Slade said. “And I’d like to hear your version of what happened to Peyton.”
    The doctor fiddled with the stethoscope around his neck, then sank into his office chair as if weary of her. “Nina knows exactly what happened, Mr. Blackburn, but she refuses to accept the truth, that her baby was lost in that fire.” His frown accentuated the deep grooves carved by age bracketing his mouth. “It was sad, horrific, tragic,” he continued. “But it happened.”
    Slade simply stared at the man. “According to Nina, nurses rescued three other infants. Why not her baby?”
    â€œThat I don’t know,” the doctor said. “I spoke with the nurses later, and they all agreed that the baby wasn’t in the nursery when the fire broke out, that they thought she had been taken to another area for tests.”
    â€œThey told me they didn’t know where she was,” Nina said, contradicting him.
    A spark of temper darkened Dr. Emery’s eyes. He shuffled a stack of papers on his desk, restacking themin an attempt at stalling. “I didn’t want to add to your distress at the time, Nina, but I had ordered heart tests for your infant. I suspected your baby had a hole in her heart as well as underdeveloped lungs, and that she wasn’t going to make it.”
    Nina’s breath caught in her throat. “So she might have been somewhere else in the hospital, not in the unit when it burned down.”
    â€œWe’ve been over this,” Dr. Emery said as if talking to a child. “She did not survive.”
    â€œHow can you be so sure?” Slade asked. “Did forensics ever prove the infant was in the fire?”
    Dr. Emery glared at Slade. “No, but the place, the ashes…it was impossible to identify all the bodies.”
    â€œHow about security tapes?” Slade