by Jenna Kernan
“You both know it is your responsibility to call Child Protective Services when an infant is recovered,” he said.
“Yes, of course. It’s part of my training,” said Lori.
“So why didn’t you call?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“The call to Protective Services. It was never placed.”
“What? That’s impossible. Betty told me she called.”
Tinnin straightened. “Well, your supervisor told me that it was only when she called this morning that she discovered you had not contacted Protective Services.”
“But she said...” Lori scrambled to recall the exchange. Had she misunderstood?
“Your training includes procedure for intake of recovered children. Isn’t it your duty to call?”
It was. Why hadn’t Lori done so? Was it because deep down in her heart she didn’t want to let this baby go?
“I made a mistake.”
Tinnin nodded. “Yes, ma’am. You sure did.”
He turned to Jake. “And so did you. You have a legal obligation to call CPS. Yet neither of you did so.”
Lori tapped her teeth together in a nervous staccato.
Tinnin aimed a finger at Jake. “You are getting a verbal warning.” Then he lifted his brows and glanced at Lori. “You, Ms. Mott, are getting a formal reprimand from your supervisor. She also told me you should not be here when she arrives in—” he glanced at his watch “—twenty minutes.”
Lori nodded her understanding. “Yes, sir.”
“She’ll let you know when you are meeting with her. You are to stay home until then. If Protective Services wishes to see you, she will let you know.”
Lori locked her teeth together until they squeaked, not trusting herself to speak.
“That’s all, Ms. Mott. You can go.”
Lori cast Jake a quick look and then charged from the room.
Jake watched her go, wishing he could follow. Then he turned to Tinnin. “Did you speak to Detective Bear Den about what Lori uncovered about the missing girls?”
Tinnin nodded. “Doesn’t explain why neither of you did your jobs.”
“We have protected that infant since she came in here.”
“Son, we find babies every year. Most of them aren’t as lucky as that little one. We don’t post guards around them. That’s what this clinic is for. So we can look out for abandoned babies, along with the ones fortunate enough to have someone on this earth who wants them.”
“I want her,” he said.
“What’s that now?” said the chief.
“I want that baby girl.”
Tinnin pushed back his hat. “You know what you’re doing?”
Jake nodded.
“Well, not saying the tribe would give you that baby, but supposing they did, you’d get six weeks’ leave to care for her. What will you do after that?”
“My mother could watch her.”
“Your mother, who was none too pleased the last time you were expecting a baby.”
“This is different.”
Tinnin laughed. “It sure is. This baby is white, and it’s not yours.” Tinnin’s smile vanished and his brows lifted as he pinned his stare on Jake.
“She’s not mine,” Jake confirmed.
Tinnin’s cheeks puffed out as he blew away a breath. “Right, then.”
“She’s not mine yet. But I’m not leaving her in this clinic.”
“Why?”
Jake pressed his lips together and shook his head. He couldn’t explain it. Finally, he lifted his hands, palms out, before him. “Just feels wrong.”
Tinnin thought about that. “I set a great store by gut feelings, son.”
Chapter Seven
Lori had twenty minutes to gather up her things and get out before her supervisor arrived. Instead, she used her key to access the nursery and placed Fortune in one of the baby carriers they lent out to new parents. She knew what Betty had told her, and yes, she should have called Protective Services herself, but Mills had lied to Tinnin. Her short list of people involved with the girls seen at the clinic had just gotten shorter.
Lori retreated behind the nurses’ station, where she collected one of their laptops Burl had packed in a box.
Burl was loading supplies into boxes, and he paused to give her a curious look.
“What’s up?”
“I need a minute.”
Burl glanced at the baby, bundled in a carrier and ready for travel.
“I’ll watch her,” he said, but his smile was now forced and his eyes were cold.
“Burl, really. Just give me five minutes.”
He let his smile drop and rose slowly to his feet. He was a big man. They faced off. “You can’t take her out of here.”
“I know that.”
“Then why is she in that?”
Lori said nothing. How could she quickly explain the unease and the suspicion in a way that he would accept?
Burl sighed. “Betty called me and told me not to let you near that baby.”
“Five minutes.”
He glanced around. “Fine. Then you are going to tell me what the heck is happening.”
“I will. I swear.”
Lori retreated into the utility room with Fortune in a baby carrier looped around one arm and the laptop in the other. Once tucked behind the utility closet door, she placed Fortune on the table, and then she did something she had never done before. She locked the door.
The laptop took forever to boot up as she stood amid the stacked boxes, each labeled for transport. Her fingers flashed as she logged in. In a few minutes, she had a list of all the girls who had come to the clinic for pregnancy tests in the last two years, all the women under twenty-one who’d been seen at the clinic since it opened and all the medical records of each missing girl. She compared the pregnancy-test list to the names of girls who had disappeared since last November and found no matches.
But Lori knew girls ran away for a lot of reasons, and you didn’t need to come to a clinic to figure out you were pregnant. Had they each discovered themselves with child and decided to run rather than face their families?
Once, she had considered doing just that. At the time it seemed easier than facing everyone and proving herself to be exactly what they all expected.
There had been no word from any of the missing. That was unusual and disturbing. The girls either would not or could not contact their friends and families.
Lori scanned the medical records of the missing. Elsie Weaver had disappeared in November, followed by Marta Garcia, age sixteen, in February. Also in February was Kacey Doka, age eighteen, and in May, Brenda Espinoza, who was seventeen. Finally, last Monday, Maggie Kesselman had been listed as missing. She was the youngest of the group at fifteen, but not too young to get tangled up with a boy. Lori knew that firsthand.
Two of the girls were from Koun’nde and two from Piñon Forks. Only Maggie was from Turquoise Ridge. In other words, the girls would not necessarily have all known one another. Why did the police think the disappearances might be related?
Lori double-checked the dates of the girls’ appointments and confirmed her earlier discovery. All of the girls had been recent patients at the clinic.
Lori opened the mail program and emailed the records to herself, knowing she was now guilty of a violation far more grievous than failing to call Child Protective Services. This one wouldn’t get her a reprimand. It would get her fired.
She glanced at her watch. She’d been in here more than twenty minutes. Mills was likely on her way to see that Lori had been turned out.
There was a bang beyond the locked door, as if someone had knocked over a stainless-steel cart. Lori closed the laptop and stood. Then she lifted Fortune from the table, moved to the door and switched off the light. She pressed
an ear to the door. Burl was shouting. There was another voice, low and muffled. Burl’s voice was clear.
“You can’t go in there!”
Lori’s heart pounded as she lifted her phone and called Jake. He picked up on the second ring, still speaking to someone. His chief, she figured.
“Redhorse,” he said.
Did he not want Tinnin to know it was her?
“Jake. Something is happening outside the nursery. There was a banging sound, and Burl is yelling at someone.”
His voice revealed nothing. “Your location?”
She told him.
“En route,” he said, and the line went dead.
* * *
THE STAFF ROOM was midway between the urgent-care area and the women’s health unit. Jake left the room at a run, leaving Tinnin to gather his crutches and follow.
Jake tore down the hall, outdistancing Tinnin. He’d been the point guard for the high school basketball team and had speed and stamina. When he heard Burl yelling, he drew his pistol.
“Hey! You two! Stop!”
Jake rounded the corner that led to the nurses’ station and saw the shotgun pointed at him. He dived toward the counter and slid on his side all the way to the solid barrier as the shotgun blast peppered the wall behind him with buckshot.
He could imagine Lori cowering behind the door to his left.
Jake glanced back and saw Tinnin pressed against the wall, crutches abandoned and pistol drawn.
“Don’t come out!” he yelled.
“I won’t,” answered Burl from the other side of the nurses’ station.
Another blast took out a chunk of the counter above his head.
He prayed the shotgun was a two-shot and not a pump-action as he prepared to make his move. Jake darted up and spotted the shooter half inside the nursery door, beside the overturned cart. Pump-action, he realized.
A woman in the nursery with a bandanna across her face moved from one empty bassinet to another, gripping a swipe card in her hand.
“She’s not here!” she yelled.
The gunman yelled, “Let’s go!”
“Drop it!” ordered Jake, drawing the shooter’s attention.
The gunman did not drop his weapon but primed the pump, sending the next cartridge into the shotgun as Jake ducked back behind the high counter. He was not shooting into a nursery until he knew for certain that Fortune was not there.
The next blast hit above him, the nurses’ station taking the majority of it. The smell of gunpowder and the haze of gray smoke hung in the air above him.
Tinnin fired two shots.
Jake heard footfalls.
“Getting away!” yelled Tinnin.
Jake came around the protection of the barrier between himself and the shooter to find the hallway empty. The same door that Burl had used to admit him earlier banged open.
He reached it a few instants later and saw two suspects, one small and one large, jump into a truck parked on the lawn just past the door, in prime location for a quick retreat.
The engine roared and the pickup tires spun, throwing dirt and sand in Jake’s face as he lifted his pistol and fired twice. He wiped at the stinging sand, unable to see. Tinnin hopped through the door, swearing as he went. Jake lowered his hand as Tinnin fired again.
“Call it in,” Tinnin said. “Then go back inside and check on them. I’m in pursuit.”
Tinnin took two running steps and banged against the outer wall, swearing again as he slid to his seat.
Jake glanced at the retreating truck, resisting the urge to give chase.
“Chief?”
“Go on back there, I said.” Tinnin scrambled to retrieve his crutches.
Jake retreated into the building. Lori was inside a closet somewhere with Fortune. He holstered his weapon and retraced his steps, shouting into the radio. It was early, but there would be at least one unit available, plus anyone on the force who had their radio on. He described the suspects and their yellow pickup. The responses came in from Bear Den and Officer Walter Cooke. Somehow the three men with the most experience on the force were all responding.
Jake reached the nurses’ station to find Burl Tsosie standing on shaking legs. He glanced at Jake.
“They gone?”
“Yes. Where’s Lori?”
Burl hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the closed utility closet door. “In there.”
“Lori?” He rapped on the door. “It’s safe. Come out.”
The door flew open and Lori dived into his arms, clinging to his chest as she sobbed. His hand came up to cradle her head, and he made shushing sounds to comfort her.
“It’s all right now. They’re gone. Is she all right?”
“S-s-sleeping,” Lori said. She lifted her head enough to turn and glance back at the baby carrier he spied on the floor, tucked tight to the cinder-block wall, beneath a table.
“Good work, Lori. You saved her.”
She looked up at him with eyes streaming tears. “They were after her. Weren’t they?”
He nodded. “I think so.”
“But why?”
From behind them, Burl added his question. “Who were they, anyway?”
Jake helped Lori gather Fortune. Her hands were shaking so badly, he didn’t trust her to carry her.
“You okay?” he asked.
She sniffed and nodded.
“They took my tag,” said Burl, lifting his empty lanyard.
Jake gave him a once-over. “You hit?”
“Hit? You mean with buckshot? No, I don’t think so.” Burl went pale and sat heavily in the black swivel chair.
The sound of heels clicking down the hall made Lori flinch. Jake turned to see Betty Mills, eyes wide as she took in the smoke-filled corridor and the results of multiple shotgun blasts.
“What in the name of heaven?” she gasped, her gaze darting from one disaster to the next. “Is everyone okay?”
* * *
CHIEF TINNIN PULLED Jack Bear Den away from the FBI investigation of the dam collapse to take the lead at the scene of the attempted abduction. Then they called the Arizona Highway Patrol to help process the scene.
Tinnin’s foot had been x-rayed at the clinic, and he’d accepted a new pair of aluminum crutches rather than submit to using a walker.
There was fingerprint powder everywhere, and Betty Mills was apocalyptic at the mess they’d made.
Mills refused to have Fortune taken from the clinic, but Tinnin said he didn’t need her permission to take charge of the infant.
“Child Protective Services made the clinic custodian for that baby until temporary placement can be arranged,” said Mills.
“And I’m arranging it with Ms. Mott.”
Mills did not back down. “She shouldn’t be left in charge of that baby,” said Mills, pointing at Lori. “She’s suspended.”
“Well, then, she’s got some time on her hands.”
Mills glowered.
“Aren’t you moving to the trailers up on Turquoise Ridge today?” asked Tinnin.
“I don’t understand the rush,” said Betty.
“At first we thought the temporary rubble dam would hold,” replied Tinnin. “But now, with water continuing to build behind it, the Army Corps says it’s not safe. We have to go.”
“Everyone?” Lori whispered.
Jake nodded. “It’s bad. The water level is still rising. Too much pressure on the rubble. Army Corps stays with police patrol. That’s it.”
Lori’s eyes widened. They might still lose the entire town, despite the brave efforts of FBI agent Sophia Rivas, Wallace Tinnin and Jack Bear Den. And Jake might be on patrol when it happened. The fear struck her deep.
“Koun’nde?” she asked, mentioning the river town to their north.
“Safe f
or now,” Jake said.
Tinnin and Mills still sparred.
“Moving doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility of custody of Baby Doe,” said Betty.
“Until I know what’s going on, I’m assuming that infant was the target of an abduction, and I’m absolving you,” said Tinnin.
“We get BOLOs all the time,” said Betty. “It could have just been two people who wanted to steal a baby, not specifically that baby.”
A BOLO was a notice from other area hospitals and meant Be on the lookout. Betty Mills had issued one, too, for the tribe’s clinic after a confused woman wandered into the women’s health clinic asking to see the babies.
“Granted,” said Tinnin. “Point being, you’ve got a mountain of boxes to fill and I’ve got a registered nurse who is available to help me out.”
Mills’s gaze drifted to the baby Lori held. “If the tribal council hadn’t already taken the only suitable structure large enough to hold a clinic, we would not have to move to those trailers.”
Tinnin’s brow’s lifted. “True enough. Trailers are inbound. So we’ll leave you to your packing,” said Tinnin, and he turned his back to her, directing his next comments to Jake. “You take Lori and the baby. I’ve got Burl. Least I don’t need crutches to drive.”
“I need him,” said Mills.
Tinnin glanced over his shoulder. “He’s coming in for questioning. Then I’ll send him on back.”
Jake transported Lori and Fortune to the station. She wanted to walk as the tribe’s health clinic and tribal seat were adjacent, but given the circumstances he thought it safer to drive from the clinic, around the block to park in the lot before the tribal headquarters. She could not explain the relief she felt getting Fortune away from that clinic. How had her workplace become somewhere she no longer felt safe?
It had happened before the intruders, she realized. It had happened the minute she made the connection between the missing girls and the tribe’s health care service.