APB

by Julie Miller

  A DNA test couldn’t tell Lucy what she already knew in her heart. “He looks like her—the shape of his face, the thick dark hair. What color are his eyes?”

  Thomas shrugged. “You know, I don’t remem—”

  “Brown,” Niall answered.

  Lucy glanced up when he reached around her to tuck in the tiny fist that had pushed free of the blanket. She didn’t mind Niall’s unvarnished tone quite so much this time. He’d put his clinical eye for detail to work on doing whatever was best for this baby. “Diana has brown eyes.”

  Niall’s startling blue gaze shifted to hers for a moment before he blinked and rose from the couch. He paced to the kitchen archway before turning to ask, “Did you save that message?”

  Lucy nodded.

  The two men exchanged a suspicious sort of glance before Thomas picked up a notepad and pen from the table beside the recliner. Niall adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose before splaying his fingers at his waist and facing her. “Maybe you’d better tell me more about your friend Diana. And why you thought she might be dead.”

  Chapter Three

  Lucy added another round of quarters to the clothes dryer. “Oops. Sorry, munchkin.”

  She quickly apologized for the loud mechanical noise and leaned over the infant fastened into the carrier sitting on top of the dryer. But she needn’t have worried. Tommy was still asleep, his tiny body swaying slightly with the jiggle of the dryer. She smiled, resisting the urge to kiss one of those round apple cheeks, lest she wake him again. He’d fussed and bellowed for nearly an hour upstairs before she remembered the advice she’d once heard from a coworker about tricks to help stubborn babies fall asleep and got the idea to bring Tommy and all his new clothes and supplies down to the basement laundry room to wash them.

  Instead of disturbing him again, she opted to pull a blanket dotted with red, blue and yellow trucks from the basket of baby clothes she’d just unloaded and drape the cotton knit over him, securing him in a warm cocoon. Then she picked up the basket and set it on the neighboring dryer to start folding the rest of the light-colored sleepers and towels and undershirts. She was handling more than one problem here. She’d removed the noisy baby from Niall Watson’s apartment so the enigmatic doctor could get some much-needed sleep. Since she had no chair to rock the baby in, she’d found the next best thing down here in the laundry room. And at this time of the morning, before the residents stirred to get ready for church or work, she’d found a quiet place for herself to think without being distracted by hunky neighbors with grabby hands and hard bodies, or caring for the needs of a newborn with too little sleep herself, or worrying about the unanswered calls and cryptic clues surrounding her foster daughter’s disappearance.

  When the second load of darker clothes was done in twenty minutes or so, she’d take Tommy back up to Niall Watson’s apartment and sneak back in without waking him. Then she’d have another hour or two to curl up on his stiff leather couch and try not to notice how much the smell of it reminded her of the man himself. Crushes were terrible things when they were one-sided like this. Niall Watson, ME, was a good catch, according to her mother’s standards—not that she credited Alberta McKane for giving her any useful set of values to judge a man by. But he was as dependable as he was curiously aloof, and that was a quality Lucy valued more than several framed degrees or the amount of money a man made. She vowed to be a good friend to her socially awkward neighbor, but she didn’t have to torture her dreams with the vivid memory of his body flattened against hers as he pinned her to the wall. If he was a different man he’d have kissed her then. And chances are, she would have responded to that kiss with a purely female instinct.

  But Niall Watson wasn’t that man. He had a set of rules he lived by, an order of right and wrong he believed in. He wasn’t a smooth talker. He wasn’t much of a talker, period. But, awkward body contact aside, he treated her with respect. He put Tommy’s and his family’s needs above anything he and his hormones might feel. And that made him so much more attractive to her than anything her mother could have envisioned.

  Stress, fatigue, the rhythmic sound of the dryer and the warmth of the insulated laundry area were beginning to have the same hypnotic effect on Lucy as they did on Tommy. After several big blinks, her thoughts drifted and her hands came to rest in the pile of warm cotton garments. Her chin was dropping toward her chest when hushed voices entered her dreams. “Down here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “If her car’s outside, but she’s not at her place, then yes.”

  “This is a mistake.”

  “I just have to know—”

  “Get out of here.”

  Lucy snapped her head up at the slam of a heavy door from somewhere above her. The muffle of words weren’t inside her head. They were as real as the terse, angry exchange of voices bouncing off the concrete-block walls outside the laundry room. She touched the gentle rise and fall of Tommy’s small chest, reassuring herself that he was safe, while she blinked the grogginess from her eyes and reoriented herself to the waking world. “Hello? Is someone there?”

  “I know you’re here,” came a heavily accented voice. “You can’t take what is mine.”

  Lucy thought she heard a bell. Someone getting off the elevator?

  Or on it. “Move. Don’t let him see you. Go!”

  “Where is she?” the louder voice shouted. “You know what I want.”

  Lucy whirled around to the vicious argument, wondering if she was still half-asleep since she couldn’t make out all the words.

  “You stay away from her.”

  “You mind your own business.”

  Then she heard a grunt and a gasp plainly enough, before running feet stomped up the stairs.

  “Diana?” Had she heard a woman’s voice in the middle of all that? Or only dreamed it? Lucy fingered the phone in her jeans pocket. But the sounds of the argument were fading and she didn’t want to panic the good doctor upstairs unnecessarily by waking him from a sound sleep.

  “You stay away from her.”

  Oh, no. “Stay away from me?” Maybe Niall was already awake and dealing with some kind of trouble that she’d missed. What if someone had followed her to their apartment building and her neighbor had come downstairs to confront him? “Niall?”

  If he got hurt, it would be her fault for getting him into this mess.

  After ensuring that Tommy was still sleeping, Lucy ventured out into the hallway. It was empty now. Nothing but concrete walls and utility lights. Had the two parties she’d overheard arguing split up? The elevator was moving on the higher floors of the building, and whomever she’d heard run up the stairs had exited either out the side entrance to the parking lot or into the building’s lobby. “Niall? Is that you? Who was—”

  Lucy jumped at the loud thump against the steel door at the top of the stairs. Outside. They’d taken what could only be a fight, judging by the low-voiced curses and rattling door, out to the parking lot. “Niall!”

  Lucy charged up the stairs, pulling her key card from her jeans and hurrying out the door to the harsh sounds of a revving engine and tires squealing to find traction along the pavement. She saw the silhouette of a man racing between the cars. “Niall? Hey! Don’t hurt him!”

  She glanced toward the front entrance as one of the glass doors swung open. Was help coming? Or more trouble? She should call 911. She reached for her phone.

  But when she saw the running figure lurch as if some invisible force had jerked him back a step, she sprinted forward to help. “Stop!”

  There were two men trading blows out there. One had ambushed the other.

  “Lucy!” The warning barely registered as her feet hit the pavement. She glimpsed the man hitting the ground a split second before a pair of headlights flashed on their high beams and blinded her.

 
Forced to turn away, she stumbled back a step. She thought she heard another car door open. She knew she heard the terrible sound of a transmission grinding too quickly through its gears. The headlights grew bigger, like a nocturnal predator bearing down on her. The lights filled up her vision. The roar of the engine deafened her. The heat of the powerful car distorted the chill of the early February morning.

  “Lucy!”

  Two arms slammed around her body and lifted her out of harm’s way. She hit the hard earth with a jolt and tumbled, rolling two or three times until she wound up flat on her back with Niall Watson’s long body pinning her to the ground.

  She noted the flash of a silver sports car speeding past, bouncing over the curb into the street and disappearing into the night before the strong thigh pressed between her legs and the muscled chest crushing her breasts and the hot gasps of Niall’s deep breaths against her neck even registered. “I knew that car was following me...” Lucy’s triumphant words trailed away in a painful gurgle as the pain of that tackle bloomed through her chest. “Oh, man. That hurts.”

  “Not as much as getting mowed down by that Camaro would have.” She flattened her palms against his shoulders and tried to push, but he only rose up onto his elbows on either side of her, leaving their hips locked together. He glared down at her through those dark frames. “What were you thinking? Didn’t you see him driving right at you?”

  “I thought you were hurt.” She sucked in a deeper breath and found more voice as the ache in her lungs eased. “There was a fight outside the laundry room. He knocked the other man down. I thought it was you.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Duh.” Her breath returned in shallow gasps. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “Saving you, apparently.”

  “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

  “You’re supposed to be in my apartment.”

  Lucy was blatantly aware of cold ground and damp clothes and the black KCPD T-shirt that left little of that sleekly muscled torso to her imagination now. But Niall flattened himself right back on top of her when another vehicle engine roared to life in the parking lot. She found herself flat on her back a second time, pinned beneath Niall’s body as the second car raced past.

  Only after it turned into the street and sped away after the silver Camaro did Niall raise his head again. “Do you recognize that vehicle, too?”

  Lucy shook her head. She hadn’t even gotten a look at it. A fat lot of help she was. As her body warmed in places it shouldn’t, Lucy gave him another push. “You can get off me now.”

  Without even so much as a sorry for invading your personal space and making your brain short-circuit again, Niall rolled to his feet and extended a hand to help her stand up beside him. While she brushed at the mud on her knees and bottom, he bent down to pick up her key card and phone and pressed them into her hands. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  Despite her answer, he turned her hands over and inspected the muddy smear on her elbow. “What are you doing out here at this time of the blessed a.m.?”

  Lucy plucked away the dead bits of grass that clung to the scruff of his beard and hair. “Are you hurt?”

  “Lucy,” he prompted, dismissing her concern. “Give me an answer.”

  She pulled away and shrugged, wondering how long she was going to feel that stiff catch in her chest, and how much of it had to do with hitting the ground so hard and how much had to do with learning Niall’s shape in a far-too-intimate way. “I heard voices. Someone was fighting on the basement stairs, and they ran out. One of them got on the elevator, maybe. I was half-asleep.”

  “Where’s the baby?”

  “Tommy.” Her blood chilling at what a doofus she was turning out to be at this whole instant-motherhood thing, Lucy ran back to the side exit. She slid her key card into the lock and pulled the door open.

  Niall was right behind her. “I woke up, and you and Tommy were gone.” That explained the bare feet and pseudo pajamas he was wearing. “I saw the sacks with all his clothes had disappeared, too. When you weren’t in your apartment, either, I came down to look for you. Then I heard the engine outside. For a second I thought—”

  “What? That I’d run off and taken the baby?” She hurried down the steps. Niall followed right behind her. “I would never do that. You’re just as important to him as I am.” The door to the laundry room had closed, and she quickly accessed it with her key card while Niall glanced up at the numbers lighting up on the elevator behind them. But he caught the door and followed her in as she hurried to the baby carrier still rocking on top of the clothes dryer. Her breath rushed out with relief when she saw those sweet brown eyes tracking their movement across the room. “Thank goodness. He’s fine. He was being so fussy. I fed him and changed him and still couldn’t get him to stop crying, and you said you hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours. So I remembered a trick that one of the older women in my office said worked for her kids when they wouldn’t sleep. Besides, all these new things need to be washed before he can wear them.”

  “You left him here alone?”

  “I must have dozed off myself until I heard the argument out in the hallway.” Lucy unhooked the straps on the carrier and reached for Tommy. “There you are, sweetie. See? He’s fine. Wide-awake again, hmm—”

  “Wait.” Niall’s hand on her arm startled her. “Don’t touch him.”

  She glanced up to the narrow-eyed scrutiny behind his glasses. “What’s wrong?”

  “How long were you gone?”

  “I don’t know. A few minutes, maybe...” And then she zeroed in on what had put Niall on alert. There was a lipstick mark on Tommy’s forehead. Without asking, the scientist beside her captured Lucy’s chin and tilted it up to run his thumb over her mouth with a friction that tingled across her lips and made her tremble from head to toe.

  Despite her body’s traitorous response to his firm touch, it wasn’t meant to be a caress. Niall released her and held the tip of his thumb beside the mark on Tommy’s forehead. The gloss she wore was rosy pink. The color on Tommy’s skin was a tannish coral.

  “Oh, my God.” She had heard a woman’s voice earlier. Another woman had been in here when Tommy was alone. That whole fight must have been a distraction—a way to get Lucy to leave while another woman sneaked into the laundry room. She’d kissed the baby while Lucy had been chasing shadows and dodging cars.

  “Someone was here,” Niall pronounced.

  Not someone.

  “Diana.” Lucy quickly glanced around, realizing what she should have seen when she’d unhooked Tommy from his carrier. The clean, warm blanket she’d covered him with was missing. “She took the blanket I put over him. She was right here.”

  And now the young woman was gone.

  Again.

  Chapter Four

  Niall clipped his badge onto the belt of his jeans, debated about leaving his gun locked inside its metal box, then decided to strap it on. If Diana Kozlow was in serious trouble, as Lucy claimed—and the twenty-year-old hadn’t simply punked out on the responsibility and expense of caring for a baby—then he’d do well to be prepared for any contingency that could come back to harm Tommy or Lucy.

  It wasn’t just his civic-minded sense of duty that prompted him to take a proactive role in guarding the security of his building and neighbors—too many unanswered questions surrounding the baby still nagged at him. Before he’d left, Thomas Watson had suggested Niall keep an eye open for further suspicious activity around the building. Certainly, alleged fights and a silver Camaro nearly running down Lucy—either intentionally or as collateral damage in a speedy getaway from the second driver—qualified as suspicious.

  He couldn’t tell yet if that woman was simply a magnet for trouble or if she was truly embroiled in a legitimate missing-person case. Niall trust
ed his dad’s gut warning him that something felt seriously wrong here as much as he trusted his own assessment of the clues surrounding Tommy, the violation of Lucy’s apartment and those two near misses in the parking lot last night. The break-in had been an act of desperation, not planning. The mark of lipstick on Tommy’s forehead that didn’t match Lucy’s dark pink color indicated a kiss. From a guilt-ridden mother reluctant to say goodbye to a baby she couldn’t take care of on her own? Or a frightened young woman who saw no other option to keep her son safe than to abandon him to her most trusted friend?

  But safe from what? Or whom?

  If he hadn’t been reliving the nightmare of the shooting at his sister’s wedding and woken himself up to clear his head, he wouldn’t have discovered Lucy and Tommy missing from his living room. He wouldn’t have gone looking for them and seen his pretty neighbor blinded by the car barreling toward her. He wouldn’t have known that gut-wrenching sense of helpless inadequacy knowing that someone out there was a step ahead of him, luckier—if not smarter—than he was when it came to taking care of an impulsive woman and an innocent child.

  And Niall needed to be able to take care of Lucy and Tommy. He hadn’t spotted the shooter soon enough. He hadn’t prevented his grandfather from stroking out. And unless a dead body showed up on his autopsy table, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help his family figure out who had targeted Seamus in the first place. But watching over Lucy and Tommy was something he could do. Helping them find Diana Kozlow and the other answers they needed was the challenge that would keep him busy and his mind occupied. Helping them was the worthwhile difference he could make.

  Besides, there was something about a tiny baby who quieted at the sound of his voice or the touch of his hand that awakened something so alien inside Niall that he’d almost forgotten the words his mother had once spoken to him as a child. He’d been bewailing going to a new school after moving across Kansas City. Athletic Duff and outgoing Keir had made new friends easily enough. But gangly, bookish Niall, who’d inherited his mother’s shy genes, had spent the first few weeks of fourth grade feeling utterly alone. She’d climbed up into the tree house where he’d been hiding out to share a hug and some loving wisdom. “There are certain people in this world, Niall, that we are destined to have a special connection to. You don’t need a lot of friends. Just one or two who understand you. Who’ll have your back. Who need you to be their friend, too.”