Hush Little Baby Read online

  TWO

  * * *

  WHERE’S THE BABY?

  “Captain Goodnite, this is dispatch. We have a body.”

  “Where’s the location?” I ask as I pull out my wallet and leave more than enough money to cover the meal I’m not going to get to eat and probably won’t want once I’m done. Or maybe I will, but it’ll be long gone by then. The life of a police officer is never dull.

  “The apartments at 241 Ashland,” the dispatcher informs me.

  “I’m on my way.”

  I drop the stack of bills and the pretty waitress’s number on the table and head for the door. I’d like to think I wouldn’t call her, that I’ve learned my lesson where my heart and my dick are concerned—because if I can’t have the one woman my heart wants, I shouldn’t offer my dick to anyone else. But who knows how weak I’ll be after another month of watching her with that pencil-dicked little weasel? It’s hard to say how low I’d stoop when my loneliness consumes me late at night.

  I grab my leather jacket off the hook on the side of the booth I was sitting in. That’s one of the things I love most about this restaurant; it’s open late—which is convenient, because I seem to live at the station lately—and it has these quiet booths in the back of the bar where no one bothers you, but you can see all the exits from here.

  I slide my arms in, the lining worn soft from years of wear and tear, but it’s still my favorite. I can’t seem to slide into the suit completely like Wes did. I wore a uniform for as many years as he did in the military, but then when we came back to Jersey, he went off to the FBI in Quantico, and I came here to wear a different uniform with the police department. Now that I’m the captain, a uniform isn’t required anymore, and I strangle myself every morning with a shirt and tie, but that’s as far as I’ll let it go. This jacket was my grandfather’s from when he was a crew chief on navy helicopters.

  As I make my way through the restaurant toward the exit, taking care to give Emma and her date a wide berth, I see her out the corner of my eye as she reaches into her bag and pulls out her phone. I push out a frustrated sigh. There’s a part of me that hates that we work for the same small township, and there’s another more twisted part of me that loves it, because even if I can’t have her, she still exists in my world. I get to see her and talk to her, and it’s not enough, but it’s all I’ll ever get. And it’s more than I fucking deserve, so I take it like the little bitch I am.

  I push open the heavy glass door and hear the bells overhead chime as I head out into the night and toward another tragedy. I tug at the knot of my tie to loosen it as I make my way through the parking lot toward my SUV. This life can take a toll on you, more so now that my sister is on desk duty.

  I beep the locks on my department-issued SUV and climb in. I key open the lock on the glovebox and pull out my sidearm and badge, setting both on the dash before I fire up my car and head out of the lot and into the night.

  I drive through the gates of the apartment complex. Yellow streetlamps light my way as I circle the building and lead me to the pinnacle of where red-and-blue streaks of light flash into the dark night. It’s like the northern lights meets the harbinger of doom. I pull in behind them in a long line of black-and-whites and a crime scene van. The medical examiner, or ME, isn’t here yet, but I’m sure she will be soon.

  I push open my door, and a heavy feeling settles around me like clockwork. Every case like this seems to mark another piece of my soul. I reach for my badge and holster as I step down from the Tahoe and clip both to my belt before making my way up the sidewalk, my long legs eating up each step that stands between me and whatever tragedy I’m about to walk into.

  “Hey, Jones,” I say, shaking the young detective’s hand. “What do you have for me?”

  “Hey, Cap,” he greets me. “Victim is the occupant of the apartment. Nineteen-year-old Ashley Horner. Waitress at the Silver Streak Diner, expecting her first child.”

  As Jones ticks off each item on his list while he describes the victim, my stomach sours and bile rises up in the back of my throat. Unfortunately, I know exactly what’s coming and why Jones—my sister’s newest partner, one she hasn’t managed to maim or send screaming into the night yet—and I were called out here tonight. We had a case just like this two weeks ago. The girl’s life story seems to match this evening’s victim’s. She had no family, no baby daddy in the picture, and a crap job. If this girl is like the first, she had absolutely no one and nothing to see her through life, and now she doesn’t even have that.

  “Estimated cause of death?” I ask as we climb the last step to the upper-level apartment just before we cross the threshold.

  “Exsanguination,” Jones says quietly, his words leaving another mar on my soul. “She bled out.”

  “And where’s the baby?” I ask him, even though I already know what he’s going to say. I take the plastic booties one of the crime scene guys hands me and slip them over the soles of my boots, and all it takes is one look to know why. The crappy beige carpet of every cheap apartment there ever was is the same flooring of Ashley Horner’s humble abode, but this particular batch is absolutely soaked with blood. It’s a horror scene it’s so gruesome.

  “Gone.”

  “Fuck,” I bite out as I rip a pair of latex gloves from my jacket pocket and start tugging them on.

  “Yeah,” he says, doing the same.

  “Do we know who called it in?” I ask, and by the look on his face, I’m glad I didn’t have time to eat the dinner I ordered.

  “The downstairs neighbors,” Jones answers. “It appears they had a ceiling leak for a few days before the super would take a look.”

  “Sounds like a great guy.”

  “No joke,” he replies.

  “And the neighbors?” I ask.

  “Moving, but I have their contact info.”

  Jones and I move quietly throughout the apartment as we catalogue all the different pieces of Ashley Horner’s life. A lot of people would believe the life of a detective is fast-paced and full of action, but they would be wrong. Most of the time, it’s combing through the minutiae of the lives of people you will never meet, mostly because they’re dead.

  It’s a lot for one person to handle, and more than enough good cops succumb to their demons, whether it be night terrors, the bottle, or even their own bullet. My sister thinks she’s the only one with nightmares and for years hid the fact that she was struggling with the demons leftover from her kidnapping. Claire suffered alone for so long, but what my baby sister didn’t know—hell, she still doesn’t—is that I’ve been struggling too.

  Not every night, but lately, more often than not, the ghosts of the past come calling when I lie down at night. And I can’t help but wonder if one day I won’t be able to pretend like they don’t exist anymore.

  “Hey, guys,” Emma says from the front of the apartment. “What did I miss?”

  She’s zipped up coveralls over her clothes. The material hangs loose over her frame except for where it stretches across her swollen belly. Heavy rubber boots are pulled up to her knees, and her dark-blonde hair with its dyed pink ends are wadded up on top of her head in a glorious mess. She’s a mess, and yet I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than her in this state in my entire life.

  I don’t realize I’m staring until Detective Jones elbows me in the ribs. Sometimes when she’s in the room, I feel lost, and the only thing to light my way home is her.

  “Looks like another baby snatcher,” Jones fills in for me.

  I clear my throat, but I don’t trust the words that will come out of my mouth yet, so I keep my teeth clenched tight and just nod.

  Emma steps into the room. Her assistant raises a camera to her face and snaps picture after picture while Emma crouches down to get a good look at the body. She pulls the victim’s clothes away from her body, and I have to look away. The gaping wound across the young woman’s abdomen splits wide like a malicious smile. Her eyes are dimmed in death.

 
“There doesn’t seem to be any blunt force trauma, no GSW or otherwise. Best guess until I get her to my lab is another cesarean.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that,” I admit.

  She shrugs. “It’s the most likely guess.”

  I push out a frustrated breath and barely keep myself from shoving a hand through my dark hair. It’s a rookie move, and the field guys have been waiting for Ole Cap to make one, like running my hands through my hair while I’m wearing contaminated crime scene gloves.

  Jones smirks, because he knows it’s a gesture I make all the time and it’s killing me to hold back now. Emma bites her plump, light-pink lip to keep from laughing, and her assistant looks away.

  “Not today, guys,” I say, rolling my eyes. “You’re not going to get the goods on Ole Cap today.”

  “Sure thing, Captain,” Emma’s assistant, Maryann, says.

  “So what else do you assholes have for me?” I laugh.

  “Time of death was probably forty-eight hours or so ago,” Emma answers me. “I’ll know more when I get her in the lab and get a body temp, but rigor has come and gone.”

  “You’re the body expert,” I say offhandedly.

  “Now, I thought that was you.” Emma smiles and winks to take the sting out of her words.

  “Ready?” Maryann asks.

  “Yeah, let’s load her up on three,” she agrees. “One… two… three.” And then they get the body in the bag and on the board for transport.

  “Here,” I say, stepping in to lift Emma’s end of the board. I don’t like that she’s doing all the heavy lifting. I know she’s capable; hell, Emma is one of the toughest women I know, and I find it sexy as hell, but still. If I can lighten her load, whether she’s pregnant or not, I will.

  “Thanks,” she says as she tucks a finger in the edge of her glove and folds it over, sliding her hand out. She loops it through the edge of the second one, balling them both up without ever touching her hands. We all do the best we can, but somehow Emma makes the move look almost delicate.

  I look to Maryann, and we lift the board, carrying Ashley Horner between us down the stairs. Emma beeps the locks on the van she uses to move the deceased back to her morgue. It’s a large, nondescript panel van, but honestly it wouldn’t surprise me if she showed up one day driving an old hippie van with a unicorn painted on the sides.

  Maryann and I slide the board onto the gurney waiting inside, and Emma slams the doors shut before turning to face me.

  “I… uhh, I’ll just meet you back at the lab,” Maryann says before scurrying away. Her exit is awkward and a little embarrassing for all of us. Rumors about Emma and me had caused more than a few department tongues to wag.

  “Thanks for all your help, Lee,” Emma says with a soft smile and a gentle hand on my bicep. The muscle flexes involuntarily under her touch, and I can’t help but lean toward her.

  “It was nothing,” I reply, sounding like a chump, when all I want to do is tell her that I would do anything for her, that the loss of her in my bed these last months has been brutal but were still nothing compared to the distance she’s kept.

  I brush a dark-gold curl back from her face with the calloused tips of my fingers, and she jumps at the contact, almost as if she’d forgotten where she was and who she was with.

  “I should go,” she says softly, and I catch her by her arm. Not tight, I would never hurt her; I just want her to give me a little more of her time. I want to understand the mixed signals she’s sending me.

  “What are we doing, Em?”

  THREE

  * * *

  WHAT ARE WE DOING?

  “I-I-I don’t know,” she says, and I can see her pulse flutter in the side of her slim neck like a butterfly’s wings. “Nothing.”

  “This doesn’t feel like nothing, Emma. Don’t you feel it too?” I lean in closer to her and watch her eyes dilate. As much as she wants to claim she doesn’t feel anything for me, it’s a lie.

  “It doesn’t matter what I feel,” she hisses, and I know I’ve hit a nerve. I can’t push her much farther than this tonight, and I won’t risk her health or her baby. I’m greedy where she’s concerned, but what I feel for her is big enough to put her basic needs before any wants of my own.

  Emma and I keep coming back to this moment time and time again. I love her, and she loves me, but it doesn’t matter. It never will, because there’s a ghost standing between us, and there always will be. Emma is never going to be able to move on from the loss of her friend, Anna. And life has taught me that you have to honor the fallen and then move on. Grieving for eternity over the lost and refusing to live your life is not honoring them in any way. And no matter what I say or do, Emma will never cave on this.

  I push out a heavy sigh and run my hand through my hair like I longed to do when I had gloves on. I can’t keep doing this, and I can’t stay away. I love her, but I always end up hurting her. I don’t know what to do.

  “Have a good night, Emma,” I tell her as I back away. “Drive safe.”

  I see she wants to say more, but I can’t. I need to let her go, but the hope that one day she’ll be mine might be all that keeps me going on the darkest of days.

  I turn around and walk back to my car without watching her climb into her SUV, never knowing that the saddest look in the world crossed her beautiful face and that, with the back of her hand, she dashed away a tear before climbing in her van and driving back to the morgue. Instead, I beeped the locks on my Tahoe and climbed in.

  I drove out of the little apartment complex on Ashland and back across town to where my old house full of history sits at the top of a small hill. I pull into the driveway and turn off the engine before stepping down.

  I shut the car door behind me with just a little too much force, a surefire sign that my frustration is at its peak and it’s time for me to call it a night before I do something stupid, and at thirty-nine years old, I am too old to do stupid shit anymore.

  I walk up the narrow stone walkway to the door on the front of my house that lets into an all-seasons porch. I unlock the door and step inside, locking it behind me before moving on to do the same thing with the front door. You don’t help put away some of New Jersey’s worst offenders without learning to be careful, but any innocence I had left was lost when I was sixteen and my baby sister was stolen from our yard by a monster. Somehow, she managed to escape, but not without scars on all our souls. Since then, I’ve learned to be cautious when needed and more overprotective than I should be. But I can’t help it. She had wanted to follow Wes and me around, and I didn’t want to babysit. If I would’ve just included her, she wouldn’t have been kidnapped. Maybe if I hadn’t pushed Emma so hard, Anna wouldn’t have doubled down on her efforts to prove herself and gotten killed.

  At the end of the day, the facts don’t lie. I’m nothing but a curse for the women in my life.

  I strip off my leather jacket and hang it on a hook by the front door before making my way up the stairs to my bedroom that overlooks the driveway. There are several bedrooms upstairs, but my need to be alert and ready won out when I was choosing a space of my own. I worked hard on this house, turning a second bedroom next to the master into an en suite bathroom.

  I kick off my boots by the door and lock my badge and sidearm in the safe I keep in my nightstand drawer. I make my way into the bathroom and turn the shower on. I strip off my clothes and drop them in the hamper before stepping under the spray. I could have used a hot shower to loosen my muscles, but my cock thought otherwise. What couldn’t even muster so much as a twitch in the direction of the willing waitress now flares to life for a woman I had in my life and in my bed for six beautiful weeks, and then she was just… gone.

  I lather soap all over my body and will my erection to go away, but it’s no use. Emma is better than any blue pill. All it takes is one look at her or the sound of her husky voice or even the faint strawberry scent of her shampoo, and I’m hard enough to pound nails.

  Fuck it. I’m
so hard it hurts, and if I don’t do something about it, I’ll never get to sleep. I brace my left hand on the cool tile of the shower wall and run my other hand down my face. I hate that I need her like this. I hate that she won’t give us the chance to move on and make a life together. I hate that I’m so fucking weak where she’s concerned.

  I let my hand slide down from my face to my neck and feel the muscle and tendon underneath my fingers. Trailing farther over my chest and the flat abs that take more work and determination at almost forty than they did at twenty, my hand moves down even more until I wrap my fist around the base of my cock and squeeze.

  The groan that falls from my lips couldn’t be stopped if I wanted it to as I stroke myself from root to tip. I close my eyes and let my head tip backward. I have no strength in me to hold it up anymore as I see her the last time she was in my bed in my mind. The pink tips of her breasts as they bounced when she demanded that I fuck her harder and I did. The rough moans she made when she was about to come, and even the way her deep-blue eyes stared up at me with hunger as her lush pink lips wrapped around my cock and she sucked me off in this very shower. The way she grabbed the back of my thighs and held on when I tried to get her to pull back so I could fuck her like we both wanted. She wouldn’t let me. The way she loved bringing me to my knees and the roar that was ripped from my chest as she swallowed every last drop of me, and the sexy smirk on her face after. And the way that smirk slid right off her face when I gently tipped her back right in the middle of the huge walk-in shower while I licked every inch of her sweet pussy.

  The taste of her was still on my lips when I climbed over her and slid deep inside. She was hot and tight and everything I ever wanted in the way that she raised her hips to meet mine as I plunged into her over and over. And when she reached that point of no return, she clung to me while she came, and watching her was by far the most erotic experience of my life.