by Julie Miller
“No problem.” Good. Someone to keep Maddie company and make sure she reached her destination.
Still huffing to catch her breath after her sprint, Roberta braced her hand on her skinny chest and turned her attention to Maddie. “I’m so happy Judge Ellison sided for you and Tyler. Knowing who your brother-in-law was, I must say I was a little worried. I can’t tell you how many babies I’ve worked with over the years who get lost in the system and wind up just taking up space in someone’s home. You’re really fighting for him, and I admire that.”
“Thanks.”
“Sometimes, the teenage mothers I work with get into trouble and don’t think of anyone but themselves. It’s a death sentence for these little ones.”
“Mrs. Hays,” Dwight snapped. Death sentence seemed a pretty callous metaphor to use, no matter what point she was trying to make. When had the woman who’d been too tired to do her job last Saturday gotten to be so chatty, anyway? Still frowning, he glanced down at the infant in Maddie’s carrier. Bright blue eyes looked up at him and sparkled as if they were mature enough to focus and communicate. Maybe it was the memory of another baby that seemed to transmit an unspoken message. Right. Shut the noisy lady up.
“Mrs. Hays, it’s been a long day for Ms. McCallister. A long week. Maybe you could save the commentary for another time,” he suggested. He lifted his gaze to Maddie’s pale face. Her eyes were as blue as the kid’s and filled with a plea he didn’t have to imagine. “I won’t be long.”
Maddie nodded. “Remember, you promised to tell me the truth. Anything they say. Even if it seems insignificant.”
“I promise.”
But Roberta wasn’t done apologizing. “I just meant that Tyler is very fortunate to have someone step up to become a real family for him. I’ve been in this business thirty years. Believe me, I don’t see nearly as many happy endings as I used to.” She caught a deep breath and continued on. “As soon as all this mess gets settled, you and I can set up a time to—”
The doors closed on Roberta’s voice and Maddie’s blue eyes, looking at him as if she didn’t hold much stock in Dwight’s promises. It was a look that twisted the guilt in Dwight’s stomach every bit as much as Alicia and Braden’s deaths once had.
Dwight turned to A.J. and Bellamy. He didn’t intend to keep Maddie waiting long for whatever truth they were about to share. “Maddie’s not an idiot. What’s going on?”
Bellamy hooked his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans and nodded toward the elevator. “You want me to run down and keep an eye on things while A.J. fills you in?”
Dwight considered the offer for about two seconds, swallowed any lingering jealousy and nodded. “You mind?”
“I wouldn’t have offered.” The young detective doffed a salute and jogged toward the emergency stairs.
Feeling a margin of relief as the door closed behind Bellamy, Dwight swiped his hand over the tension in his jaw and confessed to his friend. “Maddie will be glad to see a new face. She thinks I’m overprotective. I am overprotective.”
“A man broke into her house intending to kill her last night,” A.J. reasoned. “He took the child she loves and he wound up dead at her front door. I think you’re entitled.”
“Yeah. Thanks for pointing out what a slam-bam job I’m doing of keeping her safe.” Hell, he wasn’t even earning any points at protecting her from himself and his moods. But there was still something too raw and unsettled about his feelings for Maddie to confess that much. “Now talk to me so I can get downstairs before she gets it in her head to go after this Baby Factory on her own.”
A.J. didn’t waste time or words. “We traced the black Impala from the plate number the kid across the street gave us.”
“Stolen?”
A.J. nodded. “The owner said it was taken from a Mission Hills address. That gives us a place to start our search for the shooter.”
“That junker isn’t a Mission Hills car.”
“The owner works construction. Remodels old homes and buildings around the city. He said he was on a job when it was taken.”
Dwight tuned in to one more detail. “You said shooter. You don’t think it was the same two guys that helped Rinaldi escape the prison transport?”
“That’s what we got from the neighbor, Trent Dixon. Physical evidence backs up his story. The lab retrieved bullets and fragments from only one gun.”
“So there’s another player in this case?” Dwight pushed the call button to retrieve the elevator. He’d already been away from Maddie for too long. News that someone besides Rinaldi might be after her made it seem even longer. “Are you sure Rinaldi was the intended victim? Did they know that Maddie and the kid or even that I, was there?”
“You’re asking the same questions we are, counselor. Did you tell anyone where you were going last night?”
“No one knew. Hell, that wasn’t even our destination until Maddie changed my mind.”
“So whoever was driving the Impala was looking for Rinaldi.”
“But Maddie had seen that black sedan before. That first night she was home with the kid. Before Rinaldi escaped.”
“Maybe the perp knew Maddie’s would be a destination for Rinaldi once he was out. You said he’d threatened her after the trial.” A.J. pulled out his notepad and jotted a line. “We’re looking into any grudges against Rinaldi—inside prison and on the outside. So far, we’ve come up empty.”
“I need answers, A.J.” Dwight turned to his friend, his voice almost a plea. “Things are getting complicated. I can’t have anybody else’s death on my hands. I put my wife and son in the ground. I can’t…” What was he trying to say? What twisted emotions were trying to get into his head now? “I can’t let anything happen to Maddie and that kid.”
“You still can’t call Tyler Rinaldi by his name, can you, amigo?”
Dwight was sure that he didn’t want to hear whatever insightful observation A.J. had made.
“You still believe that caring about somebody means they’re going to die, don’t you?”
“It isn’t that. It’s… Ah, hell.” Sorting through his emotions wasn’t on his list of priorities right now. He squeezed his hand into a fist and smacked the call button. “Where’s the damn elevator?”
A.J. pocketed his notepad and turned to face the elevator, standing shoulder to shoulder with Dwight. “I heard what Maddie said about telling the truth. You have to be honest with yourself and what you’re feeling before you can be honest with her.”
“If I want philosophizing, I’ll go back to my therapist. Why don’t you stick to what you do best.”
“Lovin’ my wife?”
Dwight looked down into A.J.’s golden eyes and glared. But the detective’s smug smile remained unflappable. Pulling back the front edges of his jacket, Dwight splayed his fingers at his hips and relaxed his defensive posture. He couldn’t begrudge A.J. the happiness he’d earned with his wife, Claire. But that didn’t mean he could completely understand it. “You have a dangerous job. There have been threats against you and your family a dozen times over. How do you live with that?”
“I think of the alternative—never having known Claire. I was just going through the motions of living before I met her. I had my job. I brought in the bad guys. But I didn’t have a purpose. Now, every day’s richer. Every moment means more.” The elevator doors opened and A.J. followed Dwight inside. “I still bring in the bad guys. But now I understand why I do it. I know why I get up in the morning and why I watch my back. Because I’ve got something to go home to, something worth every scar, every stakeout, every phone call from an old friend in the middle of the night.”
The doors slid shut as the devil’s advocate inside Dwight had to be heard. “And if you lose her?”
A.J. punched the button for the parking level before answering. “Would you have loved Alicia and your son any less if you’d known you were going to lose them?”
Three floors passed while Dwight considered the answer to that quest
ion. “I thought being a cop was what you did best.”
A.J. laughed, a sound Dwight couldn’t recall hearing before the detective had met his wife. But he took the hint and let him change the subject. “I still get the job done. That’s why I thought you’d be interested in a couple of new developments on the investigation.”
“Such as?”
“I had a heart-to-heart chat with Zero this morning.”
“Zero the pimp?” It still curdled in Dwight’s gut to think of Maddie pounding the streets in No-Man’s-Land on her own, demanding answers about her niece from pieces of scum like Zero.
“He gave us a name. From a friend of a friend who recommended that if any of Zero’s girls got pregnant, they could contact a man named Roddy, maybe Radé. He could get them some quick cash in exchange for their babies and silence about the whole setup.”
Dwight was already processing the details. “Whitney Chiles had a sugar daddy named Roddy. A Broadway talent scout, according to her parents. Zero’s claiming this guy’s local?”
A.J. nodded.
“You get a number or a last name?”
“We’re working on it.”
The elevator dinged, announcing their arrival at the first level of the parking garage. “You still haven’t told me anything that Maddie wouldn’t want to hear about her niece.”
Pausing long enough for Dwight to look at him and worry, A.J. answered. “We found some hairs caught in the chain that was attached to the ring you took off Rinaldi. They’re Katie’s.”
“Maddie said she’d given the ring to her. Rinaldi probably took it as a souvenir.”
“That’s not the disturbing part.”
Dwight pushed the button to keep the doors closed until he heard what A.J. considered disturbing.
“The hairs show traces of the same drugs that were in Whitney Chiles’s system.”
“The ME said that combination of drugs is what killed Whitney.”
A.J. didn’t have to spell out the connection for him. Dwight jabbed the open button and pushed his way out as soon as the doors split apart. He had to get to Maddie. Not just to keep her safe but to keep her from hearing the news that Katie might already be dead.
THE DRONE OF ROBERTA HAYS’S conversation beat like a steady hammer against Maddie’s temples.
The older woman had followed her into the main-floor bathroom while Maddie changed Tyler. Then she’d joined her on the ride down to the parking garage along with Dwight’s bodyguard-in-training, Cooper Bellamy. Maddie didn’t for one minute think Cooper’s appearance was an accident, nor that his offer to lug Tyler’s carrier down the concrete ramp to the middle level of the parking garage where Dwight’s car was parked was just a friendly happen-stance.
“Yo, slugger.” Cooper was having his own conversation with the baby he carried. “Next time I come over, I’m gonna show you some more of those yearbook pictures of your mom. There’s one in there from a musical where she’s wearing this tight pink jacket. I tell you, she’s a fine-lookin’ girl. I’ll bet you get all that dark hair from her.”
“Coop!” His appreciative tone compelled her to reprimand him. “My niece doesn’t turn eighteen for another six months. Don’t you have a girlfriend your own age? One who’s legal?”
Cooper’s cheeks turned bright red. “Oh, no, ma’am. Maddie, I mean. A few pictures aren’t gonna give me the hots for Katie. Not that she isn’t hot. But I’m not…” He’d stopped halfway down the ramp and was apologizing with every bit of body English he possessed. “I just think it’s important for Tyler to hear about his mom and see pictures of her so he knows her when they meet again. My dad was a career military man. Mom used to do that for my brothers and me whenever he was deployed.”
“Oh. That’s sweet.” The tension in Maddie eased a fraction. She reached out and squeezed Cooper’s hand at his consideration. “I hadn’t even thought of doing something like that. Thanks.”
“Yeah, sweet is what every man’s goin’ for. I promise you, I can be tough if I need to be.”
Maddie grinned. “All right, tough guy. I believe you.”
She turned to resume their descent and saw that Roberta was already on the middle level, casting darting glances to the left and right along the rows of cars.
“Just watch using terms like tight and hot when you’re talking about my niece, okay? Maybe when she’s twenty-five and you’re thirty-three or so I won’t freak out about it quite so much, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He scrunched his face in apology. “Maddie.”
“You’re parked on the middle level?” Roberta asked the question over her shoulder. Then she turned to survey the catacombs of cars and concrete barriers again. “Which way?”
Maddie frowned. Had Roberta just smoked her way through a whole pack of cigarettes? If she wasn’t on some kind of nicotine high, then what was making the older woman so nervous? “Is something wrong?” Maddie asked. “Did you forget where you parked? Or do you need a lift?”
Roberta hugged her purse to her chest and shifted her distracted glance to Cooper as he paused beside Maddie. “You’ll walk her and Tyler to their car, right? You or the guard?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Maybe it was Roberta’s almost-frantic state of paranoia rubbing off on Maddie, but she was suddenly aware of the subtle nuances of her surroundings. In the late afternoon, with the sun blazing outside and leaking through metal ventilation grates and the rampway arches that led to the surface, the interior of the parking garage was striped with a hazy pattern of artificial light and shadow. But it wasn’t the pockets of cool air or the intermittent squeal of tires from the level below them that warned her to pay attention.
Cooper sensed it, too. “Where’s the guard?”
As he scanned the garage with watchful eyes, Maddie did the same. The guardhouse at the base of the ramp stood empty, with no indication of where the uniformed sentry had gone.
A ripple of unease shivered along her skin beneath the polished cotton of her suit. Maybe Roberta was right to worry. “Dwight said to meet the guard here.”
“Maddie!” The gruff call of Dwight’s voice in the distance jolted through Maddie. Part of her wanted to grab Tyler and run to the source of that voice. But another part of her curled her toes into her low-heeled pumps and held her ground. There was nothing to panic about. Roberta’s nervous energy made her jumpy but not incapable of making her own decisions. And the guard’s disappearance probably had a rational explanation. There was no need to grow any more dependent on the sense of security that Dwight’s strength gave her.
Roberta tucked a spike of her black-and-white hair behind her ear. “Is that Mr. Powers?”
“Sounds like it,” Cooper answered. He pushed Tyler’s carrier into Maddie’s hands, handed her the diaper bag and opened the door to the guard’s shack.
“Maybe we should go back and stay with him,” Roberta suggested, craning her neck to see around a barrier to the floor below them.
“Probably not a bad idea.” Cooper frowned at the empty interior and pulled out his cellphone. “Let me call it in first, then I’ll walk you back up. Could be nothing more than the guard is helping someone with a flat tire.” He dialed a number once, frowned, then dialed it again before shaking his head. “There’s no reception down here. You—” he took Maddie by the shoulder, opened the guardhouse door and ushered her inside “—in here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
She heard the scrape of footsteps on the floor above them.
“Maddie?” Dwight called out again.
“Down here, sir!” Cooper yelled.
Maddie couldn’t tell if Cooper’s wary alarm or her own fear and fatigue made her jump at the slam of a car door nearby.
She breathed deeply to ease the rapid rate of her pulse and reminded herself not to create enemies where none existed; she had plenty of real ones to contend with. “Dwight’s car is right over there.” She pointed to the silver Mercedes with the keys she pulled from her pocke
t. “I’ll lock Tyler and myself inside. Like you said, it’s probably nothing.”
“And if it is something and I leave you alone, the ADA will have my hide.”
The screech of tires careened around a corner below them.
“He’s right,” Roberta added, snatching Tyler’s carrier. “Let’s go back up and wait for Mr. Powers.”
Maddie tugged the carrier back into her hands. “Where are you taking him?”
“Where he’ll be safe.”
“I appreciate all your help, Roberta, but he’s not your concern anymore. I have custody, not the state.”
“Make a decision, ladies,” Cooper urged.
“It’s made,” Maddie insisted. A mewling sound, soft and low like the whine of a wounded animal, echoed through the garage. “Did you hear that?”
“Okay, that’s it. We’re going.” Cooper replaced the phone on his belt and plucked the carrier from both their hands. “Something’s hinky here and until I figure it out—”
“Roberta?” Another man’s voice joined the debate. As he circled the security booth, Maddie could see that he was tall and slender and wore a crumpled suit and loosened tie that indicated a bureaucrat at the end of his workday. “Is that you? What are you doing here?”
“Where did you come from?” Roberta asked in a shaky whisper.
“Tan Cadillac, two rows over.” The fiftyish man laughed at his own answer. The receding points of his peppered hairline shifted back even farther as he caught sight of Tyler and smiled. “Hey there. What a cutie-pie.”
Cooper angled himself between Tyler and the stranger, flashing his badge. “Excuse me, sir. I’m going to have to ask you to continue this conversation later. We were on our way inside.”
The man pushed up his sleeve to check his watch. “It’s awfully late in the day for a court appearance, isn’t it?” Unfazed by Cooper’s brush-off, the man shifted his briefcase to his left hand and extended his right. “Craig Fairfax, officer.”
“It’s Detective. Bellamy.”
