Tina made it to the welcome desk first and asked to see Mrs. Morgan.
The receptionist shook her head. “I’m sorry. We don’t have a Mrs. Morgan here. There’s a Mr. Morgenstern.”
West pushed himself into the small space beside Tina. “Hello. I’m Cade County Sheriff West Garrett. We’d like to talk to Ms. Baxter.”
Her wide brown eyes opened impossibly farther. “She’s in suite three twelve.”
“Thank you.” West led the way to the room, taking long, purposeful strides and noting the exits. “Here it is.”
“How did you know she had a different last name?” Tina asked.
West smiled. “Late-night reading.”
The warm, buttery scent of fresh baked rolls clung to the air outside her door. A sign for the cafeteria pointed to the end of the hall. According to West’s watch, and his gut, the time was nearing noon, and he’d already missed breakfast. West ignored the pang of hunger and knocked on the door. “Ms. Baxter?”
A woman in a hot-pink sweat suit answered. Long gray hair hung to her narrow waist and slippers covered her feet. “Who are you?”
“I’m West Garrett, ma’am, and this is Tina Ellet. We’re friends of your son.”
She opened the door, then headed for a small couch pushed against the wall and picked up her remote control. The room was decorated like a tiny dorm room. Bed. Mini fridge. Love seat and television. Small, homey items lined the walls and every flat surface. She poked the remote into the air like a sword, at a television mounted high on the opposite wall. “Carl doesn’t have any friends. You’re here like the others this morning, hoping I’ll turn him in.”
West worked his jaw. This trip suddenly felt like another dead end. A frustrating one. “We have reason to believe Carl shot a man in cold blood yesterday, then kidnapped an infant.” The civility in his tone was failing.
She stopped channel surfing and flicked her gaze quickly to him. The Amber Alert for Lily lodged firmly in the corner of the television. Carl’s face was posted side by side with one of a baby wearing a pink quilted jacket.
Ms. Baxter powered the television off.
Tina froze near the coffee table, where a mass of wildflowers erupted from a stout vase. “Did Carl give you these?”
Ms. Baxter rolled her eyes. “Yeah. He comes here all the time, trying to make up for all the trouble he caused me growing up.”
“Growing up in Pine Hurst?” Tina asked.
The woman shot her a sour face. “I don’t have to answer your questions. You think Carl did those things, then you figure it out. Leave me out of it.”
Tina moved cautiously toward the love seat. “Carl brings me flowers like this, too.”
West locked his jaw against a number of rude clarifications. He pretended, instead, to examine a collection of photos taped to the closet door. Blake told him this was a dead end.
“So, you’re the girlfriend?” Ms. Baxter laughed. The raspy sound turned quickly into a deep and uncontrollable cough that took more than a minute to quiet and another to recover from. She lifted a glass of water from the table to her lips; a tremor wobbled the liquid inside her glass. Eventually, she turned her ashen face back to Tina. “He wasn’t lying. You are pretty. He says you’re a doctor.”
“I’m a clinical psychologist,” Tina corrected.
Ms. Baxter made a deep throaty noise that led to another, less aggressive, round of coughing. “Figures. I told him no doctor would want him.”
“Why not?”
The woman crinkled her nose in distaste. “Why not? Have you met him? He practically flunked out of high school. Was rejected for the military. Makes no money. He barely talks, and when he does it’s with a st-t-t-tutter,” she mocked. “He was always a mama’s boy.”
“How so?” West asked, unable to stay out of it any longer.
“He stayed inside all the time, clinging to my hip. Worrying about me. Fussing over me. ‘You drink too much. Don’t smoke. That man’s not nice to you.’” She mimicked her son in a whiny childlike voice. “He didn’t like fighting or hunting or sports or getting dirty. All I had to do was yell a little and he’d run off. Anytime I hit him, he’d hide under the bed like a damn injured dog. Don’t think I didn’t try to make a man of him. I had plenty of boyfriends who tried to toughen him up, but it never took. Even dated a cop once.” She gave West a pointed look. “Didn’t matter. Carl just curled into a sad little ball and did nothing with his life. He spent more time with those wildflowers than he ever did with any woman.”
“Carl needs help,” Tina whispered, “and so does my baby.”
Ms. Baxter looked her over. “He only likes you because you bought him coffee. Just like that little girl with the lemonade stand. Any woman so much as looks his way and he’s falling over himself to love her. Ridiculous. If women wanted pets, they’d buy a dog.”
“What happened to the little girl with the lemonade stand?” West asked, suddenly worried that Carl had a lifetime of missing women in his wake.
Ms. Baxter scoffed. “She broke his heart. What do you think happened to her? Then I poured that lemonade over his head and told him to be a man! No woman was ever going to love a weak, clingy cupcake like him.”
This was getting them nowhere. West hated to admit it, but that was exactly what Blake said had happened to his men when they visited her earlier. He’d failed to mention, however, that she was a mean, spiteful old woman. He couldn’t imagine being raised by someone so hurtful and vindictive. No wonder Carl was warped. Whatever was wrong with him may or may not have been there from the day he was born, but living with Ms. Baxter certainly couldn’t have helped matters. He widened his stance and set a hand on Tina’s shoulder, hoping to offer her a bit of his strength when hers was clearly wearing thin. “This kid sounds like a real thorn in your side. Why not tell us what you know so we can punish him for what he’s done?”
Her eyes flashed hot. “Because he’s mine and you can’t have him.”
Well, that solidified it. She was as insane as her son. “Any idea where he’d go with a baby? He told a neighbor he was taking her home.”
She shrugged, attention glued to West’s hand on Tina. “Like I said. You’re the detective. You figure it out.”
“Ms. Baxter, if you know where he is and intentionally withhold that information, you can be charged with aiding and abetting.”
She stuck her wrists out. “What are you gonna do? Haul me in for protecting my son? Take me from this prison and lock me in another one?” Her voice grew louder with each word, and she began to cough. “If he took that baby, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
A nurse poked her head through the open door. “Everything okay in here, Ms. Baxter?”
“No,” the old woman choked out between coughs. “These two are pissing me off.”
The nurse looked to West. “Sir,” she started.
West waved a hand. “We’re leaving, but we’ll be back, so make sure Ms. Baxter doesn’t go anywhere.” He wrapped a protective arm around Tina and guided her back through the building, the woman’s cough echoing down the hall behind them.
* * *
TINA FELL ONTO West’s couch. Thankful to be somewhere she could lie down, and equally guilty for wanting to rest at a time like this. What was wrong with her to think of such a thing when her daughter was missing? Was Lily able to sleep? Was she cold? Hungry?
Tina forced her eyes wider and gave her cheeks a few sharp pats.
West’s stomach growled loudly for the tenth time since they’d arrived at the assisted living facility. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “Because I need to eat something before we have to take off again.”
“I think toast or crackers is all I can manage,” she said.
West opened a cupboard, then tossed a sleeve of saltines across the room to her. “Anything else?”
She snorted. “Water or c
offee. Probably coffee.” Her body felt fifty pounds too heavy. Even keeping her head upright had become a chore on the ride back to West’s home. She situated herself on the couch so that she could watch West in the kitchen. It was hard to fit the man before her into the context of high school sweetheart. The angles of his face were sharper, his voice a little deeper and his heart was still as big as ever, but he wasn’t a kid anymore. Odd to think that while she was away becoming an adult, he’d been doing the same and she’d missed it.
He busily unloaded the contents of his fridge onto the counter and arranged it all in layers on a hoagie bun until he had the equivalent of a Scooby-sized sandwich. “What’d you think of sweet little Ms. Baxter?” he asked, sarcasm dripping from the words.
Tina peeled the cracker sleeve open and pursed her lips. She’d been plagued by a terrible thought since meeting the angry woman who showed no love or concern for her son. “I think Carl wants me to replace her.”
West froze. A horrified look screwed over his face. “He wants you to be his mother?”
“No, but I think he wished someone had been.” She took her time trying to find the right words for what she thought was happening. The visit with Carl’s mother was extremely disturbing. And eye-opening. “I think he wants a woman in his life to be the mother he never had. I don’t think he wants me to be his mother, as much as he wants me to be a mother who belongs to him. She said this all goes back to the coffee I bought him, and the little girl who’d done something similar when he was younger. When I gave him the coffee, he attached himself to the kindness of a woman. As awful as his mother is to him, they were new here over a year ago, and their already broken dynamic was changing. She’s sick. If he’s going to lose her, he’d better be prepared. Then, he watched me go through a pregnancy and care for a newborn. The kind of woman he wished his mother had been literally become a mother.”
“He wants a normal family,” West said, wiping a dollop of mustard from the corner of his lip.
“I think so. Unfortunately, that’s not in the cards for everyone.” Herself included. “It scares me because he’s hobbling a family together, thinking it’s all going to be glorious, but this situation can’t possibly live up to his expectations, and he’ll be angry all over again. The failure of his efforts will exacerbate his feelings of inadequacy, and he’ll need to be rid of us, so he can try again.”
West watched her for several long beats. “He doesn’t have you.”
Tina stared at the cracker pinched between her fingertips. “No, but he has Lily, and that’s the same thing.”
“It’s not the same to him. You’re the endgame here.”
Tina set the crackers aside and scooted forward on the couch cushion. She curled her fingers around the edge and refocused her attention on West. It was time to share her crazy idea with him. “We need to find him so I can go with him. Then I can be sure Lily’s okay and try to get her away from him.”
“First of all, no,” West said. “Absolutely not. And second of all, we will find him. After that, we’ll take him down. We will not turn you over.”
Tina bit her tongue. If West could arrest Carl without Lily being harmed in the process, fine. But if things went south, and she saw an opportunity to save her baby, that’s exactly what she’d do. Regardless of the risk. Protecting Lily was all that mattered.
Chapter Thirteen
Tina hovered over her third cup of coffee and waited for West’s phone to ring. He’d insisted on working from his laptop, instead of hitting the road again, and they’d already been sitting still for more than an hour. If it was up to Tina, she’d knock on every door in Cade County until someone recognized Carl’s picture.
She’d already tried and failed to rest, despite the glaring physical effects of sleep deprivation. Images of Lily’s sweet face flashed repeatedly into her mind, only to morph quickly into red-faced cries of desperation. Tina’s nerves were shot, and every precious memory of her baby was slowly becoming twisted in her absence. Was Lily hurt? Was she cold? Sick? Scared? Was she hungry? Was she being changed and fed? Did he have formula for her? Did he know how many ounces to feed her?
Tina ground the heels of her hands against her sore and puffy eyes. She tipped her head from side to side, stretching the bunched-up muscles of her neck and shoulders. Her limbs were heavy and slow to respond when she wanted to move. Worst of all, the ceaseless worry had sent her on a downward spiral of emotional states. Most recently, she’d passed from heart-wrenching desperation into complete detachment. West was kind enough to pretend not to notice. One minute she was in mental hell, and the next minute there was a void where all her internal suffering had been. The seemingly endless tears and tormented thoughts had simply vanished. Her mind was blank. Her emotional capacity stunted. When she tried to think of the horrible things she’d been dwelling on, her mind simply rejected them. The whole thing was unsettling, but she couldn’t seem to change it.
She set the empty mug aside and forced herself upright. “Care if I use your shower while you do whatever it is you’re doing?”
West pulled his eyes from the laptop screen. “I’m reviewing reports taken by my men and Blake’s. Hoping something will stand out.” He curled his mouth into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Go ahead. Take your time. If I find anything useful while you’re in there, I’ll come knocking.”
“Thanks.” Tina headed for West’s room, where she’d left her overnight bag, trying not to think of some more pleasant reasons he might interrupt her shower.
The scalding water did nothing to snap her out of her stupor. She slid to the shower floor and drew her knees to her chest, letting the water flow over her, wishing for her sense of self to return. This was the perfect time for a breakdown. She had privacy and white noise to drown the cries, hot water to mask the tears and explain the flush of her skin. Unfortunately, her tears seemed to have dried up with her emotions. The detachment she felt was textbook self-protection, but she hated it. She’d met dozens of people in therapy who spent all their energy trying not to feel, but that wasn’t who she was. Tina normally felt everything. For everyone. Her heart ached for strangers’ losses and rejoiced with their victories. Neighbors. Friends. People on television shows and commercials. Tina lived with enough emotion to power the universe, and she’d never seen it as a burden. It meant she was human.
She gave up on the shower and toweled off. She powered up her travel blow-dryer and wiped a hole in the steam on West’s bathroom mirror. So far, he hadn’t knocked. Which meant there was no news on Lily or the monster who’d stolen her. She’d give anything to know where they were right now, and how she could get to them, but Carl had never said much about his present circumstances. When he had opted to talk in therapy, which wasn’t often, he’d focused on stories from his childhood. Instances that had hurt or angered him. He’d vaguely discussed his mother’s insensitivity and the harshness of her boyfriends without saying anything substantial. He’d nodded along as others group members recalled being beaten or locked in rooms, humiliated and taunted, but Carl had never given any indication of where he might go under duress.
Re-dressed in yoga pants and a fitted, long-sleeve top, she tied her hair into a messy bun and went back to sit on the couch, where she would presumably stay until something motivated West to leave.
He gave a double take when she walked in, blinking sharp blue eyes before turning back to his computer and setting it aside. “Feel any better?”
“Cleaner.”
“Refreshed?”
“Sure.” She pulled her feet up on the couch and reopened the cracker sleeve. Might as well get a little something in her stomach while she wasn’t too nauseated to eat.
He narrowed his eyes. “Anything I can do for you?”
“Actually.” She squared her shoulders and dusted crumbs from her palms.
West swiveled to face her fully, curiosity clinging to his handso
me features. “What?”
“I’m not one to talk about my personal baggage,” she began.
West made a sarcastic expression. “That is brand-new information.”
She rolled her eyes. She also wasn’t one to feel detached from herself, but that was exactly what was happening. Being with West helped. She had never spent a second with him and not felt something. Her chest was already beginning to swell and tingle. She was coming back to herself just by speaking to him. “What you don’t know is that I don’t talk about those things because I can never find the right words. The stuff that has weighed me down since we first met was so much bigger and more complicated than I could describe that I kept it inside. I pushed it down.” Tina paused. This wasn’t an easy conversation, and maybe the timing was awful, but at least she was beginning to feel again, and if she wasn’t numb, then maybe she’d be okay. “I pretended my home life didn’t affect me, but it did. It was unbearable, so I looked for ways to enjoy the other parts of my life. I tried to pretend the rest wasn’t real. I should have told you a long time ago. I’m sorry I didn’t, but I’d like to tell you now.”
Her words seemed to pull the humor from West’s face. He fixed her with those soulful eyes and waited.
She’d mentally rehearsed this conversation for years. So, why now, when the opportunity was before her, did she want to run away? She worked the fabric of her shirt’s hem between her fingers. “My dad was horrible. To me. To Mom. To everyone. He was abusive verbally, emotionally, physically.” She peeked up at him for a response.
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