Deadly Silence

by Mary Stone

  “There you go,” McDreamy said in a low, lilting voice. “Night, night. Sleep tight. I’ll take care of everything.”

  The room tilted onto its side.

  She thought of her baby, her beautiful Diesel Warren Boone, the child she’d never gotten a chance to hold, lying cold, in a morgue, maybe a few floors below.

  And now she really wanted to leave. Get away from this awful hospital. This awful place.

  But she was so sleepy.

  McDreamy’s face filled her field of vision. He was smiling as he got closer…closer…

  His lips pressed to her forehead.

  She tried to push him away, but she couldn’t lift her hands. She couldn’t move.

  “Thank you, Avery,” he said against her forehead. “Try to make better decisions next time.”

  At least that was what she thought he said. She couldn’t be sure because everything in her world went dark as he stepped away.

  The lights of some seedy strip mall sign shone down upon the wide, empty parking lot as I paced back and forth between the cart returns. Fucking Mark Lamb.

  From some faraway tree, an owl hooted. A homeless man crouched in front of a massive dumpster, his back against a different garbage can. Other than them, I was alone. The store had closed two hours ago, and though a couple of night restockers had come in, they hadn’t noticed me as they drove to the back of the massive store.

  It was getting cooler here in…actually, I wasn’t sure where I was. Somewhere in between Mississippi and home. Some little town at the very northeastern tip of Tennessee, where there was nothing around but cows and rolling farmland. East bumblefuck, a great place for the business at hand.

  I had to make it back home, and soon. Before the sun came up would be best. If I did, I could make the special delivery to the clinic, collect my fee, and wipe my hands of the whole thing.

  Twenty-five lousy percent. I was still bitter about that. Maybe I should have argued with him. Mark Lamb. Definitely not one of my favorite people to work with.

  And now he was late. Yes, this would definitely be the last time working with that cocky bastard.

  I pulled my cardigan closed and readjusted my fake glasses and wig, hugging myself as tires screeched in the distance. I looked up to see a blue muscle car careening into the lot.

  I crossed my arms as he screeched to a stop in front of me and rolled down his window. “That was great. Why don’t you kill the kid on the way over here?” I said as he shot me a mock salute. He had a thick head of hair and was unshaven, as was the style of kids today. Still wearing scrubs and Crocs, with a little black pea coat over the ensemble, he jumped out and sauntered toward me.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” he said with a leering grin, hands in the pockets of his coat like a sulky teenager. “How’ve you been?”

  I didn’t answer him.

  He mock-pouted. “No kiss, grandma?”

  Scowling at him, I walked to the car and looked in the back to see a tiny thing in a blue hat. A boy. Despite the rollercoaster ride he’d been on, the baby was sleeping soundly, in what looked like a cardboard box full of rags. “What the hell did you put him in?”

  “It’s not like I had a car seat,” he said as I opened the door and lifted the tiny thing out of the box. I inhaled the newborn smell on his tiny head as I scrutinized him closely. No obvious defects. No skin tags, odd birthmarks, funny deformities that could break the deal. Good. Just a perfectly nice little baby.

  I, on the other hand, did have a car seat. I had more than one, for any age, in the trunk of my car. With my business, I was always transporting children. Earlier, I’d set up the seat for the tiniest of newborns, but this one wasn’t so small. He may have been a ten-pounder.

  “Get the back door to my car,” I ordered Mark, cradling the baby’s tiny head.

  He stood firm. “Wait. What about my money?”

  Of course. That’s all he cared about. I motioned with my elbow to the pocket of my cardigan. “It’s all there.”

  “Yeah? All of it?” He reached in, grabbed the folded white envelope, opened the flap, and began to count the bills.

  “It is,” I insisted, nudging him. “Now open the door before this little one catches a cold. I can’t deliver a sick kid to them. You know if he’s had his shots?”

  He nodded, opened the door, and reached into the back of the car, pulling out a card. He held it up to me. The baby’s immunization schedule. Vitamin K, Hep B, erythromycin eye drops…yep. All there. Passed the APGAR test with flying colors.”

  “What about the parents?”

  “Mother is a teenage girl. No father. She came in alone. I created a, um, medical emergency and substituted a stillborn from the morgue. No one suspects a thing.” He blew on his fingernails and pretended to buff them on his coat. “God, I’m good.”

  “They better not suspect anything,” I said, settling the little boy down into the waiting car seat. I had to adjust the straps for his bigger body. He squirmed and fisted his little hands as I buckled the five-point harness but didn’t make a sound.

  Good.

  I’d brought extra formula and diapers in case they were needed, but I wanted to get on the road as quickly as possible. This was the most nerve-wracking part of the job—during the hand-off, when the baby was in my possession.

  I climbed out of the back of my car. Mark Lamb was extending his hand to me. “Nice doing business with you, sweetheart. Take it easy.”

  I shook it lightly with my gloved fingers, wondering how a guy like Lamb could have become a nurse. Nurses cared about people. That’s why I’d become one. This man only cared about one person—himself. “Goodbye, Mr. Lamb.”

  “No kiss, baby?”

  I rolled my eyes and walked away from him. When I last looked at the bastard, he was busily counting his new wealth. He’d probably blow the funds on another muscle car, and I momentarily considered running him over. But…cameras. They were such a nuisance nowadays. One never knew where one of the damned things would be hidden. Besides, I’d never see the smug little bastard again. He could live, and I’d never have to think of him again.

  I yawned as I got into my car and checked the time. I was getting too old for these late nights. Slightly under three hours until sunrise. I could make it. And then that money would be mine, and I could start thinking of where I wanted to go on my next cruise. Caribbean maybe. That would be nice. I’d heard good things about the ABC islands.

  As I pulled to the light, I peeked at the newborn in the rearview mirror. “You’ll have a picture-perfect life now, sweetheart,” I told him, smiling. “You’ll see. It will be wonderful. I know you’ll be very happy.”

  8

  Maybe it was just too much togetherness.

  But now, as Kylie sat hunched over her computer, watching Linc fiddling with the dishwasher in the kitchen, she wanted to shove a fork down his throat.

  He’d kept insisting that there was something wrong with it, even though it was fine with Kylie. It cleaned their dishes, which was what they wanted, right? But Linc thought it was making a weird noise and had noticed earlier this morning that one of his favorite coffee mugs had come out chipped.

  So now, he was on his knees, his upper half buried in the thing, making some rhythmic banging noise with a wrench.

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  She groaned loudly. He’d been sick with a sinus infection the past few days, so while she usually would’ve tended to him, she’d done her best to try and stay away. She wasn’t sure if her being sick would harm the baby.

  She made him chicken soup and delivered gallons of orange juice to their bedroom, but she’d slept downstairs in the spare bedroom with the dogs.

  Grunts and groans emanated from the dishwasher. Now that he was better, he was trying to take on too much, as usual.

  Some of the dogs, thinking it was playtime, kept trying to get in there with him and help, and some of them were getting into little scuffles from boredom, especially since he hadn’t really given th
em a good workout in several days, due to his sickness. It’d be nice if he did what he was supposed to do. Go out and train them and get them—and himself—out of her hair.

  But no.

  She grabbed her phone, plugged in her earbuds, and tried to listen to some calming music as she went over the month’s financials. But even Enya couldn’t take away the headache that was spearing her right between the eyes.

  Her eyes nearly crossed as she stared at the Excel spreadsheet. Whatever Linc had been saying about them ending up in the poorhouse? He wasn’t exaggerating. For yet another month, they were in the red.

  The results made her shiver.

  It had been fine the first few months. She’d told herself she just needed time to get her footing, and there was a lot of added expense in transferring all the assets to the farmhouse. The moving van, the new computers, new desks, new software to get Greg’s hopelessly behind-the-times outfit into the twenty-first century. But now? She’d expected to have been turning a profit by now. Or at least, breaking even.

  But they weren’t. Not even close.

  That business lunch? What a waste. She hadn’t even secured that client, despite plying him with thirty-dollar scotches. And what the hell? Forty dollars for paper clips? What were they, solid gold? She’d have to ask Linc about that one later. He’d ordered them online.

  As she tallied a column in her Excel file for the twelfth time, expecting a different, better result, she heard it, clear as day above the groove of “Orinoco Flow.”

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  She ripped the earbuds out of her ears.

  “Linc?” she called to him, her voice crackling with bitterness. She forced herself to soften it. “Sweetheart?”

  “Yep?” His voice echoed in the cavern of the dishwasher.

  “Can you…” kindly get the hell out? “…maybe take a break? Go outside with the dogs? They’re getting restless.”

  “One sec. I almost got this.”

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  She slumped against the back of the chair and smashed her teeth together, studying that big red number on her spreadsheet.

  If only that was the only thing on her mind today.

  But this morning, when the day was bright and new and everything felt like a fresh start, she’d promised herself she’d have a different attitude. Be the old Kylie, the one who constantly looked at everything in a positive way. It was only because she was stuck under a mountain of responsibilities that she’d been down, so she had the distinct feeling that if she made her to-do list her priority, she’d be happier. She’d tackle the day, get the monthly financials done, work on some of Greg’s cases, be productive. Oh, and she’d call her OB-GYN.

  She’d decided, early that morning as she laid awake in bed, that she wouldn’t tell Linc. Not just yet. After all, pregnancy tests were fallible, weren’t they? Maybe she had nothing to worry about. She’d go to the doc and get the real diagnosis first.

  Deep down, though, she acknowledged that she was putting it off because she was just buying herself time to process it. She still hadn’t wrapped her head fully around the fact that she could be knocked up.

  Also, she knew Linc. She knew he was kind of overbearing and protective, and he’d only be more so if he knew. He’d put her on lockdown, and she’d probably never breathe on her own again.

  Almost on cue, her stomach tightened, and the nausea returned. She reached into a hidden drawer in her desk and pulled out a cracker to nibble.

  Ping! Ping! Ping!

  “Shit!” Linc wailed.

  She narrowed her eyes. Something was afoul in dishwasher-land. That probably meant his one second was now one hour. Dammit to all hell.

  He stood up and wiped his hands on his jeans. “One minute. Got to get something out of my toolbox.”

  She sat back, fighting the urge to lunge across the room and strangle him. “Oh…so now it’s one minute?” The sarcastic comment was out of her mouth before she could stop it.

  “What?”

  “Before, you said it was one second,” she reminded him, softening her voice and giving him a smile. She really did love him. He didn’t deserve her foul mood.

  “Oh.” He shrugged, failing to see how close he was to a grisly death as he walked past her, slamming the door as he went to the shed where he kept his tools.

  She was still sitting there, glowering at that figure in red on the monitor, when he came in, carrying a bigger—and probably noisier—wrench. He glanced at her and frowned. “You okay?”

  She nodded, knowing that she looked the very opposite of okay. She knew her face was red; she felt it burning. She was hot, and bothered, and almost shaking, she was so…well, she didn’t know what she was, but she was most definitely not okay.

  He touched his chest. “You got something…”

  She looked down. Cracker crumbs had fallen across the shelf that was her bustline. She plucked her tank top up and let them scatter.

  “Are you sure you’re—”

  “I’m fine,” she said, keeping her voice calm. She was losing it, on the very verge of crying.

  It was so tempting to tell him everything and lay all her problems on his strong shoulders.

  But…

  She needed to do this on her own. She couldn’t tell him about the deficit because he’d really get on her about taking the Elise Kirby case on pro bono. Mr. Forty Dollar Paper Clip. She’d just have to handle buying the office supplies right now. And make sure she didn’t buy any potential clients ridiculously expensive scotch.

  Even looking at the black hole that was their finances, she didn’t regret taking Elise on as a client. She was glad, too, that Linc hadn’t gone off on her too much about it, even though his disappointment was evident. If he had given her shit about it? She hated to think about what her hormonally ridden body might have done.

  She didn’t have the temper to deal with him now.

  Linc held his hands up in surrender, a regular position for him now. “All right. Sorry.”

  She slumped in her chair. So much for having a happy, positive, Old-Kylie day.

  “You look tense. Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked and wiggled his eyebrows. “Back massage?”

  She checked the clock on her computer and stood up. She’d normally loved cuddling with him, but right now, she was so tense she thought she’d go off like a live wire if anyone even tried to put a finger on her. “No. I’ve got to go. I’m meeting with…” she wasn’t sure how to finish and fibbed, “a client.”

  “Oh, yeah? I didn’t see the appointment on your calendar,” he said, heading back to the kitchen. “I guess I’m on my own for lunch?”

  “Yes, sorry.” Not that he was helpless in the kitchen. He was the one who normally cooked for her, but she hadn’t mentioned this appointment because, contrary to what she’d told Linc, in the past few days, her little “hobby” case, the one she promised she’d work on only when she had extra time, had been consuming much of her thoughts.

  When Linc had been out, she’d called Elise a few times, gleaning more information. And now, she had a meeting with Agnes Mott, the woman who’d been babysitting Elise’s child when the kindly “aunt” came to take her away.

  As she went upstairs to change, she heard the Ping, Ping, Ping, and a surge of guilt overwhelmed her. Or maybe that was nausea. She had to run to the upstairs bathroom and barely made it to the toilet before she retched the two saltine crackers she’d managed to get down.

  She tried to be as quiet as she could, and thankfully, from all the noise going on downstairs, Linc hadn’t heard her.

  She stared into the toilet, willing herself not to crack. She loved Linc. They’d only been married a few months, and yet all she kept doing was piling up more and more secrets. It wasn’t fair to him. And not only that, she transformed into a world-class bitch whenever he was around. And he was just trying to be good, fixing the dishwasher, offering to give her a back massage. He was the husband most women would kill for.


  She was being an awful, terrible wife.

  Forcing those thoughts away, she changed into a blouse and her favorite pair of black slacks, noticing that they were a little tighter around the waist. Despite losing the contents of her stomach almost daily, she felt bloated in her middle. Scraping her hair into a ponytail and applying lip gloss, she piled her things into her bag and ran down the stairs.

  “You want me to come with you?”

  She jumped and found him behind her. She was usually jumpy, but why was she even more so now? “Thank you, but that’s okay. I’m sure you’re busy after being sick the past few days.” One of the Vader pups peed in the floor, and she glared as she snapped a few paper towels off the roll. “Besides, you have the dogs to train. They really want to get out.”

  He took the paper towels from her hands. “Okay. Suit yourself. I just thought you might want company.”

  The crazy thing was…part of her did. She felt insane. She wanted to be with him, and yet, two minutes later, she was annoyed by his very being. Was this just normal pregnancy hormones? Or was she on the verge of a mental breakdown?

  Grabbing her keys and her phone, she lifted onto her toes to press her lips to his, glad she’d remembered to brush her teeth.

  “I’m sorry I’m being crazy,” she said, and tears washed into her eyes.

  His hand moved to her cheek before he pulled her into his arms. “You know you can talk to me, right?”

  The offer nearly broke her resolve, and she just held him close as she willed the tears away. “I’m good. Promise.” She rose to her tiptoes again, letting this kiss linger a bit longer. “Got to go.”

  He patted her bottom as she turned away, and she was actually smiling as she headed out to her Jeep. But the smile had faded by the time she’d driven to the end of the driveway, and she stopped long enough to tap the little call button on her phone.

  “Asheville OB-GYN!” a chipper receptionist answered.