“How’s she holding up?” Moran nodded toward the living room.
“Dr. Patton? She’s doing okay, considering her child is missing and that child’s father is trying to help her and probably saying and doing all the wrong things.”
“Men are like that.” Moran’s lips twitched with a hint of humor.
“Yes, you are. All of you.”
“Including your ex?”
“How’d you know— You didn’t, did you? Not until I reacted. And before you ask, I do not want to talk about him or about it.”
“It?” Moran cocked an inquisitive eyebrow.
“It. The divorce. What about you, Moran—got an ex-wife and a less than pleasant divorce you don’t want to talk about?”
“No marriages. No divorces.”
“Hmm-mmm.”
“And before you ask—”
“Why is a guy who’s decidedly over thirty-five never been married?”
“Yeah, that’s the question I don’t want you to ask.” He actually grinned.
“Being a woman, my guess would be either unrequited love and you’re still hoping to eventually woo and win her…or you loved and lost and—” A flicker of something incomprehensible danced in Moran’s black eyes, coming and going so quickly that she could have imagined it. But she hadn’t. Loved and lost. That was it. Moran’s it that he couldn’t bear to talk about, the way her divorce from Trent was her unbearable it.
Moran sipped on his coffee. Kate did the same.
The phone rang and both of them tensed.
He got up and rushed into the living room. Kate quickly followed. Leenie stood by the phone, allowing it to ring, and looked to Moran for direction the minute she saw him. He nodded and motioned for her to answer the phone.
Although Leenie’s hand trembled as she lifted the receiver, her voice was steady when she said, “This is Dr. Lurleen Patton.” Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. She gasped, then responded, “No, thank you, I’m not interested in a free vacation.” She slammed down the receiver.
Kate released the breath she’d unknowingly been holding. “It’s after five. Why don’t I put together some sandwiches for us?”
“I—I’ll help you,” Leenie offered. “God knows I need something to do. I’m on the verge of losing my mind.”
“Do you need anything from the store?” Kate asked. “If you do, I’ll give Frank a call on his cell phone and tell him to—”
“Is Frank not back yet?” Leenie asked.
“Not yet,” Kate told her.
“Then please call him. I’d like to speak to him.” Leenie motioned for Kate to come with her into the kitchen.
“You two go ahead,” Moran said. “I should check in with headquarters.”
Once they were in the kitchen, Kate dialed Frank’s cell number. He answered on the first ring.
“Latimer.”
“Frank, it’s Kate.”
“What’s up? Anything wrong?”
“Nothing new. But Leenie wants to talk to you.”
“She does?”
“Yes, she does.” Kate held out the phone to Leenie.
She grasped the phone, inhaled and exhaled then said, “Kate and I are going to make sandwiches for supper. They should be ready in about fifteen minutes. Would you please come home and eat with us. Afterward, I want to show you Andrew’s photo album and if you’d like to know more about him, I want to tell you about your son.”
Kate turned her head and willed herself not to cry. It had been ages since she’d shed a tear. At one time she had thought she’d cried herself dry, that there were no more tears left in her. But every once in a while something happened—usually a case involving a kidnapped child—that stirred long dead emotions within her. Years ago when she’d been a rookie cop on the Atlanta P.D., she’d worked with Ellen Denby and marveled at how the woman could keep a cool head and deal with the toughest cases involving children. But as the years went by and she and Ellen had exchanged confidences, she had learned that they shared a similarly tragic experience which enabled them to understand each other in a way no one else could. Just as Kate understood Leenie as only a mother who’d also had a child stolen from her could understand.
Kate offered to clear up the dishes and surprisingly Moran stayed in the kitchen to help her. Leenie felt as if she’d made a new friend in Kate and understood on an unspoken level that perhaps Kate had suffered once just as she suffered now. She realized she could be wrong about Kate, but her feminine intuition—her gut instincts—told her she was right. Sometime in her past, Kate Malone had lost a child.
Frank had been awfully quiet while they ate sandwiches, chips and cheesecake. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten cheesecake twice in one day. Oh yes she did remember—it had been the last time she’d made love with Frank. They’d had cheesecake for breakfast and again for lunch.
Alone together in the living room, Frank and she sat side by side on the sofa while she opened Andrew’s baby book, filled with photographs and memorabilia from her pregnancy and Andrew’s first two months of life. When Frank made no effort to close the gap between their bodies—the two feet that separated them—she took the initiative and scooted up next to him, hip-to-hip. He flinched, then stiffened. What was wrong with him? She wasn’t going to attack him, for pity’s sake. She laid the book in her lap and flipped it open so the other side dropped down on his thigh.
“Here’s a picture of me at my baby shower,” Leenie said. “Elsa came back to Maysville to help Haley host the event.”
Frank glanced at the picture, but said nothing.
“I was big as a barrel there. I gained thirty pounds.”
“Elsa and Rafe knew you were pregnant?”
“Yes, they knew. And before you get all huffy at Rafe, Elsa threatened him with divorce if he called and told you. She tried to talk me into getting in touch with you, but once she realized she couldn’t persuade me, she promised me that neither she nor Rafe would call you because it wasn’t their place to tell you.”
“You’re right. It was your place.”
“I thought we’d already agreed that I made a mistake in not informing you I was pregnant with your child. Do we have to continue beating a dead horse?”
Frank glanced at the photo again. “You look happy.”
“I was happy.” She tried to smile. “Fat and happy.”
“You were beautiful pregnant. Fat and beautiful.” He grinned, but didn’t make eye contact.
“I got even fatter,” she told him. “I was only seven and a half months in that picture.” She flipped through the pages, slowing on each page long enough for him to glance at it. When she reached the page with Andrew’s birth announcement and the first photo of him taken at the hospital, Frank clamped the page open with his big hand.
“Were you alone when he was born or did—”
“Haley was with me.”
“I should have been with you.”
“Yes. And it’s my fault you weren’t.”
“No, it was only partly your fault. And it was partly my own damn fault.”
“Well, at least we can agree on something—that there’s enough blame to share.”
When Leenie heard a phone ring, she tensed. It had to be either Kate’s or Moran’s cell phone since the ringing came from the kitchen and it wasn’t her private line.
“It’s not necessarily bad news,” Frank told her.
“I know. It’s just that I—”
The kitchen door swung open; Kate walked in and looked right at Frank. “Moran wants to see you in the kitchen for a minute.”
“What’s wrong?” Leenie asked. “And don’t tell me it’s nothing. I can sense something has happened.”
“You’re right,” Kate admitted, then called into the kitchen. “We’re telling them both, Moran. Leenie needs to know, too. Right now.”
Oh, God, what was it? What had happened?
Moran came out of the kitchen and stood in the open doorway. He glanced fro
m Frank to Leenie, shuffled his feet and said, “I got a call from Chief Bibb.”
“And?” Frank asked.
Moran hesitated. “They…er…they found a body.”
Leenie gasped. Frank put his arm around her waist and held her.
“A baby?” Frank asked.
“Yes. An infant. A boy. Age estimated at one to three months.”
“Oh, God, no!” Leenie screamed and suddenly everything went black.
Five
Frank wasn’t the type of man easily affected by a woman’s tears, swooning spells or temper tantrums. He’d seen it all as a kid—watching his mother, who’d been an expert in feminine wiles, manipulate his father time and again. And he’d learned from that very same father how to harden his heart and shut off his emotions. The only time he’d ever let his defenses down had been with Rita. Bad mistake. Not one he’d repeated. But damn it, catching Leenie in his arms when she fainted dead away had stirred up some unwanted emotions inside him. She wasn’t playing him, wasn’t putting on an act in an effort to control him. Her actions were real, brought on by true and honest feelings. All he’d wanted to do at that moment was hold and comfort her, protect her from the ugly truth and reassure her that she wasn’t alone. And here they were an hour later at the police morgue and still all he wanted to do was protect her, take care of her, shield her from more pain. Already this woman—the mother of his child—had somehow managed to sneak past his defenses and make him vulnerable. He hated feeling vulnerable; it was an alien concept to him.
“You shouldn’t have come down here.” Chief Bibb cleared his throat as his gaze dropped from Leenie’s pale face to the tile floor beneath his feet. “We can get an ID on the body without—”
Leenie gasped quietly. When he felt her stiffen, Frank tightened his grip on her waist. “Andrew’s pediatrician or even Haley Wilson could ID the child,” Frank said softly. “Why put yourself through this ordeal when it might not even be Andrew?”
“Either way, I have to do this,” Leenie said.
Frank studied her, noting the tension in her body and the grave expression on her face.
“No, you don’t have to do this.” If Frank had been given the chance to know his son, a chance to have been a father from the moment Andrew was born, then he could have come on his own to ID the infant’s body. He assumed that in most cases such as this, the father was the one who went to the morgue and put himself through hell in order to protect the child’s mother. If only he could do that for Leenie. But he couldn’t.
“Yes, Frank, I do have to do this,” Leenie told him. “If it isn’t Andrew, I need to see that for myself. And if it is…if it is, then I’ll know he’s dead. I won’t spend the rest of my life wondering.”
“But if it is Andrew, you’ll never be able to forget—”
Kate laid her hand on Frank’s back. “Don’t try to stop her. She has to do this.” Kate reached over and patted Leenie’s arm. “I understand how you feel. It’s worse not knowing one way or the other, holding on to hope when everyone tells you there is none, than it is having to face the certainty of your child’s death.”
Leenie clenched her teeth tightly, barely containing her overwrought emotions, then nodded agreement to Kate’s comment.
“We’re ready,” Frank told the coroner, a bald, middle-aged doctor named Huggins.
Securing his arm around her waist, Frank walked with Leenie into the cold, dimly lit room. Dr. Huggins, who had preceded them, walked over to the steel table where a white sheet covered the tiny body. Silence permeated every square inch of the area. Frank heard only his own breathing moments before Leenie sighed aloud. He tightened his grip on her hand. She looked at him, fear and uncertainty in her eyes.
“We’ll do this together,” he told her.
She nodded.
“All right,” Frank said to Dr. Huggins.
The coroner removed the sheet, revealing the small, lifeless body. Frank wanted to pull Leenie back, to rush her out of the room and away from the possible heartache facing her. But she forged ahead, then stopped abruptly to gaze down at the infant’s discolored corpse.
Leenie’s hand flew to her mouth as she gasped loudly. “Oh, God. God!”
Frank’s heart lurched to his throat. His pulse accelerated. No, please, no, he prayed silently, the plea a gut-level reaction. But he couldn’t bring himself to look at the infant.
Leenie gasped for air. “It’s not him. It’s not Andrew.”
Frank had never known such overwhelming relief. It was then—in that unparalleled moment of thankfulness—that he experienced a personal epiphany. Without ever having seen or held his child, he knew he loved Andrew. And he wanted a chance to be a father to his son.
Kate uttered a loud, gasping sigh. Frank blew out a deep breath. Leenie turned to Frank, a bittersweet smile on her face, and flung herself into his open arms. He held her, stroking her back, comforting her, as she clung to him for dear life. She wept. Only for a few moments. Quietly. But her body trembled uncontrollably long after she stopped crying.
Finally Frank managed to turn her around and head her toward the door. “Let’s go home.”
She allowed him to escort her from the room and into the outer office where Chief Bibb and Special Agent Moran waited.
“I’ll get the car and bring it around to the front door,” Kate said as she hurried away.
No one said another word as Frank led Leenie across the room. When they reached the door, she paused and spoke softly to the police chief. “Ryan, when you find out the child’s identity, would you please let us know. I—I want to send my condolences to the family.”
As long as she lived, she would never forget the image of that tiny infant lying on the cold, steel table. Somewhere out there another mother had lost a child. The only difference between that woman and Leenie was that this other woman had no hope. Her baby boy was dead.
Frank probably didn’t understand why she’d pulled away from him the moment they returned to her house or why she’d hurried into the bathroom and locked the door. He had called to her several times, asking her if she was all right and if there was anything he could do for her. But she hadn’t responded. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. As much as she needed Frank, as desperately as she wanted him close, she had to be alone right now. Alone to cry. Alone to die a thousand deaths in her heart and soul. Alone to work through the wild, mixed emotions she could barely control.
Even before the unknown infant’s body had been found, Leenie had felt as if she were on the verge of losing her mind. Although Frank and Kate and Haley had forced her to go through the motions of living, she really didn’t feel alive. She felt numb one minute and on fire with terror the next. She wanted to crawl into a hole and die. And at the same time she wanted to run and scream and beat her fists against the wall. It was as if she were dead and alive. Numb and over-sensitive. Subdued and crazed. All simultaneously.
After closing the lid, Leenie sat down on the commode and crossed her arms over her chest. She sat there and cried. Soft sobs. A steady stream of tears cascaded down her face. There was an ache inside her that hurt so bad she could barely breathe.
“Oh, Andrew…Andrew.”
Frank lifted his hand to knock on the bathroom door again. He’d knocked several times half an hour ago and pleaded with Leenie to answer him, to let him help her. But when she hadn’t responded, he’d finally left her alone. He had talked to Kate for a few minutes, then spent the past twenty minutes alone in his son’s nursery. He had run his fingers over the hand-painted mural on the wall—a Noah’s Ark scene. The walls were a pale blue, the ceiling covered with fluffy clouds and a host of stuffed animals and infant toys lined the floor-to-ceiling shelves. A magic room for a much-loved baby boy.
“Leave her alone.” Kate stood in the doorway to Leenie’s bedroom.
Frank whirled around to face Kate. “What?”
“Leave Leenie alone. She’ll come out when she’s ready. You’ll have plenty of time to comfort her then, when
she needs you. Right now, she needs to hide away.”
He didn’t know Kate all that well, but had heard the speculations about her that abounded around the Dundee office. “What makes you the expert?” he asked.
“I’m a woman.”
“Okay, if being a woman makes you an expert on all things female, then tell me this—why is it that Leenie pulls me to her with one hand and pushes me away with the other? She’s blowing hot and cold. I don’t know what she wants.”
“Believe me, you men are just as big a puzzle to us as we are to you.” Kate motioned for him to come toward her. “Let’s wait for Leenie in the living room. Eventually she’ll come out and that’s when you can play knight in shining armor again. Just wait for the signals. A smart man knows when to advance and when to retreat.”
“I’m not smart when it comes to women,” Frank admitted, following Kate down the hall and into the living room. “I’m bad at relationships.”
They sat down on the sofa. Kate curled up sideways, her waist and lower back supported by the sofa arm. Frank pressed his shoulders into the back of the couch, then crossed one leg over the other knee.
“Your personal life is none of my business. But if you care about Leenie, and I think you do, then ask yourself just how serious you are about a relationship with her. Don’t let her believe she can count on you for the long haul if you’re just in this until we find Andrew.”
Good advice. Hell, great advice. “What if I don’t know how I feel or what I want for the future? For now, I want to bring Andrew home. I want to protect Leenie and support her through this ordeal. But…” He shook his head. “I want to be a father to my son.”
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