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“He’s makin’ lunch,” one of the men said.
“Hope you brought the Alka-Seltzer!” another one said, and they all laughed.
“Aw, shaddup,” my Sam clone said with a good-natured laugh. “He’s a better cook than any of you guys. C’mon, doll, we don’t need these losers.” As he led me to the kitchen, he said, “Vinnie’s mostly retired and doesn’t go out on calls, but he comes in and helps out around the station. The job gets in your blood, makes it hard to leave, y’know?”
As we entered the kitchen, he yelled, “Yo, Vinnie! Someone here to see you.”
A barrel-chested man wearing a chef’s apron and a ball cap turned to see us. “Whaddaya want, Corelli?” he asked.
Corelli gestured to me. “Miss?”
“Katie Chandler,” I supplied.
“Miss Katie Chandler, this is Vinnie Marciano.”
Vinnie wiped his hands on his apron, then held out his right hand to shake mine. “Pleased to meet you. How may I be of service?”
“She’s lookin’ for someone who was around thirty years ago,” Corelli said. “I figured that would be you.”
“Yeah, I was around then. Why?”
With a deep breath, I said, “A baby was left at this station—at least, this is where Children’s Services picked him up, though he could have been left at the church next door. It was on July fourth. Maybe that’ll make it easier to remember.”
Vinnie frowned and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I remember that. I was workin’ that day, had an early shift.” He grinned. “That was our little Yankee Doodle Dandy, born on the fourth of July, he was. I’ve always wondered what happened to that kid.”
A lump grew in my throat as I reached for the photos in my purse. “Do you remember anything about how and where he was found?” I asked.
“He wasn’t really found. His mother brought him.”
Chapter Seventeen
My hand froze halfway inside my purse. “His mother?” I repeated. There went my theory about Ramsay.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was the mom,” Vinnie said with a shrug. “I mean, the baby was fresh out of the oven, barely even cleaned up, and she wasn’t lookin’ too good.” He knitted his bushy eyebrows at me. “Why do you wanna know, anyhow?”
“That baby is my boyfriend.” I launched into my prefabricated cover story. “He’s starting to wonder who he is and where he came from—I guess turning thirty will do that to you—but he also seems to be a little scared about what he’ll find. My birthday gift to him is to do some investigating and see what I can find out. All he knows is that he was turned over to Children’s Services at this fire station.”
Vinnie nodded. “Okay. Then let’s make a deal. I’ll tell you what I know, and you tell me how that kid turned out, even bring him by to see us.” He took off his baseball cap and shoved it onto Corelli’s head, then took off his apron and draped it over Corelli’s shoulder. “You’re finishing up on lunch. Just stir the sauce so it doesn’t stick or scorch.” Then he took my arm and said, “Come on, sweetheart, let’s you and me go talk.”
He escorted me to a cramped office and showed me to a chair with a vinyl seat repaired with duct tape. He sat on the edge of a metal desk. “So, you say you know our Yankee Doodle?”
I smiled at the thought of that nickname applying to Owen. He’d probably turn red and cringe. “Yes, I think so. As I said, he was turned over to Children’s Services on July fourth thirty years ago at this station.” I took the photo of Owen out of my purse and handed it to Vinnie. “This is him.”
Vinnie studied the photo, creasing his forehead until his eyebrows almost met in the middle. He then gave a long, low whistle. “Damn, but he looks just like his mama.”
“So the woman who brought him here looked a lot like this?” I asked, gesturing at the photo.
“Yeah.” His eyes took on a distant look as his brain went back thirty years. “I was workin’ that morning. We had the bay open, and I was standin’ outside, and not long after dawn this girl comes staggerin’ up the street, holding a bundle. I think she was aimin’ for the church, but it didn’t look like she was gonna make it. She almost fainted on me, and I barely caught the kid. We got her and the baby inside, and she kept babbling about needing to keep the baby safe. Strange thing was, she was wearin’ a wedding ring. Usually, it’s teenagers and unwed moms who leave babies like that, not married women. She had some bruises on her face, so I thought maybe her husband beat her and she was afraid of what he’d do to the kid.”
“Did she give you her name?”
“No. And I don’t know how she did it, but while we were getting a blanket for the baby and some food for her and calling the police, she just vanished, leaving the baby behind. I mean, I barely turned my back on her, and she was gone. Nobody saw her go. Considerin’ that she could barely walk, that was a neat trick.”
There went my theory that Ramsay had taken the child of his defeated enemies and tried to hide him in the mundane world. It had been Mina who’d sent her child to safety just before the final showdown. What did that mean? Did she have second thoughts? Had she known she was about to die, or had she discovered what Ramsay was up to?
Of course, it might not have been Mina at all. Women who are planning to take over the world and start a magical dynasty don’t generally abandon their newborn infants at a fire station. At least, I didn’t think they would.
“There wasn’t anything with the baby that identified him or gave any clue about him, was there?” I asked.
