Читать книгу Dead Calm - Lindsay Longford - Страница 11

In a cold, driving rain at two in the morning, they found the baby lying in the manger of the Second Baptist Church, directly across the street from Beth Israel, the only synagogue in the tri-county area.

“What the hell,” Finnegan muttered as rain spat into his eyes and seeped down the neck of his yellow slicker.

“Lord have mercy.” Tyree Jones squatted and reached under the rough wood roof of the manger. His broad dark hand touched the cradle, hesitated. Rain dripped from the edges of the straw spilling over the edges of the cradle. “Shoot, man, it’s a baby, that’s what.”

The spotlight in the shelter shone down on the baby. Chocolate-brown eyes stared back at them.

“I can see it’s a baby, Tyree, an Asian baby, in fact. The punk knifed my shoulder. Not my eyes. What’s a baby doing here?”

“All right, I’ll play.” Tyree’s forefinger brushed against the baby’s cheek. “What?”

“Damn it to hell, Tyree. Get the kid out of there. It’s got to be freezing.” Finnegan rolled his shoulders, easing the ache of the stitches, and stooped down beside Tyree.

“She’s not an it, Judah. She’s an itty-bitty baby girl, that’s what she is.” Tyree said as Finnegan bent over him and scooped her up with one hand, tucking the pink Winnie-the-Pooh sheet around her. “What a pretty girl you are, too, honey,” Tyree cooed. “Now why’d somebody go off and leave you here all by your lonesome, huh?” Tyree poked his face close to the silent baby.

Coming at them sideways now, the rain sliced against Finnegan’s face and drizzled under his slicker. “Go back to the car and get the blanket. She needs to be kept warm—”

“Judah,” Tyree said patiently as he rose to his full six feet three, “I have babies of my own. I know what to do.”

“Yeah, reckon you do, all right.” Holding the baby in a football grip, Finnegan shot him a wicked grin.

“Well, shoot, that too.” Tyree grinned back and loped toward their unit parked on the sidewalk. “Making babies is part of the re-ward, you know?”

“Kids? A reward? I don’t know. All those late nights and early mornings. Diapers and all that—”

“Be the same if I still worked patrol. I’d still have late nights, early mornings. More fun my way,” Tyree called back as he dashed toward their unmarked car.

Finnegan hunched forward, keeping the baby under the manger roof and near the warmth of the spotlight. “Got a story to tell, don’t you?” he said to her before looking off into the shadows at the sides of the church.

Rain glistened against the stained-glass windows. The branches of the huge banyan tree on the right side of the church lifted with the wind. Rain drummed the wide leaves and streamed to the ground. “You sure didn’t walk here by yourself.”

Considering him carefully, the baby’s eyes followed his face.

“Not very talkative? Can’t say I blame you.” Judah looked toward the unit, turning carefully so he wouldn’t slop water from his slicker onto the baby. “Not a fit night for dogs to be out. Much less you.” He looked away from the solemn face. Sheesh. Somebody dumping a baby on a night like this. On any night. What a world. First the undercover Santa lookout earlier in the evening, now this. No wonder a cop’s job was never done.

In the blaze of the car’s dome light, he could see Tyree speaking into the mike, shaking his head.

Huffing back, Tyree pulled the cotton blanket out from under his slicker and tossed it to Finnegan. “Nobody’s reported a lost baby tonight. Nothing but an anonymous call into dispatch saying we should check out the prowlers at the Second Baptist.”

“Prowlers?” Judah looked off into the darkness of the wind-whipped trees and back down at the unprotesting lump in his arms. “Funny kind of call, don’t you think? No prowler left this package.”

“Nope. Probably the mom. Not wanting to leave our little darlin’ completely alone.”

“You’re figuring it was the mom, then?”

“Most likely. Some kind of twisted maternal instinct.”

“Could be. I don’t know.” Judah stared back at Tyree’s face gleaming with rain and shadowy reflections. “Prowler? That’s an odd word choice, isn’t it? I think a mother abandoning her kid would refer to the kid as ‘my baby.’ ‘My child.’ Something, anyway, that would give a heads-up about an infant. But not prowler. It would be interesting to find out who made the call.”

“Going to worry it like a dawg with a bone, aren’t you? I swear, you think too much sometimes, Judah.” Tyree swiped rain out of his eyes. “Anyway, my man, whatever, whoever, our orders are to have li’l missy here checked out at our fine medical facility. Guess we’ll be making another run to your favorite establishment.” He sent Finnegan a sly, sideways look. “Some nights just don’t get any better, do they? This one’s been a world-beater. Got to play Santa, saved a baby, and now you get to revisit your favorite doc.”

“We haven’t been riding together long enough for you to go there, Tyree. Back off.”

White teeth sparkled as the big man gave him a huge grin. “So? I got my opinions. You gonna beat me up because I say what I see, Judah? You with that baby slung under your arm like you’re ready to gallop into some end zone? Huh? You think you can take me?” His grin glinted again as he did a little two-step in the rain, his arms moving in a smooth rhythm. He tapped Judah lightly on the chest, the shoulder. “Bring it on, then.”

“Oh, go to hell, Tyree.” Hunching over and draping his slicker across the baby, Finnegan stomped off toward the car.

“It’s a wonder Yvonna hasn’t whomped you upside the head, you know that?”

“Hey, I’m Yvonna’s sweet-talking man.” He slid under the steering wheel, fired up the engine, and slammed the door.

The baby jerked in Finnegan’s arms. He laid his hand lightly across her forehead. Too warm.

“Sorry ’bout that, baby girl. Didn’t mean to spook you.” The low velvet of Tyree’s words moved through the darkness, easing the sudden tension. Not looking at Judah, Tyree added quietly, “We got to talk about George sometime. You know we do.”

“No. We do not.”

“Fine. Be a jackass. But I’ll still be your partner.”

Finnegan clipped his seat belt in place and settled the still-silent child into his arm. “That can be changed, too, Tyree.”

“Partners share, Judah. That’s all I’m saying. We’ve partnered for four months now. And you don’t share. Ever. Hard enough being a black cop in this town without wondering if my partner’s gonna be at my back.”

For a long moment there was only the hiss of the heavy tires and the sound of the rain beating against the windows. Finnegan ran the back of his forefinger over the baby’s cheek and stared out at the neon lights sliding past in the darkness. The slap-slap of the windshield wipers punctuated the silence.

He sighed. “I’ve got your back, Tyree.”

“Okay, then.” Tyree let out a sigh of his own. “Didn’t mean to push so hard.”

“Yeah, you did.” Finnegan scooched down farther into his seat, adjusting the quiet infant against him. “You realize you’re plumb irritatin’, don’t you?”

“Hell, yes.” Tyree’s smile was quick and open. “Part of my charm.”

“Whoever said that was a damned fool.”

“Hey, man, don’t you go insulting my Yvonna, hear?” They slid to a stop under the protected entrance of Poinciana’s ER. Water spurted onto the side windows. “Not if you want any more of her potato salad.”

“Well, there you go then. Obviously Yvonna, a woman of brilliance and charm of her own, has adopted you as her very own charity case, Tyree. That’s the only explanation.” Yanking the hood of his slicker up with one hand, Finnegan hoisted the blanket over the baby, tucked her under his rain gear and slid out of the car. As he did, he added, “But in spite of her unfortunate taste in husbands, I sure do admire that woman’s potato salad.”

At his sudden movements, the baby waved its tiny fist under the blanket, gave a burp of movement and then lay still again as Judah shouldered his way through the ER doors.

He saw her, of course.

It had been that kind of night from the start. One screw-up after another. Why should he expect anything else at the end of a lousy day?

A flicker of movement caught his gaze, nothing more than her arm rising to her forehead, but he slowed. He wanted to look away, felt the urge so strongly that he almost believed for a second that he was walking toward the desk and the crowd of people in front of it.

But something about her gesture checked him, rooting him to the floor.

Unable to look away from the figure at the end of the hall, he watched her.

And resented her because he couldn’t look away. Resented the power she had to compel his attention.

Resented her most of all because he didn’t want to look away.

They were standing close together, Sophie and another doctor, the man stooping down to her. Her head was bowed. She’d jammed her hands into her pockets. From time to time she nodded as the man jabbed his finger in the air. With each nod, her dark hair bounced, swung forward, hid her expression.

It was the slump in her shoulders that held Finnegan’s attention.

Exhaustion.

Defeat.

He understood defeat, its nasty-ass gut-punch. That’s what his eyes read in the sag of her shoulders, in the brace of her sneaker against the wall behind her.

He just hadn’t figured cocksure, bold-as-brass Sophie Brennan for someone who’d ever look this defeated.

This diminished.

All the sparking, combative energy had drained away, leaving her small and helpless, the bells on her goofy socks silent.

Suddenly, as if he’d whispered in her ear, Sophie’s head jerked upright. She looked straight at him for a long moment.

Judah held her gaze, willing her to blink.

She didn’t.

The infinitesimal lift of her chin was the only sign that she saw him.

No, he thought. Not helpless at all. Not Sophie.

“Hola, tall, dark and battered. Back so soon? It’s only been three hours. Got something else you want sutured?”

“No thanks. And it’s been four hours.” He glared down at the woman tapping him impatiently on the arm. The picture ID clipped to the pocket of her blue scrubs gave him her name. Cammie Esposito. The same short, round-faced nurse who’d rushed Sophie out of the examining room earlier.

“What in the world do you have there? Not somebody’s pet poodle, I hope? We don’t do pets. Even for good-looking hombres like you, amigo.”

He pushed his parcel toward her. Once more a miniature fist pushed free of the blanket and banged his hand, a soft graze of skin against skin.

She lifted the edge of the blanket. “Oh, my.” All teasing gone, She took the baby from him and turned abruptly toward Sophie and the man still with her. “Dr. Brennan, you’ll want to see this.”

Sophie’s clear voice rode lightly over the relative quiet of the ER. “Sure, Cammie. Be right there. What’s the problem?”

“A baby.”

“A baby?”

He watched as Sophie pushed off from the wall, watched as she straightened her shoulders, and he recognized the effort. Like the last embers flaring in a gust of wind before dying out, she suddenly glowed. Even her hair gleamed now with that touch of firelight he’d noticed before sparking in the dark curls.

Her hands were still jammed in her pockets, though.

He noticed that, too, and wondered about that bit of body language and what it might mean.

Details.

His preacher daddy had been a humorless man with meanness bred bone deep. All his passion had been spent in an adoration of God that left no room for love of humankind. But he’d said one good thing to Judah. Judah didn’t believe in anything else his daddy had said, but he’d never forgotten the old man’s beautiful voice, sonorous, one of those hypnotic magic voices that could fill the pews of their small church, pronouncing, “God is in the details, Judah,” he pronounced. “Don’t you be forgetting that. You pay attention, hear?”

Then the preacher man had slapped him twice, once on each side of his face. Hard enough to leave a bruise. “Hear me?”

Judah heard.

And he’d remembered.

In his experience he’d concluded it was more likely the devil he discovered in the details. Still, he’d found that bit of instruction to be one of the few useful bits of his father’s legacy.

If Tyree knew it was Judah’s pa who’d taught him the basic rule of being a detective, Jonas suspected Tyree would hoot about that, too.

George had known.

With a quick tap on his arm, the nurse interrupted the melancholy flow of his memories. “What a doll. Girl?”

He nodded.

“Oye, muy bonita. Pobrecita. What’s the story?”

“It’s…she’s…” he corrected himself, “she’s been outside a while. Don’t know how long, though.” He rubbed his hands along the side of his slicker and water sluiced off, dripping to the floor and splashing against his jeans. “It’s a rough night. Don’t know anything about babies, but she seems okay. A bit warm, maybe. Quiet.”

“Sí, this baby’s come to the right place.”

Judah shifted as Sophie reached him.

“Detective.” Her expression dismissed him.

The hairs along his arms rose lightly as her scent reached him. “Doctor,” he replied politely.

Her gray-blue eyes glittered momentarily, then flickered to the bundle. “What brings you back this evening?” Her tone was cool and crisp.

“Morning, actually,” he said, matching her coolness.

“So it is. Do you need our attention again? Or have you managed to keep yourself out of harm’s way for a few hours?”

“I’m not your patient this time.” He pointed to the nurse’s blanket.

Sophie leaned toward the bundle, peered inside the blanket, and that scent that wasn’t perfume, wasn’t exactly soap, wasn’t anything except her filled his nostrils.

Funny, he thought, amused by his body’s awareness of her. An awareness he didn’t want, but there it was. That old devil sex could rear up and trip a man when he least wanted it.

Or expected it.

He’d thought this past year had made him immune to the very particular appeal of Dr. Brennan.

On edge, he gestured toward the baby. “Well. She’s all yours. I’m out of here.”

Sophie’s warm hands brushed against him as she lifted the baby out of the nurse’s arms and cradled her. Sophie’s face went soft, as soft as the curves of her breasts where the baby lay, and he thought he saw sadness in her eyes as she touched the baby gently and said, “Ah, you’re a little love, aren’t you? Let’s go see how you’re doing, sweetie-pie.” Her hands moved lightly over the baby, automatically evaluating, examining.

Finnegan turned around, ready to make tracks for the outside as fast as his size elevens would take him.

“Not so fast this time, Finnegan. We need some information first.”

Damn. “Whatever you say, doctor.” He gritted his teeth and swung back to her.

“What can you tell me about this baby?”

“Diddly squat. We found her at the Second Baptist Church, in the manger, under its roof. Nobody else was there. She doesn’t look abused, she doesn’t look like a newborn, but of course I’m not the doctor—” he let the word take a bit of ice “—and that’s all the information I have.”

Sophie’s gaze flickered from the baby to the nurse. “You know what I’m thinking?”

“Makes sense,” the nurse responded as she stared at the baby and then down the hall. “Might explain what the woman kept crying out, I guess.”

“Awful big coincidence otherwise.”

“Still, it could be coincidence. It’s not as though she’s the first Asian patient here in Poinciana.”

“And not the first beating victim, either. We’re getting a lot of them lately.” Anger rippled over her face. “And not just our Asian population. Boy, this is lousy. What in heaven’s name is happening to Poinciana?” Her eyes were huge, dominating the soft roundness of her face.

Judah shook his head, fighting for clarity. He was finally free of the baby, but something she’d said had struck him as important. He shook his head again. Got it. “Coincidence? What coincidence?”

Sophie’s mouth tightened as she glanced from the baby to him. “A patient we had earlier.”

He forced his brain to focus. “A patient?”

“A woman. Beaten.”

“What happened?”

“She died.”

“I see.” He scratched the bristles on his chin. “You think this is her baby?”

“I don’t know, Finnegan.” Her sigh echoed his own fatigue. Her gaze returned to the baby. “It’s all such craziness.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that score.”

“Really? How remarkable.” Her quick glance mocked him. Taking the warmed blanket from the nurse, she passed him the one in which he and Tyree had cocooned the baby.

“This little girl looks all right. We’ll give her a thorough work-up and then—” She frowned. “Children and Families will take over. You know how the system works. It’s the way it is.”

“Yeah. I reckon.” Every inch of his skin twitched with the need to go home, collapse on his bed and sleep for a day. Or a week. How many hours had he been on duty? When was the last time he’d slept? Last night? The day before?

Every cell in his battered body craved relief from the fizzing running through him when he was around Sophie. He didn’t know which he wanted more—sleep, or just a release from the tension she created in him.

Every instinct he owned urged him toward her.

It had been like that from the first moment he’d seen her, jogging down Palmetto Avenue, her hair clumped together by a green clip on top of her head, beads of sweat pooling in the small triangle at the bottom of her throat. Beneath fire-engine-red frayed shorts, her thighs and calf muscles pumped and thrust.

And heat had licked through him like a flash fire.

He hadn’t even thought about what he was doing. He’d simply nudged the squad car over to the curb, letting it roll forward with her for a few minutes until she finally glanced his way.

She’d sent him a smart-alecky grin, saluted with a quick hand to her forehead, and shot off, her legs like slim pistons flickering in the late August heat as she disappeared into the path that curved along Poinciana River.

That was how it had started.

Dangerous, being this tired and this pissed off. Remembering. Remembering never led anywhere good.

A faint stirring of adrenaline roughened his voice. “Do I have permission to leave now, Doctor?”

Even as he spoke, she was already walking away toward one of the examining rooms, her head bent to the baby.

The nurse, Cammie, he made himself remember, sent him a quick smile and a thumbs-up.

And once more he found himself treated to the fine sight of Sophie Brennan’s butt, its curves shaping the jacket to her, the jacket moving with each hip sway. He swallowed. His mouth was dust-dry, the night’s fatigue vanished momentarily in a rush of blood.

“Look, but don’t touch, right?” Tyree’s smooth amusement snapped his head around. “Caught you, didn’t I?”

“What?”

“My, my, aren’t we grouchy? Guess doing without will make a man…irritable.”

“I was thinking, Tyree.”

“Sure you were, Judah. And I’ll bet you a nice, green hundred-dollar bill I know exactly what you were thinking.” His grin widened, crinkling his whole face. “Looks like it wasn’t the first time, too.”

Judah scowled at him. “Button it, Tyree.”

“Can’t blame you. The doc sure is one fine-looking woman.” He laughed. “But don’t tell Yvonna I said that, or I won’t be getting so much as a sweet kiss for a month.”

“Serve you right.”

“Nah, you don’t know Yvonna. She can be one tough lady when she puts her mind to it. She can make my life real…interesting when she wants to.”

“Yeah?” Judah listened with one ear, his attention still on Sophie.

“Anyway, c’mon. Another call came in while you were in here.”

“Right.” Judah’s gaze stayed on Sophie as she hovered over the baby, her every movement visible through the still-open curtain.

He couldn’t get over her—foggy-headed, he couldn’t find the word he wanted. Protectiveness. Yeah. He rubbed his head again. That was the word. She seemed so protective of the tiny scrap of life he’d brought to her.

Not cold at all.

Not at all the way she’d been with George.

And none of the prickliness she showed him.

One more puzzle piece.

But he couldn’t make sense of any of it until he’d had a couple of hours of sleep.

“Hey, Judah. Heads up. We’re needed over on 15th and Oak.” Tyree tugged at him, and with one last glance, Judah left, the glass doors snicking shut behind him.

“Detective Hunkster has left the house.” Cammie poked Sophie in the ribs.

“What?” Sophie lifted her stethoscope and patted the baby, her palm lingering and warming the tiny chest.

Cammie pointed to the exit. “The detective with the hormones and the ’tude.”

“Oh.” Lifting the baby, Sophie curled her over one shoulder, close to her neck. She looked toward the exit. The baby mewed softly and nuzzled closer. “What a sweetheart you are.” Reflexively she cupped the baby’s bottom, swaying slowly from side to side, rocking the infant.

She could barely make out the faces of Finnegan and his partner. A gust of wind puffed out Finnegan’s yellow slicker. Rain striped down his faded jeans, and he yanked the slicker closer to him, rolled his shoulder and vanished into the darkness.

His shoulder had to be hurting him. Anybody with any sense would have stayed and taken the pain scripts. But the stubborn idiot had chosen to assert himself and leave her ER instead of doing the sensible thing.

For all she cared, he could fall down in a heap if that’s what he wanted.

Absently she crooned to the warm baby.

Still, Judah had looked like the burnt end of a match when she’d walked up to him and Cammie. Stubble shadowed his cheeks, and black circles pouched the skin under his eyes. He’d looked like a hundred miles of bad road, as she’d heard one of the local doctors say.

Faded jeans, a look of weary dissipation, and that attitude. Attitude to burn.

But sexy.

It was in the eyes, she decided. He had that look about him that women talked about in hushed tones. The kind of man who would be hell on wheels in bed. The kind of man who could leave a woman smiling in the morning. Oh, no question. She knew exactly what Cammie meant about hormones. Judah Finnegan fairly reeked of pheromones and sex.

Dirty, lowdown, wonderful sex.

She’d felt the flutter of her pulse every time she’d thought of him during this past year.

He was exactly the wrong kind of man for a woman like her.

Even without their history.

Sergeant George Roberts might be dead, but even a year later his presence was a powerful ghost.

The night Roberts had killed himself he’d also killed the tenuous something building between her and Detective Finnegan.

Maybe if they’d had more time together first…

Maybe if they’d slept together…

No, she didn’t think so.

If they’d slept together? Impossible.

She’d known from the beginning that Judah was a man who kept his emotions under tight control. That had been part of the attraction. He was so different from her that it was tempting to see what it would take to make him lose that reserve. A buzz-cut, reined-in kind of guy, he wasn’t a man easily given to showing his emotions. Or handing out forgiveness.

Except with Roberts.

Cammie tapped her arm. “Want me to call the Department of Children and Family Services?”

“Yes, please.” Sophie looked away from the empty glass doors. “Until we find out where our little angel belongs, that’s our only choice. I hope the woman who died wasn’t her mother. I hope that somewhere out there is someone who’s looking for this beautiful baby.” Near her breast the tiny mouth moved damply, tugging at something deep inside her. “This little girl doesn’t deserve to be thrown into the system. Be passed around from foster home to foster home.” Sophie found her arms curling possessively around the infant. “She needs parents, Cammie. A mother.”

“All the babies do. It’s not our decision, though.” Cammie looked away. “If her parents or relatives can’t be located…you know how it is, Dr. Brennan. Like you told your cop. That’s where she’ll wind up.”

“I do. It’s a hard world sometimes, Cammie.”

“It is. Nothing we can do about it. It is what it is.”

Sophie shifted the baby to her other shoulder, settling her in snugly. “How long have you worked at Poinciana? Have things changed so much?”

Cammie shrugged.

“Because in the two years I’ve been here, it seems as though we’re seeing a lot more gunshots and beatings. Abused babies and kids. Or is it my imagination? I haven’t checked the hospital statistics.” Sophie tried to smile past the ache in her heart. “I know what you said earlier, but tell me it’s my imagination and the result of too many long hours, Cammie. Please. I need to believe that.”

“Poinciana’s a good town. People are good here. Most of them are. But, sí, things have changed. There’s a different feel to the town these days. All this graffiti springing up everywhere, overnight, it seems. Kids hijacking the Santa kettles. And these fires at places of worship, for heaven’s sake. Sometimes, I am afraid. It doesn’t feel like my town anymore. Not the Poinciana I knew.”

From the corner of her eye Sophie glimpsed stringy hair. She turned, snuggling the baby closer. “What is it, Billy Ray?”

“I wanted to see the baby. They said the baby was here.” He edged around the curtain into the examining room. “Is the baby all right?”

“Yes.”

His face scrunched up in something that she thought might be relief. “Okay, then. I was wondering, that’s all. What’s going to happen to her?”

“She’ll stay here for a day or two for observation. We’ll see if anyone can identify her.” Even saying the words felt so wrong to Sophie that she stumbled over them. “If she’s healthy and we haven’t found her family, then Social Services will come and take her to an out-placement home.”

Billy Ray twisted a strand of his hair. “That’s okay. I guess. She’s safe, isn’t she?”

“Sure she is.” Sophie held up the baby girl so Billy Ray could see her.

Sleepy brown eyes peered over the edge of the light blanket as Billy Ray leaned farther into the room. He chewed his lip. “She looks okay then. Okay. I gotta go finish my shift.”

And as abruptly as he’d appeared, he vanished.

Sophie watched him lurch away. “Did Billy Ray seem more Billy Rayish than usual? Or is that my imagination, too?”

Cammie laughed and reached for the baby. “He’s been Billy Rayish all night long. There’s a full moon. I’ll take the baby up to pediatrics and then alert Social Services. I see Dr. Bornes is finally here. You can head for home now, can’t you?”

An inexplicable reluctance kept Sophie’s arms around the fragile bundle. She stared down at the silky eyebrows and wide-open eyes watching her. “Oh, you decided to wake up and join the party, did you, sweetheart?”

From the safety of her blanket, Baby Doe reached up and caught a curl of Sophie’s hair and gripped for all she was worth, holding on as if she’d never let go, holding on as if she had understood every word Sophie and Cammie said.

Holding on to Sophie as if she were a lifeline.

“Cammie, I’ll take her up to Peds. And hold off on the call to Children and Families, okay?” she said abruptly and headed out the door.

With every step Sophie took down the long hall, she felt that tiny grip grow more powerful.

Felt those tiny fingers close around her heart.