He leaned out to examine the frame. “No, you didn’t. It’s been forced open.”
“I told you, a baby burglar,” Laura said. She felt hysterics emerge from within and head for the surface. No. Not again. She’d be calm and efficient, and do what needed to be done—call the police.
And she would not wrap herself around Justin like a princess who’d finally located her knight in shining armor, never mind how good he looked in his leather jacket. “I thought this was a safe neighborhood.”
“It is.”
“Right. I feel so safe now, knowing that anyone can just climb the fire escape and use a crowbar to force their way into my bedroom.”
“There’s something out here,” Justin muttered, still at the window, but she was too preoccupied to pay much attention.
She reached for the phone on the bedside table. “I’ll call the police.”
Justin was beside her in a flash, and the weight of his hand descended on hers, stopping her from grabbing the phone. “Wait. Don’t call the police yet.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t know what’s going on here. If you call the police, that kid will be in foster care before you know it. If this is a friend’s child, or some sort of a misunderstanding or a mistake, it will be hell for the parents to get him back. They might not get him back at all.”
“Well, if they leave their child like this, they damn well deserve to go a few rounds with the authorities! Anything could have happened to him while he was alone here.”
“He wasn’t alone.” Justin was looking toward the window. “See?” He pointed.
Out on the fire escape there was a small green tote bag.
“His mother or father probably waited out there for you to come home, making sure he would be safe.”
“Maybe there’s some explanation in that bag.”
Justin crossed the room to the window and leaned out for the bag. Laura jumped to her feet just as Justin picked it up. “Don’t! There might be fingerprints!”
He wasn’t listening, but unzipped the bag, and rummaged inside. “There’s a note.”
“Wait!” Laura dashed to the bathroom and fetched tweezers. Law school did have its uses. She ran back and picked up the note from where it was wedged in between baby clothing. It was lined paper, ripped out of a notebook. Empty on one side, six words scrawled in green ink on the other side: Good luck, will be in touch.
“What sort of a note is that?” Disappointed, Laura let the note drop to the nightstand-crate.
“Sounds like a note from someone who knows you and is trusting you with her baby.”
“I don’t know this baby,” Laura repeated for what seemed like the millionth time.
Justin upended the bag on an empty spot on her bed. There wasn’t much in it, just clothes and mainly undergarments. He went through the pile, meticulously looking at each item before putting it back into the bag.
“Well, we know two things about the mother. The clothes are good quality, so she’s not lacking in money. And she’s a tree hugger.”
“How do you know?”
Justin lifted a pile of white things. “Environmentally friendly diapers. She doesn’t use disposables for her son.”
Not only a baby, but a baby with old-fashioned diapers. Suddenly the problem had multiplied. Laura backed away. “You mean the kind you wash instead of stuffing in a bag and throwing away?”
“Yep.”
Yuck. “That’s it. I’m calling the police.”
“Because of washable diapers?”
“That was the last straw, yes.”
Justin let the diapers fall back to the bed. “You can’t do that, Laura. Someone trusts you to look after her baby. Someone who may be in trouble. You can’t betray their trust and give their baby to Social Services.”
“Why do you talk about Social Services as if I’m delivering the baby to total doom? They are there to protect children.”
“I know. And they do, the best they can, when there is no one else there for the child. But now there is someone else.”
“There is? Who?”
Justin rolled his eyes. “You. The person the parents trusted with their baby.”
“I don’t know this baby.”
Justin shrugged. “His mother or father could be an old friend perhaps? You must have some friends you haven’t seen in a few months, maybe even a year or two?”
“Well, yes…” She slid down to sit on the bed. A small fist waved in the air as the baby’s dream was disturbed, but he settled down again and Laura allowed herself to breathe. A few more minutes of peace, that was all they had. He had to wake up any minute now. “Of course. I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve almost lost touch with even my closest friends. Then there are friends from college, from my summer jobs. High school friends. But I can’t believe any of them would dump their infant baby on me without a word.” She stood, careful not to disturb the baby again. “Let’s talk in the living room, where we don’t disturb him.”
Justin followed her, bumping into her back when she stopped short at the sight of her living room.
“Oh, damn.”
Justin put his hand on his shoulder and pushed her to the side. “Wait here, I’ll go first. Looks like it was a burglar after all.”
How embarrassing. “No…this is how it usually looks these days.”
His look was incredulous, and embarrassment made her lash out at him.
“Well, maybe you’re the perfect housewife, Justin, but I’m not. I’m swamped with work. I was so exhausted that I didn’t think I’d make it up the stairs! I don’t know how this happened…but things just pile up and then all of a sudden it’s Messville. Ordinarily I’m not a slob. So don’t judge me.”
“Hey, what did I say?”
“Nothing. But you’ve got expressive eyes.”
Eyes she’d made the mistake of looking into from close up. Hypnotizing. A woman would throw away her map and happily get lost in there for days.
Justin gestured to the sofa. “Can we move the…stuff away and sit down?”
“Sure.” She grabbed an armful of papers and books and dumped it on top of the diminishing mountain of clean laundry on the coffee table. At least she knew for a fact there wasn’t any underwear there. “There. Have a seat.”
He did. “Do you know any tree huggers?”
Laura dropped down by his side, fatigue seeping into her bones again now that the adrenaline was getting the picture: no one to fight or flee, just diapers to change. Probably not an event worthy of a full-scale hormonal attack. “I know a lot of environmentally conscious people, yes. People who are into recycling and conserving the rain forests.”
“Good. That narrows it down.”
“Are you suggesting I take my phone book and call all the recyclers in there and ask if they’d happened to drop a baby off in my apartment today?”
“We could also just wait for the mother to call.”
“Or the father. Or both. We don’t know who left him here.”
“That’s true.”
Her head fell back against the sofa. “The right thing to do is to call the police. We don’t know the story. He might have been mistreated for all