Sloane Monroe 06-Hush Now Baby

by Bradshaw, Cheryl

  Jack leaned back, tugged on his chin, revisiting the moment in his mind.

  “What is it?” Cade asked.

  “You know what? There was someone else—a man standing in the hallway between our room and the woman’s room who lost the baby. I assumed he was with the other family, since we’d never seen him before. Can’t say for sure. I never saw him talk to anyone.”

  “When did you see him?”

  “On our way out.”

  “Did you get a good look at him?”

  Jack shook his head.

  “He kept his head down. I can’t even tell you his hair color. The hat he wore covered it up.”

  “What kind of hat?”

  “Beanie. Had a camouflage design.”

  We pressed Jack for additional details. His recollection was slim, even physical descriptions proved onerous. First he thought the woman’s hair was brown, then red. Her husband was around six feet tall, then he was taller. At the time, there had been no reason to pay them any mind. Now, he had every reason.

  CHAPTER 38

  I was tired, exhausted enough to actually have a fair shot at indulging in some decent sleep. As the lids of my eyes became more weighted, I strained to stay awake long enough to finish another passage in my grandfather’s journal.

  Difficult day today. One of the worst I’ve experienced in my new position in the FBI. I’ve been told by my fellow agents it’s far from the worst thing I’ll encounter over the years, although right now, I can’t imagine anything as gruesome as this. For the last several weeks, we’ve been searching for an eighteen-year-old girl named Anna Davis who went missing after her shift at the local burger joint in Chicago.

  We believe Miss Davis is the fourth young woman to disappear in the last two months. The other three victims, all women, all around the same age, had been recovered by local police in the area in which their bodies were found. All were tied up and strangled, their bodies dumped in a heavily wooded area along the interstate. Not buried, just left there like they were meant to be found, like he, the killer, is taunting us.

  With no promising leads and a woman being found on average of once a week, we were called down to investigate. Anna Davis’s body was discovered today bound in the same manner as the other victims, but it appears the killer’s ritual is escalating, becoming more aggressive. Over seventy-five percent of Anna’s body was bloodied and beaten. Combined with the elements she’d been left in, and the four days it took to find her, it was a messy, unforgettable sight.

  I consider myself to be a tough man, a strong man, having never met anyone with the same level of fortitude I possess, but even I succumbed to a sickened state when I came upon her. And now, as I sit at my desk, watching the sun as it begins to rise, I’m left to wonder if we could have saved her if only we’d arrived a few days before. The very thought leaves me harrowed with guilt, strapped by anxiety, knowing the limited timeframe we have to find the killer before he strikes again. A day, two maybe. Not much more.

  It’s times like these when most men question their line of work. Not me. If anything it gives me the resolve to start each day stronger than the day before, knowing I will go on, because I must go on, for the victims, for their families.

  For every wrong in this world, there’s a right, a day when justice is administered to the guilty, if not by my own hand, and if not in this life, then it’s sure to be found in the next. To the fallen, the innocent victims of these horrendous crimes, I shed a tear, mourn each victim, each life. But I never allow myself to fall into despair. I simply cannot.

  I closed the book feeling renewed, determined. I wasn’t just anyone. I was a Monroe. My grandfather’s flesh and blood, and I wouldn’t let him down.

  CHAPTER 39

  I sat with Cade in the hospital parking lot the next morning with a list of vague physical descriptions in my hand that had been provided to me by Jack the night before. Aside from a couple doctors, there had been five additional members of staff on the maternity ward the night Hannah had Finn. Jack claimed he’d overheard one staff member counting down the hours until her shift change at eight a.m. Time to find out if the same work hours applied today.

  Two women exited the building, playfully giggling with one another as they sauntered to their cars, which happened to be parked next to each other.

  “What do you think?” Cade asked.

  “Too risky. Looks like they’ll follow each other out of the parking lot. We need to get one of them alone, away from the rest.”

  A few minutes later, another woman pushed the glass door open and stepped out. A man followed, exiting a few feet behind. The woman hunched over as she walked, her eyes darting around, paranoid, untrusting.

  Cade glanced at the paper in my hand, then at the girl. “She doesn’t match the description of any of the women Jack said were workin’ that night. Even if she did, she’d likely pepper us with mace if we tried approachin’ her.”

  I was only half listening. My attention had diverted to the next candidate, a young man in his early twenties, whistling as he strolled to his car. He was in no hurry. Neither was I. “This guy looks encouraging.”

  My vote of approval was enough for Cade. He prepared to exit the truck. I placed a hand on his arm.

  “You’re staying,” I said.

  “Correction. I’m going.”

  “If this guy recognizes you and tells someone Jackson Hole’s next chief of police solicited him in the parking lot to betray the confidentially of a patient by revealing her name, you could lose everything before you have it. By sending me, you expose nothing.”

  “It’s a risk I’m willing to—”

  “Let me do this,” I said. “Besides, he’s a guy. I can get more out of him than you can.”

  No matter how much Cade wanted to disagree, he knew I was right. My charming side came out full throttle when pertinent information was at stake. One little break was all we needed.

  I exited the vehicle, walked in the kid’s direction. In the last several seconds, he’d taken a call and lengthened his stride. Another minute and he’d be gone.

  “Hey,” I called out. “Can I talk to you?”

  The kid turned, looked at me, looked behind him like I was talking to someone else.

  “Yes, you,” I said. “Can we talk?”

  “Do I know you?”

  “You don’t.”

  He raked a few fingers through his straggly, long hair, fished out a black elastic, allowed his wild mane to fly free.

  “You work on the maternity ward, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I was wondering if I could talk to you about the night Hannah Kinkade was here.”

  “Who?”

  I was getting ahead of myself.

  “Were you working the night the mayor’s wife had her baby?” I asked.

  He nodded. We were getting somewhere.

  “There were two other woman who had babies that night, right?” I asked.

  “Guess so.”

  “Do you remember one of the mother’s throwing a fit over the noise caused by the mayor’s visitors?”

  “Yeah, the ginger. She was pissed.”

  “She lost her baby, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  He braced his muscular body against his car, cocked his head to the side. “Why are you asking? What’s it to you?”

  “Have you heard about the missing baby—the one taken from here?”

  “Who hasn’t?”

  “I’m trying to find him,” I said.

  He was unfazed. “You and everyone else.”

  By the way he kept jangling his keys in his hand, it was obvious his interest was waning. He had somewhere else to be.

  “The ginger-haired woman—why did she lose her baby?” I asked. “I need to know. Please. It’s important.”

  “Fifty.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You want answers, I want fifty bucks.”
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  It seemed my newly acquired cash was already coming in handy. I jammed a hand inside my pocket, peeled back three twenties, stuck them inside his hand.

  “Keep the change, now answer the question.”

  “It was a premature delivery.”

  “Due to what?”

  “Guess they were hiking somewhere around here, and she fell. Not sure if that was the main cause of death though.”

  “How far along was she?”

  “I dunno for sure. Around twenty-five weeks from what everyone was saying. I saw the little guy for a minute.”

  “The baby?”

  He nodded.

  “A boy. He weighed almost nothing when he came out. A pound maybe. Doctor tried to save him, but there was some kind of problem with his heart. He didn’t last long.”

  “During your shift, did you see a man standing in the hall wearing a knit camouflage hat?”

  “We were busy. Lots of people were coming and going that night.”

  It was a strong possibility the man would have been caught on at least one of the hospital’s surveillance cameras. To view the footage, we’d need to work with the chief, tell him why my focus went in the opposite way his did. I wanted to explore one more alternative first. “I need the name of the woman who lost the baby.”

  “I don’t know it. And even if I did, I couldn’t give it to you. I could lose my job.”

  I dug back in my pocket, flashed a hundred-dollar bill in front of his face.

  He waved his hands in the air in front of him. “Nope, can’t do it.”

  His mouth said no, but his eyes locked on the Benjamin Franklin.

  “I realize what I’m asking,” I said. “If you can get me her name, I’ll add another Benjamin.”

  He gulped a hefty breath of air.

  “You’re offering me two hundred dollars for one name?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why do you need it so bad?”

  “I can’t say,” I said. “You interested or not?”

  “Let’s say I am. What am I supposed to tell everyone when I walk back in there?”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

  He hadn’t committed one way or the other, and my patience was wearing thin. If the ginger woman didn’t know the mysterious man in the hallway, we needed to get the chief involved, find out who the guy was, why he was there. “What’s it going to take?”

  He grinned, giving away his next play. If I had a few hundred in my pocket, I probably had more.

  “Five hundred.”

  “Done,” I said. “You give me the name, I give you the money. Fifteen minutes or the deal’s off.”

  He took his time walking back inside the hospital. I considered whether he was actually sold on my proposal, and what would happen if he had a change of heart and turned on me instead. Once I could no longer see the guy, Cade put his truck in gear and drove over, even though I’d tried to message him to remain in place.

  “I sent the kid back inside to get the name of the woman we need to find,” I said.

  He winked. “How much did it cost you?”

  “It’ll be worth it if we get what we need. You need to get out of here. He thinks I’m alone. I want to keep it that way.”

  Cade returned to his post, and I glanced at the time. Fourteen minutes had passed. Another two or three, and I’d have to assume the deal was off.

  The kid returned to the parking lot with a monstrous grin on his face. “You got the money?”

  I displayed the five bills.

  He held out a hand.

  I hesitated. “The name.”

  “Samantha Wilcox. And hey, I’m feeling generous.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I’ll give you something extra, free of charge. She doesn’t live here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was thinking about it, and I remembered hearing something she said to her husband that night.”

  “Go on.”

  “She said they never should have come here—to Jackson. She said it was his fault they lost the baby.”

  “How did he respond?” I asked.

  “He said it was her idea to visit Sage, not his.”

  Sage. I tucked the name away and handed him the money, pinching it between my thumb and forefinger before I let go. “If I find out you’ve lied to me, I’ll be back.”

  He snickered like it was some kind of empty threat, looked at me like my slender physique didn’t alarm him.

  “Trust me,” I said. “You don’t want to see me again.”

  CHAPTER 40

  If Samantha Wilcox was only visiting Jackson Hole with her husband when she went into labor unexpectedly, finding where she was staying and where she was from would involve a generous amount of digging. Digging I didn’t have time for. I abandoned my search of her name for the time being and shifted my focus to Sage, believing Sage to be a woman. Or hoping she was one.

  Cade surprised me by saying Sage could have been the name of a place, not the name of a person. A town named Purple Sage actually existed in Wyoming. Given the town was a three-hour drive from Jackson Hole and was inhabited by less than six hundred residents, it was only a remote possibility this was what her husband had been referring to. If Samantha had been in Purple Sage, she wouldn’t drive to Jackson to deliver when other suitable hospitals were close by.

  “Sage isn’t a common name,” I said.

  Cade searched the name “Sage” and the name “Wilcox,” separately and together. No match.

  “What about a variation of the name?” I suggested.

  “What are you thinkin’?”

  “Maybe it’s spelled another way. Try Saige, just the first name, no last name.”

  Bingo.

  Saige Hamilton.

  And the best part?

  She lived less than ten miles away.

  CHAPTER 41

  Saige Hamilton’s home was dated and small, but located inside a gated subdivision that had been divided into five-acre parcels. A pricy, white sedan was parked on the right side of the driveway. On the left side of the house, I noticed semi-dry, muddy tire tracks in two different sizes, and four square impressions left in the dirt. The tire tracks trailed all the way to the street.

  “From the looks of these tracks, something was parked here recently,” I said.

  Cade crouched down, stared at the tracks, at the sunken square shapes in the dirt. “Trailer maybe. Judgin’ by the distance, could be a fifth wheel.”

  No one came to the door when we knocked, and after waiting outside for a decent amount of time, impatience took hold. I tried the door handle. It wasn’t locked.

  “Hello? Saige Hamilton?” I pushed open the door, pausing before I walked inside. “Are you here?”

  The only sound I heard was a faint hum coming from one of the appliances in the kitchen. Glancing around the neighborhood, the houses were a short distance from one another, but not so far off a neighbor couldn’t be watching. I saw no one outside, no prying eyes. In my experience, that didn’t mean we didn’t have gawkers.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Do it. Go in.”

  The two of us stepped into a living room. It was immaculate, decorated with a sofa and a high-back chair. Both white. Both in the kind of pristine condition that said no one actually used this room much, if at all. The furniture was for show. Not a single item was out of place. Not a glass, a remote control, nothing. Even the pillows on the couch were plumped to perfection, lined out next to each other, each the same width apart, like they’d been individually placed with great care.

  The kitchen was a different story. While a stellar example of cleaning at its finest, I spied a half-empty baby bottle tipped over inside the sink and sprinkles of what I first thought was salt all over the counter. At second glance, the granules were fine, like powdered milk.

  “Look at this,” I said.

  Cade’s eyes followed my finger to the sink. “You would think
if this woman had a baby, there’d be a high chair in this room, a swing in the other.”

  “You’d also think white furniture would be out of the question.”

  I opened the cabinets, found nothing but stacks of adult-sized dishes, cups. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing else belonging to a baby. I tried the refrigerator. Same result.

  Sitting on the counter in a wicker basket was a set of keys and a wallet. I snapped the clasp on the front of the wallet open, pulled out a driver’s license belonging to a red-headed Saige Hamilton. The other four pockets in the wallet were lined with credit cards. If she wasn’t home, why leave her wallet behind? Her home was miles from the nearest store, so the only answer I could come up with was either she was there, or she’d walked to a neighbor’s house.

  “Let’s check the rest of the house,” Cade said.

  Photos of Saige lined both sides of the wall in the hallway. In the pictures, Saige was engaged in various activities—skiing, climbing, dining at an elegant restaurant, steering a sailboat on the ocean. The collage was devoid of children and men. In fact, Saige was the only person in every photo except one. I lifted the anomaly off the wall. Saige had her arm draped around another redhead. I recognized the location the photo was taken, in front of the antler arch in Town Square.

  “This could be Samantha,” I said to Cade. “If it is, they look almost identical, which would make them sisters.”

  I skimmed the other photos as I continued down the hall, until my eyes noticed something else, a smeared streak on the wall. In an unsullied house like this one, it stood out. I flipped on the hall light, bent down, looked closer.

  Cade crouched down next to me. “What have you found?”

  “This looks like dried blood.”

  He bolted back to a standing position, bobbed his head inside one of the two rooms at the end of the hallway, found nothing. He stopped inside the doorway of the second room. I watched his eyes close, his chest rise and fall. I didn’t even need to ask. I’d seen the same look before. I knew what he’d seen.