Cry in the Night

by Colleen Coble

  Anu sat on the sofa opposite Bree. “Kulta, you will have to give her up. Do not be too quick to love her.”

  “Too late.” Bree managed a smile. “But I know it’s temporary.”

  “What do you know about this little one? Did not Kade say some babies were missing from the reservation?” Anu studied the infant’s sleeping face. “Though she looks Caucasian.”

  Bree ran her palm over the baby’s thin blonde hair and studied her translucent skin. “I don’t think she’s Ojibwa, but I’ll check it out.” She glanced over to see Anu lifting items from the backpack. “Maybe God heard my cry for a child,” she said.

  “God always hears the cries of his children,” Anu said. “But do not be too quick to jump to a conclusion the Father never intended.” She frowned. “What is this?” she asked, holding out a paper. “One of those sudoku things.”

  “I found it on the ground by the baby.” Bree glanced at it. The top numbers were familiar. “Grab that sudoku Victor gave me at the cabin, would you? It’s there on the coffee table.”

  Anu smoothed the paper and laid the other sudoku beside it. “The top numbers are the same. And the handwriting appears identical.”

  Victor had left a sudoku in the woods? Bree’s mind made connections she didn’t want to make. He’d been on the scene when Florence died too.

  Light spilled from the lighthouse windows in a welcoming glow. The wind drove needles of icy snow into Kade’s skin as he hurried inside with the formula. He’d grabbed disposable diapers as well, then stopped at Naomi’s and borrowed a bassinet. He and Bree had made preparations to be foster parents, but he hadn’t expected their first child to show up so quickly or under such dramatic circumstances.

  He found Bree nestling the infant in the living room. Samson lay curled at her feet. “Where’s Anu?” he asked, shrugging out of his coat.

  “I sent her home.” Bree’s green eyes stayed focused on him. “Thanks for getting the formula. She’s sleeping now.”

  He sat beside her and studied the baby. “She’s tiny.”

  Bree smoothed the infant’s soft hair. “Newborn.”

  “I’m sorry I forgot your doctor appointment.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Man, was that only this morning? So much has happened. What did she say?” He watched the muscles in Bree’s throat convulse as she swallowed hard, and he knew the news wasn’t good.

  “The doctor thinks we should go to in vitro.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She raised her gaze to meet his. “She’ll give me high-powered drugs to help me make more eggs than usual. They’ll extract them, fertilize them, then implant them. But it’s expensive.”

  His mouth tightened. “How much?”

  “Five thousand dollars.” Her gaze stayed on him. “Per month. I know it’s a lot, but it might be the only way to get pregnant.”

  “You got pregnant a few months ago.”

  “And lost the baby.”

  “What would keep you from losing it again, even after spending all that money?”

  “I forgot to ask her,” Bree said. “I guess they’ll give me something to help me carry the babies.”

  “Babies? As in more than one?” His brain tallied the cost.

  She nodded. “Probably.”

  He winced. “Let’s just try it on our own, babe. I don’t think we can swing that now.”

  Disappointment darkened her eyes. “Maybe I could get a part-time job.”

  “Your work with training search dogs is important.”

  “But it doesn’t bring in much money,” she reminded him. “I want to give you your own child, Kade.”

  He cupped her chin in his fingers. “Dave is my own. I’ve got you and him, and if we don’t have more, it’s enough.”

  “You’re a good man, Kade Matthews,” she said, her voice husky.

  Kade smiled. “I know we’ll have our own baby, Bree.”

  Her smile returned. “I’m sure I’ll be able to find this girl’s parents, but if Pia had her, they might be unfit.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge if we have to.”

  Her gaze turned thoughtful. “It’s late, but Mason might know who she belongs to by tomorrow.”

  He could only hope this little one’s parents were located before Bree grew too attached to the girl. “Seems strange Pia would hide the baby like that. You think she was being chased and was murdered?”

  “The thought crossed my mind.” Bree’s head fell back against the sofa. “Something about the way she was lying. She’d fallen uphill too, as though she’d been shoved.”

  “I know it’s useless to warn you not to get involved.” Kade grinned and dropped a kiss on his wife’s check. “But be careful.”

  “I’ve got Davy to think about too. He’ll have to stay close to one of us.” She shuddered. “With Florence and Pia both dead, I have to wonder about his story. Maybe there’s a killer out there after all, human or otherwise. I need to talk to Victor.”

  Mason called Bree’s house at nine the next morning while she was getting dressed. CPS had no record of the baby they’d found by Pia. He hadn’t been able to find Victor, either, and wanted her team’s assistance. She left the baby in Kade’s care, assisted by Davy, who had barely left the infant’s side. Kade had called in to take a few hours off work and had been strangely silent when he got off the phone, but she didn’t have time to probe.

  The sheriff and his men waited for her at Florence’s house. The temperature stood at ten below, and the wind whistled through the treetops after zooming off Lake Superior. She stood with Samson on his leash and listened to the sheriff outline what he needed.

  Mason’s skin was sallow, and his eyelids drooped. “We suspect Victor Pelton is hiding in the woods somewhere. I want us to find him before anyone else is hurt.”

  “Mason, Victor is autistic, not a murderer.” She tried not to remember her fear when she saw the bloody shovel in Victor’s hands.

  Mason shrugged. “Let’s just say he’s a person of interest right now.”

  The wheels of justice sometimes crushed the innocent, and she was afraid that was about to happen to the gentle twenty-five-year- old man. He mowed their yard, and she’d often baked him cookies and had him stay for dinner. It was hard for her to believe he could have hurt Florence or Pia.

  But he might know who did.

  Her team today consisted of Naomi and her dog, Charley. No one else was available. They stood at the edge of the Ottawa forest. The most recent storm had dumped another six inches onto the twenty already on the ground. Luckily, a hard crust had formed over the snow, so they should be able to walk on the top with snowshoes.

  “Let’s head away from the lake,” she told Naomi.

  “You’re worried, aren’t you?” Naomi asked.

  Bree nodded. “I’m afraid Florence’s death is connected to that guy trying to grab Davy from your place yesterday. I wish you’d caught a better look at him.”

  “Me too, but he had on that ski mask. Something about his walk seemed familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

  Bree knelt and had the dogs sniff the scent article—Victor’s socks—that Mason had obtained. “Search, Samson,” she said, releasing him from the leash. She watched as Naomi released Charley and the two dogs bounded away. Naomi’s golden retriever was a world-class search dog too, and she had every confidence Samson and he would find Victor.

  Bree plodded along on her snowshoes. Only occasionally did she break through into thigh-high snow. She kept her vision glued to the animals. Charley and Samson crisscrossed the open meadow with their noses in the air as they tried to pick up the scent.

  Samson’s tail stiffened, and his head came up. “He’s got the scent!” she shouted to Naomi.

  She and Naomi moved as fast as they could through the forest. A small cabin lay just ahead, a hunter’s cabin. A wisp of smoke trailed from the chimney. Samson and Charley ran to the door. Her dog whined and pawed at the door, and she knew Victor was inside.
She called Mason on her cell phone, and he told her to wait outside.

  She would rather talk to Victor, but she closed her phone and told Naomi they had to hold back. Bree called to the dogs. Samson’s tail sank but he obeyed her command to come. Bree fed him a treat and rubbed his ears. “Good boy,” she said.

  His ears pricked and he turned to gaze back at the cottage. She stared too and saw the door opening. Uncertain what might be happening, she fell back another step, tugging Samson with her.

  Victor, dressed in a blue parka and rubber boots, stuck his head out the door. When he saw Bree, he exited the cabin and came toward her with a paper held out in his hand as though he wanted to give it to her.

  “Stay here,” she murmured to Naomi. She advanced to meet him. “Hi, Victor, we’ve been looking for you. Are you okay?”

  He said nothing but continued to approach her. Bree knew Mason would be alarmed at Victor’s expressionless face and vacant eyes, but she still didn’t believe he would hurt anyone.

  The first thing she needed to establish was control. “Victor, look at me,” she said in a commanding tone.

  He was staring above her head. At her order, his gaze didn’t shift, and his eyes retained their emptiness. He reached her and stopped with the paper still extended.

  “You want me to take this?” she asked. Her gloved fingers touched the paper, and he released it. He was still staring above her head, not making eye contact. “What’s this all about, buddy?”

  He turned and trudged back to the cabin. Bree started after him, then heard the buzz of Mason’s snowmobile behind her. He’d be here in minutes.

  “What did he give you?” Naomi asked, joining her.

  Bree handed it to her. “It’s just another puzzle. He’s crazy about sudoku.”

  “I’ve never figured it out,” Naomi said.

  “I’ve dabbled with it.”

  “Did he say anything?” Naomi asked.

  Bree shook her head. “And he wouldn’t look at me. He just came out, handed me the puzzle, then retreated back to the cabin. His eyes looked funny. Shocked and distant or something.”

  Naomi glanced toward the cabin “You said he had that shovel. Maybe he found it by Florence’s body, and it traumatized him.”

  “Maybe.” Bree watched Mason and one of his deputies approach on their machines before she glanced at the puzzle in her hand again. The sudoku grid had been drawn in red ink, then filled in with black ink. Her gaze traced the numbers, and it appeared he had done it correctly. At least as far as she could tell with a quick scan.

  The whine of the engines quit, then Mason and Deputy Doug Montgomery thrashed through the snow. Without snowshoes, their weight sent them crashing through the crust on top of the drifts. They were panting by the time they reached the women.

  “He’s in there,” Bree said, pointing to the cabin. “He came out a minute ago and gave me this.” She handed the puzzle to Mason.

  He frowned. “What is it?”

  “Sudoku.” She could tell he’d never heard of it from the way his brows drew together. “It’s a number puzzle. The basic has nine boxes in a three-by-three grid. You can use each number only once in every column, each row, and each of the nine boxes. It’s based on Latin squares.”

  Mason raised his thick brows, graying now that he was nearly forty. “Did he say anything?”

  “No. This is the third puzzle I’ve seen.” She quickly told him about the one she’d found in the baby’s backpack and the one Victor had given her after she found Florence’s body.

  “Maybe he’s trying to tell us something. Is it a code or something?”

  “I don’t know. The numbers on the top row are the same in all three sudokus.”

  He nodded, then pocketed the puzzle and started toward the cabin. Montgomery hurried after Mason as fast as his bulk would allow. Bree wanted to be in on the questioning, but she knew even Mason couldn’t allow it.

  “Let’s get back.” Bree called Samson to her, and the team trooped back through the forest to her Jeep. Kade had wanted her to call when she found Victor, so she paused on the road to dial while Naomi loaded the dogs.

  His voice came on at the second ring. “Hey, babe. You done?”

  “Yes, he was hiding in the hunter’s cabin out near the gully.”

  “That’s good,” he said as though he hadn’t even heard her.

  She tried to read his distracted tone. What was going on with him? “We’re heading home now. Everything okay with the kids?”

  “Sure. Anu offered to take the baby home with her, so I let her. Dave and I are playing Uno.”

  “You didn’t want to keep her?”

  “She cried a lot and I didn’t know what to do.”

  Or he didn’t want to try. She didn’t argue about it. “I’ll stop by the store and get her.” Then she was going to dig around a little until she heard what Mason found out from Victor. Someone had to know something about a missing baby girl. How did Pia come to have her if CPS had no record of it?

  7

  TUESDAY MORNING QUINN SAT ON HOUGHTON STREET with the car turned off and held the phone away from his ear. Yelling wasn’t going to change anything. Florence had gotten cold feet, and he’d had to deal with her. Unfortunately, he hadn’t realized how much his partner had cared about her. His thoughts drifted to the boy. If he’d managed to take Davy, he could have gotten to the bottom of what had really happened four years ago.

  “What’s done is done,” Quinn said when the shouting ended. “I have to go now.” He clicked off the phone without waiting for more anger.

  “He’s mad about Florence?” Jenna asked.

  “Furious. I’d say our partnership is about at an end.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t like the way he bosses you around anyway. He doesn’t treat Rosen like that.”

  Quinn stared at the jail. On his way through town, he’d seen Mason driving in the other direction. No one else would be likely to recognize Quinn in the wig and beard, but no sense in taking any chances, though he wasn’t too worried. People saw what they expected to see.

  When Jenna had heard her brother was picked up for questioning in a murder, she’d freaked. Normally she was cool as an ice princess, but she’d talked him into coming downtown with her. He hadn’t put up much of a fight, because he needed to know more himself. He couldn’t stop his gaze from sweeping the figures on the sidewalk. Could Davy be here with his mother?

  “I’ll wait here,” he told Jenna as he unlocked the doors.

  Jenna clutched at his hand. “I need you with me.” Her coat was sleek and more for style than to bar the cold, and her red hat perched on one side of her head.

  He would have to give in now or listen to her whine. “Let’s get in and out quick.”

  “You never said who might recognize you here.”

  “And I’m not going to. You don’t need to know.” He shoved the door open without acknowledging her wounded glance. Two minutes later they were in the deputy’s office. Quinn didn’t recognize the big man sitting behind the desk.

  The man’s badge read Montgomery. He heaved himself to his feet. “Thanks for coming, Ms. Pelton.” He indicated the seat across from the desk, then settled back into his own chair. His stare lingered on Quinn. “And you are?”

  “Quinn Matilla.”

  “My boyfriend,” Jenna said in an imperious voice. “What do you have on my brother?”

  Montgomery rubbed his ear. “Plenty, eh?” He glanced at his computer screen. “Florence Hawkins was bludgeoned with a shovel, and Victor also had her blood on him. He was seen on the property with the shovel in his hand, and his prints are the only ones on it. We also found one of his puzzles by a baby that had been hidden in the woods.”

  Quinn’s attention sharpened. “A baby? Dead?”

  Montgomery shook his head. “The child is all right but her caregiver is dead.”

  Jenna’s eyes were wet. “He did yard work for Florence, but he wouldn’t hurt anyone. His prints would be
on the tools. And it’s likely he just found the body and that’s why her blood was on him.” She leaned forward. “Deputy, Vic is autistic. Violence among autistics is very rare. And I know my brother—he won’t even step on an ant. He didn’t do this.”

  Montgomery shifted in his seat and dropped his gaze. “We have to go with the evidence, eh, Ms. Pelton.”

  Quinn leaned forward. “What about motive?” How could he find out from this big dumb guy just where the baby was now?

  “We don’t have a motive yet,” the deputy admitted. “Victor isn’t talking.”

  “He hasn’t said how he happened to find Florence?”

  “He’s not talking at all. Not a word. All he does is work sudoku. Over and over. He makes them up on sheets of blank paper.” Montgomery rose. “I’ll take you to him.”

  The deputy led them to a small interrogation room that stank of sweat and desperation. The once white walls had turned a dingy yellow, probably from cigarette smoke. A battered table sat in the middle of the room, and four chairs surrounded it. The industrial gray tile on the floor made the room seem even more lifeless.

  “I’ll get your brother, eh?” the deputy said.

  Quinn glanced at Jenna. She was pale. He wanted out of this place. It was only by fate that he’d avoided being in one of those cells back there. He tugged at his hat and adjusted it to cover more of his face.

  “I never thought Victor would get in this kind of trouble. Growing up, I always looked out for him. When people stared at Vic’s awkward movements and his monotone voice, I explained.” Her voice broke. “Sometimes I was embarrassed by his strangeness, but I always loved him.”

  Quinn had never seen Jenna show such sentimentality, and it caught him off guard. When she reached over to take his hand, he squeezed her fingers.

  “I have to get him out of jail. Victor will go crazy penned up. He loves to walk, even in bad weather. Nothing keeps him inside—not snow, ice, or rain.”

  The door opened, and a young man stepped inside. Montgomery poked his head in. “I’ll lock the door. Use the intercom if you need me.” He pulled the door shut, and the latch clicked.