Apb: Baby
Apb: Baby
Julie Miller
After a near-fatal shootout at his sister’s wedding, third-generation lawman Niall Watson comes home to a baby in distress. The abandoned newborn in his neighbor’s apartment sends the Kansas City PD criminologist into rescue mode once again.Social worker Lucy McKane will do whatever it takes to protect the infant boy entrusted to her care. The tall, sexy ME next door may be clueless about her feelings for him, but Niall’s the only one who can keep them safe. As a vengeful killer targets them, desire draws Lucy and Niall dangerously closer. Together, can they find justice and safeguard their newly created family?
“So we agree to work as a team. For Tommy’s sake.”
“For Tommy’s sake.” Lucy took a step closer, and Niall inhaled the scents of baby powder and something slightly more exotic that didn’t have anything to do with the infant she was pushing into his arms.
“Since I’ve convinced you that we’re on the same side now, would you feel comfortable watching him for about ten minutes? That’s all the time I’ll need to freshen up and change so we’re ready to go.”
Her fingers caught for a moment between Tommy and the placket of Niall’s shirt, and even through the pressed cotton, his stomach muscles clenched at the imprint of her knuckles brushing against his skin. But she pulled away to drape a burp rag over his shoulder, apparently unaware of his physiological reactions to her touch and scent.
APB: Baby
Julie Miller
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JULIE MILLER is an award-winning USA TODAY bestselling author of breathtaking romantic suspense—with a National Readers’ Choice Award and a Daphne du Maurier Award, among other prizes. She has also earned an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. For a complete list of her books, monthly newsletter and more, go to www.juliemiller.org (http://www.juliemiller.org).
For my husband, Scott E. Miller.
I’m so proud of you for writing your stories and getting them published.
(Welcome to the joys and headaches of being an author.)
Contents
Cover (#u1c0b71f9-1485-5e64-a79f-f86b03b1a81f)
Introduction (#u7d7054de-2796-56d3-a55b-d5c5bdd351ee)
Title Page (#ubea7eacb-70a7-5dfd-b4bf-533223b1051f)
About the Author (#uccf0960a-2eb9-5039-be7c-f84d550be1d5)
Dedication (#ue52d64ba-19ea-5e74-82bf-0a59955fb65b)
Prologue (#ua952ab7f-9050-5cf0-a069-61cf99951c22)
Chapter One (#u076fd94e-bcfa-5e40-be07-1b9905731c95)
Chapter Two (#u71b19431-d447-5cf2-9bcb-669a617d93e2)
Chapter Three (#u505c180e-5186-5127-8b94-ca4c33957e7a)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ulink_2284024a-a093-54fb-abab-12acbca9b241)
Dr. Niall Watson would rather be at the crime lab conducting an autopsy instead of standing at the altar, babysitting his brothers.
But saying no to his baby sister on the day of her wedding wasn’t an option. Putting on the groomsman’s suit and facing the crowd of smiles and tears that filled the church was as much a gift to Olivia and her fiancé as the sterling silver tableware he’d bought at the online department store where they’d registered. If Olivia, the youngest of the four Watson siblings, and the only sister, asked him to keep older brother Duff and younger brother Keir in line today, then Niall would do it. It was a brilliant strategy on her part, he silently admitted. Not only would their rowdier brothers be kept in check, but asking the favor of him was sure to keep Niall engaged in the ceremony. It was smart to give him a specific task to focus on so his mind didn’t wander back to the dead body he’d analyzed yesterday morning at the lab in southeast Kansas City, and the follow-up notes he wanted to log in, or to the facts on a drowning victim he wanted to double-check before turning his findings over to the detectives supervising those particular cases.
As a third-generation cop in a close-knit family of law enforcement professionals, it was practically impossible not to be filled with investigative curiosity, or to have dedication and responsibility running through his veins. When it came to work and family, at any rate. And for Niall, there was nothing else. Work filled his life, and the Watson family filled his heart.
Except when they were screwing around—like Duff beside him, running his finger beneath the starched collar of his white shirt and grumbling something about Valentine’s Day curses while he fiddled with the knot on his cherry-red tie. Or Keir, chattering up the aisle behind Niall, saying something outrageous enough to the bridesmaid he was escorting to make her giggle. Then Keir patted her hand on his arm and turned to wink at Millie, the family housekeeper-cook they’d all grown up with, as he passed the silver-haired woman in the second pew. The older woman blushed, and Keir blew her a kiss.
Niall adjusted the dark frames of his glasses and nailed Keir with a look warning him to let go of the bridesmaid, stop working the room and assume his place beside him as one of Gabe’s groomsmen, already.
“Natalie is married to Liv’s partner, you know.” The tallest of the three brothers, Niall dropped his chin to whisper under his breath.
“Relax, charm-school dropout.” Keir clapped Niall on the shoulder of the black tuxedo he wore, grinning as he stepped up beside him. “Young or old, married or not—it never hurts to be friendly.”
Olivia might be the youngest of the four siblings, all third-generation law enforcement who served their city proudly. And she might be the only woman in the tight-knit Watson family since their mother’s murder when Niall had barely been a teen. But there was no question that Liv ran the show. Despite Duff’s tough-guy grousing or Keir’s clever charm or Niall’s own reserved, logical prowess, Olivia Mary Watson—soon to be Olivia Knight—had each of them, including their widowed father and grandfather, wrapped around her pretty little finger. If she asked Niall to keep their headstrong Irish family in line today, then he would do exactly that.
With Keir set for the moment, Niall angled his position toward the groom and best man Duff. He didn’t need to adjust his glasses to see the bulge at the small of Duff’s back beneath the tailored black jacket. Niall’s nostrils flared with a patience-inducing breath before he whispered, “Seriously? Are you packing today?”
Duff’s overbuilt shoulders shifted as he turned to whisper a response. “Hey. You wear your glasses every day, Poindexter. I wear my gun.”
“I wasn’t aware that you knew what the term Poindexter meant.”
“I’m smarter than I look” was Duff’s terse response.
Keir chuckled. “He’d have to be.”
Duff’s muscular shoulders shifted. “So help me, baby brother, if you give me any grief today, I will lay you out flat.”
“Zip it. Both of you.” Niall knew that he was quickly losing control of his two charges. He scowled at Keir. “You, mind your manners.” When Duff went after the collar hugging his muscular neck again, Niall leaned in. “And you stop fidgeting like a little kid.”
A curious look from the minister waiting behind them quieted all three brothers for the moment. With everything ready for their sister’s walk down the aisle, the processional music started. Niall scanned the rest of the crowd as they rose to their feet. Their grandfather Seamus Watson hooked his cane over the railing as he stood in the front row. He winked one blue eye at Niall before pulling out his handkerchief and turning toward the aisle to dab at the tears he didn’t want anybody to see.
And then Olivia and their father, Thomas Watson, appeared in the archway at the end of the aisle. A fist of rare sentimentality squeezed around Niall’s heart.
His father was a relatively tall, stocky man. His black tuxedo and red vest and tie—an homage to the date, February 14—matched Niall’s own attire. Niall knew a familiar moment of pride and respect as his father limped down the aisle, his shoulders erect despite the injury that had ended his career at KCPD at far too young an age. Other than the peppering of gray in Thomas’s dark brown hair, Niall saw the same face when he looked into the mirror every morning.
But that wasn’t what had him nodding his head in admiration.
His sister, that tough tomboy turned top-notch detective, the girl who’d never let three older brothers get the best of her, had grown up. Draped in ivory and sparkles, her face framed by the Irish lace veil handed down through their mother’s side of the family, Olivia Watson was a beauty. Dark hair, blue eyes like his. But feminine, radiant. Her gaze locked on to Gabe at the altar, and she smiled. Niall hadn’t seen a glimpse of his mother like that in twenty years.
“Dude,” Duff muttered. He nudged the groom beside him. “Gabe, you are one lucky son of a—”
“Duff.” Niall remembered his charge at the last moment and stopped his older brother from swearing in church.
Gabe sounded a bit awestruck himself as Olivia walked down the aisle. “I know.”
“You’d better treat her right,” Duff growled on a whisper.
Niall watched his brother’s shoulders puff up. “We’ve already had this conversation, Duff. I’m convinced he loves her.”
Gabe never took his eyes off Olivia as he inclined his head to whisper, “He does.”
Keir, of course, wasn’t about to be left out of the hushed conversation. “Anyway, Liv’s made her choice. You think any one of us could change her mind? I’d be scared to try.”
The minister hushed the lot of them as father and bride approached.
“Ah, hell,” Duff muttered, looking up at the ceiling. He blinked rapidly, pinching his nose. The big guy was tearing up. “This is not happening to me.”
“She looks the way I remember Mom,” Keir said in a curiously soft voice.
Finally, the gravity of the day was sinking in and their focus was where it should be. Niall tapped Duff’s elbow. “Do you have a handkerchief?”
“The rings are tied up in it.”
“Here.” Niall slipped his own white handkerchief to Duff, who quickly dabbed at his face. He nodded what passed for a thank-you and stuffed the cotton square into his pocket, steeling his jaw against the flare of emotion.
When Olivia arrived at the altar, she kissed their father, catching him in a tight hug before smiling at all three brothers. Duff sniffled again. Keir gave her a thumbs-up. Niall nodded approvingly. Olivia handed her bouquet off to her matron of honor, Ginny Rafferty-Taylor, and took Gabe’s hand to face the minister.
The rest of the ceremony continued with everyone on their best behavior until the minister pronounced Gabe and Olivia husband and wife and announced, “You may now kiss the bride.”
“Love you,” Olivia whispered.
Gabe kissed her again. “Love you more.”
“I now present Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel Knight.”
Niall pondered the pomp and circumstance of this particular Valentine’s Day as the guests applauded and the recessional music started. Logically, he knew the words Liv and Gabe had spoken and what they meant. But a part of him struggled to comprehend exactly how this sappy sort of pageantry equated to happiness and lifelong devotion. It was all a bit wearing, really. But if this was what Olivia wanted, he’d support her wholeheartedly and do whatever was necessary to make it happen.
Following Duff to the center of the aisle, Niall extended his arm to escort bridesmaid Katie Rinaldi down the marble steps. Despite his red-rimmed eyes, Thomas Watson smiled at each of his children. Niall smiled back.
Until he caught the glimpse of movement in the balcony at the back of the church. A figure in black emerged from the shadows beside a carved limestone buttress framing a row of organ pipes.
In a nanosecond frozen in time, a dozen observations blipped through Niall’s mind. The organist played away upstairs, unaware of the intruder only a few yards from his position. The figure wore a ski mask and a long black coat. Clearly not a guest. Not church staff. The pews were filled with almost two hundred potential targets, many of them off-duty and retired police officers. His new brother-in-law had made more enemies than friends with his cutting-edge editorials. What did he want? Why was he here? Didn’t have to be a cop hater with some kind of vendetta. Could be some crazy with nothing more in mind than making a deadly statement about a lost love or perceived injustice or mental illness.
The gleam of polished wood reflected the colored light streaming in through the balcony’s stained-glass windows as the shooter pulled a rifle from his long cloak. Mauser hunting rifle. Five eight-millimeter rounds. He carried a second weapon, a semiautomatic pistol, strapped to his belt. That was enough firepower to do plenty of damage. Enough to kill far too many people.
Time righted itself as the analytical part of Niall’s brain shut down and the years of training as a cop and medical officer kicked in. Move! Niall shoved Katie to one side and reached for his father as the shooter took aim.
“Gun!” he shouted, pointing to the balcony as his fingers closed around the sleeve of Thomas Watson’s jacket. “Get down!”
The slap, slap, slap of gunshots exploded through the church. The organ music clashed on a toxic chord and went silent. Wood splintered and flew like shrapnel. A vase at the altar shattered. Flower petals and explosions of marble dust rained in the air.
“Everybody down!” Duff ordered, drawing the pistol from the small of his back. He dropped to one knee on the opposite side of the aisle and raised his weapon. “Drop it!”
“I’m calling SWAT.” Keir ducked between two pews, pulling his phone from his jacket as he hugged his arms around Natalie Fensom and Millie Leighter.
Niall saw Gabe Knight slam his arms around Liv and pull her to the marble floor beneath his body. Guests shouted names of loved ones. A child cried out in fear, and a mother hastened to comfort him. Warnings not to panic, not to run, blended together with the screams and tromping footfalls of people doing just that.
“I’ve got no shot,” Duff yelled, pushing to a crouching position as the shooter dropped his spent rifle and pulled his pistol. Niall heard Keir’s succinct voice reporting to dispatch. With a nod from Katie that she was all right and assurance that her husband was circling around the outside aisle to get to her, Niall climbed to his knees to assess the casualties. He caught a glimpse of Duff and a couple of other officers zigzagging down the aisle through the next hail of bullets and charging out the back of the sanctuary. “Get down and stay put!”
Niall squeezed his father’s arm. He was okay. He glanced back at the minister crouched behind the pulpit. He hadn’t been hit, either. The man in the balcony shouted no manifesto, made no threat. He emptied his gun into the sanctuary, grabbed his rifle and scrambled up the stairs toward the balcony exit. He was making a lot of noise and doing a lot of damage and generating a lot of terror. But despite the chaos, he wasn’t hitting anyone. What kind of maniac set off this degree of panic without having a specific—
“Niall!” His grandfather’s cane clattered against the marble tiles. Niall was already peeling off his jacket and wadding it up to use as a compress as Thomas Watson cradled the eighty-year-old man in his arms and gently lowered him to the floor. “Help me, son. Dad’s been shot.”
Chapter One (#ulink_08caa858-b294-5a9a-b373-fc079acb3d69)
Niall stepped off the elevator in his condominium building to the sound of a baby crying.
His dragging feet halted as the doors closed behind him, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled a deep, weary breath, pulled the phone from his ear and checked his watch. Two in the morning.
Great. Just great. He had nothing against babies—he knew many of them grew into very fine adults. But he’d been awake going on twenty hours now, had been debriefed six ways to Sunday by cops and family and medical staff alike, hadn’t even had a chance to change his ruined fancy clothes, and was already feeling sleep deprived by switching off his typical nocturnal work schedule to be there for Liv’s wedding. No way was he going to catch a couple hours of much-needed shut-eye before he headed back to the hospital later this morning.
He put the phone back to his ear and finished the conversation with Duff. “You know we can’t investigate this shooting personally. There’s a huge conflict of interest since the victim is family.”
“Then I’m going to find out which detectives caught the case and make sure they keep us in the loop.”
“You do that. And I’ll keep track of any evidence that comes through the lab.”
“We’ll find this guy.” Duff’s pronouncement was certain. “Get some sleep, Niall.”
“You, too.” Niall disconnected the call, knowing he couldn’t comply with his older brother’s directive.
But it wasn’t the pitiful noise of the infant’s wails, nor the decibel level of distress that solid walls could only mute, that would keep him awake.
His brain’s refusal to let a question go unanswered was going to prevent his thoughts from quieting until he could solve the mystery of where that crying baby had come from and to whom the child belonged. As if the events of the day—with his grandfather lying in intensive care and an unidentified shooter on the loose in Kansas City—weren’t enough to keep him from sleeping, now a desperately unhappy infant and Niall’s own curiosity over the unexpected sound were probably going to eat up whatever downtime he had left tonight. Cursing that intellectual compulsion, Niall rolled his kinked-up neck muscles and started down the hallway.
Considering three of the six condos on this floor were empty, a retired couple in their seventies lived in one at the far end of the hall and Lucy McKane, who lived across the hall from his place, was a single like himself, the crying baby posed a definite mystery. Perhaps the Logans were babysitting one of the many grandchildren they liked to talk about. Either that or Lucy McKane had company tonight. Could she be watching a friend’s child? Dating a single dad who’d brought along a young chaperone? Letting a well-kept secret finally reveal itself?
Although they’d shared several early-morning and late-night chats, he and Lucy had never gotten much beyond introductions and polite conversations about the weather and brands of detergent. Just because he hadn’t seen a ring on her finger didn’t mean she wasn’t attached to someone. And even though he struggled with interpersonal relationships, he wasn’t so clueless as to think she had to be married or seeing someone in order to get pregnant.
So the crying baby was most likely hers.
Good. Mystery solved. Niall pulled his keys from his pocket as he approached his door. Sleep might just happen.
Or not.
The flash of something red and shiny in the carpet stopped Niall in the hallway between their two doors. He stooped down to retrieve a minuscule shard of what looked like red glass. Another mystery? Didn’t building maintenance vacuum out here five days a week? This was a recent deposit and too small to identify the source. A broken bottle? Stained glass? The baby wailed through the door off to his right, and Niall turned his head. He hadn’t solved anything at all.
Forget the broken glass. Where and when did Lucy McKane get a baby?
He’d never seen her coming home from a date before, much less in the company of a man with a child. And he was certain he hadn’t noticed a baby bump on her. Although she could have been hiding a pregnancy, either intentionally or not. He generally ran into her in the elevator when she was wearing bulky hand-knit sweaters or her winter coat, or in the gym downstairs, where she sported oversize T-shirts with one silly or motivational message or another. And then there were those late-night visits in the basement laundry room, where there’d been clothes baskets and tables between them to mask her belly. Now that he thought about it, Lucy McKane wore a lot of loose-fitting clothes. Her fashion choices tended to emphasize her generous breasts and camouflage the rest of her figure. He supposed she could have been carrying a baby one of those late nights when they’d discussed fabric softener versus dryer sheets, and he simply hadn’t realized it.
If that was the case, though, why hadn’t he seen the child or heard it crying before tonight? The woman liked to talk. Wouldn’t she have announced the arrival of her child?
Maybe he’d rethink other options. It was the wee hours after Valentine’s Day. She could be watching the child for a friend out on an overnight date. But why hadn’t Lucy gone out for Valentine’s Day? The woman was pretty in an unconventional kind of way, if one liked a cascade of dark curls that were rarely tamed, green eyes that were slightly almond shaped and the apple cheeks and a pert little nose that would make her look eternally young. She made friends easily enough, judging by her ability to draw even someone like him into random conversations. And she was certainly well-spoken—at least when it came to washing clothes and inclement weather, gossip about the building’s residents and the news of the day. So why wasn’t a woman like that taken? Where was her date?
And why was he kneeling here in a stained, wrinkled tuxedo and eyes that burned with fatigue, analyzing the situation at all? He needed sleep, desperately. Otherwise, his mind wouldn’t be wandering like this.
“Let it go, Watson,” he chided himself, pushing to his feet.
Niall turned to the door marked 8C and inserted his key into the lock. At least he could clearly pinpoint the source of the sound now. The noise of the unhappy baby from behind Lucy McKane’s door was jarring to his weary senses. He was used to coming home in shrouded silence when his swing shift at the medical examiner’s office ended. Most of the residents in the building were asleep by then. He respected their need for quiet as much as he craved it himself. He never even turned on the radio or TV. He’d brew a pot of decaf and sit down with a book or his reading device until he could shut down his thoughts from the evening and turn in for a few hours of sleep. Sending a telepathic brain wave to the woman across the hall to calm her child and allow them all some peace, he went inside and closed the door behind him.
After hanging up his coat in the front closet, Niall switched on lamps and headed straight to the wet bar, where he tossed the sliver of glass onto the counter, unhooked the top button of his shirt and poured himself a shot of whiskey. Sparing a glance for the crimson smears that stained his jacket sleeve and shirt cuffs, he raised his glass to the man he’d left sleeping in the ICU at Saint Luke’s Hospital. Only when his younger brother had come in to spell him for a few hours after Keir and Duff had hauled Liv and her new husband, Gabe, off to a fancy hotel where they could spend their wedding night—in lieu of the honeymoon they’d postponed—had Niall left Seamus Watson’s side. “This one’s for you, Grandpa.”
Niall swallowed the pungent liquor in one gulp, savoring the fire burning down his gullet and chasing away the chill of a wintry night and air-conditioned hospital rooms that clung to every cell of his body. It had been beyond a rough day. His grandfather was a tough old bird, and Niall had been able to stanch the bleeding and stabilize him at the church well enough to keep shock from setting in. He’d ridden with the paramedics to the hospital, and they had done their job well, as had the ER staff. But the eighty-year-old man had needed surgery to repair the bleeders from the bullet that had fractured his skull and remove the tiny bone fragments that had come dangerously close to entering his brainpan and killing him.
Although the attending surgeon and neurologist insisted Seamus was now guardedly stable and needed to sleep, the traumatic brain injury had done significant damage. Either due to the wound itself, or a resulting stroke, he’d lost the use of his left arm and leg, had difficulty speaking and limited vision in his left eye. Seamus was comfortable for now, but age and trauma had taken a toll on his body and he had a long road to recovery ahead of him. And as Niall had asked questions of the doctors and hovered around the nurses and orderlies while they worked, he couldn’t help but replay those minutes at the end of the wedding over and over in his head.
Had Seamus Watson been the shooter’s intended target? And since the old man seemed determined to live, would the shooter be coming back to finish the job? Was Grandpa safe? Or was his dear, funny, smarter-than-the-rest-of-them-put-together grandfather a tragic victim of collateral damage?
If so, who had the man with all those bullets really been after? Why plan the attack at the church? Was the Valentine’s Day date significant? Was his goal to disrupt the wedding, make a statement against KCPD, or simply to create chaos and validate his own sense of power? Even though others had been hurt by minor shrapnel wounds, and one man had suffered a mild heart attack triggered by the stress of the situation, the number of professionally trained guests had kept the panic to a minimum. So who was the shooter? Duff said he’d chased the perp up onto the roof, but then the man had disappeared before Duff or any of the other officers in pursuit could reach him. What kind of man planned his escape so thoroughly, yet failed to hit anyone besides the Watson patriarch? And if Seamus was the intended target, what was the point of all the extra damage and drama?
And could Niall have stopped the tragedy completely if he’d spotted the man in the shadows a few seconds sooner? He scratched his fingers through the short hair that already stood up in spikes atop his head after a day of repeating the same unconscious habit. Niall prided himself on noting details. But today he’d missed the most important clue of his life until it was too late.
His brothers would be looking into Seamus’s old case files and tracking down any enemies that their grandfather might have made in his career on the force, despite his retirement fifteen years earlier. Duff and Keir would be following up any clues found by the officers investigating the case that could lead to the shooter’s identity and capture. Frustratingly, Niall’s involvement with finding answers was done—unless one of his brothers came up with some forensic evidence he could process at the lab. And even then, Niall’s expertise was autopsy work. He’d be doing little more than calling in favors to speed the process and following up with his coworkers at the crime lab. Although it galled him to take a backseat in the investigation, logic indicated he’d better serve the family by taking point on his grandfather’s care and recovery so his brothers could focus on tracking down the would-be assassin.
Niall picked up the Bushmills to pour himself a second glass, but the muted cries of the baby across the hall reminded him that he wasn’t the only one dealing with hardship tonight, and he returned the bottle to the cabinet. He wanted to have a clear head in the morning when he returned to the hospital for a follow-up report on his grandfather. He could already feel his body surrendering to the tide of fatigue, and despite his unsettling thoughts, he loathed the idea of dulling his intellect before he found the answers he needed. So he set the glass in the sink and moved into the kitchen to start a small pot of decaf.
While the machine hissed and bubbled, he shrugged out of the soiled black tuxedo jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. After pulling out the rented tie he’d folded up into a pocket and laying it over the coat, he went to work unbuttoning the cherry-red vest he wore. Typically, he didn’t wear his gun unless he was out in the field at a crime scene. But with his family threatened and too many questions left unanswered, he’d had Duff unlock it from the glove compartment of Niall’s SUV and bring it to the hospital, where he’d strapped it on. Niall halted in the middle of unhooking his belt to remove it, opting instead to roll up his sleeves and leave himself armed. Until he understood exactly what was going on, it would be smart to keep that protection close at hand.
Whether it was the gun’s protection, the resumption of his nightly routine or the discordant noise from across the hall receding, Niall braced his hands against the edge of the sink to stretch his back and drop his chin, letting his eyes close as the tension in him gave way to weariness.
The distant baby’s cries shortened like staccato notes, as if the child was running out of the breath or energy to maintain the loud wails. Maybe Miss McKane was finally having some success in quieting the infant. Despite how much she liked to talk, she seemed like a capable sort of woman. Sensible, too. She carried her keys on a ring with a small pepper spray canister in her hand each time he saw her walking to or from her car in the parking lot. She wore a red stocking hat on her dark curly hair when the weather was cold and wet to conserve body heat. She sorted her jeans and towels from her whites and colors. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t completely practical. Why did a woman need so many different types of underwear, anyway? Cotton briefs, silky long johns, lacy bras in white and tan and assorted pastels, animal prints...
Niall’s eyes popped open when he realized he was thinking about Lucy McKane’s underwear. And not folded up in her laundry basket or tucked away in a dresser drawer, either.
Good grief. Imagining his neighbor’s pale skin outlined in that tan-and-black leopard-print duo he’d found so curiously distracting tossed on top of her folding pile was hardly appropriate. Exhaustion must be playing tricks on him. Pushing away from the sink, Niall clasped his glasses at either temple and adjusted the frames on his face, as if the action could refocus the wayward detour of his thoughts. It was irritating that he could be so easily distracted by curves and cotton or shards of glass or mystery babies who were none of his business when he wanted to concentrate on studying the events before, during and after the shooting at the wedding. Perhaps he should have skipped the shot of whiskey and gone straight for the steaming decaf he poured into a mug.
He added a glug of half-and-half from the fridge and carried the fragrant brew to the bookshelf in the living room, where he pulled out a medical volume to look up some of the details relating to his grandfather’s condition. He savored the reviving smell of the coffee before taking a drink and settling into the recliner beside the floor lamp.
Niall had barely turned the first page when the infant across the hall found his second wind and bellowed with a high-pitched shriek that nearly startled him into spilling his drink.
Enough. Was the child sick? Had he completely misjudged Lucy McKane’s competence? Niall set his book and mug on the table beside him and pushed to his feet. Maybe the muted noise of a baby crying didn’t bother anybody else. Maybe no one else could hear the child’s distress. He was so used to the building being quiet at this hour that maybe he was particularly sensitive to the muffled sounds. And maybe he’d come so close to losing someone he loved today that he just didn’t have the patience to deal with a neighbor who couldn’t respect his need for a little peace and quiet and time to regroup.
In just a few strides he was out the door and across the hall, knocking on Lucy McKane’s front door. When there was no immediate response, he knocked harder. “Miss McKane? Do you know how late it is? Some of us are trying to sleep.” Well, he hadn’t been. But it wasn’t as though he could if he even wanted to with that plaintive racket filtering through the walls. “Miss McKane?”
Niall propped his hands at his waist, waiting several seconds before knocking again. “Miss McKane?” Why didn’t the woman answer her door? She couldn’t be asleep with the baby crying like that, could she? In a heartbeat, Niall’s irritation morphed into concern at the lack of any response. That could explain the infant’s distress. Maybe Lucy McKane couldn’t help the child. He flattened his palm against the painted steel and pounded again. “Miss McKane? It’s Niall Watson from across the hall. Are you in there? Is everything all right?”
He reached down to jiggle the knob, but the cold metal twisted easily in his hand and the door creaked open a couple of inches.
Niall’s suspicion radar went on instant alert. What woman who lived alone in the city didn’t keep her door locked?
“Miss McKane?” he called out. But his only response was the even louder decibel level of the crying baby. He squinted the scratches on the knob into focus and quickly pulled his phone from his pocket to snap a picture. A familiar glint of red glass wedged between the frame and catch for the dead bolt higher up caught his eye. The tiny shattered orb looked like the source of the shard he’d found in the carpet.
Finally. Answers. But he didn’t like them.
There were deeper gouges in the wood trim around it, indicating that both locks had been forced. His brain must have been half-asleep not to have suspected earlier that something was seriously wrong. Niall snapped a second picture. “Miss McKane? Are you all right?”
For a few seconds, the concerns of his Hippocratic oath warred with the procedure drilled into him by his police training. His brother Duff would muscle his way in without hesitation, while Keir would have a judge on speed dial, arranging an entry warrant. Niall weighed his options. The baby was crying and Lucy wasn’t answering. His concern for the occupants’ safety was reason enough to enter a potentially dangerous situation despite risking any kind of legalities. Tonight he’d forgo caution and follow his older brother’s example.
“Hold tight, little one,” he whispered, unstrapping his holster and pulling the service weapon from his belt. Although he was more used to handling a scalpel than a Glock, as a member of the KCPD crime lab, he’d been trained and certified to use the gun.
He held it surely as he nudged open the broken door. “Miss McKane? It’s Niall Watson with the KCPD crime lab. I’m concerned for your safety. I’m coming in.”
The mournful wails of a baby crying itself into exhaustion instantly grew louder on this side of the walls separating their living spaces. He backed against the door, closing it behind him as he cradled the gun between both hands. A dim light in the kitchen provided the only illumination in the condo that mirrored the layout of his own place. Allowing his vision to adjust to the dim outlines of furniture and doorways, Niall waited before advancing into the main room. He checked the closet and powder room near the entryway before moving through the living and dining rooms. Empty. No sign of Lucy McKane anywhere. No blood or signs of an accident or struggle of any sort, either. In fact, the only things that seemed out of place were the bundles of yarn, patterns and knitting needles that had been dumped out of their basket onto the coffee table and strewn across the sofa cushions and area rug.
He found the baby in the kitchen, fastened into a carrier that sat on the peninsula countertop, with nothing more than the glow of an automatic night-light beside the stove to keep him company. A half-formed panel of gray knitted wool hung from the baby’s toes, as if he’d once been covered with it but had thrashed it aside.
Niall flipped on the light switch and circled around the peninsula, plucking the makeshift blanket off and laying it on the counter. “You’re a tiny thing to be making all that noise. You all alone in here? Do you know where your mama is?”
The kid’s red face lolled toward Niall’s hushed voice. It shook and batted its little fists before cranking up to wail again. Niall didn’t need to take a second whiff to ascertain at least one reason why the baby was so unhappy. But a quick visual sweep didn’t reveal any sign of a diaper bag or anything to change it into besides the yellow outfit it wore. Had Lucy McKane left the child alone to go make a supply run?
Niall moved the gun down to his side and touched the baby’s face. Feverish. Was the kid sick? Or was that what this ceaseless crying did to someone who was maybe only a week or so old?
The infant’s cries sputtered into silent gasps as Niall splayed his fingers over its heaving chest. Not unlike his grandfather’s earlier that day, the baby’s heart was racing. A quick check farther down answered another question for him. “You okay, little man?”
How long had he been left unattended like this?
And where was Lucy? There was no sign of her in the kitchen, either, despite the dirty dishes in the sink and what looked like a congealed glob of cookie dough in the stand mixer beside it. It seemed as though she’d left in the middle of baking a dessert. Why hadn’t she completed the task? Where had she gone? What had called her away? And, he thought, with a distinct note of irritation filtering into his thought process, why hadn’t she taken the baby with her?
“Hold on.” Niall’s gaze was drawn to a screwdriver on the counter that didn’t look like any piece of cooking equipment he’d ever seen his late mother or Millie Leighter use.
After a couple of silent sobs vibrated through the infant’s delicate chest, Niall pulled his hand away. Tuning out the recommencing wail, he opened two drawers before he found a plastic bag and used it to pick up the tool. The handle was an absurd shade of pink with shiny baubles glued around each end of the grip. He rolled it in his hand until he found what he suspected he might—an empty space in the circle of fake stones. Niall glanced back through the darkened apartment. The bead stuck in the frame of her door suddenly made sense. But even if his neighbor had lost her key and had to break into her own place, she’d turn on the lights once she got in. There’d be signs of her being here. And she’d damn well take care of the baby.
Unless she wasn’t the one who’d broken in.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he ordered needlessly. Wrapping the screwdriver securely in the bag, Niall slipped it into his pocket and clasped the gun between his hands again. “I’ll be right back.”
A quick inspection through the bedroom and en suite showed no sign of Lucy McKane there, either. He didn’t see her purse anywhere, and her winter coat and accoutrements were missing from the front closet. There was no baby paraphernalia in any of the rooms.
Had she been kidnapped? What kind of kidnapper would leave evidence like the screwdriver behind? Had she been robbed? Nothing here seemed disturbed beyond the topsy-turvy knitting basket, and anything of typical value to a thief—her flat-screen TV, a laptop computer—was still here.
More unanswered questions. Niall’s concern reverted to irritation.
This child had been abandoned. Lucy McKane was gone, and the woman had a lot of explaining to do.
Niall was surprisingly disappointed to learn that she was the type of woman to leave an infant alone to run errands or enjoy a date. She was a free spirit, certainly, with her friendly smile and ease at striking up conversations with neighbors she barely knew and ownership of far too many pairs of panties. But she’d told him she was a social worker, for pity’s sake. He wouldn’t have pegged her to be so self-absorbed and reckless as to leave a child in an unlocked apartment—to leave the child, period. If she’d left by choice.
With the mandate of both his badge and his medical degree, and three generations of protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves bred into him, Niall could not walk out that door and abandon this baby himself. So, understanding as much about children as his medical books could teach, he tucked his gun into its holster, pulled his phone from his pocket and picked up the baby in its carrier. He spared a glance at the soft wood around the deadbolt catch, debating whether or not he should retrieve the decorative bead jammed there or report Lucy as a missing person. Making the crying infant his first priority, Niall closed the door behind him and carried the baby into his apartment before dialing the most knowledgeable parent he knew.
The phone picked up on the third ring. “Niall?”
“Dad.” He set the carrier on the island in his own kitchen and opened a drawer to pull out two clean dish towels. A quick glance at his watch indicated that perhaps he should have thought this through better. “Did I wake you?”
“It’s three in the morning, son. Of course you did.” Thomas Watson pushed the grogginess from his voice. “Are you still at the hospital? Has there been a change in Dad’s condition?”
“No. The doctors are keeping Grandpa lightly sedated. Keir will stay with him until one of us relieves him in the morning.”
“Thank God one of my boys is a doctor and that you were there to give him the treatment he needed immediately. We should be giving thanks that he survived and no one else was seriously injured. But knowing that the bastard who shot him is still...” Thomas Watson’s tone changed from dark frustration to curious surprise. “Do I hear a baby crying?”
Niall strode through his apartment, retrieving a towel and washcloth along with the first-aid kit and a clean white T-shirt from his dresser. “Yes. Keir will contact me if there is any change in Grandpa’s condition. I told Grandpa one or all of us would be by to see him in the morning, that the family would be there for him 24/7. I’m not sure he heard me, though.”
“Dad heard you, I’m sure.” Niall could hear his father moving now, a sure sign that the former cop turned investigative consultant was on his feet and ready for Niall to continue. “Now go back to the other thing. Why do you have a baby?”
Niall had returned to the kitchen to run warm water in the sink. “Can I ask you a favor?”
“Of course, son.”
“Dad, I need newborn diapers, bottles and formula. A clean set of clothes and some kind of coat or blanket or whatever babies need when it’s cold. A car seat, too, if you can get your hands on one at this time of night. I’ll reimburse you for everything, of course.” Niall put the phone on speaker and spread a thick towel out on the counter, pausing for a moment to assess the locking mechanism before unhooking the baby and lifting him from the carrier. “Good Lord, you don’t weigh a thing.”
“The baby, Niall.” That tone in his father’s voice had always commanded an answer. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
“It’s the neighbor’s kid,” Niall explained. “I’d get the items myself, but I don’t have a car seat and can’t leave him alone. Oh, get something for diaper rash, too. He needs a bath. I can use a clean dish towel to cover him up until you get here, although I don’t have any safety pins. Do you think medical tape would work to hold a makeshift diaper on him until you arrive?”
“You’re babysitting? I never thought I’d see the day—”
“Just bring me the stuff, Dad.”
Another hour passed before Thomas Watson arrived with several bags of supplies. His father groused about bottles looking different from the time Olivia had been the last infant in the house and how there were far too many choices for a feeding regimen. But between the two of them, they got the baby diapered, fed and dressed in a footed sleeper that fit him much better than Niall’s long T-shirt. At first, Niall was concerned about the infant falling asleep before finishing his first bottle. But he roused enough for Thomas to coax a healthy burp out of him before drinking a little more and crashing again. Niall was relieved to feel the baby’s temperature return to normal and suspected the feverish state had been pure stress manifesting itself.
The infant boy was sleeping in Thomas Watson’s lap as the older man dozed in the recliner, and Niall was reviewing a chapter on pediatric medicine when he heard the ding of the elevator at the end of the hallway. He closed the book and set it on the coffee table, urging his waking father to stay put while he went to the door.
He heard Lucy McKane’s hushed voice mumbling something as she approached and then a much louder, “Oh, my God. I’ve had a break-in.”
Niall swung open his door and approached the back of the dark-haired woman standing motionless before her apartment door. She had turned silent, but he knew exactly what to say. “Miss McKane? You and I need to talk.”
Chapter Two (#ulink_7b5a266e-1843-556c-8799-87e493f30a94)
“The man wasn’t following me,” Lucy chanted under her breath for the umpteenth time since parking her car downstairs. She stepped off the elevator into the shadowed hallway, trying to convince herself that the drunken ape who’d offered to rock her world down on Carmody Street wasn’t the driver of the silver sports car she’d spotted in her rearview mirror less than a block from her condominium building a few minutes earlier. “He wasn’t following me.”
Maybe if she hadn’t spotted a similar car veering in and out of the lane behind her on Highway 71, she wouldn’t be so paranoid. Maybe if her voice mail at work didn’t have a message from her ex-boyfriend Roger that was equal parts slime and threat and booze.
“Guess what, sweet thing. I’m out. And I’m coming to see you.”
Maybe if it wasn’t so late, maybe if she’d felt safe in that run-down part of Kansas City, maybe if she wasn’t so certain that something terrible had happened to Diana Kozlow, her former foster daughter, who’d called her out of the blue yesterday after more than a year of no contact—maybe if the twenty-year-old would answer her stupid phone any one of the dozen times Lucy had tried to call her back—she wouldn’t feel so helpless or alone or afraid.
Fortunately, the silver car had driven past when she’d turned in to the gated parking garage. But the paranoia and a serious need to wash the man’s grimy hands off her clothes and skin remained. “He was not following me.”
She glanced down at the blurred picture she’d snapped through her rear window the second time the silver roadster had passed a car and slipped into the lane behind her on 71. Her pulse pounded furiously in her ears as she slipped the finger of her glove between her teeth and pulled it off her right hand to try and enlarge the picture and get a better look at the driver or read a possible license plate. Useless. No way could she prove the Neanderthal or Roger or anyone else had followed her after leaving the rattrap apartment building on Carmody, which was the last address she had for Diana. Not that it had been a productive visit. The super had refused to speak to her, and the only resident who would answer her questions about Diana was an elderly woman who couldn’t remember a young brunette woman living in the building, and didn’t recognize her from the old high school photo Lucy had shown her. Ape man had been willing to tell her anything—in exchange for stepping into the alley with him for a free grope.
None of which boded well for the life Diana had forged for herself after aging out of the foster system and leaving Lucy’s home. Lucy swiped her finger across the cell screen to pull up the high school photo of the dark-haired beauty she’d thought would be family—or at least a close friend—forever. “Oh, sweetie, what have you gotten yourself into?” she muttered around the red wool clasped between her teeth.
She glanced back at the elevator door, remembered the key card required to get into the building lobby.
“Okay. The creeper didn’t follow me,” she stated with as much conviction as she could muster. “And I will find you, Diana.”
She was simply going to have to get a few hours’ sleep and think this through and start her search again tomorrow. Except...
Lucy pulled up short when she reached the door to 8D. The late-night chill that had iced her skin seeped quickly through the layers of clothing she wore.
“Oh, my God. I’ve had a break-in.”
So much for feeling secure.
The wood around the locks on her apartment door was scratched and broken. The steel door itself drifted open with barely a touch of her hand. Lucy retreated half a step and pulled up the keypad on her phone to call the police. After two previous calls about Diana’s failure to show up for lunch or return her calls, they were probably going to think she was a nutcase to call a third time in fewer than twenty-four hours.
“Miss McKane? You and I need to talk.”
Lucy’s fear erupted in a startled yelp at the succinct announcement. She swung around with her elbow at the man’s deep voice behind her, instinctively protecting herself.
Instead of her elbow connecting with the man’s solar plexus, five long fingers clamped like a vise around her wrist and she was pushed up against the wall by a tall, lanky body. Her phone popped loose from her slippery grip and bounced across the carpet at her feet. Her heart thumped in her chest at the wall of heat trapping her there, and the loose glove she’d held between her teeth was caught between her heaving breasts and the broad expanse of a white tuxedo shirt. What the devil? Diana was missing, and she had no idea why her tall, lanky neighbor was glowering down at her through those Clark Kent glasses he wore.
“Wow,” she gasped, as the frissons of fear evaporated once she recognized him. No one else roamed the hallways this time of night except for him. She should have known better. “Sorry I took a swing at you, Dr. Watson.” She couldn’t even summon the giggly response she usually had when she said his name and conjured up thoughts of medical sidekicks and brainy British detectives. Not when she was embarrassingly aware of his hard runner’s body pressed against hers. Nothing to giggle about there. The full-body contact lasted another awkward moment. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Of course not.” Once he seemed certain she recognized him as a friend and didn’t have to defend himself, Niall Watson released his grip on her arm and stepped away, leaving a distinct chill in place of that surprising male heat that had pinned her to the wall. “I shouldn’t have startled you.”
“I thought you...were someone else.”
“Who? Were you expecting someone?”
“I, um...” She wasn’t about to explain her paranoid suspicions about ape man or Roger and the silver car, so she covered her rattled state by stooping down to retrieve her glove and phone. “Sorry if I woke you. I’ve had a break-in. I thought this was supposed to be a secure building in a safe neighborhood, but I guess there’s no place that’s truly safe if someone is determined to get to you. That’s probably why I swung first. A girl has to take care of herself, you know. I’d better call the police.”
Niall Watson’s long fingers reached her phone first. He scooped it up and tapped the screen clear. “A 911 call won’t be necessary.”
Frowning at his high-handedness, Lucy tilted her face up. “Why not?” She was halfway to making eye contact when she saw the crimson spots staining his rolled-up sleeve. She stuffed her loose glove into her pocket, along with her phone, and touched her fingertip to the red stains on the wrinkled white cotton clinging to his long, muscular forearm. There were more droplets of blood on the other sleeve, too. Irritation vanished, and she piled concern for him onto the fears that had already worn her ragged today.
“Are you hurt? Did you stop the intruder?” She grasped his wrist in her hand, much the same way he’d manhandled her, and twisted it to find the wound. Despite the tempting awareness at his toasty-warm skin beneath her chilled fingers, she was more interested in learning what had happened. She knew he was affiliated with the police. Had he stepped in to prevent a burglar from ransacking her place? Had Roger followed his release from prison with a road trip to Kansas City? Had Diana shown up while she was searching the city for her? Now she looked up and met those narrowed cobalt eyes. “Have you already called for help? Do I need to take you to the hospital?”
A dark eyebrow arched above the rim of his glasses before he glanced down to see the source of her concern. Blinking away his apparent confusion, he pulled out of her grip to splay his fingers at his waist. “This isn’t my blood.”
“Then whose...?” His stance drew her attention to the holster strapped to his belt. Had she ever seen Niall Watson wearing a gun before? His badge, yes. But she’d never seen the erudite professional looking armed and dangerous the way he did tonight. Had he just come from a crime scene? “You wore a tuxedo to work?” Wait. Not his blood. That meant... A stone of dread plummeted into Lucy’s stomach. Was that Diana’s blood? “Oh, God.” Before he could say anything, she spun around and shoved open the door to her apartment. “Diana?” Niall Watson was a doctor. But he wasn’t hurt. That meant someone else was. “Diana? Are you here?”
She called out again for some sign that the young woman she’d been searching the city for all day and night had somehow shown up here.
The vise clamped over her wrist again and pulled her back to the door. “Miss McKane.”
“Let go of me.” She yanked her arm free and charged toward the mess on the couch. “Diana?” She paused a moment to sift through the pile of unraveling yarn and interrupted projects before snatching up the overturned basket and inspecting the insides. Lucy always kept a twenty or two hidden beneath her work. The only other person who knew where she stockpiled for a rainy day was Diana. “She was here. She took the cash,” she whispered, her sense of dread growing exponentially.
“So it was a robbery?”
She startled at the deep voice beside her. “What? No. I would gladly give her the money.”
“Give who the money?”
“Diana?” Lucy tossed the basket onto the couch and took off for the light in the kitchen.
But she hadn’t taken two steps before Niall Watson’s arm cinched around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. “Miss McKane. There’s nothing for you to see here. I need you to come with me.”
She gasped at the unexpected contact with a muscled torso and the surprising warmth that seemed to surround her instantly and seep through the layers of coat and clothing she wore. “Nothing? I have to...” For a split second, her fingers tightened their grip around the arm at her waist, needing his strength. She’d had a bad feeling all day. Diana Kozlow hadn’t shown up for a long-overdue lunch and gab session. And then that phone call...
If the answer was here—even one she didn’t want to be true—Lucy had to see for herself. With a renewed sense of urgency, she pushed the doctor’s arm and body heat away and turned. “You need to stop grabbing me, Doctor. I appreciate your concern, but I have to—”
She shoved at his chest, but he released her waist only to seize her by the shoulders. He squeezed enough to give her a little shake and hunched his face down to hers. “Lucy. If you would please listen.”
Lucy? Her struggles stilled as she assessed the stern expression stamped on his chiseled features. When had her taciturn neighbor ever addressed her as anything but a polite Miss McKane? That couldn’t be good. The tight grip on her upper arms and the piercing intensity of those blue eyes looking straight at her weren’t any kind of reassurance, either. She curled her fingers into the wrinkled cotton of his shirt and nodded, preparing herself for the news she didn’t want to hear. “What’s wrong? What’s happened? Did you see a young woman here? Is she...” Lucy swallowed hard. “Is she okay?”
He eased his grip and straightened, raking one hand through his short muss of espresso-colored hair as he inhaled a deep breath. But he kept the other hand on her arm as if he suspected she might bolt again. “If you would come with me.” He pulled her back into the hallway and closed the door to her condo behind them. “I need to ask you some questions.”
Now he wanted to talk? After all those friendly overtures she’d made to her seriously hunky and completely-oblivious-to-a-lady-dropping-a-hint neighbor, tonight of all nights was when he wanted to have a private conversation with her? Somehow she doubted that he’d finally clued in on the crush she had on him. Preparing herself for a worst-case scenario, Lucy planted her feet before blithely following him into his condo. “Just tell me. Did you find a dead body in there? You told me you were a medical examiner during one of our elevator rides together when I first moved in. That’s when I told you I was a social worker—that I’ve seen some pretty awful things, too. But my bodies weren’t dead like yours. Just damaged in one way or another.” Her mouth was rambling ahead of her brain. “I’m sorry. But you can tell me. Is this a crime scene? Is that why I can’t go in there?” She touched the blood on his sleeve again. Although it was dry, its presence was disturbing. “Is this Diana’s? Don’t feel you have to spare my feelings. I’ve been sick out of my mind with worry all day. I just need a straight answer about what’s happened. I can deal with anything—I’m good at that—as long as I know what I’m facing.”
“You can deal with anything?” He angled his head to the side and his eyes narrowed, as if her plaintive assertion baffled him. Then he shook his head. “There is no dead body,” he answered starkly. “I don’t know who Diana is. This blood is my grandfather’s. He was shot yesterday afternoon at my sister’s wedding.”
“Shot? Oh, my God.” Lucy’s fingers danced over the ticklish hair of his forearm, wanting to act on her instinct to touch, to comfort, to fix the hurts of the world. “Is he okay? I mean, clearly he isn’t. Getting shot is really bad. I’m sorry. Is he going to be all right?” His brusque answers explained the remnants of the James Bond getup, as well as the stains on what had once been a neatly ironed shirt. But what any of that had to do with the break-in or her or possibly Diana, she hadn’t a clue. Lucy curled her fingers around the strap of her shoulder bag and retreated a step. “You don’t need to worry about my problems. You should be with your family.”
“Miss McKane.” They were back to that now, hmm? “I’m sorry if the blood upset you—I haven’t had time to change since coming home from the hospital.” He scraped his palm over the dark stubble dotting his chin and jaw before sliding his fingers over his hair and literally scratching his head. “I can see I haven’t explained myself very well. Your sympathy is appreciated but misplaced. My grandfather’s condition is serious, but please, before you go off on another tangent, would you come inside? I do have a problem that concerns you specifically.” He glanced toward the end of the hallway. “And I don’t think we should have that conversation here.”
She remembered the retired couple down the hall and nodded. “The Logans. I suppose it would be rude to wake them at this hour.”
A man with a wounded grandfather, a gun and a badge, and an inexplicable sense of urgency could take precedence for a few minutes over her suspicions and the futile desperation that might even be unfounded. Lucy hadn’t seen Diana Kozlow in months. Perhaps she’d read too much into the telephone message at the office this morning. She was probably chasing ghosts, thinking that Diana had really needed her. Roger Campbell hadn’t needed her for anything more than sex and a punching board. The only reason her own mother had needed her was to ensure her own meal ticket. How many times did she have to repeat that codependent mistake?
Inhaling a deep breath, Lucy pulled off her left glove and cap and stuffed them into her pockets, too, as Niall opened the door for her to precede him. “So what concerns me specifically besides a busted front door...” She tried to smooth her staticky curls behind her ears. “Oh, hello.”
At this late hour, she was surprised to see another man—a stockier version of Niall Watson, with a peppering of silver in his short dark hair—rising stiffly from a recliner as she stepped into the living room.
She extended her hand because she was that kind of friendly. “I’m Lucy McKane from across the hall. Sorry to visit so late, but Dr. Watson invited me...” The older man angled his body to face her, and she saw the blanket with tiny green and yellow animals draped over his arm. “You have a baby.”
“Can’t put anything past you,” the tall man teased in a hushed voice, in deference to the tiny infant sleeping contentedly against his chest. “Thomas Watson.” He easily cradled the child in one arm to shake her hand. “I raised three boys and a girl of my own, so I’ve had some practice. I’m Niall’s father.”
“I could tell by the family resemblance. Nice to meet you. You seem to be a natural.” Lucy stepped closer to tuck the loose blanket back around the tiny child’s head. The newborn’s scent was a heady mix of gentle soap and something slightly more medicinal. A tightly guarded longing stirred inside her, and she wanted to brush aside the wisp of dark brown hair that fell across the infant’s forehead. She wisely curled her fingers into her palm and smiled instead. “And this is...?”
Niall’s crisp voice sounded behind her. “I was hoping you could tell us.”
Lucy swiveled her head up to his as he moved in beside her. “I don’t understand. Isn’t the baby yours?” She glanced at Niall’s father. He was older, yes, but by her quick assessment, still a virile man. “My apologies. The baby is yours.”
“No, ma’am.”
The older man grinned, but Niall looked anything but amused when he reached across her to adjust the blanket she’d tidied a moment earlier. “I broke into your apartment, Miss McKane.”
“You? To steal twenty dollars? Why on earth would you do that?”
“I wasn’t the first intruder. I found a screwdriver that had apparently been used to break into your place.” He pulled a tiny gem from his pocket and held it up between his thumb and forefinger, twisting it until she could see the fracture in the clear red glass. “I believe this came off it.”
“A screwdriver?” Lucy clutched at her purse strap, the bittersweet joy of seeing the baby momentarily forgotten. Diana was in trouble. “A pink one with glitter on the handle?”
He picked up a bag marked with numbers and the scratch of his signature from the coffee table and folded the excess plastic out of the way so she could see the contents inside. “This one.”
“Oh, my God.” Lucy plucked the screwdriver from his open palm and turned it over in her hand. The room swayed at the instant recognition. Diana hadn’t wanted jewelry or dolls for birthdays and Christmas. She’d been a tomboy and tough-kid wannabe from their first meeting. Diana had wanted a basketball and running shoes and a toolbox, although she’d seemed pleased with the bling on this particular set. Lucy blinked away the tears that scratched at her eyes and tilted her face to Niall’s. “Where did you get this?”
“Is it yours?”
“Answer my question.”
“Answer mine.”
“Niall,” Thomas gently chided.
A deep, resolute sigh expanded Niall Watson’s chest before he propped his hands at his waist again in that vaguely superior stance that emphasized both his height and the width of his shoulders. If it wasn’t for his glasses and the spiky muss of his hair that desperately needed a comb, she might have suspected he had an ego to go with all that intellect. “Apparently, someone jimmied the locks on your door several hours before I got home, and I suspect they used that tool to do it. I let myself in when I heard this child crying in distress. I thought, perhaps, you weren’t being responsible—”
“With a child?” He thought...that she... Lucy didn’t know whether to cry or smack him. “I would never. My job is to protect children.”
“I know that.” Her burst of defensive anger eased as he continued his account.
“But then I suspected that you might be in some kind of distress yourself. I entered the premises to make sure you were all right.” He plucked the screwdriver from her fingers and returned it to the table along with the shattered bead and another bag that appeared to be holding the beginnings of the gray scarf she’d been knitting for a coworker. She could see now that the markings meant he’d labeled them all as evidence. “I found it on your kitchen counter beside the baby. I brought him here since there didn’t seem to be anyone else watching him. We’ve given him food, clean clothes and a bath. Other than a nasty case of diaper rash, he seems to be healthy.”
That explained the medicinal smell. “It’s a boy?” She turned back to the older man cradling the sleeping infant. “He was in my apartment? All alone?”
“I believe that’s what I’ve been saying.” Niall Watson could sound as irritated with her as he wanted. He’d saved this child, and for that, she would be forever grateful.
Lucy pressed her fingers to her mouth to hold back the tears that wanted to fall. Tears that wouldn’t do anyone any good. Diana’s cryptic phone message that had sent Lucy on a wild hunt all over Kansas City finally made sense. “That’s what she wanted to show me. I had no idea. The baby is what she wanted me to take care of. But why wouldn’t she stay, too?”
“What are you talking about, Miss McKane?”
“I have a favor to ask, Lucy. I don’t know who else to call. I need to show you something, and I need you to keep it safe.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?” Lucy whispered. She couldn’t help but reach out to stroke her finger across the infant’s cheek. His skin was as velvety soft as it looked, and she was instantly in love. “You precious little boy.”
“Do you know who is responsible for this child?” Niall asked.
“Possibly.” Lifting her gaze to Niall’s father, Lucy held out her hands. “May I?”
“Of course.”
Lucy sighed with a mixture of longing and regret as the baby’s sweet weight filled her arms and settled against her. “He’s so tiny. How old do you think he is?”
“I’d say a week. Two, tops,” Niall answered from behind her. “Obviously, pediatrics isn’t my area of expertise, but I know enough to handle the basics. I still think he needs to see a pediatric specialist to ensure a clean bill of health. Now what can you tell us about his parents?” Niall stepped aside as she circled the coffee table and sat on the edge of his sofa to hold the baby more securely. She heard a huff of what could be resignation a second before the cushion beside her sank with his weight. When she tumbled toward her tall neighbor at her shifting perch, his hands shot out to balance her shoulder and cradle her forearm that held the baby. “Easy. Don’t let go of him.”
“I couldn’t.”
Niall’s hand remained beneath her arm, making sure of her hold on the infant. His chest pressed against Lucy’s shoulder, and for a split second she was overcome by the normalcy of the family she’d never known and would never have. A mother, a father, a child they shared together. The yearning inside her was almost painful.
Blinking rapidly to dispel the impossible image of the brainy doctor cop and her creating a perfect little baby together, Lucy scooted away to break the contact between her and Niall Watson, although she could still feel that crazily addictive warmth he radiated. “What’s his name?” she asked, craving the information as much as she needed to put space between her and her errant fantasies.
“He didn’t come with an ID,” Niall answered. “He didn’t come with anything. Not even a fresh diaper. If you could answer at least some of my questions—”
“Son.” The older Watson chided the tone in Niall’s voice and offered her a smile. “I nicknamed him Tommy. But that’s just a family name I was using so we could call him something besides ‘little munchkin.’ We were hoping you’d be able to fill in the blanks for us. But I take it you’re not the mother.”
His green eyes were kind, but Lucy still felt the sting of truth. “No. I... I can’t have children of my own.”
“I’m sorry. You seem like a natural with Tommy, too.”
His kind words enabled her to smile back. “Thank you.” But a glance up to the man seated beside her indicated that answers were the only thing that was going to soften that empirical focus zeroed in on her. He was this baby’s champion, and nothing short of the entire truth was going to satisfy him. “I think... Tommy...” She stroked her fingertip over his tiny lips, and they instinctively moved to latch on, even though he was asleep. “I have no idea who the father is. But I think he belongs to my foster daughter, Diana Kozlow.”
Niall’s posture relaxed a fraction, although that stern focus remained. “The woman whose name you kept calling out.”
Lucy nodded. “Technically, she’s my former foster daughter. Diana was with me for six years until she aged out of the system. She’s twenty now. We kept in touch for a year or so. But I lost contact with her after that. She changed her number, changed her job. I had no idea she’d gotten pregnant.” She nodded toward the screwdriver on the coffee table. “I gave that to her in a tool set one Christmas. I guess she broke into my apartment to leave the baby with me. Probably took the twenty I had stashed in my knitting basket. She called me out of the blue yesterday—said she had something she wanted to show me. I invited her for lunch today, but she never came. I tried calling the number she used, but the phone went straight to voice mail.”
She rocked back and forth, ever so subtly, soothing the infant as he began to stir. “I went to my office to look up her most recent address and phone number to make sure I had it right—and discovered she’d left me a pretty disturbing message on my answering machine there. I’ve been out looking for her ever since. One of the neighbors at the last address where I knew her to live said Diana had a boyfriend move in with her about six months ago. She never knew his name, so that was a dead end. Shortly after that they moved to Carmody Street, she thought—”
“Carmody?” The elder Watson muttered a curse under his breath. “That’s not a good part of town. You didn’t go there to look for her by yourself, did you? At the police department, we call that part of town no-man’s-land.”
“I can believe it.” The two men exchanged a grim look. “No one there recognized Diana, and they couldn’t tell me the boyfriend’s name, either. I wasn’t sure where to look after that. How does a young woman just...disappear?” Lucy’s thoughts drifted to all the morbid possibilities that had driven her to search for Diana. “Why wouldn’t she keep Tommy with her? Why wouldn’t she stay at my place with him if she was in trouble?”
“If she’s the mother,” Niall cautioned. “We’d have to blood-type him and run DNA on both mother and son to be certain.”
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 (#ulink_6b94f0ca-70d5-55aa-b9a4-8c464cb2db48)
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.
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Julie Miller
After a near-fatal shootout at his sister’s wedding, third-generation lawman Niall Watson comes home to a baby in distress. The abandoned newborn in his neighbor’s apartment sends the Kansas City PD criminologist into rescue mode once again.Social worker Lucy McKane will do whatever it takes to protect the infant boy entrusted to her care. The tall, sexy ME next door may be clueless about her feelings for him, but Niall’s the only one who can keep them safe. As a vengeful killer targets them, desire draws Lucy and Niall dangerously closer. Together, can they find justice and safeguard their newly created family?
“So we agree to work as a team. For Tommy’s sake.”
“For Tommy’s sake.” Lucy took a step closer, and Niall inhaled the scents of baby powder and something slightly more exotic that didn’t have anything to do with the infant she was pushing into his arms.
“Since I’ve convinced you that we’re on the same side now, would you feel comfortable watching him for about ten minutes? That’s all the time I’ll need to freshen up and change so we’re ready to go.”
Her fingers caught for a moment between Tommy and the placket of Niall’s shirt, and even through the pressed cotton, his stomach muscles clenched at the imprint of her knuckles brushing against his skin. But she pulled away to drape a burp rag over his shoulder, apparently unaware of his physiological reactions to her touch and scent.
APB: Baby
Julie Miller
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JULIE MILLER is an award-winning USA TODAY bestselling author of breathtaking romantic suspense—with a National Readers’ Choice Award and a Daphne du Maurier Award, among other prizes. She has also earned an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. For a complete list of her books, monthly newsletter and more, go to www.juliemiller.org (http://www.juliemiller.org).
For my husband, Scott E. Miller.
I’m so proud of you for writing your stories and getting them published.
(Welcome to the joys and headaches of being an author.)
Contents
Cover (#u1c0b71f9-1485-5e64-a79f-f86b03b1a81f)
Introduction (#u7d7054de-2796-56d3-a55b-d5c5bdd351ee)
Title Page (#ubea7eacb-70a7-5dfd-b4bf-533223b1051f)
About the Author (#uccf0960a-2eb9-5039-be7c-f84d550be1d5)
Dedication (#ue52d64ba-19ea-5e74-82bf-0a59955fb65b)
Prologue (#ua952ab7f-9050-5cf0-a069-61cf99951c22)
Chapter One (#u076fd94e-bcfa-5e40-be07-1b9905731c95)
Chapter Two (#u71b19431-d447-5cf2-9bcb-669a617d93e2)
Chapter Three (#u505c180e-5186-5127-8b94-ca4c33957e7a)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ulink_2284024a-a093-54fb-abab-12acbca9b241)
Dr. Niall Watson would rather be at the crime lab conducting an autopsy instead of standing at the altar, babysitting his brothers.
But saying no to his baby sister on the day of her wedding wasn’t an option. Putting on the groomsman’s suit and facing the crowd of smiles and tears that filled the church was as much a gift to Olivia and her fiancé as the sterling silver tableware he’d bought at the online department store where they’d registered. If Olivia, the youngest of the four Watson siblings, and the only sister, asked him to keep older brother Duff and younger brother Keir in line today, then Niall would do it. It was a brilliant strategy on her part, he silently admitted. Not only would their rowdier brothers be kept in check, but asking the favor of him was sure to keep Niall engaged in the ceremony. It was smart to give him a specific task to focus on so his mind didn’t wander back to the dead body he’d analyzed yesterday morning at the lab in southeast Kansas City, and the follow-up notes he wanted to log in, or to the facts on a drowning victim he wanted to double-check before turning his findings over to the detectives supervising those particular cases.
As a third-generation cop in a close-knit family of law enforcement professionals, it was practically impossible not to be filled with investigative curiosity, or to have dedication and responsibility running through his veins. When it came to work and family, at any rate. And for Niall, there was nothing else. Work filled his life, and the Watson family filled his heart.
Except when they were screwing around—like Duff beside him, running his finger beneath the starched collar of his white shirt and grumbling something about Valentine’s Day curses while he fiddled with the knot on his cherry-red tie. Or Keir, chattering up the aisle behind Niall, saying something outrageous enough to the bridesmaid he was escorting to make her giggle. Then Keir patted her hand on his arm and turned to wink at Millie, the family housekeeper-cook they’d all grown up with, as he passed the silver-haired woman in the second pew. The older woman blushed, and Keir blew her a kiss.
Niall adjusted the dark frames of his glasses and nailed Keir with a look warning him to let go of the bridesmaid, stop working the room and assume his place beside him as one of Gabe’s groomsmen, already.
“Natalie is married to Liv’s partner, you know.” The tallest of the three brothers, Niall dropped his chin to whisper under his breath.
“Relax, charm-school dropout.” Keir clapped Niall on the shoulder of the black tuxedo he wore, grinning as he stepped up beside him. “Young or old, married or not—it never hurts to be friendly.”
Olivia might be the youngest of the four siblings, all third-generation law enforcement who served their city proudly. And she might be the only woman in the tight-knit Watson family since their mother’s murder when Niall had barely been a teen. But there was no question that Liv ran the show. Despite Duff’s tough-guy grousing or Keir’s clever charm or Niall’s own reserved, logical prowess, Olivia Mary Watson—soon to be Olivia Knight—had each of them, including their widowed father and grandfather, wrapped around her pretty little finger. If she asked Niall to keep their headstrong Irish family in line today, then he would do exactly that.
With Keir set for the moment, Niall angled his position toward the groom and best man Duff. He didn’t need to adjust his glasses to see the bulge at the small of Duff’s back beneath the tailored black jacket. Niall’s nostrils flared with a patience-inducing breath before he whispered, “Seriously? Are you packing today?”
Duff’s overbuilt shoulders shifted as he turned to whisper a response. “Hey. You wear your glasses every day, Poindexter. I wear my gun.”
“I wasn’t aware that you knew what the term Poindexter meant.”
“I’m smarter than I look” was Duff’s terse response.
Keir chuckled. “He’d have to be.”
Duff’s muscular shoulders shifted. “So help me, baby brother, if you give me any grief today, I will lay you out flat.”
“Zip it. Both of you.” Niall knew that he was quickly losing control of his two charges. He scowled at Keir. “You, mind your manners.” When Duff went after the collar hugging his muscular neck again, Niall leaned in. “And you stop fidgeting like a little kid.”
A curious look from the minister waiting behind them quieted all three brothers for the moment. With everything ready for their sister’s walk down the aisle, the processional music started. Niall scanned the rest of the crowd as they rose to their feet. Their grandfather Seamus Watson hooked his cane over the railing as he stood in the front row. He winked one blue eye at Niall before pulling out his handkerchief and turning toward the aisle to dab at the tears he didn’t want anybody to see.
And then Olivia and their father, Thomas Watson, appeared in the archway at the end of the aisle. A fist of rare sentimentality squeezed around Niall’s heart.
His father was a relatively tall, stocky man. His black tuxedo and red vest and tie—an homage to the date, February 14—matched Niall’s own attire. Niall knew a familiar moment of pride and respect as his father limped down the aisle, his shoulders erect despite the injury that had ended his career at KCPD at far too young an age. Other than the peppering of gray in Thomas’s dark brown hair, Niall saw the same face when he looked into the mirror every morning.
But that wasn’t what had him nodding his head in admiration.
His sister, that tough tomboy turned top-notch detective, the girl who’d never let three older brothers get the best of her, had grown up. Draped in ivory and sparkles, her face framed by the Irish lace veil handed down through their mother’s side of the family, Olivia Watson was a beauty. Dark hair, blue eyes like his. But feminine, radiant. Her gaze locked on to Gabe at the altar, and she smiled. Niall hadn’t seen a glimpse of his mother like that in twenty years.
“Dude,” Duff muttered. He nudged the groom beside him. “Gabe, you are one lucky son of a—”
“Duff.” Niall remembered his charge at the last moment and stopped his older brother from swearing in church.
Gabe sounded a bit awestruck himself as Olivia walked down the aisle. “I know.”
“You’d better treat her right,” Duff growled on a whisper.
Niall watched his brother’s shoulders puff up. “We’ve already had this conversation, Duff. I’m convinced he loves her.”
Gabe never took his eyes off Olivia as he inclined his head to whisper, “He does.”
Keir, of course, wasn’t about to be left out of the hushed conversation. “Anyway, Liv’s made her choice. You think any one of us could change her mind? I’d be scared to try.”
The minister hushed the lot of them as father and bride approached.
“Ah, hell,” Duff muttered, looking up at the ceiling. He blinked rapidly, pinching his nose. The big guy was tearing up. “This is not happening to me.”
“She looks the way I remember Mom,” Keir said in a curiously soft voice.
Finally, the gravity of the day was sinking in and their focus was where it should be. Niall tapped Duff’s elbow. “Do you have a handkerchief?”
“The rings are tied up in it.”
“Here.” Niall slipped his own white handkerchief to Duff, who quickly dabbed at his face. He nodded what passed for a thank-you and stuffed the cotton square into his pocket, steeling his jaw against the flare of emotion.
When Olivia arrived at the altar, she kissed their father, catching him in a tight hug before smiling at all three brothers. Duff sniffled again. Keir gave her a thumbs-up. Niall nodded approvingly. Olivia handed her bouquet off to her matron of honor, Ginny Rafferty-Taylor, and took Gabe’s hand to face the minister.
The rest of the ceremony continued with everyone on their best behavior until the minister pronounced Gabe and Olivia husband and wife and announced, “You may now kiss the bride.”
“Love you,” Olivia whispered.
Gabe kissed her again. “Love you more.”
“I now present Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel Knight.”
Niall pondered the pomp and circumstance of this particular Valentine’s Day as the guests applauded and the recessional music started. Logically, he knew the words Liv and Gabe had spoken and what they meant. But a part of him struggled to comprehend exactly how this sappy sort of pageantry equated to happiness and lifelong devotion. It was all a bit wearing, really. But if this was what Olivia wanted, he’d support her wholeheartedly and do whatever was necessary to make it happen.
Following Duff to the center of the aisle, Niall extended his arm to escort bridesmaid Katie Rinaldi down the marble steps. Despite his red-rimmed eyes, Thomas Watson smiled at each of his children. Niall smiled back.
Until he caught the glimpse of movement in the balcony at the back of the church. A figure in black emerged from the shadows beside a carved limestone buttress framing a row of organ pipes.
In a nanosecond frozen in time, a dozen observations blipped through Niall’s mind. The organist played away upstairs, unaware of the intruder only a few yards from his position. The figure wore a ski mask and a long black coat. Clearly not a guest. Not church staff. The pews were filled with almost two hundred potential targets, many of them off-duty and retired police officers. His new brother-in-law had made more enemies than friends with his cutting-edge editorials. What did he want? Why was he here? Didn’t have to be a cop hater with some kind of vendetta. Could be some crazy with nothing more in mind than making a deadly statement about a lost love or perceived injustice or mental illness.
The gleam of polished wood reflected the colored light streaming in through the balcony’s stained-glass windows as the shooter pulled a rifle from his long cloak. Mauser hunting rifle. Five eight-millimeter rounds. He carried a second weapon, a semiautomatic pistol, strapped to his belt. That was enough firepower to do plenty of damage. Enough to kill far too many people.
Time righted itself as the analytical part of Niall’s brain shut down and the years of training as a cop and medical officer kicked in. Move! Niall shoved Katie to one side and reached for his father as the shooter took aim.
“Gun!” he shouted, pointing to the balcony as his fingers closed around the sleeve of Thomas Watson’s jacket. “Get down!”
The slap, slap, slap of gunshots exploded through the church. The organ music clashed on a toxic chord and went silent. Wood splintered and flew like shrapnel. A vase at the altar shattered. Flower petals and explosions of marble dust rained in the air.
“Everybody down!” Duff ordered, drawing the pistol from the small of his back. He dropped to one knee on the opposite side of the aisle and raised his weapon. “Drop it!”
“I’m calling SWAT.” Keir ducked between two pews, pulling his phone from his jacket as he hugged his arms around Natalie Fensom and Millie Leighter.
Niall saw Gabe Knight slam his arms around Liv and pull her to the marble floor beneath his body. Guests shouted names of loved ones. A child cried out in fear, and a mother hastened to comfort him. Warnings not to panic, not to run, blended together with the screams and tromping footfalls of people doing just that.
“I’ve got no shot,” Duff yelled, pushing to a crouching position as the shooter dropped his spent rifle and pulled his pistol. Niall heard Keir’s succinct voice reporting to dispatch. With a nod from Katie that she was all right and assurance that her husband was circling around the outside aisle to get to her, Niall climbed to his knees to assess the casualties. He caught a glimpse of Duff and a couple of other officers zigzagging down the aisle through the next hail of bullets and charging out the back of the sanctuary. “Get down and stay put!”
Niall squeezed his father’s arm. He was okay. He glanced back at the minister crouched behind the pulpit. He hadn’t been hit, either. The man in the balcony shouted no manifesto, made no threat. He emptied his gun into the sanctuary, grabbed his rifle and scrambled up the stairs toward the balcony exit. He was making a lot of noise and doing a lot of damage and generating a lot of terror. But despite the chaos, he wasn’t hitting anyone. What kind of maniac set off this degree of panic without having a specific—
“Niall!” His grandfather’s cane clattered against the marble tiles. Niall was already peeling off his jacket and wadding it up to use as a compress as Thomas Watson cradled the eighty-year-old man in his arms and gently lowered him to the floor. “Help me, son. Dad’s been shot.”
Chapter One (#ulink_08caa858-b294-5a9a-b373-fc079acb3d69)
Niall stepped off the elevator in his condominium building to the sound of a baby crying.
His dragging feet halted as the doors closed behind him, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled a deep, weary breath, pulled the phone from his ear and checked his watch. Two in the morning.
Great. Just great. He had nothing against babies—he knew many of them grew into very fine adults. But he’d been awake going on twenty hours now, had been debriefed six ways to Sunday by cops and family and medical staff alike, hadn’t even had a chance to change his ruined fancy clothes, and was already feeling sleep deprived by switching off his typical nocturnal work schedule to be there for Liv’s wedding. No way was he going to catch a couple hours of much-needed shut-eye before he headed back to the hospital later this morning.
He put the phone back to his ear and finished the conversation with Duff. “You know we can’t investigate this shooting personally. There’s a huge conflict of interest since the victim is family.”
“Then I’m going to find out which detectives caught the case and make sure they keep us in the loop.”
“You do that. And I’ll keep track of any evidence that comes through the lab.”
“We’ll find this guy.” Duff’s pronouncement was certain. “Get some sleep, Niall.”
“You, too.” Niall disconnected the call, knowing he couldn’t comply with his older brother’s directive.
But it wasn’t the pitiful noise of the infant’s wails, nor the decibel level of distress that solid walls could only mute, that would keep him awake.
His brain’s refusal to let a question go unanswered was going to prevent his thoughts from quieting until he could solve the mystery of where that crying baby had come from and to whom the child belonged. As if the events of the day—with his grandfather lying in intensive care and an unidentified shooter on the loose in Kansas City—weren’t enough to keep him from sleeping, now a desperately unhappy infant and Niall’s own curiosity over the unexpected sound were probably going to eat up whatever downtime he had left tonight. Cursing that intellectual compulsion, Niall rolled his kinked-up neck muscles and started down the hallway.
Considering three of the six condos on this floor were empty, a retired couple in their seventies lived in one at the far end of the hall and Lucy McKane, who lived across the hall from his place, was a single like himself, the crying baby posed a definite mystery. Perhaps the Logans were babysitting one of the many grandchildren they liked to talk about. Either that or Lucy McKane had company tonight. Could she be watching a friend’s child? Dating a single dad who’d brought along a young chaperone? Letting a well-kept secret finally reveal itself?
Although they’d shared several early-morning and late-night chats, he and Lucy had never gotten much beyond introductions and polite conversations about the weather and brands of detergent. Just because he hadn’t seen a ring on her finger didn’t mean she wasn’t attached to someone. And even though he struggled with interpersonal relationships, he wasn’t so clueless as to think she had to be married or seeing someone in order to get pregnant.
So the crying baby was most likely hers.
Good. Mystery solved. Niall pulled his keys from his pocket as he approached his door. Sleep might just happen.
Or not.
The flash of something red and shiny in the carpet stopped Niall in the hallway between their two doors. He stooped down to retrieve a minuscule shard of what looked like red glass. Another mystery? Didn’t building maintenance vacuum out here five days a week? This was a recent deposit and too small to identify the source. A broken bottle? Stained glass? The baby wailed through the door off to his right, and Niall turned his head. He hadn’t solved anything at all.
Forget the broken glass. Where and when did Lucy McKane get a baby?
He’d never seen her coming home from a date before, much less in the company of a man with a child. And he was certain he hadn’t noticed a baby bump on her. Although she could have been hiding a pregnancy, either intentionally or not. He generally ran into her in the elevator when she was wearing bulky hand-knit sweaters or her winter coat, or in the gym downstairs, where she sported oversize T-shirts with one silly or motivational message or another. And then there were those late-night visits in the basement laundry room, where there’d been clothes baskets and tables between them to mask her belly. Now that he thought about it, Lucy McKane wore a lot of loose-fitting clothes. Her fashion choices tended to emphasize her generous breasts and camouflage the rest of her figure. He supposed she could have been carrying a baby one of those late nights when they’d discussed fabric softener versus dryer sheets, and he simply hadn’t realized it.
If that was the case, though, why hadn’t he seen the child or heard it crying before tonight? The woman liked to talk. Wouldn’t she have announced the arrival of her child?
Maybe he’d rethink other options. It was the wee hours after Valentine’s Day. She could be watching the child for a friend out on an overnight date. But why hadn’t Lucy gone out for Valentine’s Day? The woman was pretty in an unconventional kind of way, if one liked a cascade of dark curls that were rarely tamed, green eyes that were slightly almond shaped and the apple cheeks and a pert little nose that would make her look eternally young. She made friends easily enough, judging by her ability to draw even someone like him into random conversations. And she was certainly well-spoken—at least when it came to washing clothes and inclement weather, gossip about the building’s residents and the news of the day. So why wasn’t a woman like that taken? Where was her date?
And why was he kneeling here in a stained, wrinkled tuxedo and eyes that burned with fatigue, analyzing the situation at all? He needed sleep, desperately. Otherwise, his mind wouldn’t be wandering like this.
“Let it go, Watson,” he chided himself, pushing to his feet.
Niall turned to the door marked 8C and inserted his key into the lock. At least he could clearly pinpoint the source of the sound now. The noise of the unhappy baby from behind Lucy McKane’s door was jarring to his weary senses. He was used to coming home in shrouded silence when his swing shift at the medical examiner’s office ended. Most of the residents in the building were asleep by then. He respected their need for quiet as much as he craved it himself. He never even turned on the radio or TV. He’d brew a pot of decaf and sit down with a book or his reading device until he could shut down his thoughts from the evening and turn in for a few hours of sleep. Sending a telepathic brain wave to the woman across the hall to calm her child and allow them all some peace, he went inside and closed the door behind him.
After hanging up his coat in the front closet, Niall switched on lamps and headed straight to the wet bar, where he tossed the sliver of glass onto the counter, unhooked the top button of his shirt and poured himself a shot of whiskey. Sparing a glance for the crimson smears that stained his jacket sleeve and shirt cuffs, he raised his glass to the man he’d left sleeping in the ICU at Saint Luke’s Hospital. Only when his younger brother had come in to spell him for a few hours after Keir and Duff had hauled Liv and her new husband, Gabe, off to a fancy hotel where they could spend their wedding night—in lieu of the honeymoon they’d postponed—had Niall left Seamus Watson’s side. “This one’s for you, Grandpa.”
Niall swallowed the pungent liquor in one gulp, savoring the fire burning down his gullet and chasing away the chill of a wintry night and air-conditioned hospital rooms that clung to every cell of his body. It had been beyond a rough day. His grandfather was a tough old bird, and Niall had been able to stanch the bleeding and stabilize him at the church well enough to keep shock from setting in. He’d ridden with the paramedics to the hospital, and they had done their job well, as had the ER staff. But the eighty-year-old man had needed surgery to repair the bleeders from the bullet that had fractured his skull and remove the tiny bone fragments that had come dangerously close to entering his brainpan and killing him.
Although the attending surgeon and neurologist insisted Seamus was now guardedly stable and needed to sleep, the traumatic brain injury had done significant damage. Either due to the wound itself, or a resulting stroke, he’d lost the use of his left arm and leg, had difficulty speaking and limited vision in his left eye. Seamus was comfortable for now, but age and trauma had taken a toll on his body and he had a long road to recovery ahead of him. And as Niall had asked questions of the doctors and hovered around the nurses and orderlies while they worked, he couldn’t help but replay those minutes at the end of the wedding over and over in his head.
Had Seamus Watson been the shooter’s intended target? And since the old man seemed determined to live, would the shooter be coming back to finish the job? Was Grandpa safe? Or was his dear, funny, smarter-than-the-rest-of-them-put-together grandfather a tragic victim of collateral damage?
If so, who had the man with all those bullets really been after? Why plan the attack at the church? Was the Valentine’s Day date significant? Was his goal to disrupt the wedding, make a statement against KCPD, or simply to create chaos and validate his own sense of power? Even though others had been hurt by minor shrapnel wounds, and one man had suffered a mild heart attack triggered by the stress of the situation, the number of professionally trained guests had kept the panic to a minimum. So who was the shooter? Duff said he’d chased the perp up onto the roof, but then the man had disappeared before Duff or any of the other officers in pursuit could reach him. What kind of man planned his escape so thoroughly, yet failed to hit anyone besides the Watson patriarch? And if Seamus was the intended target, what was the point of all the extra damage and drama?
And could Niall have stopped the tragedy completely if he’d spotted the man in the shadows a few seconds sooner? He scratched his fingers through the short hair that already stood up in spikes atop his head after a day of repeating the same unconscious habit. Niall prided himself on noting details. But today he’d missed the most important clue of his life until it was too late.
His brothers would be looking into Seamus’s old case files and tracking down any enemies that their grandfather might have made in his career on the force, despite his retirement fifteen years earlier. Duff and Keir would be following up any clues found by the officers investigating the case that could lead to the shooter’s identity and capture. Frustratingly, Niall’s involvement with finding answers was done—unless one of his brothers came up with some forensic evidence he could process at the lab. And even then, Niall’s expertise was autopsy work. He’d be doing little more than calling in favors to speed the process and following up with his coworkers at the crime lab. Although it galled him to take a backseat in the investigation, logic indicated he’d better serve the family by taking point on his grandfather’s care and recovery so his brothers could focus on tracking down the would-be assassin.
Niall picked up the Bushmills to pour himself a second glass, but the muted cries of the baby across the hall reminded him that he wasn’t the only one dealing with hardship tonight, and he returned the bottle to the cabinet. He wanted to have a clear head in the morning when he returned to the hospital for a follow-up report on his grandfather. He could already feel his body surrendering to the tide of fatigue, and despite his unsettling thoughts, he loathed the idea of dulling his intellect before he found the answers he needed. So he set the glass in the sink and moved into the kitchen to start a small pot of decaf.
While the machine hissed and bubbled, he shrugged out of the soiled black tuxedo jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. After pulling out the rented tie he’d folded up into a pocket and laying it over the coat, he went to work unbuttoning the cherry-red vest he wore. Typically, he didn’t wear his gun unless he was out in the field at a crime scene. But with his family threatened and too many questions left unanswered, he’d had Duff unlock it from the glove compartment of Niall’s SUV and bring it to the hospital, where he’d strapped it on. Niall halted in the middle of unhooking his belt to remove it, opting instead to roll up his sleeves and leave himself armed. Until he understood exactly what was going on, it would be smart to keep that protection close at hand.
Whether it was the gun’s protection, the resumption of his nightly routine or the discordant noise from across the hall receding, Niall braced his hands against the edge of the sink to stretch his back and drop his chin, letting his eyes close as the tension in him gave way to weariness.
The distant baby’s cries shortened like staccato notes, as if the child was running out of the breath or energy to maintain the loud wails. Maybe Miss McKane was finally having some success in quieting the infant. Despite how much she liked to talk, she seemed like a capable sort of woman. Sensible, too. She carried her keys on a ring with a small pepper spray canister in her hand each time he saw her walking to or from her car in the parking lot. She wore a red stocking hat on her dark curly hair when the weather was cold and wet to conserve body heat. She sorted her jeans and towels from her whites and colors. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t completely practical. Why did a woman need so many different types of underwear, anyway? Cotton briefs, silky long johns, lacy bras in white and tan and assorted pastels, animal prints...
Niall’s eyes popped open when he realized he was thinking about Lucy McKane’s underwear. And not folded up in her laundry basket or tucked away in a dresser drawer, either.
Good grief. Imagining his neighbor’s pale skin outlined in that tan-and-black leopard-print duo he’d found so curiously distracting tossed on top of her folding pile was hardly appropriate. Exhaustion must be playing tricks on him. Pushing away from the sink, Niall clasped his glasses at either temple and adjusted the frames on his face, as if the action could refocus the wayward detour of his thoughts. It was irritating that he could be so easily distracted by curves and cotton or shards of glass or mystery babies who were none of his business when he wanted to concentrate on studying the events before, during and after the shooting at the wedding. Perhaps he should have skipped the shot of whiskey and gone straight for the steaming decaf he poured into a mug.
He added a glug of half-and-half from the fridge and carried the fragrant brew to the bookshelf in the living room, where he pulled out a medical volume to look up some of the details relating to his grandfather’s condition. He savored the reviving smell of the coffee before taking a drink and settling into the recliner beside the floor lamp.
Niall had barely turned the first page when the infant across the hall found his second wind and bellowed with a high-pitched shriek that nearly startled him into spilling his drink.
Enough. Was the child sick? Had he completely misjudged Lucy McKane’s competence? Niall set his book and mug on the table beside him and pushed to his feet. Maybe the muted noise of a baby crying didn’t bother anybody else. Maybe no one else could hear the child’s distress. He was so used to the building being quiet at this hour that maybe he was particularly sensitive to the muffled sounds. And maybe he’d come so close to losing someone he loved today that he just didn’t have the patience to deal with a neighbor who couldn’t respect his need for a little peace and quiet and time to regroup.
In just a few strides he was out the door and across the hall, knocking on Lucy McKane’s front door. When there was no immediate response, he knocked harder. “Miss McKane? Do you know how late it is? Some of us are trying to sleep.” Well, he hadn’t been. But it wasn’t as though he could if he even wanted to with that plaintive racket filtering through the walls. “Miss McKane?”
Niall propped his hands at his waist, waiting several seconds before knocking again. “Miss McKane?” Why didn’t the woman answer her door? She couldn’t be asleep with the baby crying like that, could she? In a heartbeat, Niall’s irritation morphed into concern at the lack of any response. That could explain the infant’s distress. Maybe Lucy McKane couldn’t help the child. He flattened his palm against the painted steel and pounded again. “Miss McKane? It’s Niall Watson from across the hall. Are you in there? Is everything all right?”
He reached down to jiggle the knob, but the cold metal twisted easily in his hand and the door creaked open a couple of inches.
Niall’s suspicion radar went on instant alert. What woman who lived alone in the city didn’t keep her door locked?
“Miss McKane?” he called out. But his only response was the even louder decibel level of the crying baby. He squinted the scratches on the knob into focus and quickly pulled his phone from his pocket to snap a picture. A familiar glint of red glass wedged between the frame and catch for the dead bolt higher up caught his eye. The tiny shattered orb looked like the source of the shard he’d found in the carpet.
Finally. Answers. But he didn’t like them.
There were deeper gouges in the wood trim around it, indicating that both locks had been forced. His brain must have been half-asleep not to have suspected earlier that something was seriously wrong. Niall snapped a second picture. “Miss McKane? Are you all right?”
For a few seconds, the concerns of his Hippocratic oath warred with the procedure drilled into him by his police training. His brother Duff would muscle his way in without hesitation, while Keir would have a judge on speed dial, arranging an entry warrant. Niall weighed his options. The baby was crying and Lucy wasn’t answering. His concern for the occupants’ safety was reason enough to enter a potentially dangerous situation despite risking any kind of legalities. Tonight he’d forgo caution and follow his older brother’s example.
“Hold tight, little one,” he whispered, unstrapping his holster and pulling the service weapon from his belt. Although he was more used to handling a scalpel than a Glock, as a member of the KCPD crime lab, he’d been trained and certified to use the gun.
He held it surely as he nudged open the broken door. “Miss McKane? It’s Niall Watson with the KCPD crime lab. I’m concerned for your safety. I’m coming in.”
The mournful wails of a baby crying itself into exhaustion instantly grew louder on this side of the walls separating their living spaces. He backed against the door, closing it behind him as he cradled the gun between both hands. A dim light in the kitchen provided the only illumination in the condo that mirrored the layout of his own place. Allowing his vision to adjust to the dim outlines of furniture and doorways, Niall waited before advancing into the main room. He checked the closet and powder room near the entryway before moving through the living and dining rooms. Empty. No sign of Lucy McKane anywhere. No blood or signs of an accident or struggle of any sort, either. In fact, the only things that seemed out of place were the bundles of yarn, patterns and knitting needles that had been dumped out of their basket onto the coffee table and strewn across the sofa cushions and area rug.
He found the baby in the kitchen, fastened into a carrier that sat on the peninsula countertop, with nothing more than the glow of an automatic night-light beside the stove to keep him company. A half-formed panel of gray knitted wool hung from the baby’s toes, as if he’d once been covered with it but had thrashed it aside.
Niall flipped on the light switch and circled around the peninsula, plucking the makeshift blanket off and laying it on the counter. “You’re a tiny thing to be making all that noise. You all alone in here? Do you know where your mama is?”
The kid’s red face lolled toward Niall’s hushed voice. It shook and batted its little fists before cranking up to wail again. Niall didn’t need to take a second whiff to ascertain at least one reason why the baby was so unhappy. But a quick visual sweep didn’t reveal any sign of a diaper bag or anything to change it into besides the yellow outfit it wore. Had Lucy McKane left the child alone to go make a supply run?
Niall moved the gun down to his side and touched the baby’s face. Feverish. Was the kid sick? Or was that what this ceaseless crying did to someone who was maybe only a week or so old?
The infant’s cries sputtered into silent gasps as Niall splayed his fingers over its heaving chest. Not unlike his grandfather’s earlier that day, the baby’s heart was racing. A quick check farther down answered another question for him. “You okay, little man?”
How long had he been left unattended like this?
And where was Lucy? There was no sign of her in the kitchen, either, despite the dirty dishes in the sink and what looked like a congealed glob of cookie dough in the stand mixer beside it. It seemed as though she’d left in the middle of baking a dessert. Why hadn’t she completed the task? Where had she gone? What had called her away? And, he thought, with a distinct note of irritation filtering into his thought process, why hadn’t she taken the baby with her?
“Hold on.” Niall’s gaze was drawn to a screwdriver on the counter that didn’t look like any piece of cooking equipment he’d ever seen his late mother or Millie Leighter use.
After a couple of silent sobs vibrated through the infant’s delicate chest, Niall pulled his hand away. Tuning out the recommencing wail, he opened two drawers before he found a plastic bag and used it to pick up the tool. The handle was an absurd shade of pink with shiny baubles glued around each end of the grip. He rolled it in his hand until he found what he suspected he might—an empty space in the circle of fake stones. Niall glanced back through the darkened apartment. The bead stuck in the frame of her door suddenly made sense. But even if his neighbor had lost her key and had to break into her own place, she’d turn on the lights once she got in. There’d be signs of her being here. And she’d damn well take care of the baby.
Unless she wasn’t the one who’d broken in.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he ordered needlessly. Wrapping the screwdriver securely in the bag, Niall slipped it into his pocket and clasped the gun between his hands again. “I’ll be right back.”
A quick inspection through the bedroom and en suite showed no sign of Lucy McKane there, either. He didn’t see her purse anywhere, and her winter coat and accoutrements were missing from the front closet. There was no baby paraphernalia in any of the rooms.
Had she been kidnapped? What kind of kidnapper would leave evidence like the screwdriver behind? Had she been robbed? Nothing here seemed disturbed beyond the topsy-turvy knitting basket, and anything of typical value to a thief—her flat-screen TV, a laptop computer—was still here.
More unanswered questions. Niall’s concern reverted to irritation.
This child had been abandoned. Lucy McKane was gone, and the woman had a lot of explaining to do.
Niall was surprisingly disappointed to learn that she was the type of woman to leave an infant alone to run errands or enjoy a date. She was a free spirit, certainly, with her friendly smile and ease at striking up conversations with neighbors she barely knew and ownership of far too many pairs of panties. But she’d told him she was a social worker, for pity’s sake. He wouldn’t have pegged her to be so self-absorbed and reckless as to leave a child in an unlocked apartment—to leave the child, period. If she’d left by choice.
With the mandate of both his badge and his medical degree, and three generations of protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves bred into him, Niall could not walk out that door and abandon this baby himself. So, understanding as much about children as his medical books could teach, he tucked his gun into its holster, pulled his phone from his pocket and picked up the baby in its carrier. He spared a glance at the soft wood around the deadbolt catch, debating whether or not he should retrieve the decorative bead jammed there or report Lucy as a missing person. Making the crying infant his first priority, Niall closed the door behind him and carried the baby into his apartment before dialing the most knowledgeable parent he knew.
The phone picked up on the third ring. “Niall?”
“Dad.” He set the carrier on the island in his own kitchen and opened a drawer to pull out two clean dish towels. A quick glance at his watch indicated that perhaps he should have thought this through better. “Did I wake you?”
“It’s three in the morning, son. Of course you did.” Thomas Watson pushed the grogginess from his voice. “Are you still at the hospital? Has there been a change in Dad’s condition?”
“No. The doctors are keeping Grandpa lightly sedated. Keir will stay with him until one of us relieves him in the morning.”
“Thank God one of my boys is a doctor and that you were there to give him the treatment he needed immediately. We should be giving thanks that he survived and no one else was seriously injured. But knowing that the bastard who shot him is still...” Thomas Watson’s tone changed from dark frustration to curious surprise. “Do I hear a baby crying?”
Niall strode through his apartment, retrieving a towel and washcloth along with the first-aid kit and a clean white T-shirt from his dresser. “Yes. Keir will contact me if there is any change in Grandpa’s condition. I told Grandpa one or all of us would be by to see him in the morning, that the family would be there for him 24/7. I’m not sure he heard me, though.”
“Dad heard you, I’m sure.” Niall could hear his father moving now, a sure sign that the former cop turned investigative consultant was on his feet and ready for Niall to continue. “Now go back to the other thing. Why do you have a baby?”
Niall had returned to the kitchen to run warm water in the sink. “Can I ask you a favor?”
“Of course, son.”
“Dad, I need newborn diapers, bottles and formula. A clean set of clothes and some kind of coat or blanket or whatever babies need when it’s cold. A car seat, too, if you can get your hands on one at this time of night. I’ll reimburse you for everything, of course.” Niall put the phone on speaker and spread a thick towel out on the counter, pausing for a moment to assess the locking mechanism before unhooking the baby and lifting him from the carrier. “Good Lord, you don’t weigh a thing.”
“The baby, Niall.” That tone in his father’s voice had always commanded an answer. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
“It’s the neighbor’s kid,” Niall explained. “I’d get the items myself, but I don’t have a car seat and can’t leave him alone. Oh, get something for diaper rash, too. He needs a bath. I can use a clean dish towel to cover him up until you get here, although I don’t have any safety pins. Do you think medical tape would work to hold a makeshift diaper on him until you arrive?”
“You’re babysitting? I never thought I’d see the day—”
“Just bring me the stuff, Dad.”
Another hour passed before Thomas Watson arrived with several bags of supplies. His father groused about bottles looking different from the time Olivia had been the last infant in the house and how there were far too many choices for a feeding regimen. But between the two of them, they got the baby diapered, fed and dressed in a footed sleeper that fit him much better than Niall’s long T-shirt. At first, Niall was concerned about the infant falling asleep before finishing his first bottle. But he roused enough for Thomas to coax a healthy burp out of him before drinking a little more and crashing again. Niall was relieved to feel the baby’s temperature return to normal and suspected the feverish state had been pure stress manifesting itself.
The infant boy was sleeping in Thomas Watson’s lap as the older man dozed in the recliner, and Niall was reviewing a chapter on pediatric medicine when he heard the ding of the elevator at the end of the hallway. He closed the book and set it on the coffee table, urging his waking father to stay put while he went to the door.
He heard Lucy McKane’s hushed voice mumbling something as she approached and then a much louder, “Oh, my God. I’ve had a break-in.”
Niall swung open his door and approached the back of the dark-haired woman standing motionless before her apartment door. She had turned silent, but he knew exactly what to say. “Miss McKane? You and I need to talk.”
Chapter Two (#ulink_7b5a266e-1843-556c-8799-87e493f30a94)
“The man wasn’t following me,” Lucy chanted under her breath for the umpteenth time since parking her car downstairs. She stepped off the elevator into the shadowed hallway, trying to convince herself that the drunken ape who’d offered to rock her world down on Carmody Street wasn’t the driver of the silver sports car she’d spotted in her rearview mirror less than a block from her condominium building a few minutes earlier. “He wasn’t following me.”
Maybe if she hadn’t spotted a similar car veering in and out of the lane behind her on Highway 71, she wouldn’t be so paranoid. Maybe if her voice mail at work didn’t have a message from her ex-boyfriend Roger that was equal parts slime and threat and booze.
“Guess what, sweet thing. I’m out. And I’m coming to see you.”
Maybe if it wasn’t so late, maybe if she’d felt safe in that run-down part of Kansas City, maybe if she wasn’t so certain that something terrible had happened to Diana Kozlow, her former foster daughter, who’d called her out of the blue yesterday after more than a year of no contact—maybe if the twenty-year-old would answer her stupid phone any one of the dozen times Lucy had tried to call her back—she wouldn’t feel so helpless or alone or afraid.
Fortunately, the silver car had driven past when she’d turned in to the gated parking garage. But the paranoia and a serious need to wash the man’s grimy hands off her clothes and skin remained. “He was not following me.”
She glanced down at the blurred picture she’d snapped through her rear window the second time the silver roadster had passed a car and slipped into the lane behind her on 71. Her pulse pounded furiously in her ears as she slipped the finger of her glove between her teeth and pulled it off her right hand to try and enlarge the picture and get a better look at the driver or read a possible license plate. Useless. No way could she prove the Neanderthal or Roger or anyone else had followed her after leaving the rattrap apartment building on Carmody, which was the last address she had for Diana. Not that it had been a productive visit. The super had refused to speak to her, and the only resident who would answer her questions about Diana was an elderly woman who couldn’t remember a young brunette woman living in the building, and didn’t recognize her from the old high school photo Lucy had shown her. Ape man had been willing to tell her anything—in exchange for stepping into the alley with him for a free grope.
None of which boded well for the life Diana had forged for herself after aging out of the foster system and leaving Lucy’s home. Lucy swiped her finger across the cell screen to pull up the high school photo of the dark-haired beauty she’d thought would be family—or at least a close friend—forever. “Oh, sweetie, what have you gotten yourself into?” she muttered around the red wool clasped between her teeth.
She glanced back at the elevator door, remembered the key card required to get into the building lobby.
“Okay. The creeper didn’t follow me,” she stated with as much conviction as she could muster. “And I will find you, Diana.”
She was simply going to have to get a few hours’ sleep and think this through and start her search again tomorrow. Except...
Lucy pulled up short when she reached the door to 8D. The late-night chill that had iced her skin seeped quickly through the layers of clothing she wore.
“Oh, my God. I’ve had a break-in.”
So much for feeling secure.
The wood around the locks on her apartment door was scratched and broken. The steel door itself drifted open with barely a touch of her hand. Lucy retreated half a step and pulled up the keypad on her phone to call the police. After two previous calls about Diana’s failure to show up for lunch or return her calls, they were probably going to think she was a nutcase to call a third time in fewer than twenty-four hours.
“Miss McKane? You and I need to talk.”
Lucy’s fear erupted in a startled yelp at the succinct announcement. She swung around with her elbow at the man’s deep voice behind her, instinctively protecting herself.
Instead of her elbow connecting with the man’s solar plexus, five long fingers clamped like a vise around her wrist and she was pushed up against the wall by a tall, lanky body. Her phone popped loose from her slippery grip and bounced across the carpet at her feet. Her heart thumped in her chest at the wall of heat trapping her there, and the loose glove she’d held between her teeth was caught between her heaving breasts and the broad expanse of a white tuxedo shirt. What the devil? Diana was missing, and she had no idea why her tall, lanky neighbor was glowering down at her through those Clark Kent glasses he wore.
“Wow,” she gasped, as the frissons of fear evaporated once she recognized him. No one else roamed the hallways this time of night except for him. She should have known better. “Sorry I took a swing at you, Dr. Watson.” She couldn’t even summon the giggly response she usually had when she said his name and conjured up thoughts of medical sidekicks and brainy British detectives. Not when she was embarrassingly aware of his hard runner’s body pressed against hers. Nothing to giggle about there. The full-body contact lasted another awkward moment. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Of course not.” Once he seemed certain she recognized him as a friend and didn’t have to defend himself, Niall Watson released his grip on her arm and stepped away, leaving a distinct chill in place of that surprising male heat that had pinned her to the wall. “I shouldn’t have startled you.”
“I thought you...were someone else.”
“Who? Were you expecting someone?”
“I, um...” She wasn’t about to explain her paranoid suspicions about ape man or Roger and the silver car, so she covered her rattled state by stooping down to retrieve her glove and phone. “Sorry if I woke you. I’ve had a break-in. I thought this was supposed to be a secure building in a safe neighborhood, but I guess there’s no place that’s truly safe if someone is determined to get to you. That’s probably why I swung first. A girl has to take care of herself, you know. I’d better call the police.”
Niall Watson’s long fingers reached her phone first. He scooped it up and tapped the screen clear. “A 911 call won’t be necessary.”
Frowning at his high-handedness, Lucy tilted her face up. “Why not?” She was halfway to making eye contact when she saw the crimson spots staining his rolled-up sleeve. She stuffed her loose glove into her pocket, along with her phone, and touched her fingertip to the red stains on the wrinkled white cotton clinging to his long, muscular forearm. There were more droplets of blood on the other sleeve, too. Irritation vanished, and she piled concern for him onto the fears that had already worn her ragged today.
“Are you hurt? Did you stop the intruder?” She grasped his wrist in her hand, much the same way he’d manhandled her, and twisted it to find the wound. Despite the tempting awareness at his toasty-warm skin beneath her chilled fingers, she was more interested in learning what had happened. She knew he was affiliated with the police. Had he stepped in to prevent a burglar from ransacking her place? Had Roger followed his release from prison with a road trip to Kansas City? Had Diana shown up while she was searching the city for her? Now she looked up and met those narrowed cobalt eyes. “Have you already called for help? Do I need to take you to the hospital?”
A dark eyebrow arched above the rim of his glasses before he glanced down to see the source of her concern. Blinking away his apparent confusion, he pulled out of her grip to splay his fingers at his waist. “This isn’t my blood.”
“Then whose...?” His stance drew her attention to the holster strapped to his belt. Had she ever seen Niall Watson wearing a gun before? His badge, yes. But she’d never seen the erudite professional looking armed and dangerous the way he did tonight. Had he just come from a crime scene? “You wore a tuxedo to work?” Wait. Not his blood. That meant... A stone of dread plummeted into Lucy’s stomach. Was that Diana’s blood? “Oh, God.” Before he could say anything, she spun around and shoved open the door to her apartment. “Diana?” Niall Watson was a doctor. But he wasn’t hurt. That meant someone else was. “Diana? Are you here?”
She called out again for some sign that the young woman she’d been searching the city for all day and night had somehow shown up here.
The vise clamped over her wrist again and pulled her back to the door. “Miss McKane.”
“Let go of me.” She yanked her arm free and charged toward the mess on the couch. “Diana?” She paused a moment to sift through the pile of unraveling yarn and interrupted projects before snatching up the overturned basket and inspecting the insides. Lucy always kept a twenty or two hidden beneath her work. The only other person who knew where she stockpiled for a rainy day was Diana. “She was here. She took the cash,” she whispered, her sense of dread growing exponentially.
“So it was a robbery?”
She startled at the deep voice beside her. “What? No. I would gladly give her the money.”
“Give who the money?”
“Diana?” Lucy tossed the basket onto the couch and took off for the light in the kitchen.
But she hadn’t taken two steps before Niall Watson’s arm cinched around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. “Miss McKane. There’s nothing for you to see here. I need you to come with me.”
She gasped at the unexpected contact with a muscled torso and the surprising warmth that seemed to surround her instantly and seep through the layers of coat and clothing she wore. “Nothing? I have to...” For a split second, her fingers tightened their grip around the arm at her waist, needing his strength. She’d had a bad feeling all day. Diana Kozlow hadn’t shown up for a long-overdue lunch and gab session. And then that phone call...
If the answer was here—even one she didn’t want to be true—Lucy had to see for herself. With a renewed sense of urgency, she pushed the doctor’s arm and body heat away and turned. “You need to stop grabbing me, Doctor. I appreciate your concern, but I have to—”
She shoved at his chest, but he released her waist only to seize her by the shoulders. He squeezed enough to give her a little shake and hunched his face down to hers. “Lucy. If you would please listen.”
Lucy? Her struggles stilled as she assessed the stern expression stamped on his chiseled features. When had her taciturn neighbor ever addressed her as anything but a polite Miss McKane? That couldn’t be good. The tight grip on her upper arms and the piercing intensity of those blue eyes looking straight at her weren’t any kind of reassurance, either. She curled her fingers into the wrinkled cotton of his shirt and nodded, preparing herself for the news she didn’t want to hear. “What’s wrong? What’s happened? Did you see a young woman here? Is she...” Lucy swallowed hard. “Is she okay?”
He eased his grip and straightened, raking one hand through his short muss of espresso-colored hair as he inhaled a deep breath. But he kept the other hand on her arm as if he suspected she might bolt again. “If you would come with me.” He pulled her back into the hallway and closed the door to her condo behind them. “I need to ask you some questions.”
Now he wanted to talk? After all those friendly overtures she’d made to her seriously hunky and completely-oblivious-to-a-lady-dropping-a-hint neighbor, tonight of all nights was when he wanted to have a private conversation with her? Somehow she doubted that he’d finally clued in on the crush she had on him. Preparing herself for a worst-case scenario, Lucy planted her feet before blithely following him into his condo. “Just tell me. Did you find a dead body in there? You told me you were a medical examiner during one of our elevator rides together when I first moved in. That’s when I told you I was a social worker—that I’ve seen some pretty awful things, too. But my bodies weren’t dead like yours. Just damaged in one way or another.” Her mouth was rambling ahead of her brain. “I’m sorry. But you can tell me. Is this a crime scene? Is that why I can’t go in there?” She touched the blood on his sleeve again. Although it was dry, its presence was disturbing. “Is this Diana’s? Don’t feel you have to spare my feelings. I’ve been sick out of my mind with worry all day. I just need a straight answer about what’s happened. I can deal with anything—I’m good at that—as long as I know what I’m facing.”
“You can deal with anything?” He angled his head to the side and his eyes narrowed, as if her plaintive assertion baffled him. Then he shook his head. “There is no dead body,” he answered starkly. “I don’t know who Diana is. This blood is my grandfather’s. He was shot yesterday afternoon at my sister’s wedding.”
“Shot? Oh, my God.” Lucy’s fingers danced over the ticklish hair of his forearm, wanting to act on her instinct to touch, to comfort, to fix the hurts of the world. “Is he okay? I mean, clearly he isn’t. Getting shot is really bad. I’m sorry. Is he going to be all right?” His brusque answers explained the remnants of the James Bond getup, as well as the stains on what had once been a neatly ironed shirt. But what any of that had to do with the break-in or her or possibly Diana, she hadn’t a clue. Lucy curled her fingers around the strap of her shoulder bag and retreated a step. “You don’t need to worry about my problems. You should be with your family.”
“Miss McKane.” They were back to that now, hmm? “I’m sorry if the blood upset you—I haven’t had time to change since coming home from the hospital.” He scraped his palm over the dark stubble dotting his chin and jaw before sliding his fingers over his hair and literally scratching his head. “I can see I haven’t explained myself very well. Your sympathy is appreciated but misplaced. My grandfather’s condition is serious, but please, before you go off on another tangent, would you come inside? I do have a problem that concerns you specifically.” He glanced toward the end of the hallway. “And I don’t think we should have that conversation here.”
She remembered the retired couple down the hall and nodded. “The Logans. I suppose it would be rude to wake them at this hour.”
A man with a wounded grandfather, a gun and a badge, and an inexplicable sense of urgency could take precedence for a few minutes over her suspicions and the futile desperation that might even be unfounded. Lucy hadn’t seen Diana Kozlow in months. Perhaps she’d read too much into the telephone message at the office this morning. She was probably chasing ghosts, thinking that Diana had really needed her. Roger Campbell hadn’t needed her for anything more than sex and a punching board. The only reason her own mother had needed her was to ensure her own meal ticket. How many times did she have to repeat that codependent mistake?
Inhaling a deep breath, Lucy pulled off her left glove and cap and stuffed them into her pockets, too, as Niall opened the door for her to precede him. “So what concerns me specifically besides a busted front door...” She tried to smooth her staticky curls behind her ears. “Oh, hello.”
At this late hour, she was surprised to see another man—a stockier version of Niall Watson, with a peppering of silver in his short dark hair—rising stiffly from a recliner as she stepped into the living room.
She extended her hand because she was that kind of friendly. “I’m Lucy McKane from across the hall. Sorry to visit so late, but Dr. Watson invited me...” The older man angled his body to face her, and she saw the blanket with tiny green and yellow animals draped over his arm. “You have a baby.”
“Can’t put anything past you,” the tall man teased in a hushed voice, in deference to the tiny infant sleeping contentedly against his chest. “Thomas Watson.” He easily cradled the child in one arm to shake her hand. “I raised three boys and a girl of my own, so I’ve had some practice. I’m Niall’s father.”
“I could tell by the family resemblance. Nice to meet you. You seem to be a natural.” Lucy stepped closer to tuck the loose blanket back around the tiny child’s head. The newborn’s scent was a heady mix of gentle soap and something slightly more medicinal. A tightly guarded longing stirred inside her, and she wanted to brush aside the wisp of dark brown hair that fell across the infant’s forehead. She wisely curled her fingers into her palm and smiled instead. “And this is...?”
Niall’s crisp voice sounded behind her. “I was hoping you could tell us.”
Lucy swiveled her head up to his as he moved in beside her. “I don’t understand. Isn’t the baby yours?” She glanced at Niall’s father. He was older, yes, but by her quick assessment, still a virile man. “My apologies. The baby is yours.”
“No, ma’am.”
The older man grinned, but Niall looked anything but amused when he reached across her to adjust the blanket she’d tidied a moment earlier. “I broke into your apartment, Miss McKane.”
“You? To steal twenty dollars? Why on earth would you do that?”
“I wasn’t the first intruder. I found a screwdriver that had apparently been used to break into your place.” He pulled a tiny gem from his pocket and held it up between his thumb and forefinger, twisting it until she could see the fracture in the clear red glass. “I believe this came off it.”
“A screwdriver?” Lucy clutched at her purse strap, the bittersweet joy of seeing the baby momentarily forgotten. Diana was in trouble. “A pink one with glitter on the handle?”
He picked up a bag marked with numbers and the scratch of his signature from the coffee table and folded the excess plastic out of the way so she could see the contents inside. “This one.”
“Oh, my God.” Lucy plucked the screwdriver from his open palm and turned it over in her hand. The room swayed at the instant recognition. Diana hadn’t wanted jewelry or dolls for birthdays and Christmas. She’d been a tomboy and tough-kid wannabe from their first meeting. Diana had wanted a basketball and running shoes and a toolbox, although she’d seemed pleased with the bling on this particular set. Lucy blinked away the tears that scratched at her eyes and tilted her face to Niall’s. “Where did you get this?”
“Is it yours?”
“Answer my question.”
“Answer mine.”
“Niall,” Thomas gently chided.
A deep, resolute sigh expanded Niall Watson’s chest before he propped his hands at his waist again in that vaguely superior stance that emphasized both his height and the width of his shoulders. If it wasn’t for his glasses and the spiky muss of his hair that desperately needed a comb, she might have suspected he had an ego to go with all that intellect. “Apparently, someone jimmied the locks on your door several hours before I got home, and I suspect they used that tool to do it. I let myself in when I heard this child crying in distress. I thought, perhaps, you weren’t being responsible—”
“With a child?” He thought...that she... Lucy didn’t know whether to cry or smack him. “I would never. My job is to protect children.”
“I know that.” Her burst of defensive anger eased as he continued his account.
“But then I suspected that you might be in some kind of distress yourself. I entered the premises to make sure you were all right.” He plucked the screwdriver from her fingers and returned it to the table along with the shattered bead and another bag that appeared to be holding the beginnings of the gray scarf she’d been knitting for a coworker. She could see now that the markings meant he’d labeled them all as evidence. “I found it on your kitchen counter beside the baby. I brought him here since there didn’t seem to be anyone else watching him. We’ve given him food, clean clothes and a bath. Other than a nasty case of diaper rash, he seems to be healthy.”
That explained the medicinal smell. “It’s a boy?” She turned back to the older man cradling the sleeping infant. “He was in my apartment? All alone?”
“I believe that’s what I’ve been saying.” Niall Watson could sound as irritated with her as he wanted. He’d saved this child, and for that, she would be forever grateful.
Lucy pressed her fingers to her mouth to hold back the tears that wanted to fall. Tears that wouldn’t do anyone any good. Diana’s cryptic phone message that had sent Lucy on a wild hunt all over Kansas City finally made sense. “That’s what she wanted to show me. I had no idea. The baby is what she wanted me to take care of. But why wouldn’t she stay, too?”
“What are you talking about, Miss McKane?”
“I have a favor to ask, Lucy. I don’t know who else to call. I need to show you something, and I need you to keep it safe.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?” Lucy whispered. She couldn’t help but reach out to stroke her finger across the infant’s cheek. His skin was as velvety soft as it looked, and she was instantly in love. “You precious little boy.”
“Do you know who is responsible for this child?” Niall asked.
“Possibly.” Lifting her gaze to Niall’s father, Lucy held out her hands. “May I?”
“Of course.”
Lucy sighed with a mixture of longing and regret as the baby’s sweet weight filled her arms and settled against her. “He’s so tiny. How old do you think he is?”
“I’d say a week. Two, tops,” Niall answered from behind her. “Obviously, pediatrics isn’t my area of expertise, but I know enough to handle the basics. I still think he needs to see a pediatric specialist to ensure a clean bill of health. Now what can you tell us about his parents?” Niall stepped aside as she circled the coffee table and sat on the edge of his sofa to hold the baby more securely. She heard a huff of what could be resignation a second before the cushion beside her sank with his weight. When she tumbled toward her tall neighbor at her shifting perch, his hands shot out to balance her shoulder and cradle her forearm that held the baby. “Easy. Don’t let go of him.”
“I couldn’t.”
Niall’s hand remained beneath her arm, making sure of her hold on the infant. His chest pressed against Lucy’s shoulder, and for a split second she was overcome by the normalcy of the family she’d never known and would never have. A mother, a father, a child they shared together. The yearning inside her was almost painful.
Blinking rapidly to dispel the impossible image of the brainy doctor cop and her creating a perfect little baby together, Lucy scooted away to break the contact between her and Niall Watson, although she could still feel that crazily addictive warmth he radiated. “What’s his name?” she asked, craving the information as much as she needed to put space between her and her errant fantasies.
“He didn’t come with an ID,” Niall answered. “He didn’t come with anything. Not even a fresh diaper. If you could answer at least some of my questions—”
“Son.” The older Watson chided the tone in Niall’s voice and offered her a smile. “I nicknamed him Tommy. But that’s just a family name I was using so we could call him something besides ‘little munchkin.’ We were hoping you’d be able to fill in the blanks for us. But I take it you’re not the mother.”
His green eyes were kind, but Lucy still felt the sting of truth. “No. I... I can’t have children of my own.”
“I’m sorry. You seem like a natural with Tommy, too.”
His kind words enabled her to smile back. “Thank you.” But a glance up to the man seated beside her indicated that answers were the only thing that was going to soften that empirical focus zeroed in on her. He was this baby’s champion, and nothing short of the entire truth was going to satisfy him. “I think... Tommy...” She stroked her fingertip over his tiny lips, and they instinctively moved to latch on, even though he was asleep. “I have no idea who the father is. But I think he belongs to my foster daughter, Diana Kozlow.”
Niall’s posture relaxed a fraction, although that stern focus remained. “The woman whose name you kept calling out.”
Lucy nodded. “Technically, she’s my former foster daughter. Diana was with me for six years until she aged out of the system. She’s twenty now. We kept in touch for a year or so. But I lost contact with her after that. She changed her number, changed her job. I had no idea she’d gotten pregnant.” She nodded toward the screwdriver on the coffee table. “I gave that to her in a tool set one Christmas. I guess she broke into my apartment to leave the baby with me. Probably took the twenty I had stashed in my knitting basket. She called me out of the blue yesterday—said she had something she wanted to show me. I invited her for lunch today, but she never came. I tried calling the number she used, but the phone went straight to voice mail.”
She rocked back and forth, ever so subtly, soothing the infant as he began to stir. “I went to my office to look up her most recent address and phone number to make sure I had it right—and discovered she’d left me a pretty disturbing message on my answering machine there. I’ve been out looking for her ever since. One of the neighbors at the last address where I knew her to live said Diana had a boyfriend move in with her about six months ago. She never knew his name, so that was a dead end. Shortly after that they moved to Carmody Street, she thought—”
“Carmody?” The elder Watson muttered a curse under his breath. “That’s not a good part of town. You didn’t go there to look for her by yourself, did you? At the police department, we call that part of town no-man’s-land.”
“I can believe it.” The two men exchanged a grim look. “No one there recognized Diana, and they couldn’t tell me the boyfriend’s name, either. I wasn’t sure where to look after that. How does a young woman just...disappear?” Lucy’s thoughts drifted to all the morbid possibilities that had driven her to search for Diana. “Why wouldn’t she keep Tommy with her? Why wouldn’t she stay at my place with him if she was in trouble?”
“If she’s the mother,” Niall cautioned. “We’d have to blood-type him and run DNA on both mother and son to be certain.”
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 (#ulink_6b94f0ca-70d5-55aa-b9a4-8c464cb2db48)
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.
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Julie Miller
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: After a near-fatal shootout at his sister’s wedding, third-generation lawman Niall Watson comes home to a baby in distress. The abandoned newborn in his neighbor’s apartment sends the Kansas City PD criminologist into rescue mode once again.Social worker Lucy McKane will do whatever it takes to protect the infant boy entrusted to her care. The tall, sexy ME next door may be clueless about her feelings for him, but Niall’s the only one who can keep them safe. As a vengeful killer targets them, desire draws Lucy and Niall dangerously closer. Together, can they find justice and safeguard their newly created family?