In Bed with the Badge

by Marie Ferrarella

  Worked.

  Sam’d had an uneasy feeling that there was a specific reason for the reference in the past tense, probably not because Andrea had moved on again.

  Fingers poised over the envelope’s clasp, he’d raised his eyes to look at Carole. “What am I going to find in here?”

  “In a nutshell, ‘Congratulations, Detective Wyatt, you’ve just become a daddy.’ She moved the little girl forward. “This is your daughter, Lisa. She’s six.” Carole bent down so that her face was close to the little girl’s. “Say hello to your father, Lisa,” Carole instructed gently.

  Cornflower blue eyes widening ever so slightly, the little girl gave him a shy smile and in a voice that was soft and delicate as the first spring breeze, she said, “Hello.”

  Everything inside of Sam shouted no! even as he found himself looking down into Andrea’s blue eyes. Lisa was Andrea’s daughter, all right. A perfect miniature of her mother.

  The word “perfect” really was not applicable here, he’d thought as he felt his stomach sinking past his knees.

  Despite the fact that she appeared anxious to leave, Sam made the bearer of his unsettling news stay as he read, then reread the letter and the will enclosed. And then he fired questions at her as he tried to reconcile himself to this wildly abrupt turn of events.

  Andrea, killed the week before by a drunk driver, had left very specific instructions as to whom was to take care of Lisa in the event of her untimely death. An only child whose parents were both deceased, Andrea had felt that Lisa needed to be raised by at least one parent and he, Sam, met that minimum requirement.

  He stared at the birth date that Andrea had written down. Apparently Lisa was the direct result of the “wildly romantic” two months he and Andrea had spent together. When she’d discovered that she was pregnant, Andrea was determined to raise Lisa on her own and so she had disappeared.

  “‘Nothing against you, Sam,’” he read. “‘But at the time, you didn’t strike me as exactly father material. But since you’re reading this, circumstances have obviously dictated otherwise. Lisa is a wonderful, intelligent little girl—with us as her parents, how could she not be?—who needs your love and support now. I wish I could be there to see it. Take good care of her. She is the precious gift that keeps on giving.’”

  He’d folded the letter knowing, for the first time, exactly what a butterfly pinned and mounted on a display board felt like.

  After answering more questions and giving him the key to Andrea’s apartment where the rest of Lisa’s belongings and other important documents were stored, Carole left. Due to coercion on his part, she’d given him a number where she could be reached. A work number, but at least it was something.

  He wasn’t good at talking to females under the age of twenty-one but he knew that, barring an eleventh-hour miracle of some sort, he would have to learn. And learn fast.

  Sam couldn’t shake the feeling that he was the child and she the adult. When he spoke to her, Lisa seemed to gently humor him, going along with his suggestion for breakfast—only eggs since he didn’t think that a six-year-old drank coffee—and settling on the sofa to watch television when he turned on the set for her.

  When Sam heard the doorbell ring again less than an hour after Carole’s departure, hope suddenly sprang up in his chest. He thought—fervently prayed—that Carole had suddenly changed her mind about turning over the little girl to him and had, instead, decided that it would be best for all to take her in.

  He lost no time hurrying to open the door.

  Hope died a cruel, quick death, crashing to the ground like a falling comet.

  “Oh, it’s you.” As an afterthought, he stepped to the side to allow Riley to enter.

  But Riley remained where she was. He looked really shaken up, light years away from the smooth operator she had been with yesterday.

  “You can cancel the marching brass band, Wyatt. Fanfare would only embarrass me,” Riley quipped, then got down to why she was here. “Lieutenant Barker’s fit to be tied.”

  His lieutenant’s disposition was extremely low on Sam’s list of concerns at the moment. But he needed to work, now more than ever. This little accident of nature would need to be fed and clothed. And sent off to college. If he was lucky, she’d turn out to be a genius, going through grades at an accelerated rate and displaying the kind of intellectual acumen that attracted scholarships.

  He eyed Riley warily. So far his luck had been running rather poorly this morning. “What did you tell him?”

  “That you were following up on a lead and I was meeting you at the possible suspect’s house. He wants us to hand off that case to Rafferty and Kellogg,” she said, mentioning two other robbery detectives. “Seems that another home invasion went down last night. They only got the 9-1-1 call an hour ago. Details of the invasion are similar to one that you were already handling. Then Barker grumbled something about loose cannons and mavericks and retreated into his lair. My guess is that he’s been watching too many action movies.”

  Finished, she peered around her partner’s arm into the apartment. Since Wyatt hadn’t actually voiced an invitation, she decided to take matters into her own hands and crossed the threshold.

  “What was all this about you coming down with a case of ‘kid’?” she asked. “Is that short for something?”

  “Yeah.” Sam closed the door behind her and gestured for Riley to follow him to the living room. “It’s short for ‘big trouble.’”

  About to ask him what he was babbling about, the next minute, she caught sight of the little blond girl on the sofa and had her answer.

  Chapter 4

  Standing just a few feet inside the apartment, Riley looked from the child seated on the sofa to Wyatt and then back again. Surprise mingled with disbelief. The little girl, who had a box and a couple of suitcases beside her, was the very last thing she’d expected to find in Wyatt’s apartment.

  She flashed a wide smile at the little girl. As an official Cavanaugh by marriage, Riley was now an aunt, by proxy, to a whole slew of children coming in all sizes, shapes and ages. Children represented innocence, a clean slate.

  Everyone should remain a child for as long as possible, she thought, a wave of protectiveness washing over her.

  Crossing into the living room, Riley was aware that Wyatt was behind her. “Hi,” she said to the little girl. “I’m Riley. What’s your name?”

  “Lisa,” came the prompt, polite response.

  Riley looked back at Wyatt for some kind of enlightenment. “Your niece?” she guessed.

  Rather than answer, Sam took her by the arm and led her to the kitchen.

  But before he got there, Lisa raised her voice and called out after her, “I’m his daughter.”

  Riley froze just shy of the kitchen and looked up at her partner. “Did she just say…?”

  There was no childlike lisp, no baby voice to misunderstand. Lisa’s enunciation was perfect, the kind that belonged to precocious, budding geniuses poised to take the world by storm.

  Sam nodded. “Yes.”

  Riley was sure she was still missing something. “She’s your daughter,” she said, leaving it as a statement.

  This time the single world came out like an angry cannon shot. “Yes.”

  The police department had been growing in recent years, but they were still pretty much a tight community. There were fewer detectives than uniformed cops. Word got around. There was never even a hint that Wyatt was anything but an available stud. If a short person was in the wings, someone would have mentioned it in passing.

  “Since when?” she said.

  He glanced over her head toward the living room and the child with flawless posture. He used to curl up on the sofa when he watched TV at her age. With her hands folded in her lap and sitting ramrod straight, Lisa looked as if she was attending a meeting instead of watching television.

  “Apparently since six years ago,” he told Riley with a sigh.

  Riley studied him f
or a moment. The detective seemed unsettled. They hadn’t interacted very much in the last few years, but to her recollection, she’d never seen him rattled before.

  “How long have you known?” she asked.

  Sam looked at his watch. “Two hours, give or take a few minutes.”

  He wasn’t volunteering anything, so she started piecing things together herself.

  “This woman who obviously can keep a secret, she just left her daughter with you? Just like that?” Riley knew it happened but it was difficult to envision.

  He had no idea why, but he suddenly felt defensive for Andrea. “She didn’t have much choice, seeing as how she’s—” His voice dropped before he said the last word. “—dead.”

  Thoroughly confused, Riley looked over her shoulder into the living room. “If her mother’s dead, how did Lisa—”

  Wyatt cut her off before she could finish. “Her friend brought Lisa over, along with a letter from Andrea and a copy of Andrea’s will.”

  According to the document, his new daughter had a small trust fund set aside in her name. But she couldn’t touch it until she turned eighteen. Twelve years from now, he thought.

  The name meant nothing to Riley. “I take it Andrea was your—” She left the sentence unfinished, searching for the right word, hoping that Wyatt would supply it.

  “Andrea wasn’t anything of mine,” he denied vehemently.

  As far as he was concerned, until this morning, Andrea belonged to his past. Just one of the women he’d dated. Except now she wasn’t. She was the mother of his child. The child that, less than three hours ago, he didn’t even know he had.

  “Well, she must have been ‘something’ of yours if that little girl in the next room really is your daughter.” All sorts of thoughts rushed through her mind. She asked the first logical one that occurred to her. “Are you sure that she’s yours?”

  “If you mean did she come with DNA test results, then no. But there was no reason for Andrea to lie.” Especially since the woman had never come to him with this news while she was alive and able to forge her own path. “Andrea is—was—a very independent woman.” Even though she hadn’t been part of his life for over six years, it was hard to think of the woman in the past tense. “This also explains a lot of things,” he said more to himself than to Riley.

  “Such as?” Riley coaxed, her curiosity jacked up to high.

  For a second, he’d almost forgotten his partner was here.

  “Why she disappeared so abruptly,” he said. “One day she was there and we were talking about clearing out a drawer for her and giving her some space in my closet. The next,” he snapped his fingers, “she was gone.”

  “Despite the enticing offer of a drawer and four hangers?” Riley marveled. “Woman didn’t know when she had it good, huh?”

  He looked at her, annoyed. “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”

  “Funny, I always thought it did.” Riley grew serious and asked, “Did you even try to find her after she disappeared?”

  Ordinarily, he might not have. But then, no other woman had just vanished the way Andrea had. “Yes, I tried to find her.”

  “Obviously not hard enough.” She saw that he took offense, so she told him why she felt that way. “You’re a detective, Wyatt. Finding things—like people—is what you do. And yet, in this case, you didn’t.”

  He blew out a frustrated breath. Maybe Riley was right. Maybe, deep down, he didn’t want to find Andrea if she had thought so little of him to leave without a word. He wished now that he had pushed harder.

  “Yeah, well, she moved, changed jobs, changed her phone number. For all I knew, she changed her name.” He shrugged, trying to dismiss the incident. “I figured she got spooked.”

  This man couldn’t have spooked a woman, she thought, dismissing his excuse. He was the kind of man that drew women.

  “That’s what you get for wearing your Godzilla suit when it’s not even Halloween,” she cracked.

  “Spooked by the idea of commitment,” he elaborated. He saw her opening her mouth, ready to argue the point. “You know, it’s not just guys who have trouble wrapping their heads around making a commitment. Women have trouble with the concept, too.”

  Riley relented. She really couldn’t argue with that. Her own sister, Taylor, was part of that group—until love ambushed her and tossed a tall, dark, handsome private investigator in her path. Now, she knew, Taylor couldn’t begin to imagine life without J.C.

  But rather than share this with Wyatt, she merely asked, “So you let her go?”

  “I decided not to come on like a stalker,” he corrected. “It was good while it lasted, but I assumed when she took off like that, whatever we had was over.”

  Riley glanced back at the little girl in the living room. Lisa was still sitting ramrod straight, watching television.

  “Apparently not,” Riley pointed out, then asked. “What’s your next move?”

  That was the sixty-four-million-dollar question. “Hell if I know.”

  Riley held up one finger. “Okay, first move. No more cursing.”

  “I wasn’t cursing,” Sam protested.

  “Not by the standards we’re used to,” she allowed, “but ‘hell’ and ‘damn’ are curses of the venial variety.” He looked unconvinced, so she explained further. “Think of it in the same terms as marijuana leading the user to cocaine. Both are illegal drugs, one just viewed as far more serious than the other. Next,” she continued, now holding up a second finger, “you need to line up someone to stay with Lisa while you’re working.”

  He hadn’t even thought that far ahead yet. It was as if his brain was paralyzed, still trying to deal with this major curve. Now that he did think about it, it didn’t help. There was no one to turn to.

  “Everyone I know is at the precinct.”

  He’d never mentioned any relatives when they had attended the academy. Riley realized that she had no idea what his family dynamics were like. “No family to fall back on?”

  He had family, or rather, a parent. His father, who lived in a retirement community. “In Arizona. Kind of a killer commute.”

  Riley stopped listening when he mentioned Arizona. “Let me see what I can do,” she said, taking out her cell phone.

  When she pressed a button on the keypad, he asked, “Who are you calling?”

  Riley held up her hand, silently asking him to hold his thought until she got off the phone.

  “Brenda? Hi, it’s Riley. Look, I know that this is really short notice and I hate to impose on you, but my partner needs someone to watch his little girl—Six,” she said in response to the question her stepbrother’s wife asked her. “Her mother’s dead and—” Again Riley paused, this time not for a question but to listen while Brenda expressed her sympathy for both her partner and his daughter. The next sentence had her smiling broadly. “Thanks, Brenda, you’re a doll. We’ll be over as soon as we can.” With that, she slipped the cell phone closed again.

  “Over where?” Wyatt pressed the second she ended the call.

  “Brenda is one of the chief’s daughters-in-law. She’s married to Dax and she just said to bring Lisa over. Brenda works out of her house a lot so she can raise her own kids,” Riley explained, then added, in case Wyatt needed further convincing, “She used to be a teacher. And she’s great with kids. This way, you can appease the lieutenant and get back to work, and you get a little breathing space to calmly figure out how to proceed.”

  “Calmly,” Sam echoed, shaking his head. His mouth curved in a smile he definitely didn’t feel. “Too late. The ship has sailed on that one.”

  It might be better if he just took the day off after all. She took out her phone again. “Want me to call Brenda back and say you’ve changed your mind about bringing Lisa over?”

  No, Riley was right. He should get back to work and he needed time to think. “What I really want is for you to turn the clock back six years and make sure you kick me in the pants when I suggest going to Malone’s for
a drink.” Malone’s was the bar where he had first met Andrea. She had been there with her friends, celebrating a major courtroom win. She’d gone home with him that night.

  Riley filled in the blanks herself, surmising that he had to be referring to approximately the time when Lisa had been conceived.

  “Much as that’s a very tempting offer, Wyatt, I first have to point out that you mean seven years ago, not six. Nine months after conception, remember?” she prodded. “And second, magic and/or time travel are not part of my job description or, by any stretch of the imagination, my résumé.”

  Riley waited for her partner’s response, but there was none. His eyes almost glazed over. She suspected that fatherhood bursting upon him like an exploding land mine was to blame.

  She waved her hand in front of his eyes. “Earth to Wyatt, earth to Wyatt.”

  Catching her by the wrist, Sam pushed her hand back down. “What?”

  “Do you or don’t you want to take your daughter to Brenda’s house?” she asked.

  Sam supposed that solved the problem today but what about tomorrow? And all the tomorrows to come, what of them? He couldn’t think about that now. They’d just have to work themselves out somehow. He had to believe that.

  She was still watching him, waiting. “That would be good,” he finally told her.

  She crossed back into the living room. “Lisa, honey, your father and I are going to take you to this nice lady’s house. Her name’s Brenda. Brenda Cavanaugh.”

  Lisa slowly slid off the sofa, never taking her eyes from the man Carole had told her was her father. “To stay?” she asked hesitantly. “Don’t you want me?”

  Riley thought she saw the little girl’s lower lip tremble as she asked the last question. Her heart twisted a little in sympathy.

  “Of course he wants you,” Riley said before Wyatt had a chance to answer. “But he works, honey. As a police detective.”

  She turned toward Wyatt. “Isn’t that right, Detective Wyatt?” she asked, keeping her voice purposely sweet.