A/N: It's been awhile so I should say this; I own nothing but the characters I create because if I did I would be rich and famous. To all my readers I try my best to do what is right by these characters but sometime fate intervenes and their lives may spin out of control but I promise I believe in happily ever after and most of the time it ends up that way. To Charleymom…thanks for sticking by me. It helps knowing at least one person gets me!
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By The Grace Of God
Chapter Three
Eliot stood back watching Jason Maloney talk to an ER nurse. He felt Kenna tense next to him and wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was? Was this nurse in on taking Grace or were they just friends?
"She might be his sister." Kenna leaned back against him. "Her name is Samantha Maloney." She whispered.
"Hardison, check her out." Eliot said. He felt Kenna relax a little bit against him. He instinctively put his arms around her.
"You got it. I got the footage on Maloney coming into the hospital. He came in with your friend Max. The patient they brought in was a junkie that OD'd in the same building Grace's mom did."
"Maybe that's where Maloney was. Looking for his pregnant junkie girlfriend and he stumbles on an OD, calls the medics, Max tells him that he and Kenna scooped up a woman in labor…"
"Maloney puts two and two together." Kenna finished.
"We just need to know why Max's ID never made it out of the building."
"Is Maloney next to the ER doors?" Hardison asked.
"Yeah, right by the ambulance bay." Kenna answered.
"Our boy has Max's ID. It just checked him out of the ER."
"So he's going to frame Max for the kidnapping?" Kenna looked at Eliot.
"Maybe that was his plan." Eliot watched the nurse and the cop talking. "The conversation looks a little intense." Kenna took a step forward.
"Hardison, can you zoom in on their conversation and send it to my phone?" Kenna asked.
"You got in fifteen seconds." Hardison answered.
"What are you going to do?" Eliot looked at the two standing by the door.
"Did you think all the Army did was taught me how to kill and steal?" Kenna raised her eyebrows. She watched the conversation from the phone. "I learned how to read lips when an IAD went off a little too close to my personal space." Eliot stared at her. The more she talked the more he realized how much he still didn't know about her. "He wants to know what they should do. I can't tell what she's saying but he's saying that it would be worth it to claim her. Maybe it's Samantha that is going to set up Max."
"Guess he thought being a crack addicts baby daddy wasn't going to look good in his resume." Eliot watched the cop.
"Now, knowing she's got a trust fund building he's having second thoughts." Nate said.
"She won't tell him anymore…he keeps telling her to let him in on it but she's not budging."
"Maybe she took her and is hiding her to protect him." Eliot wanted to just go over there and shake them both.
"Stay, big guy." Kenna must have felt him tense because she laid a hand on his shoulder and leaned against him. "Think it though." She whispered. Back at the van Nate had to smile. She did trust him. And she did listen to him when he had something to say.
"They know something." Eliot said.
"They also can bolt in a heartbeat." Kenna saw that Maloney was walking away. "You stick to him. I'm going to go see if some girl talk can loosen her lips."
"Kenna you might want to know that she is not his sister. Samantha is his wife." Hardison told her.
"Great. Woman scorned and all that." Kenna looked at the woman. "Bastard took my phone number too."
"I hacked into her medical records and they have been trying to have a baby for over a year. Neither one of them has any physical reason why they're not conceiving."
"So they steal the crack addict's baby. Try to explain that at Christmas." Eliot said. "Be careful Kenna. You know an angry woman can turn on you at a moment's notice."
"You would know better than I sweetheart." Kenna smiled and winked and headed over to see what she could get from Samantha and Eliot followed her husband. "Hey, Sam, what's up?"
"Kenna? What are you doing here?" The nurse looked surprised.
"They brought me in to see if I could tell them anything about who might have taken Grace."
"You've really become attached to that kid." Samantha's body language told her a hell of a lot more than her words were.
"Grace is all alone in the world. Somebody needs to be on her side." Kenna knew that if she used the child's name it would make Samantha think of her as a person.
"Do you really think they will find her?"
"Choose your words carefully Kenna." Nate said.
"I think whoever took her needs to know that she's got a really great family waiting for her and that if they brought her back now they would go easy on them."
"You really think that?" The woman crossed her harms over her chest.
"I know the man heading up the investigation and I know all he wants is this baby back safe and sound." Kenna smiled. "I have to go. It was nice seeing you again Sam." Kenna walked away and started looking for anywhere the woman might have hid a two week old baby going through withdrawals.
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Eliot followed Maloney up to the roof. The man was tense and he couldn't stop pacing. If Eliot knew one thing, it was this man was guilty of something.
"Nate, Maloney is acting strange. He's on the roof, pacing back and forth."
"Go talk to him…use your charm and see what you can get out of him. We don't want to scare him away."
"Charm, Nate?"
"Okay please don't hang the son of a bitch over the edge to get him to talk, that's all I'm asking." Nate took a deep breath. Eliot took a step from behind the wall and made it look like he was checking air vents.
"Hey man." Eliot stood as close to Maloney as he thought he should get.
"Hey." Maloney didn't look at him.
"You okay?" Eliot took a few steps forward. "You look like you just lost your best friend." Maloney saw the badge hanging around Eliot's neck.
"You from around here?"
"Naw, my CO sent me down here. It was my day off so he thought you might need some extra bodies with this kid missing and all."
"So you came on your day off?"
"Hell yeah. A kid goes missing in a secure place like this gives you the willies." Eliot faked a shiver.
"You have kids?" Eliot looked at the man. He wasn't one to open up, he could see that.
"One on the way." Eliot answered softly. "Guess having it at this place is out of the question."
"Did you want the baby?" Maloney asked. Eliot didn't know how far he should go knowing Kenna and everyone else was listening.
"I do now. That's all that matters right?"
"So then at some time since you found out you thought about…not having it?" The anger that was boiling in Eliot was threatening to come to the surface.
"Just tell him cowboy." Kenna's voice said softly in his head. "He'll know if you lie."
"Yeah. This is a tough life. Late nights, guys you put away hunting you down. It's gets kind of dangerous."
"Did you want to walk away?"
"Hell yeah, but then I knew I couldn't live with myself if I just left and didn't find out what might been. Man, me and my old lady fight like there's no tomorrow but in the end I couldn't see my life without her…them."
"What if you didn't love the mother?" Eliot leaned against the edge of the building.
"You trying to tell me something son?" Maloney looked out over the city.
"I…the kid that's missing…I might... be her father."
"Did you have something to do with her going missing?" Maloney looked at him.
"No. I did tell my wife and she thinks I might lose my job over it."
"You banged a crack whore. No harm in that. Except you told your wife."
"Yeah." Eliot wondered why the stranger was telling him all this. "I think she took her and I'm afraid she might…hurt her."
"Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because…I needed to tell someone and you're the only other person here." Eliot looked at the younger man standing next to him.
"You need to get her to tell you what she did with Grace." Maloney turned and looked at him. "She has a family waitin' on her. A good, decent family detective."
"She won't tell me."
"Then let me ask her." Eliot stood up.
"Why do you think she'll tell you?"
"Because I will throw her ass in jail till hell freezes over if she doesn't." The man looked at Eliot. He could see the man was more afraid of his wife than he was of Eliot.
"Samantha wants a baby so bad. She cries herself to sleep at night."
"Grace isn't hers. She might be yours but that doesn't give your wife the right to take her from the one place she was safe." Eliot put his hand on the man's shoulder. "Help us find her and maybe we can figure the rest out, together." Maloney looked at him. "She needs to come home."
"Okay. Tell me what to do?"
"Sit tight." Eliot walked a few feet away. "Tell me one of you has a plan."
"Meet Kenna down in the lobby. We can use his attraction to her to loosen him up a bit and maybe rattle the wife's cage."
"You better be right Nate." Eliot didn't like using Kenna as anyone's attraction.
"Just keep your cool Eliot and it will all work it out." Nate looked at Hardison, knowing it might be harder than they thought it would.
"Hey, let's go." Eliot told Maloney. "My names Clark, Spencer Clark."
"Jason Maloney." They went to the steps. Kenna was waiting for them by the twelfth floor elevators. "Kenna?"
"Hey Jason." She looked at the two men. "Let's get this party started and find Grace before it's too late." Pressing the down button her fingers grazed Eliot's. He looked at her. Nodded he reassured her that he would be on his best behavior. The elevator opened and Kenna and Jason got in. Eliot held back a second.
"What's the plan?" Eliot said to Nate.
"Make her tell you what you need to know."
"Easier said than done." Eliot said under his breath as he entered the elevator. He turned his back to Kenna and looked at Jason. "You have to lie to her face. Are you ready for that?"
"If it means getting the baby back into a safe environment I'll do it." Eliot nodded and hoped the man was ready to for the fight of his life because Samantha seemed like the kind of woman who would hit first and ask questions later.
"Okay, when we get downstairs Jason, you need to make her tell you what she did with Grace." Kenna said from behind him with her hand on his shoulder. "Just stand up to her and tell her that you need to know where she took Grace."
"You really think this is going to work?" He turned and looked at her. "How did you know what we we're going to do?"
"I talked to Sam earlier. She was acting strange."
"You know my wife?"
"I'm a paramedic. I met her in the ER." The door opened. This was do or die. Kenna looked up to see Nate standing next to Samantha. Eliot looked around the room. Something wasn't right. Eliot grabbed Jason and pulled him back in the elevator, shoving Kenna against the wall as he pushed the close door button. The doors closed just as the first bullets hit the metal.