Cradle and All

by M. J. Rodgers

  “Oh,” Anne said. “So soon. I would have been there if I’d known.”

  Tom put his hand over hers. Her skin was soft and warm and matched the expression in her eyes. She had an extremely kind heart beneath that very tough air of authority she wore so well. He found the combination irresistible. A little too irresistible at the moment. He drew his hand away.

  “Mind if I use your telephone?” he asked.

  Anne slipped off her bar stool to reach the portable phone sitting on the kitchen counter. “You don’t carry a cell phone, do you?”

  “They always seem to intrude at the wrong moment.”

  She passed the phone to Tom, but before he made his call, he felt he’d better explain. “When I handed Tommy to Maureen this evening to come look for you, he started to cry.”

  Anne’s eyes widened in immediate concern. “Why didn’t you bring him?”

  “Too damp and cold. I didn’t want to risk his getting another virus.”

  He punched in the number for Twin Oaks. Clint Cooper answered and informed him that his concern wasn’t misplaced. Tommy had been crying steadily since Tom left him several hours before. Tom thanked Clint and hung up the phone, giving Anne the report.

  “He must know you’re his father now, Tom. Just like Dr. Dorn said. When a baby his age gets used to being with his parents, he has difficulty accepting care from strangers.”

  “Except he took to you the first time you held him,” Tom said.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?”

  “Not to me,” Tom said. “His heart is in tune with yours.”

  “And how do you explain that?”

  “I don’t try to explain miracles,” Tom admitted as he brushed aside a silken strand of copper hair from her cheek. “I just know them when I see them.”

  A small smile lifted the corners of Anne’s lips. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

  When they got there, Tom turned to her and gently cupped her shoulders. “Come see me tomorrow?”

  She nodded. “After I talk with Child Care Services.”

  “Don’t turn off your cell phone again, Anne. I’d rather not go through another day like today.”

  He brushed his mouth lightly across hers, needing to taste her sweetness one more time. The soft sigh of surrender on her parting lips licked flames clear through to his solar plexus. He’d had no idea a woman’s sigh could do that to him. He was going to have to drive home with the windows open and the air conditioner on in thirty-degree weather.

  For the tenth time that night, Tom reminded himself he was stronger than his urges, then he pulled back from her warmth and forced himself to leave.

  * * *

  “ARE YOU GOING to be able to trace the green van that was chasing her?” Maureen asked Scott Hunter as she spoke to him from the private phone in her office.

  “Pretty slim chance,” Hunter said. “The hikers only got a quick look at both vehicles.”

  “And you still don’t know who she was?” Maureen asked.

  “Lindy’s the only name the priest could give me—or would give me. We’ve taken her prints and put them through the system. They’re performing the autopsy now. The accident investigation team is at the site. We should have some answers soon.”

  “Sounds like you have everything in control,” Maureen said, knowing from her previous experience as a New York detective that Scott was right on top of things.

  “Maureen, I don’t think this woman’s death has anything to do with Nevil’s threat against you, but I’ll follow up every lead.”

  When Maureen was with the NYPD, she had helped to send murderer Carl Nevil to prison. His brother Owen had been out for revenge ever since. Scott Hunter was one of the few people in Cooper’s Corner who knew of the man’s attempts on her life. Scott was a good ally and friend.

  “I appreciate your keeping me in the loop, Scott.”

  “Truth is, I had an ulterior motive for calling,” Hunter admitted. “How well do you know Tom Christen?”

  “Pretty well. He arrived here around the time Clint and I did. Why do you ask?”

  “He knows something about this dead woman he’s not telling me.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. He pulled his priest thing on me.”

  “Well, he is a priest, Scott. He’s got rules to follow, too.”

  “And I’ve got what could be a murder here. Maureen, if you have any influence with the guy—”

  “Anne Vandree is who you should be talking to if you want someone with influence over our Father Tom. He’s asked me about her a couple of times now. Unless I miss my guess, he’s got a thing for our pretty judge.”

  “She’ll be a big help,” Hunter said sarcastically. “She didn’t even tell me the kid she was holding at the crash site was the dead woman’s.”

  “She didn’t?” Maureen smiled. “Well, well. That’s not like our proper judge at all. And just three days ago Anne was such a nonbeliever in that love stuff. How the mighty have fallen.”

  “Excuse me for interrupting your glee over the matchmaking, but I have an investigation going on here and I could use some help. You’re friends with Anne. Why don’t you try talking to her?”

  “Okay,” Maureen agreed. “But I can’t promise it’ll help. Last time I attempted to broach the subject of Father Tom with Anne, she was suddenly off talking about the beautiful scenery.”

  “Still, it can’t hurt to try. I’ll call you as soon as I have any news. And Maureen?”

  “Yes?”

  “Watch your back. Even if this investigation has nothing to do with him, that bastard Nevil is out there somewhere. We don’t want any more accidents.”

  * * *

  IT WAS LATE Tuesday morning when Anne arrived at the Church of the Good Shepherd. She found Tom in the parish hall, rehearsing a choir made up of preteens. The singing sounded slightly off-key, as if the voices of the boys hitting the fragile high notes were changing right in the middle of the hymn.

  And yet it was a happy sound, as exuberant as their youth, full of hope and untapped resources. Anne sat on a chair in the back, enjoying their energy, as they finished the hymn.

  Tom told them they did great with such enthusiasm that even the hardest nut among them was smiling. He got them to promise to continue practicing before meeting again the next week, then dismissed them to go back to school. The kids took off at a run, stampeding out the door like a herd of rhinoceroses.

  As Tom turned, Anne saw Tommy in a baby holder wrapped around his chest. The little boy was sound asleep. Anne shook her head, amazed that the baby could sleep through both the choir rehearsal and the stampede.

  Then she remembered this was the child who slept through the noise of car engines and native drumbeats.

  Tom smiled as he saw her and quickly closed the distance between them.

  Something squeezed inside Anne’s chest at the sight of his smile. All night long she had tossed and turned, reliving his incredible kiss. Yet she didn’t feel at all tired today. She felt alive—more alive than she had felt in a very long time.

  When Tom reached her, he brushed a kiss against her hair. “You smell wonderful.”

  Her silly heart flip-flopped in her chest.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Anne said, knowing she needed to get a grip and fast. She was way too old and experienced to be getting this soft and mushy over a man. “After squaring things with the child care people, I had to go to court to have my clerk draw up the papers. Here’s your official custody order for Tommy. You sign at the bottom.”

  Tom took the papers she held out and flashed her a smile that melted the polish off her toenails. He rested his arm lightly across her shoulders.

  “I have a baptism now. Come with me?”

  “Sure,” she said, perfectly
aware that he could have asked her to a funeral and she would have skipped to the site singing. As long as he was going to be there.

  You’re getting carried away. Don’t be a fool. It was that wise voice inside her. But Anne just didn’t feel like listening to it today.

  She sat with Tommy on her lap while Tom performed the ceremony. The smiling new mother held her tiny baby girl, just a fragile swirl of dark hair surrounded by a froth of pink dress. The father stood beside them, a look of pride on his face that Anne hadn’t seen in a long time on someone that young.

  The rain came down in torrents outside, but inside the church it was calm and quiet. Soft light poured through the tall, stained-glass windows. Dark pools filled the corners. Candlelight warmed the baptismal font, and Tom’s rich voice recited the ceremonial words as he anointed the baby’s head with sparkling drops of water.

  Anne was filled with a sense of peace as she witnessed this ancient ceremony. These were the scenes she would never see in her job as a judge. The joy of exuberant preteen singing. The faces of happy parents as they gave thanks for the precious life they had brought into the world.

  And the look in Tom’s eyes, so calm, content and full of purpose.

  I’m not just a man, Anne. I’m a priest.

  And this was part of his being a priest. This celebration of life—and gratitude for it.

  The cell phone in her shoulder bag rang, an ugly cacophony in the presence of such peace. Anne was beginning to understand what Tom meant about intrusions. She cradled Tommy in her arms as she hurried into the parish hall to take the call.

  “It’s Fred,” her friend’s voice said after Anne answered.

  “Hi, Fred. I’m sorry about last night. I—”

  “Anne, forget about last night. I have something to show you. Can you come down to the station?”

  “Now?” Anne asked, not missing the very serious tone of her friend’s voice.

  “Right now, Anne.”

  She knew that Fred wouldn’t be so insistent unless it was something really important.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Good. And, Anne, come alone.”

  Before she could ask why, Anne heard a loud click, then the dial tone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “IF HUNTER FOUND out I was sharing this with you, he’d have my hide,” Fred told Anne. “He issued us a warning this morning. No one is to discuss this case. Nothing about that green van chasing her has been given to the press.”

  They were at the Cheshire State Troopers Barracks in a back office with the door closed and locked. Fred had hustled Anne inside the moment she had arrived.

  “Why the secrecy?” Anne asked.

  “Hunter thinks it could be tied to one of his ongoing investigations. He always gets this way when a case has even the slightest connection to Cooper’s Corner. He’s sent all the physical evidence to the crime lab in Sudbury.”

  “You said over the phone you had something to show me?” Anne asked.

  “First, you need to read the autopsy report,” Fred said, handing it to Anne across the desk. “We have to get through these quickly. I only have a few minutes before I have to get them back into the file.”

  Anne took the report from Fred’s hands and scanned the entries. “Lindy died from massive head trauma,” she murmured. “Not surprising, from what you described of the accident.”

  “Keep going,” Fred said.

  Anne nodded and bent over the report. The notations on the autopsy record confirmed that Lindy had recently given birth. When Anne looked at the statistics and discovered that the dead woman had been five-eight and yet weighed only a hundred and ten pounds, it didn’t surprise her to also read that Lindy had very little breast milk.

  But something else did surprise Anne. She read that information aloud.

  “Evidence of several old fractures on her ribs, two on her arms, several on both legs, one to her collarbone, and an old concussion to the right temporal lobe. Fred, this sounds like an abused woman.”

  “Make that girl and you’ve got it right,” Fred said.

  “Girl?” Anne repeated as her head shot up.

  Fred slipped another document across the table toward Anne. “She was Lindy Olson, a sixteen-year-old Boston runaway. Her mother reported her missing eighteen months ago, when she was only fourteen and a half. Told the police she didn’t care if the brat ever came home. Claimed she was nothing but trouble.”

  Anne looked at the missing person’s report in her hands, at the picture of the tall, slim young girl with the lovely heart-shaped face, long curly red hair and sad dark eyes. Sorrow surged through her, laced with sharp anger. “No wonder Lindy ran away. What kind of mother could feel that way about her own child?”

  “The kind that never should have been a mother,” Fred said. “She’s as worthless as the bastard that got the kid pregnant.”

  The bastard that got the kid pregnant!

  Anne had been so caught up in the other revelations that she had momentarily missed that message entirely. Now the full force of what she had just learned hit her—and hit her hard.

  “Anne?” Fred’s voice seemed to come from far away. “Anne, what’s wrong?”

  It was only through a supreme effort of will that she forced herself to face her friend. “I have to go.”

  “You’re as white as a sheet.”

  “I...I’m suddenly not feeling too well.”

  Pushing herself to her feet, she walked stiff-legged toward the door. Fred was at her side in an instant, grabbing her arm. “Anne, sit down before you fall down.”

  Anne forced herself to take a deep breath. She placed her hand on Fred’s arm. “No, all I need is a little air. You’d best get those reports back before they’re missed. I’ll call you later.”

  As she fled the brick building, Anne could feel Fred’s eyes on her. She didn’t bother to open her umbrella as she sloshed through the slanting gray rain toward her car in the parking lot. She pulled open the Camry’s door, slid behind the wheel and slammed the door shut. But when she tried to put the key into the ignition, her hand was shaking so badly she couldn’t.

  She dropped the key on the seat and rested her wet head against the steering wheel. As she shut her eyes against the rain battering the windshield, she wished she could shut out the battering pain of her thoughts.

  So this was what Tom had been hiding. Dear God.

  An hour ago the world had been such a clean, sweet place—full of children’s happy voices and parental pride and a man she had begun to believe in.

  Now it felt as though lice were crawling on her very soul.

  She never would have imagined this of Tom. Never. She thought she had seen inside him these last few days, and what she had seen was a man of heart and kindness. Even now, despite the evidence Fred had shown her, a part of Anne still couldn’t accept that Tom would do such a thing.

  His words came back to her, kept repeating over and over in her mind. I’m not just a man, Anne. I’m a priest. I stand by my vows.

  Anne vividly remembered his kiss of the night before. He had wanted her. And he had to have known from her response that she had been willing. But he had restrained himself. He had shown her he could be trusted. Could the man he’d revealed himself to be last night really have impregnated a fifteen-year-old girl?

  It just didn’t make sense. Anne knew she was missing something here—something critical. She had to find out what it was. And there was only one person with the answer.

  Straightening in her seat, she picked up her key and inserted it into the ignition.

  * * *

  TOM LOOKED AT the clock for the third time in the last ten minutes. It had been nearly two hours since Anne’s abrupt departure. The only thing she had told him was t
hat she had to see Fred.

  With decreasing success he tried to keep his mind on his counseling session with a young couple who wanted to be married. They were both nineteen, still living with their parents. The husband-to-be planned to attend college in the fall but had no idea what he wanted to major in. His intended bride was going to get a job if she could find one she liked. They didn’t want to start a family for at least five years, yet neither had given any thought to birth control. They were another tragic divorce statistic in the making if he didn’t get them to see how unprepared they were for marriage.

  When Tom glanced out the window and saw Anne’s silver Camry pull into the church’s parking lot, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  Quickly he scooted the young couple out the back door, telling them to return only after they had completed the household financial report and birth control plan he’d given them as homework.

  Tom opened the front door before Anne had a chance to ring the bell.

  “We need to talk,” she said as she moved past him into the room. The sharpness of her voice could have cracked a Brazil nut.

  Every muscle in his body tensed. Tommy started to fuss in the baby sling that kept him snug against Tom’s chest.

  “Then we’d best do it in the kitchen so I can feed the baby,” Tom said, leading the way.

  Anne stood by the sink, as silent as stone, while Tom prepared the formula and Tommy’s fussing escalated into a cry. Tom knew that whatever Anne had learned from Fred was at the root of this dramatic change in her. He had a pretty good idea what it was.

  Tommy refused the nipple several times before Tom got him to take it. When the baby finally settled down to feed, Tom looked up from his seat at the table and waited for Anne to begin.

  Her face had become a stoic mask, her eyes chips of gray slate. “Did you know Lindy had a birthday last week?” she asked.

  Tom shook his head and waited.

  “She was sixteen,” Anne said, and the words hung in the air like a rope around his neck.