Save Her Child: A completely gripping and suspenseful crime thriller (Jericho and Wright Thrillers Book 3)

by CJ Lyons

  “Was he Black?” Pops asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s all they need to know. Don’t care about the rest. Probably claimed he was a danger to the teacher or other kids, that he was out of control—”

  “Isn’t that the definition of a child having a tantrum?” Janine retorted. She was in her fifties, her own children raised and gone, the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of Polish coal miners. And she didn’t put up with crap from anybody. “Last year he had Emily with him, but this year Driscoll assigned them to separate classes.”

  “It’ll be like he’s starting over again,” Pops said. “He won’t know any of those kids. Hard enough the first time around; at least he met Emily.” In the spring when Nate had first arrived, the school had made him repeat first grade because his schooling had been erratic down in Baltimore. But he’d worked hard over the summer and he’d shown real progress, and they’d decided he could skip ahead now, and rejoin his age group in third grade.

  “And it was Emily helping him over the summer who got him caught up,” Janine put in. She was certain Emily and Nate shouldn’t be separated, but Luka wasn’t so sure.

  Leah had agreed to let Emily skip ahead to third grade, despite the fact that she’d be the youngest in the class. Better to keep them together, Leah had said, and at the time Luka agreed. Nate needed friends. Nate was such a great kid, but because he’d been working so hard on academic progress over the summer, Luka hadn’t been able to enroll him in sports camp or any activity where Nate could socialize with other boys his own age. Now he worried that having Emily there was a crutch and Nate wouldn’t even try to find other friends.

  “Yeah, but he needs friends his own age.” Luka remembered his own third grade. Back then, girls had cooties and were to be avoided at all costs. So where would that leave Nate if he hung out with a girl, especially a girl who was a bit quirky and who didn’t always fit in, like Emily? Luka loved that about Emily, but as their encounters with Ms. Driscoll had proven, being quirky wasn’t always the best way to avoid trouble. And the last thing Nate needed was more trouble in his life. The boy had been through enough.

  Pops made a noise. “Notice how it’s our problem figuring out the best thing for a Black boy who the principal doesn’t want associating with a white girl? I’ll bet Driscoll didn’t dump this on Leah. I’ll bet she never calls her about Emily being disruptive.”

  Luka didn’t have an answer to that. “I don’t care. As long as he’s getting the best education possible. Which means, we should take Viola Reed’s invitation of a scholarship to Cambria Prep seriously.”

  “Token Black kid—those snobby rich boys will eat him for lunch,” Pops said. “Or get his ass arrested when they push things too far. And you know the parents and teachers won’t tolerate anything from Nate. He’ll be on his own.”

  “It could be a great opportunity,” Janine put in. “If they’re offering a full scholarship, might be worth a look. If he stays there through high school, it could mean a better choice of colleges, put him on a career path he might not have otherwise.”

  “I’ll call her, learn more,” Luka said. “And I have a meeting set up with Ms. Driscoll and Nate’s new teacher later this week—if we don’t decide to move him to Cambria Prep.”

  He eyed the clock on the wall and sighed. As much as he’d rather stay here and figure out Nate’s future, he had cases that wouldn’t solve themselves. Time to get to work.

  As if on cue, his phone rang. He glanced at it, certain it would be Harper, upset that he’d asked Maggie to reschedule Lily Nolan’s autopsy, but was surprised to see that it was Leah.

  “Morning,” he said when he answered it.

  “How’s your leg?” Before he could answer, she continued, “Remember that patient I asked for your help with?”

  “Your Jane Doe who almost had her baby in front of the kids? Yeah, she’s pretty unforgettable.”

  “I couldn’t say more last night, not with the kids there,” she started with a rush of words. “But Nate may have taken some photos of her at the fair and Emily said she saw her throw a phone away. Emily’s grounded because of how she acted last night—and I apologize again about that—but do you think it would be okay for Nate to come over today so she can look at his photos? Emily remembers exactly when and where—”

  “You know that photographic memory of hers is going to get you in trouble someday. But yeah, fine with me.”

  “Great, thanks. I’ve been up all night worried about her—Beth, my patient, not Emily. Well, Emily, too, but that’s different. Why wouldn’t she tell us her name? Who was she running from? I thought if the kids can pinpoint where Beth tossed her phone, we could get it, check her contacts, see who she is and if she needs help—”

  He’d grabbed his crutches and was hobbling across the room and so almost missed the implications of what she had said. “Wait, slow down. Who exactly is we? Because if it’s me, then I have no authority to—”

  “I can’t shake this feeling of dread. My worry is that Beth’s a victim of domestic violence, on the run from someone. Luka, if you’d seen her face—” She finally took a breath. “We need to help her.”

  Luka frowned. “Technically she hasn’t committed a crime—unless the hospital wants to prosecute her for not paying her bill, but that wouldn’t be until after she was discharged.” He thought about it. “I could speak with her if you think it would help.”

  “Would you mind? The nurses were talking about getting a psych consult, but she’s definitely not psychotic or delusional, she’s good old-fashioned scared witless. She needs to know she’s protected and that her baby is safe here, then she might open up. After that, we can get her into a shelter or whatever help she needs.”

  “Leah. I know you’re worried about Beth and her baby, but you need to understand that I can’t force her to talk. She’s hasn’t committed any crime that I know of and, even if she had, she’d still have the right to say nothing.”

  “I know, I know.”

  He could sense her anxiety threading through her words and couldn’t help but wonder how much was actually driven by Beth’s predicament and how much was about Emily and her tantrum last night.

  “When do you think you can get over here?” she asked.

  “You’re already at Good Sam?”

  “Yes.” She sounded a bit sheepish. “Came in early to see Beth, but her nurse said she was sleeping, so I’m in my office.”

  He glanced at the clock. It was too early to have any preliminary results from the Standish autopsy, but maybe by the time he’d finished talking with Beth? It’d be good to have some information to prepare for his interviews with Tassi and Foster Dean scheduled for later today. He’d been hoping to get some paperwork done, follow up on his other open cases, but… “I’m on my way.”

  “Thanks, Luka. I owe you.”

  Twenty-One

  Leah hung up the phone, able to take a deep breath for the first time since she’d arrived at her office before seven this morning. She’d woken with the sun—not that she’d slept more than an hour or so, not that she ever slept through a full night since Ian had been killed. But last night was different. Usually she was tossing and turning, worrying about Emily, about what she could be doing better, remembering how Ian was such a natural at parenting, thinking about how much she missed him…

  Last night she couldn’t stop thinking about Beth. The haunted, driven look on her face when Leah had found her. Her words kept echoing through Leah’s mind every time she’d closed her eyes: Help me. I can’t let them find me. Can’t let them find us. Help me.

  Who was Beth, and who was she running from? Leah had to know; she couldn’t shrug it aside. Of course, Luka was right; Beth didn’t have to tell them anything. If she didn’t, then Leah would have to find another way to help—maybe by finding Beth’s phone. But she was hoping Luka would be able to get Beth talking. He had an easy way about him, at once gentle and understanding but also strong and pro
tective.

  While she waited for Luka, she tried to distract herself with work. After Ian’s murder, she’d left the ER with its evening and overnight shifts to take the job of medical director of Good Sam’s Crisis Intervention Center. While she still did some hands-on interventions herself, like providing forensic interviews for the police, the vast majority of her new job had turned out to be managing a near-constant budget crisis.

  When she took over the department, it quickly became clear that they’d need additional funding. Thankfully, her assistant had a nose for finding grant money that would allow the CIC to continue its victim advocacy work here at Good Sam as well as providing mobile crisis response teams staffed by psychiatric social workers and specially trained EMS providers. Now that the money had been earmarked, it was Leah’s job to find people to fill those positions, hence the early morning arrival at the office to go through the résumés and decide who to interview.

  The current staff functioned well together, so Leah needed to find people who would fit in with them. But she also needed the type of person who would be able to function independently on the streets alongside the police. It was a tricky balance—as she’d seen herself during her early days working with Luka’s team—and required the right personality.

  “I need to talk to them all,” she muttered as she clicked from one perfectly formatted résumé to the next. Words on a screen were meaningless; she needed to meet them to see if they had the right skill set, to tell how they might react in a crisis.

  A knock on her door startled her. Luka poked his head inside, leaning on his crutches. “Your assistant wasn’t here yet, so—”

  “Thanks for coming. I really appreciate it.” She closed down her computer and stood. “How’s the leg?”

  “Hurts like a sonofabitch if I stop to think about it or if I move it or anything touches it or the wind blows the wrong way. Other than that, it’s fine.”

  “Translation: noncompliant patient refuses to take his pain medication or follow doctor’s orders to rest.”

  He rolled his eyes at her. “Thought I was the one doing you a favor?”

  “Sorry, sorry. You’re right.” Leah led the way to the elevator and up to the OB floor. The Labor and Delivery area was buzzing with activity and the waiting room was overflowing with anxious family members.

  “Her name’s Beth?” Luka asked as Leah used her keycard to get them through the secure doors separating the nursery and postpartum wing from the rest of the floor.

  “That’s what she told me.” They passed the large, glass-walled nursery. Leah glanced inside—no sign of Beth’s baby under the warmers. Which meant he was stable enough to stay in Beth’s room, a good sign. The nurse covering the nursery seemed busy, so Leah decided she’d check the baby’s chart after they saw Beth.

  They reached Beth’s room. The door was shut and a “Mother nursing” sign hung on the doorknob. Leah knocked softly, then when there was no answer, she rapped louder.

  Luka shifted his weight nervously from one crutch to the other. “Maybe we should come back later,” he said, eyeing the sign with trepidation.

  “You can face down men with guns, no problem, but a mom nursing her baby makes you nervous?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t want to make her more anxious, is all. A strange man—”

  “Let me check on her and we’ll see.” Leah edged the door open and peered inside. The lights were off, the room dark. “Beth? It’s Leah. I wanted to see how you—”

  No answer. The room felt empty, and as her eyes adjusted, guided by the small red lights that marked the call buttons at the bedside, she realized that Beth wasn’t there. Leah snapped the lights on. The room was vacant, with no signs of Beth or her baby other than an IV bag, its tubing dangling on the floor, leaking into a puddle.

  She rushed to the bathroom. Empty. Then back out to the hall where Luka waited. “They’re gone.”

  “How? The hospital has a security system for newborns.”

  She started toward the nurses’ station and he followed, his crutches thumping against the linoleum.

  “Perhaps she’s taking a walk, stretching her legs.”

  “I didn’t see her baby in the nursery.”

  “How could you tell? They all look alike.”

  They reached the nursery. Leah rapped on the glass and the nurse on duty looked up from her chart. Using her keycard, Leah opened the locked door. “Have you seen Beth Doe? Or her baby boy?”

  The nurse frowned. “They’re in her room.”

  “No. I was just there.”

  “Hang on. She’s not mine and things are crazy around here today—worse than a full moon.” She checked the computer. “Yeah, Katie’s note says the baby’s temp was stable so she took him to mom’s room to nurse. Said they showed good bonding, baby latched on no trouble, and she left them after answering mom’s questions.” She glanced up at Leah. “That was over two hours ago.”

  Luka stepped forward, swinging his jacket open to reveal his badge. “Can you check the baby’s location using its monitor bracelet?”

  The nurse clicked a few more keystrokes then relaxed. “He’s right where he should be. Room 616.”

  “We just came from there,” Leah told her. “They aren’t there.”

  “They have to be,” the nurse protested. “You must have the wrong room.” She summoned a nursing assistant via the intercom. “Watch things for me, will you? I’ll only be gone a second.” Then she beckoned to Leah and Luka to follow her. She strode down the hallway until she reached Beth’s room. Leah and Luka joined her inside. “I don’t understand. The computer says both mom and baby are here. Right here.”

  Luka pulled back the sheets from the bed. Nestled in the center of the mattress were two monitor bracelets. “Call security. Lock it down.” He glanced up at the nurse, whose mouth had dropped open. “Lock it down. Now.”

  Twenty-Two

  Harper didn’t understand why everybody hated it when Ford Tierney was assigned to do the postmortem on their cases. She liked the man. Yeah, he took forever, but he always gave you a straight answer once he’d taken the time to verify all his findings. And, while he never wanted to talk about the circumstances of a case—the science should speak for itself, he said—he never seemed to mind when she asked questions. Maybe because she never challenged him, instead merely sought to understand.

  Still, Harper wished she was anywhere else but here, sitting in the small observation area elevated to give a bird’s-eye view of the gruesome proceedings as the assistant medical examiner conducted his examination of Spencer Standish’s body. She wanted to head to Lily’s rehab facility in person but instead she’d had to rely on a phone conversation. She’d been on hold for twenty minutes, so she hung up and tried again, hoping to get someone other than the snippy administrator she’d first spoken with, who’d seemed unhappy with Harper’s promise of a court order to follow, if she could just give Harper Lily’s next of kin information now. This time another woman, who identified herself as a volunteer manning the front desk, picked up.

  It was Harper’s first bit of luck on Lily’s case. The volunteer was young, bored, eager to chat, and oblivious to patient confidentiality statutes. Yes, she remembered Lily—one of their success stories. And did Harper know, Lily had only come to rehab because she’d almost died of an OD and her best friend had brought her and promised to go through the program with her? It was so sad that Lily ended up clean and sober, finishing her program, while the friend had been kicked out after trading sex for drugs with another patient.

  “Do you remember the friend’s name?”

  “Sure. Macy. Like the Thanksgiving parade with all the balloons.”

  “I’m trying to contact Lily’s family,” Harper said. “To inform them of what’s happened. I can send you a court order to release the information, but that will take a little time. Could you—”

  “Let me look.” Harper could hear her keyboard clicking, and she waited patiently for a few moments. “No
, sorry. Lily listed Macy as her emergency contact and Macy listed Lily. Guess they only had each other as family. Better than a lot of folks we see, though. I don’t understand how so many people can find themselves so alone, with no one.”

  Harper did, but she didn’t say anything to jade the volunteer’s hopeful outlook on life. The girl was still young; she’d learn in time. “Thanks, you’ve been very helpful.”

  “I’m sorry about Lily.”

  Harper ended the call and turned her attention back to the autopsy. Tierney finished going over Maggie’s notes and the timeline she’d constructed using the firefighters’ data, comparing the garage’s carbon monoxide levels to what was in Standish’s blood. “Maggie’s right,” he said after checking a few calculations. “This man did not die of carbon monoxide poisoning. His blood levels are much too low.”

  “If it wasn’t the carbon monoxide that killed him, could it have been something related to his cancer?” she asked.

  “Cancer?”

  “Yes. The wife said he’d been treated in the past, but it had come back.”

  Tierney tutted over the blood work, shaking his head. “There is nothing abnormal here except his cholesterol is a bit high. What kind of cancer?”

  “Wife didn’t say.”

  “Hmmm… Well, let’s let the body tell the story. The body never lies.” It was the kind of pompous pronouncement that Luka found irritating, but Harper felt strangely reassured by the prospect of answers and a concrete way to find them that didn’t rely on unreliable witnesses.

  It took almost two hours of slicing and dicing before Tierney had finished his dissection of the body, leaving only Spencer’s head still intact. “I don’t think this man ever had cancer,” he finally said, his voice crackling through the speaker in the observation room, getting Harper’s full attention.