My heart started to race.
“They’re yours,” I stated for clarification.
He nodded again.
“Yeah,” he confirmed.
I looked up at Miller, then back at the boy.
“What’s your name?” I asked softly.
He looked down at his hands.
“Madden,” he said quietly.
“Madden, you’re not even old enough to be on your own yet. How do you have two kids? And why are you on your own? Where’s the baby’s mother?” I continued.
He bit his lip, and looked up at me with eyes that were shining with tears.
“I stole them from her. She wasn’t taking care of them,” he cried. “Not like they needed to be taken care of.”
I refrained from saying that he wasn’t doing too good of a job either, and nodded my head. “Who’s the mother?”
“She’s…she’s my stepmother. And I stole them away from her while her and my father were high. They were…doing stuff that I didn’t like. And she was smoking around the baby. I didn’t like that. I had to get them out. I had to. They would’ve died. She would’ve killed them,” he insisted pleadingly. “She already smoke and drank throughout her pregnancies. She didn’t even go to the hospital to have them!”
I looked down at the baby in my arms, saw the frailness to her, and started to get mad.
Not at him, no.
But at the situation.
“When did you take them?” I asked softly.
He bit his lip. “Last night.”
Jesus, so this was how they were from her, not him.
“Alright, Madden. How about you come take a ride on the medic with your kids. From there we’ll figure this out, okay?”
He nodded, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands.
“Thank you,” he croaked, voice cracking like all adolescent boys do at that age.
Jesus, this was one sick, fucked up situation.
Fucked Up. With a capital F and U.
Chapter 10
My brother has the best sister ever.
-Coffee Cup
Nikki
“Go get your newspaper!” I said hurriedly the moment I pounded through Nico’s back door.
Nico glared at me, still holding the door open. Georgia, being Georgia, did what I asked and ran to the front walk to get the newspaper.
“Why didn’t you just get the newspaper on the way in?” Nico asked.
His hair was a freakin’ mess.
“The twins keep you up all night?” I asked cheekily.
He glared.
“Maybe you should take them for a night. Give me a little break,” he muttered.
I blinked. “I’ve offered no less than thirty times since they were born. I’d love to watch them. You’d only have to convince yourself to let them go.”
My brother was attached to his family.
No matter the bitchin’ he did, he refused to let the twins, or Georgia, out of his sight.
A few years ago, before he’d reconnected with Georgia, he’d gotten into a spot of trouble with a mafia boss.
So much trouble that to save Georgia, he’d faked his death with the help of the CIA and the Texas Rangers. While he was ‘dead,’ he’d continued to search for the man responsible for putting his life and Georgia’s in jeopardy, finally finding him around the time the twins were born.
Georgia, though, as well as the rest of our family, hadn’t been able to get over the fact that he’d ‘died.’
We still had nightmares.
Georgia and I spoke about that quite a bit.
Nico wasn’t without his own nightmares, either.
Although we all talked a good game, the entire leaving thing was hard on us all, something that showed with the way Nico clung to his kids and wife and refused to let them get too far out of his reach.
“Oh, my God! Saint’s on the front page!” Georgia squealed in excitement, jumping up and down in her nightgown.
I jumped too, clapping my hands.
“Isn’t that the cutest thing ever?” I asked in excitement.
Georgia laughed and spread her paper out on the table.
Nico leaned forward to study the picture.
“Nice,” he said, laughing.
Michael, the ultimate ‘I’m not cut out to be a father,’ was on his ass on the back of the cop car holding the tiniest of babies in his arms.
The baby didn’t even look to be a month old, at most.
He was gazing down at the little girl holding a pacifier in her mouth.
His eyes were gazing at the small bundle, looking for all he was worth like a devoted father.
Something I knew he’d be if he ever gave life a chance.
“Was this not something you could’ve called for?” Nico asked after he read the story.
I shrugged. “Sure I could have. But then I couldn’t annoy the shit out of you like I’m doing right now.”
He lowered his eyes into a glare, and I plopped down into his lap.
He grunted as my weight hit him.
“Jesus, I think you’ve gained weight,” Nico teased.
I wrapped my arms around his fat neck, although it wasn’t really fat, and squeezed for all I was worth.
“Ackk!” He said as air escaped his lungs.
I smiled down at him.
“Now what were you saying?” I asked with a raised brow.
He curled his lip at me.
“Alright, Nik. Let me get dressed and we’ll head up there to see these babies,” Georgia said as she hustled out of the room.
“Hey!” Nico said, standing.
I held on for dear life, causing him to come down with me.
Nico grappled for purchase, but I succeeded in pulling him down with my unexpected move of holding on while still going down.
Nico landed beside me with a grunt, and I wrapped my arms around his neck from behind, wrapping lightning and thunder (my legs) around his upper torso and squeezing the life out of him.
“God! You’re such a shit!” Nico growled, effectively knocking the wind out of my sails by rolling over onto his back and pinning me to the floor with his body weight.
I didn’t let that stop me for long, though.
Instead, I anchored myself even better, let go of his neck, and started attacking his armpits with the tips of my fingers, ticking him like a lunatic while he writhed and shook with laughter on the ground.
“God! Stop!” He yelled loudly.
I was like a tick, though.
I stayed and stayed until I had no strength left to hold on, then, like any smart woman, I ran.
Like the wind.
I pushed off of him with inhuman strength that resembled a lumbering donkey, and sprinted for Nico and Georgia’s door.
I made it, too.
Slammed it right in Nico’s face and locked the door before he could reach me.
Then I promptly fell on their bed that was littered with clothes and other baby paraphernalia, and collapsed in exhaustion.
“Y’all fight all the time,” Georgia said from the closet.
I nodded. “Yeah, we do.”
“I don’t know why y’all can’t just be normal siblings,” she said observantly.
Nico was the only boy with six girls…it was bound to happen.
I wasn’t a bad sister. I was a normal sister!
“You’re just jealous that your brothers won’t give you the time of day,” I teased.
I was lying.
Georgia’s brothers loved the hell out of her.
They just had a different relationship than Nico, my sisters and I did.
It didn’t mean it was wrong that they tried to baby her.
It was understandable, really.
Especially how Georgia held their family together after the death of their two youngest brothers.
“So what’s going on? Why do you want me to go to the hosp
ital with you?” Georgia asked.
I gave her a droll look.
“You’re a social worker, Georgia. Why the hell do you think I want you up there?” I laughed.
She flipped me off and took a huge step over her Saint Bernard, Hamburger, that was taking up half the closet.
“You know we’re not just ‘assigned’ these things. They have to come to us. You’d have more luck calling in Shiloh,” Georgia explained.
Georgia was a social worker with an adoption agency that placed children in their forever home.
Shiloh, James’ wife, on the other hand, was a child protective service social worker with the state of Texas, working in Gregg County.
Which was why I’d invited her to come as well.
“I already called her. We’re picking her up on the way,” I told her.
Georgia smiled.
“Good,” she said solemnly. “Tell me what happened?”
I sighed.
“From what I got from Michael, as well as what I got from the hospital yesterday, a lot happened. The boy, who’s also the father of the two children, is fourteen. His step-mother raped him repeatedly over the years, and then got pregnant with his babies. She then had said babies, and used them to keep the boy quiet about it all. The father was none the wiser to it all, but basically that was because he was high out of his mind,” I told her. “After the second child was born at home, addicted to God knows what drugs, and then totally failed to be cared for, the boy took it as his cue to get the hell out. He stole their car, took the kids, and had been parked in that gas station parking lot for about twelve hours before Michael caught him trying to steal candy and milk for the kids.”
Georgia stopped and turned half way through the story, but by the time I was finished recounting it, tears were in her eyes, as well as in my eyes.
“Holy crap, that poor boy,” she said, voice devastated.
I nodded. “That’s where the SWAT team was last night. Doing a raid on that house. The judge who’s overseeing the case is the son of a man that abused him, so he wasn’t tolerant at hearing what happened to Madden.”
“Madden is also the name of the boys father?” Georgia clarified.
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“What’d they find at the raid last night?” Georgia asked.
Nico came through the door, shoving a lock pick into his pocket as he threw the door opened.
He walked past the bed and pushed me hard enough that I fell backward, causing me to laugh.
He shot me an ‘I’ll get you back’ look, and turned to his wife.
“If you were interested in that, why didn’t you just ask your husband?” Nico asked cheekily.
Georgia sat down on the bed beside me and slipped her socks on before shoving her feet into tennis shoes.
“Probably because I’m still mad at you,” she said, tossing him a fake glare.
I snorted.
“I told you I was too tired to change that diaper! I didn’t steal your hamburger, and I didn’t pour hot sauce in your tea! It was a freakin’ diaper! One!” He said, raising his hands in the air for emphasis.
Rolling my eyes, I got up and tugged Georgia’s hand.
“We’ll be back, brother dear. Take care of the babies and the diapers, until we get back,” I ordered.
Then we left, all under the very annoyed glare of Nico.
“So, what’d they find?” Georgia picked up where we left off.
I closed the front door behind me and walked with her to my car.
My beautiful baby.
It was a sky blue Volkswagen Beetle convertible.
Georgia got into the passenger side, and I dropped into the driver’s side before I told her.
“A lot, actually. Drugs. Enough drugs that they think they were dealers. Dirty needles. Cocaine and weed. Horrible living conditions. Both parents were high as hell. Neither one of them even knew the kids were missing - that’s how gone they were,” I told her, backing out of the driveway and turning left to head to the highway.
Georgia hummed.
I looked over at her.
“What?” I asked, moving my eyes back to the road in front of me.
A tractor was taking up three quarters of the road, and I contemplated passing him on the shoulder when he finally moved over, allowing me to pass.
And in all that time, Georgia stayed silent.
“What?” I asked again.
“They’re going to split them up, I can see it now,” she said softly.
I winced.
That’s what I was afraid of.
Madden was a good kid, but he was in no way, shape, or form, ready to raise two kids, seeing as he was only a kid himself.
“That’s why I’m bringing in the big guns,” I replied.
She frowned.
“I’ll try, honey. But I can’t promise a single thing,” she explained. “I can’t make any promises.”
I nodded in understanding. “I know. I just want you to try the best you can. Work with Shiloh. Anything is better than what they had. I just feel so horrible about the situation.”
She patted my hand as I stopped at the stoplight that would lead us to the hospital.
“And what about that other little boy? How’s he doing?” She asked.
I smiled happily.
“Much better, actually. They said he opened his eyes yesterday. I was going to stop in and see Nathan since I’ll already be up on the ped’s floor,” I informed her. “But we have to be back at your house by twelve so I can make my one o’clock class. Okay?”
Georgia nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good. Then I can be there in time for Nico to go to work, and we won’t have to call your mom to watch the kids.”
I held up my thumb in a ‘good’ gesture, and opened my car door.
I blinked at the cop cars that were lined up at the front entrance of the hospital.
“What’s going on?” I asked the woman that was standing in front of my parked car.
The woman turned and shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re not letting anybody in or out.”
Picking up my phone, I called Michael.
“Hello?” Michael answered.
He sounded distracted, but that wasn’t going to stop me from getting inside.
“Hey,” I said. “We’re outside the ER entrance and there’re a bunch of people outside the doors. What’s going on?”
He cleared his throat.
“There was another murder,” he said softly. “Give me a few minutes to come down and I’ll escort you inside.”
Chapter 11
Don’t make fun of a woman with big lips. She’s probably thick and tired of it.
-E-card
Michael
“Where was this one from?” I asked Agent Palmer gruffly.
Agent Palmer offered me a file folder, and I steeled myself before opening the offending folder.
What I saw did not disappoint.
“Goddammit,” I said, clearing my throat. “Why another one so fast?”
“All of these have happened within the last three weeks. Roughly every three days. This is correct with that timeline,” he admitted softly.
“Well that would’ve been news you should’ve shared yesterday seeing as this happened today and here I am again,” I muttered, staring at the scene in front of me.
I wasn’t a detective.
I didn’t have the patience to be one.
Being a detective took dedication, time I didn’t have, and serious patience and perseverance.
I had the dedication and the perseverance, but not the other two.
Which was why it was confusing to me that I was here at a crime scene looking at the carnage that was left behind.
There weren’t any bodies left because those had gone to the hospital the moment the first responders arrived.
The man, the killer, had fucked up.
He’d done
them in a good neighborhood.
The type of neighborhood that, if they were to hear gunshots, the cops are called almost immediately.
First responders had arrived within minutes, and both the woman and the man that’d been shot had been rushed to the hospital.
They weren’t expected to live, although the last I heard they were both rushed to surgery.
There wasn’t much they could do when the couple was shot in the head, but they still had to try.
“Who is this one with?” I asked, surveying the scene.
“Wolfgang Amsel worked for Karnack Police Department. His wife, Abby Amsel, was an accountant for Roscoe and Rush Accounting firm. Abby was eight and a half months pregnant with her first child,” Agent Palmer informed me.
I nodded.
The name sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t place the name with a face.
“What doctor’s office do these women go to?” I asked, the thought suddenly occurring to me.
“The Women’s Center of East Texas for this one. The others are various ones of the Ark-La-Tex,” he said. “But all of their systems interconnect since the doctors float throughout the offices.”
I turned my head to look to the kitchen counter.
On the counter was the officer’s service weapon, badge, and various accessories he wore on his utility belt, car keys, and his phone.
But the thing that drew my eye was the badge.
When a law enforcement officer has fallen, there’s a tradition that other officers wear a thin line of blue over their badges to commemorate the fallen life.
It’s usually only worn during the period of mourning, but over the years, it has come to be a show of respect for all law enforcement officials, civilians and public servants alike.
“You see this?” I asked Palmer.
Palmer looked over and pursed his lips at the sight. “Yeah.”
The badge had two strips of black duct tape arranged in an X across the badge, as if he was saying he took care of that particular officer.
“Asshole,” I growled in anger.
“I concur,” Palmer agreed.
Then a thought occurred to me.
“Did you check the tape for prints?” I asked.
Agent Palmer nodded. “Yeah.”
“What about the back of the tape?” I asked.
I wasn’t a crime scene tech, but that would be a place that I’d look for prints.
Coup De Grâce Page 8