Nick kept one eye on the baby and walked over to the break room—empty. Chief’s office—empty. Jail cells—one empty, one containing the sleeping form of Farley Melton.
Cynic that he was, he walked over to his desk, put the bag containing his lunch on his chair and lifted up the baby carrier to see if the cash was still in the card. It was. He set the carrier back down.
Okay, so the baby’s mother came in for some reason to talk to an officer or lodge a complaint, saw no one was around and set the carrier down while she went to use the restroom.
Except both restroom doors were ajar, the lights out.
Nick glanced out the windows at the front of the station to see if anyone was sitting on the steps or the bench. No one.
“Hello?” he called out again, despite the fact that clearly no one was there. Except for Farley snoring in his jail cell and the gentle hum of an oscillating fan in the corner, the office was quiet.
Why would someone leave a baby on his desk—and when no one was in the station? He mentally went down the list of who in Blue Gulch had had a baby recently. The Loughs, who lived a quarter mile from here in the center of town. But they had a girl with blond wisps. Nick eyed the baby; fuzzy dark hair peeked around the baby’s ears, just below the blue cotton cap.
Then there were the Andersons, who lived on the outskirts of Blue Gulch and didn’t often come to town. They’d had a boy back in June. Had one of the Andersons left the baby on Nick’s desk for some reason that even he, seasoned detective, couldn’t come up with? Nick grabbed his phone, looked up their number and punched it in.
He heard a baby cooing the moment Mike Anderson said hello.
Nick pretended to be alerting residents about the coyote sightings in his area, which was true, and to be careful, then hung up, racking his brain for who he might be forgetting. Blue Gulch was a small town, population 4,304—4,305, he corrected. If there had been another hugely pregnant woman in town over the summer, he’d have known about her.
Nick stared at the baby. A tiny blue-encased foot kicked out. Then the other. The big cheeks turned to the left. Then to the right.
Little eyes opened just a crack. Then closed again.
And then the first waaaah. The baby started sort-of crying, the bow-shaped mouth suddenly opening wide and pouring forth a screeching wail you wouldn’t think could come from such a tiny creature.
He glanced at the clock—1:16 p.m. Michelle Humphrey, department secretary, was on her lunch break. Officer Midwell, who was supposed to be manning the station, was probably at the coffee shop for his sixth iced coffee of the day, flirting with the barista he had a crush on. And the chief, nearing retirement, took long naps in his pickup truck in the back parking lot these hot summer days. You take over for me, Nick, will ya? was Chief McTiernan’s favorite refrain. Nick wasn’t much interested in being chief, even for an hour. He liked being a detective, needed to be out in the field.
And besides, Nick was planning on leaving Blue Gulch in the coming weeks. He’d moved back two years ago to take care of his sixteen-year-old sister when their mother died. But now that Avery was in college, living in a dorm, Nick didn’t have to live in this town he hated, a place that reminded him of his worst memories on a daily basis.
“Waaah. Waaah! Waaaah!”
Oh hell. He’d have to do something, like pick up the baby.
He reached into the carrier and pulled down the tiny blanket and froze.
There was a note taped onto the baby’s pajamas.
Detective Slater: Please take care of Timmy until I can come back for him in a week. I am not abandoning him. I know I can trust you.
What the—
He stared at the note, reading it again, then again. The note was typed on a half piece of plain white paper, please underlined in red pen. He read it yet again, hoping his eyes were playing tricks on him, that it said I’ll be back for him in a minute, thanks. With minute underlined in red.
So...a scared mother? A mother who had to attend to some personal business?
Timmy. At least there was a name. A big clue. Who did he know who’d had a baby named Timmy? No one. He glanced at the little guy. Yawning and stretching, unaware that someone else’s decisions, actions, choices could change the entire trajectory of his life.
Nick knew about that too well.
Now here was an innocent baby, at everyone’s mercy.
His, right now. I know I can trust you...
Obviously, the mother was someone he knew.
His heart started banging in his chest. No. Couldn’t be. No, no, no.
His sister?
God, calm down, Slater, he ordered himself. You just saw Avery off to college less than two weeks ago. For the past nine months, she’d been the same tall string bean she’d always been. His eighteen-year-old sister wasn’t the baby’s mother. His heart rate slowed to normal.
So who? Who would have chosen him over the other officers, or over grandmotherly Michelle, or over anyone else she knew? Why him?
Nick Slater wasn’t exactly paternal.
What you want doesn’t matter! the entire town had heard him shout at Avery a few months ago when she told him in front of Clyde’s Burgertopia that she wasn’t sure she wanted to go to college after all. And that her boyfriend, Quentin—Quentin says this, Quentin says that—thought she should give her singing talent a real chance. Quentin, who walked around spouting philosophy and called Nick dude, thought his eighteen-year-old sister, who liked to sing and play guitar, should give up college to sing at the coffee shop for change from people’s lattes. Over Nick’s dead body—that was his philosophy.
He stared hard at the squawking baby. Who the heck left a baby alone? On someone’s desk? A hot burst of anger worked its way inside Nick at the utter crud some people did.
You’re not just any old someone, he reminded himself. You’re a police officer. And the note is addressed to you.
Still, he’d have to call Social Services and report it. He shook his head as he walked to the front door and held open the screen, his gaze going over every hiding spot, from the tall oaks that lined the stone path into the building, to the weeping willow. No one was out there. The Blue Gulch Police Department was in the center of town, right on Blue Gulch Street with easy access to a main road leading to the freeway. He glanced out at the small parking area on the side of the office, flanked by evergreens and the green and brown hills, the expanse of the Sweet Briar Mountains that went as far as he could see, reminding him how big the world outside Blue Gulch was.
Whoever had left the baby had left too.
“I’ll give you an hour,” he said into the air, putting it out there for the child’s mother. “Then I’m calling Social Services.”
He glanced back at Timmy. He was still crying. Pick the baby up, he ordered himself. He took off the blanket. Wedged against the side of the carrier were two baby bottles, one full of formula, three diapers, a small stuffed yellow rabbit with long brown ears and a canister of formula. Someone cares about this baby, he thought, quickly freeing Timmy, who struggled to open his eyes.
Nick picked him up. Carefully. The lightness of him was almost staggering. He definitely wasn’t more than nine pounds. Nick cradled the baby’s neck against his forearm the way he’d learned long ago in officer training, and Timmy stopped crying. Until he started again, a minute later.
A thud and a string of expletives came from the direction of the cells. Farley Melton must have fallen out of his cot again.
“For Pete’s friggin’ sake, shut that wailing creature up!” screeched Farley, who been brought in two hours ago for disturbing the peace and public intoxication on town property.
Timmy’s