Hush Little Baby Read online

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Go get your girl. I’ll get a cab to your car.”

  “Thanks,” I say, tossing him my keys, and then I’m running through the big sliding glass doors that do not open fast enough for my liking.

  Dad’s gray Expedition is right where he said it would be. Last year, when he and Mom gained custody of my older sister’s kids, he promptly traded in the BMW he had always wanted for a big soccer mom SUV. He drives Seth and all his friends to baseball practices and soccer games, and he loves every minute of it.

  I beep the locks on it and climb in. I set my phone on the dash while I buckle up and back out of the space. Once I’m on the road, I pick it up again and dial. It rings and rings, and then, “You’ve reached Dr. Emma Parker. If it’s an emergency, please hang up and dial 9-1-1. Otherwise, leave me a message.”

  I slap the steering wheel. Fuck!

  “Hey, Emma, it’s me. I really need you to call me. And don’t answer the door to anyone who is not me. But I really need you to call me.”

  And then I hang up and drive like a bat out of hell.

  And it’s really too bad that even though this is a fairly small township and the drive is not long at all, I still wouldn’t make it in time.

  TWENTY-TWO

  * * *

  BETRAYED

  EMMA

  Forty-five minutes earlier

  Chips or cookies? Chips or cookies? I vacillate between the two basic snack groups while staring through the open door to the pantry.

  Maybe an apple? Yeah, no. Probably not.

  Cookies or chips?

  I reach for the brand-new bag of Cape Cod Salt and Vinegar Kettle Chips, a staple that saw me through most of this pregnancy and my heartbreak emotional eating when I thought I couldn’t have my happily ever after with Lee. What a funny, girly saying, “happily ever after.” It was so Anna and all of her romantic dreams, not only for herself but those around her.

  And for the first time in almost a year, it doesn’t hurt nearly as much to think of my fallen friend.

  I see now she was not perfect, that she made mistakes that were also selfish choices that hurt not only herself but those around her. But with all of that, it also does not mean she was a bad person or a shitty friend. She was awesome, and we loved her as much as she loved us. So now I see Claire was right when she yelled at me and told me that avoiding Lee and denying what was growing between us was not what she would have wanted. In fact, her dying words were for us to turn to each other, to love each other, and I denied her last request for almost a year.

  But I was done with that. Now, I was going to move forward the only way I knew how—as me. And I’m a person who no longer wants to live her life bogged down by the ugly that life has dealt. I want to show the sweet little girl growing inside me that life is beautiful, and I want to do that with her daddy at my side, because now I know without a doubt that with him, life is beautiful. I want to give him three more beautiful, perfect babies and grow old with him and watch our four babies grow into decent human beings. I want to marry him and celebrate anniversaries with him.

  And most of all, I want to love him and be loved by him and only him.

  It’s with that thought and a smile on my face that I pick up my ringing cell phone from the island countertop and slide my finger across the screen to answer it.

  “Dr. Emma Parker, how may I help you?”

  “Hello, Dr. Parker, this is Dr. Javier Martinez with the state crime lab,” the caller identifies themselves. And hopefully they have some results for me, because I know Lee is getting frustrated with the current state of play with the baby-snatcher case. And I get it, I really do. I hate how many women have been murdered in such a short period of time and their babies just… gone. I don’t even want to imagine what those shoes feel like.

  “It’s good to hear from you, Dr. Martinez,” I answer. “I’m hoping you have news for me.”

  “I do. Is now a good time to discuss those finding with you?”

  “It is.” I grab a pen and a tablet and haul my big ass up onto one of the barstools and settle in. I know I’m not really big, but I’m into the final trimester of baby cooking, and apparently with that comes huge body changes, and I mean huge.

  “Excellent,” he agrees. “I have already faxed the official reports to your office, but I wanted to be able to go over them with you on the phone before you hit your desk Monday morning.”

  “I’m actually home on an emergency medical leave,” I explain. “So I’m glad you phoned.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope all is well,” he mumbles.

  “It is now.”

  “Great news,” he says awkwardly. I find that doctors like us who spend more time with the dead than the living don’t often have the best social skills, but whatever. It is what it is.

  “So about those findings,” I prompt, bailing him out. I know he appreciates it, when I hear his relieved sigh.

  “Yes,” he says, pressing on. “But not with the victims, per se. I found a mitochondrial DNA match.”

  “To who?” I’m practically salivating, waiting for the answer. This is a huge break in the case. Whatever match he found, someone is connected to the killings in some way. I just hope his results can explain how.

  “The defensive wound skin and blood you collected from under Jane Doe’s fingernails at the original scene,” Dr. Martinez answers me.

  Oh my God. This is huge.

  “What collection finally matched?” I ask. “I’m sorry I’m not following along.”

  “That’s quite all right,” he replies. “I find I’ve gotten ahead of myself in my enthusiasm.”

  “That’s okay. I’m excited by this development too.”

  “The skin and blood collected from under Jane Doe’s fingernails is a mitochondrial match to the hair sample you sent after the last scene.”

  The hair.

  The hair Lee said was found and bagged randomly after the entire scene was combed through by not only his team but mine. This means Lee knows something that I do not. I need to call him with this information right away.

  “Thank you so much,” I tell him. “I look forward to reading your complete findings Monday morning.”

  “Of course.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I need to let you go to pass this information on to the lead officer on the investigation?” I ask.

  “Of course,” he repeats instantly. “Have a good day, Dr. Parker.”

  “Same to you, Dr. Martinez,” I reply before I press the button to disconnect the call.

  I don’t set my phone down even for a second. I don’t know what it is, but I have a feeling these findings are huge, huge in the sense that they could break Lee’s case wide open and maybe save some poor woman’s life.

  God, I hope so. I can’t imagine being cut open alive like that.

  A violent shudder wracks up my spine, and I press the button to call Lee. It rings and rings, and then, “You’ve reached Captain Liam Goodnite with the George Washington Township Police Department. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 9-1-1. If it is not an emergency, please leave a message at the tone, and I will get back to you as soon as I can.”

  I press the red circle button to hang up and then set my phone on the kitchen counter.

  “Shit,” I mumble as soon as I hang up. Where is he? Why isn’t he answering? They’re just at lunch, right?

  I pick up my phone and dial again. “You’ve reached Captain Liam Goodnite…”

  This time, without taking a breath, I launch into my nervous explanation as soon as I hear the beep. “Hey, honey, it’s me. I know you’re out with your sister, but I haven’t heard from you in a while. I hope everything is okay. Anyway, that’s not why I’m calling. I just got off the phone with the state lab, and they said the hair you found at the crime scene is a mitochondrial match to the defensive wound DNA found under Jane Doe’s fingernails. Anyways, let me know if you’
ll be home for dinner. I’m feeling like pizza. Shocking, right? I love you, Lee.”

  I press the button to disconnect again, and my belly lets out a loud rumble, reminding me that I was looking for a snack before Dr. Martinez phoned. I push out a heavy breath and try to force the tension out of my shoulder muscles. I roll my neck from side to side in order to work out some kinks and make my way back to the pantry, where I grab the bag of chips from the shelf and pull it open. I reach inside and pluck one out, and I’m just about to pop the whole thing in my mouth, when the doorbell rings.

  “You have got to be kidding me.” I sigh as I drop the chip back in the bag. Gross, I know, but it’s not really, because I know I’m going to eat the entire bag, so it’s not like I have to worry about someone else, mainly Lee, picking up my cross contamination. And besides that, he likes to put his tongue in my mouth as well as other places, so I feel the point is really moot.

  I set the bag of chips on the counter near my cell phone and make my way to the front door to answer it. This would be my third mistake of the day behind not going to lunch with Claire and Lee, the first mistake I made, as it would have taken me from this moment here, and the second being only moments ago, when I left my phone on the kitchen counter and out of reach.

  Of course, I didn’t know that all three of those mistakes added up to one big, deadly clusterfuck until right now.

  So, not looking through the front window to see who would darken Lee’s door in the late afternoon or early evening of a weekend day, instead, I pull open the door like a moron. And then I stand there, staring with my mouth hanging open and huge eyes at who is on the front porch.

  “Jerrod?” I ask stupidly, because who else would he be?

  And then he put a hand to my burgeoning belly and pushed me back into the house, following in behind me. I should have noticed now, but I was too distracted by his suddenly being at Lee’s house when I had not seen him in a while. Later, I would realize that he shut the front door, but he did not lock it.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I told you,” he says, panicked. I don’t like the look on his face, but he’s tweaked about something, and it’s not okay. “I tried to warn you, and now it’s too late.”

  “Jerrod?” I whisper. “You’re scaring me. What’s too late?”

  “You should have chosen me,” he snaps. “I could have saved you.”

  “W-w-what are you talking about?” I don’t like the look in his eye. How did I miss that he was absolutely batshit crazy?

  “If you’d have only agreed to give up the baby, we could be together,” he says as he crowds me in. Jerrod is so close I’m not sure I could get around him.

  “Jerrod,” I say carefully. “You know she’s not your child.”

  “But I loved you!” he screams. “I could have saved you!”

  “Saved me from what exactly?” I ask, knowing damn well I probably don’t want to know the answer to my question.

  I hear my phone ringing in the kitchen, and I look that way, but he places his hand on my face and not in a good way, shoving me back so I’m forced to look at his madness shining in his eyes.

  “I could have saved you,” he repeats strongly, and I can’t look away from the wrongness on his face and in his eyes. “But now you have to die.”

  “No,” I whisper. “You don’t mean that.”

  But the grip he has on my face turns harsher, his fingers biting into the flesh of my face.

  My phone stops ringing only to start up again.

  “We can get past this,” I hedge. I need to get him to let me go. I work for law enforcement, and with that, it entitles me to concealed carry for my protection. I have been trained in guns for professional use, and I keep that certification current. And if I can get past him, I can get to one of the safes Lee has in this house and get to a gun. I have to.

  I have to protect myself and, with that, my baby.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” he says, and I realize then that his voice sounds dead. It ratchets up the panic that’s soaring through my body.

  My phone rings again, but I don’t make the mistake of looking at it this time, not only because I don’t want to enrage him more, but because I’m realizing now that not only shouldn’t I have answered the door, I should have paid attention, because when he shut it behind himself, he didn’t lock it, as it creaks when it’s pushed open again. I then realize the monster I let into this house has let in a bigger one.

  “Hello, Dr. Parker,” Madame Driskill says, her cruel, smiling eyes alight with the terror she’s about to inflict. “So we meet again.”

  “W-w-what are you doing here?” I whisper. I can barely get the words pushed out of my mouth, because I know in my heart that whatever reason they are here for is not only not good; it’s dangerous.

  “I believe my son warned you that there would be consequences for denying him,” she says with a vicious smile.

  I don’t respond, I’m not even sure how I could without escalating things further, and then the meaning of her words slams into my brain like a freight train.

  “What do you mean?” I ask hesitantly. “Your son?”

  “Just that,” she answers. “Jerrod is my child. I guess you could say we work together.”

  “At the adoption agency?” I prompt before looking back to the man I had once considered trying something with and for whatever reason could never pull the trigger. “I thought you were in IT?”

  “Something like that,” he mumbles, and she lets out a trilling laugh.

  “IT?” she asks, still finding something humorous, but what, I do not know. “That’s funny.”

  “Why?” I snap, suddenly becoming angry. “Why is it funny?”

  “I guess you could consider my son a problem solver of sorts, but it has nothing to do with technology,” she answers with a cat who got their cream smile that I do not like at all.

  “What do you mean?” In the background, I hear my phone ringing again before it stops.

  “Do you really want all the dirty details?” she asks me. “Isn’t it sometimes better not to know?”

  “No,” I answer immediately. “I think I have the right to know why—that is, if I’m about to die.”

  “Oh, you most certainly are,” she says, and she has the audacity to wink at me, and it takes every last inch of my control not to lose my damn mind. “But I guess I can honor your wishes, since you are a very special case.”

  “Thank you.” I don’t mean it, but I have to keep her talking. My only hope now is that Lee got my message, and when he can’t get a hold of me, he’ll head straight home. Until then, I know I need to keep them talking. The longer they talk, the longer it will take them to kill me.

  “It all started with the adoption agency,” she says.

  “So it’s real?”

  “Of course it’s real,” she answers, and her friendly nature is nothing but false. I can see her true malice burning in her eyes. “I can see how you’d think it wasn’t. We really do run private adoptions to very wealthy but also tragically infertile clientele. I like to think that every baby deserves a loving home.”

  “Then why not adopt out unwanted babies?” I ask. “Why bother taking the ones who are wanted?”

  “That’s a two-parter question,” she replies. “First, we do adopt out the unwanted, but it’s the babies of higher caliber that bring in more money. Your baby, for example, has already sold for five hundred thousand dollars. The fact that he comes from an intelligent doctor is apparently rather appealing.”

  “The baby isn’t a boy; it’s a girl,” I correct her.

  “Well, that’s a disappointment,” she says. “Although, I’m sure I can talk them into keeping the original price. Most people want boys, but your daughter would be beautiful too.”

  “Thank you, I think.”

  “Oh, I meant it as a compliment.”

  “And Jerrod, if that is even his name?” I ask.

  “Oh it is, but our surnames ar
e fictitious,” she says. “You understand why?”

  “I do.”

  My phone rings again, and I hope they don’t notice it.

  “He steps in on difficult cases,” she answers. “Like yourself.”

  “Why was I a difficult case?” I ask. “I was never giving up my baby.”

  “That’s why you were difficult,” she explains. “If you’d have just signed the adoption contract, this all would be ending differently. But you didn’t, and I wanted your baby.”

  “But why?”

  “Because she’s worthy enough to sell for a lot of money,” she snaps before righting her composure. “We’ve already been over this.”

  “And what happens to mothers who sign your contract and then back out?” I ask, even though I know again that it’s an answer to a question I don’t want to learn.

  “They die just like you’re about to.”

  “And Jerrod?”

  “He gets close to the target and convinces them to change their mind.” She rolls her eyes at me like I’m an idiot. Which, arguably, I am, because I managed to let these two monsters into my life. “Although, you’re the first one he asked me to keep.”

  I can’t help the shudder that wracks up my body at the thought of him “wanting to keep” me. Jerrod shoots me an angry glare, but his mother smiles wider at me.

  “And now you know,” she says. “And it’s time to move on.”

  “No!” I shout, but I don’t even get the chance to struggle, because she strikes out like a snake. I hadn’t even noticed the injector pen in her hand until it was too late. “You won’t get away with this.”

  “I’m afraid I already have,” she replies with a mean smile as I feel my legs begin to give out, and Jerrod lays me down on the floor of the living room.

  “No,” I reply, but I have to lick my lips. They’re dry; my mouth is so dry. It feels like I’ll never not be thirsty again, but I have to push past it. “Lee got a hair sample from Jerrod at one of the crime scenes. It was a mitochondrial match to the skin and blood found under the fingernails of a Jane Doe.

  “No,” she snaps, her eyes shooting fire at her son.