one shapely, compelling woman who’d shoved her chair aside to pace a circle around his desk. “That’s it? He’s going to look into it?”
The detective scratched the back of his shaved head. “Captain Taylor said he’s taking it to the commissioner herself. You just have to be patient.”
The woman spun around, the fires of anger and frustration coloring her cheeks. “No, I don’t have to be patient. I’ve been patient for twenty-nine days.”
“Ma’am—”
She raked her fingers through her hair, scattering the shoulder-length waves. “I’ve been patient all my life. And where has it gotten me? Waiting here, twiddling my thumbs, while you get permission to launch an investigation. I’ve seen for myself what’s lurking out there on the streets. And a lot of it isn’t pretty. I don’t know that waiting is an option my niece has, so don’t ask me to be patient!”
Dwight wasn’t sure if it was the woman’s distress that caught his attention or the color of her hair. It was a memorable shade, like a shiny copper penny, and it fanned against her shoulders and neck. He knew that hair. The last time he’d seen it, though, it had been twisted up, under control—prim, even—not free and flowing and bouncing with every shake of her head as it was now.
Dwight rarely forgot a name, and he never forgot a face. Though the packaging was different, there was something familiar enough about the thirtysomething female that he instantly started sorting through remembered details until he could place her.
“She’s an underage girl,” the sturdy redhead went on, articulating her words in a precise, passionate voice, “out there on her own.”
“Ma’am—”
“What if she’s hurt? Or worse? You have to do something now.”
“Ma’am, I—”
“Quit ma’aming me!” Red stopped her pacing, took a deep, steadying breath, and squeezed her palms to her temples. “Oh, God, I sound like that hooker now.”
Hooker? A.J. nudged Dwight’s elbow. “Looks like Bellamy’s got his hands full.”
Dwight was still processing the details.
“I know you’re upset—” Bellamy tried again.
“You think?” The woman braced her hands against a rounded set of hips and prepped for round two of the battle she was fighting. “What does it take to get you people off your butts? What if you’re already too late to help Katie and her baby?”
Katie. Bingo.
Baby. Salvation.
The band of tension squeezing Dwight’s chest eased with the satisfaction of details finally falling into place. At the same time, a layer of guilt lifted from his conscience and he almost—almost—smiled with relief.
Though he’d never have suspected she had a mouth like that, he remembered the woman now. Four years ago, she’d worn a bland, shapeless dress instead of curve-hugging jeans and a sheer-sleeved peasant blouse. She’d been so soft-spoken and stoic on the witness stand that he’d had to ask her to speak up.
There was a fire in her now he hadn’t noticed four years ago. Or maybe it hadn’t been there. Maybe that tight clench of desperation lining her full mouth had ignited the flame inside her.
Dwight didn’t believe in coincidence, but he knew enough about how lives interconnected and twisted around on themselves to know that the Joe Rinaldi case, the baby in the conference room and this woman were all connected. Something was up. Something big. He just had to figure it all out.
And Red was going to help.
“Excuse me a minute, A.J.” Dwight was already moving toward the argument in the main room.
Some men might see a woman in need of a gallant rescue. Others might walk on by, thinking her size and attitude meant she could take care of herself. Dwight saw his chance to do right by Tyler Rinaldi without exposing himself to the emotional risk of caring for the child.
Dwight smoothed his lapels and straightened his collar as he went, donning an air of authority he wore as easily as his tailored suit. Shading his voice with a pinch of arrogance, he addressed the detective while the redhead paced away from the desk. “Is there a problem, Detective?”
Cooper Bellamy was a good three inches taller and more than a decade younger than Dwight. But the bald detective seemed relieved that backup of any sort had arrived. He offered a deferring nod. “Sir.”
“Yes, there’s a problem. I’m—” Red spun around but halted mid-charge, swallowing her words on a quick, stuttered breath “—oh, um, you.”
Though Dwight tried to see her as nothing more than a means to an end, he got caught up in the darkening tint of her deep blue eyes. Two seconds ago, she’d been circling Bellamy’s desk like a lioness in her cage. Now the energy seemed to drain from her like a popped balloon.
Her breasts heaved and a blush of color started beneath the drawstring at her cleavage and crept all the way up her neck. Her hand and Dwight’s gaze went to that same stretch of creamy, rosy skin. Despite his ill-timed fascination with the generous dimensions of her figure, he was more intrigued to see her backbone sliding into place as she overcame whatever had temporarily sidelined her and extended her hand. “Mr. Powers. You probably don’t remember me. I’m Maddie—”
“I know who you are, Mrs. McCallister.” Dwight wrapped his bigger hand around hers, liking the firmness of her grip. “You sat with Katie Rinaldi at her father’s murder trial. Offered key testimony. You stood up to his threats and helped me put him away.”
With her pale, alabaster skin, she couldn’t hide the remnants of her temper. Or was that embarrassment staining her cheeks now?
“Wow, you do remember me.” Her grip trembled before she pulled away. She tucked her hair behind her ears and offered him a wry smile. “Mrs. McCallister was my mother, though. I’m just Ms. I’m Katie’s legal guardian now.”
“Even better.”
Those blue eyes narrowed. “Better than what?”
Instead of giving her the satisfaction of a straight answer, Dwight took her by the elbow and gestured toward the conference room. “Ms. McCallister? I have someone I’d like you to meet.”
WITH A NOD TO A.J., Dwight cleared the conference room and closed the door. He hung back, leaning against the door frame to watch Maddie and Roberta Hays, the DFS caseworker, verbally duke it out. Mrs. Hays—a skinny sixtyish woman who seemed to have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed that morning—had arrived twenty minutes ago. She flashed an ID from family services and announced that she was here to take the baby.
Dwight might have been content to allow the authorities to handle the kid’s placement if he hadn’t already gone to the trouble of introducing Tyler to his great-aunt. But guilt made a mean conscience. And while he wanted nothing to do with that baby, leaving Red to fend for herself against the State of Missouri felt like abandoning a client in the middle of a case.
Aunt Maddie, as she’d called herself when picking up the boy, was a natural talent in the maternal department. She’d cried when he first told her Tyler was Katie’s son. Tears of overwhelming emotions that couldn’t be contained. Tears that turned her eyes a deep shade of midnight-blue and made him squirm with the urge to say or do something to make her pain go away.
When she’d finally smiled, caught up in her grandnephew’s bright gaze, that tight fist of discomfort inside him released its grip. Then she’d cried some more before wiping her tears and getting down to the business of tending to the infant. She’d fed him a bottle, changed his diaper and soothed the little one to sleep with a gentle, husky tune that had pricked Dwight’s nerves into an uneasy state of awareness.
Sturdy was not, perhaps, the kindest—or most apt—word Dwight could have used