The Baby He Wanted

Today. He was getting married today.

Forget the bachelor party. He’d decided to have a last fling, and she had obliged him.

The shower turned off.

Shaking, panicked, desperate, she yanked on her clothes, not bothering to take the time to put on her bra. She had to be gone before he came out of the bathroom. Her car key was still with the money she’d brought in the pocket of her jeans. The realization that he must have paid for her drinks flitted into her head. And why wouldn’t he have? It was still cheap sex.

She opened and closed the door as quietly as she could, trying to step lightly on the stairs. At the bottom, she took off at a run, barely pausing to check for traffic before tearing across the road. There were only three cars left in the gravel parking lot: hers, a beaten-up pickup truck and a glossy black Camaro. His, of course, she thought bitterly.

Gasping for breath, Lina unlocked the driver’s door of her car and jumped in. She could see the motel in her rearview mirror. The door to their room remained closed. Either he was still in the bathroom, or he was relieved she was gone.

He was likely relieved.

When she pulled onto the road, gravel spit out from beneath her tires.

* * *

BRAN SAW THAT the room was empty the instant he opened the bathroom door. His first reaction was shock. Then he swore viciously. How could he be so freaking stupid as to leave his wallet and car keys out here?

Both were still there, at least, his badge beside them. Man, that would have been embarrassing if she’d taken it. Losing his driver’s license would be a royal pain, too. He flipped open the wallet, relieved at the sight of not only the driver’s license, but also his debit and two credit cards. A little cash was a small price to pay...

But it was there, too. He flipped through the bills, counted. Seemed about right. Had she not even picked up his wallet?

No, of course she hadn’t. She wasn’t that kind of woman. Of course she wasn’t.

Shit, he thought, she did regret the night. The best sex of his life, and she’d run from him, ashamed. And it was his own damn fault. He’d known she didn’t do things like this, that she was drunk and not thinking straight. What had he expected? That she’d be hanging around, wanting to flirt and talk about when they’d see each other again?

He’d find her...

Yeah, and how was he going to do that? Blonde woman, twenty-five to thirty-five years old, approximately five foot six. The tiny mole he’d seen on her shoulder? Only helpful for identification if she was found dead. For all he knew, she wasn’t even from around here. If she was? Alina wasn’t a common name...but he had no idea what her last name was, or what she drove. Where she worked, or what she did for a living.

He swore and leaped for the door, but wasn’t surprised to discover he was too late. His Camaro sat out in front of the tavern, alone except for a rusting pickup he couldn’t in a million years imagine her driving.

While he’d stood here counting bills, she’d made her getaway. Bran groaned and rubbed a hand over his face.

Maybe...she’d find him. If she’d even looked at his badge or opened his wallet, she had one up on him. She knew his last name and where he worked.

That was followed by the cold realization that if she didn’t come looking, it meant she didn’t want to be found, either.

And he had to honor that.

Pocketing the badge and wallet, he glanced down and saw the corner of a piece of paper sticking out from beneath the dresser. The maid could pick it up. Bran dropped a ten-dollar bill on the dresser, then walked out, feeling a couple decades older than he had a few days ago.

CHAPTER TWO

WITH ONLY A week to go until Christmas, Lina Jurick felt exceptionally unfestive. Her parents weren’t very happy that she wasn’t flying home for the holidays, but pretending to be joyous was beyond her.

It wasn’t like she was hiding anything from them. Well, not hiding very much anyway. Once she’d made the decision to carry the baby to term, she’d told them she was pregnant. The only part she’d refused to talk about was the identity of the father. She didn’t want to think about Bran “short for Brandon” Murphy, who might or might not be married.

After she’d fled, it had occurred to her that he could have gone to the tavern for the same reason she had: he was bummed. Say, because his wedding had been canceled.

That idea was slightly more palatable than the alternative, that she was a last hurrah. But not a whole lot. If his bride-to-be had stood him up right before the wedding, what did that make her, Lina? Some kind of hey-she’s-available fill-in? All cats were gray in the dark, right? And in the morning, when it wasn’t dark anymore, he’d had her from behind and never had to look at her face. If he hadn’t gotten any sex on what should have been his wedding night, he’d certainly had plenty the night before.

Occasionally she let herself wonder if it had occurred to him he hadn’t used a condom that last time. But, really, what difference did it make whether he’d just forgotten or made the decision to wake up the way he liked even though he couldn’t protect her? The result was the same.

At least the morning sickness phase was long past. These days, all she had to combat was exhaustion. She needed to go to bed way earlier than normal if she was going to feel anything close to human when her alarm clock went off in the mornings. And, just her luck, middle school kids rode the same buses as high school kids, tying them to a similar schedule. No, worse: her first class was at the obscene hour of seven thirty. High school teachers were able to sleep in ten minutes later.

Today, she should count her blessings. With two weeks off for the holidays, she could sleep as much as she wanted. Catch up on sleep. Store it. If she could think of anything fun to do, she was free for that, too. Wild and crazy? Not a chance. She’d used up her quota the night she got pregnant.

She could take a nap after lunch, then go for a swim later.

A nap and exercise. As a way to spend her first day of vacation, it was such a thriller, even she was depressed. Maybe Maya could get away to have lunch with her.

Maya answered her call, muted the phone for a minute and came back to say, “Yes, please.” She lowered her voice. “Mr. Floyd is driving me nuts. Must get out of here.”

Lina changed from her sweats into maternity jeans and a warm sweater with enough stretch to cover her burgeoning belly and put on boots because they zipped and were less work than bending over to tie laces.

Her mood lifted during the short drive to the bank branch where Maya worked as a loan officer. Once she reached it, she idled briefly out front. Mr. Floyd, the branch manager, discouraged the use of the parking lot for friends and family. If she’d been absolutely determined, she could have squeezed her Kia into a minuscule spot behind a van, but she made a face and decided to skip it. Parking on the cross street made sense anyway; she could pick up a couple of things at the Walgreens on the other corner once she and Maya were back from lunch.

She locked up and walked past the drive-through and the ATM to the front doors, but when she tried to open one, she couldn’t. They were locked. What on earth—

Belatedly, she focused on the printed sign plastered to the glass: “Temporarily Closed—Computer Network Issues. We Regret the Inconvenience.”

How strange. Maya hadn’t said anything, so whatever it was must have just happened. Lina peered in and couldn’t see a soul, teller or customer, which wasn’t a big shock since this bank had a conference room to the right just inside and restrooms to the left. The only other windows looked in at the currently empty conference room. Past the short hallway, a second set of doors led into the bank proper, and what view she would otherwise have had was partially blocked by one of those standing height desks where you could write a check or fill out a deposit slip before getting in line. From this angle, she could only see one teller window, with no one behind it.

Presumably, IT people were working frantically. Maybe everyone else was gratefully having a cup of coffee, or Mr. Floyd had decided to hold an impromptu staff meeting to be sure nobody was allowed to waste time. Sounded like him.

Still, Maya was entitled to her lunch break. She would surely have called or at least texted to say she was delayed. And, would they really lock the doors instead of letting customers come in for an explanation of the problem?

As Lina backed away from the doors, pondering, she took out her phone. No messages, no texts.

Darn it, people had to be inside. Driving past the parking lot, she’d noticed Mr. Floyd’s dark gray BMW in its place of honor as well as a couple of other cars. Although those might belong to the IT people rather than customers.

Call Maya, she decided.

But her friend didn’t answer her cell phone. Lina didn’t leave a message.

Increasingly uneasy, she tried to decide what to do. She could wait in her car for a few minutes and then try again. Go to Walgreens and assume Maya would call when she was ready to leave. But the weirdness of this had her alarmed.

The back door was not only always kept locked, it was also steel and windowless. The only other place she could really see into the bank was the drive-through window, assuming they hadn’t pulled down the shade. No cars had gone in or come out since she’d arrived. Why couldn’t she use it as a walk-through to bring somebody to talk to her even if only to say, “Yes, we really are closed.”

She went back the way she’d come and circled the corner of the building. Feeling almost as though she ought to be tiptoeing, she approached the double drive-through with the center island. Then she saw the explanation for the lack of traffic: a sandwich board blocked the entrance to the drive-through. She presumed the same sign was tacked to the other side.

Not understanding her trepidation, Lina inched up to the window.

The shades hadn’t been pulled, but she still couldn’t see anyone. Aliens had beamed everyone in the bank up to their spaceship. IT guys had taken employees hostage until they fully understood the hideous mistake someone had made that had frozen up the bank’s computers.

Only...shouldn’t someone be laboring on one of the computers? Unless the problem was off-site, but if that was so, why wasn’t Maya answering her phone and where was everybody?

Lina’s skin prickled. She shifted a few feet to the left and with a rush of relief saw four people standing in a cluster. Mr. Floyd and Maya and two men. Okay, she’d been silly—except...one of the men held a gun to Maya’s temple.

Oh, God, oh, God. This was a bank robbery, happening right in front of her. Without taking her eyes off the scene inside, Lina fumbled for her phone at the bottom of her purse.

The bank manager shook his head. He looked scared but mulish. At the same time, Maya saw Lina with her face pressed to the glass. Her eyes widened, the terror on her face changing to something else.

The next second, her head blew up.

And then the man who’d shot Lina’s best friend turned and saw her.

* * *

LEANING BACK IN his desk chair, Bran unwrapped the sandwich he’d just picked up from the deli. He didn’t love eating at his desk, but he was trying to cram some work in so he could leave early. He had an appointment to talk to a woman who had been a neighbor of his family when he was a kid. She and her husband had lived right across the street when Bran’s little sister, Sheila, was murdered. Apparently Mr. Greaver had died a few years back, but his widow had stayed put. Bran and his brother, Zach, both cops, were trying to get in touch with everyone who’d lived nearby then. Sheila’s killer had never been arrested. Despite having no jurisdiction, they intended to accomplish what the investigators at the time had failed to do.

So far, they’d only hit dead ends, but there’d been something in Mrs. Greaver’s voice when Bran had talked to her yesterday—

The door behind him burst open.

“Murphy,” his lieutenant snapped. “Warring. Where the hell is Warring?”

Bran spun in his desk chair, surprised by the edge in his boss’s usually rock-steady voice. “Break room, to get a drink from the machine. What’s wrong?”

“Armed robbery at Snoqualmie Community Bank. First responders are on the way. I want you and Warring on it. The caller says she saw a loan officer shot in the head. If they’re still in there...”

Bran tossed the sandwich on the desk and jumped to his feet. “How did somebody manage to call out?”

“She didn’t. She couldn’t understand why the doors were locked midday, so she looked in the drive-through window.”

“Where is she now?”

“The Walgreens across the street.”

“We’re on our way.”

He caught Charlie Warring just as he emerged from the break room carrying a can of Pepsi. Seconds later, they jumped into an unmarked sheriff’s car and rocketed out of the parking lot, Charlie still groping for the seat belt as he tried to keep from spilling his drink.

“What the hell?”

Bran told him what he knew. During the drive, they both listened to the chatter on the radio. By the time they screeched to a halt outside the bank, they knew that the robbers had been gone when the first deputies arrived. An ambulance rolled up behind them. Two patrol cars with flashing lights were outside.

Charlie and Bran walked in to find the expected chaos. The uniforms had corralled customers and employees in one area, where two women sobbed and everyone else appeared distraught. One of the deputies saw Bran and jerked his head toward the counter that normally separated tellers from customers.

He stopped at a swinging half door. On the other side, two bodies sprawled on the carpeted floor. It wasn’t instantly obvious how the man in the suit had been killed, although blood soaked the carpet to one side of him. The woman’s body was another story. Blood, brains and bits of bone spattered the wall beyond her. The information had been accurate; no question, somebody had shot her in the head, and from close range.

“Jesus,” Charlie murmured. “I bank here. I think she’s the loan officer. Pretty.”

She wasn’t pretty anymore.

Bran pointed to the pile of cell phones, which suggested the robbers had had some foresight. They’d made sure no one texted out or snapped a photo of them.

Another uniform approached. Despite his attempt at stoicism, he appeared shaken. “My partner and I were the first responders. I hope the lady who called this in saw something, because nobody else did. They all agree that two masked men shoved through the doors yelling and waving guns. Customers and tellers were herded behind the counter and made to sit on the floor, facing the far wall—” he nodded in that direction “—and told to clasp their hands on their heads. They could hear what went on, but didn’t see anything. I didn’t even ask questions, and they started to babble. They tried to be helpful, but they all had different estimates of height, weight, race...” He shook his head. “Don’t think you’ll get a lot of help there.”

“Thanks,” Bran said.

Charlie offered to get things started there while Bran went looking for the witness who’d called 911. Charlie Warring was about Bran’s age. With any other detective in the department, Bran would have refused, but he and Charlie had developed a trust.

“You suppose the lieutenant has already notified the FBI?” Charlie asked.

“Undoubtedly,” Bran said with resignation. He’d never worked with the feds before, but he’d have his chance now. They were all over any bank robbery.

He found the pharmacy doors locked. A man peered at him from a distance away. When Bran held his badge up to the glass, relief appeared on the man’s face and he hurried to let him in. With a nod toward the back, he said, “The lady who saw what happened is with the manager. Should I keep the door locked?”

“No need now. The robbers are long gone. But locking up was smart.”

Bran took a moment to determine that no customers had been present when the witness came tearing in. Then he strode down an aisle and, at the back of the store, found an unlocked door marked “Employees Only.” Past a restroom and what appeared to be a break room was an office. He knocked and identified himself as police.

A woman called, “Come in.”

There were two women inside, one with her back to him, the other behind the desk. She rose to her feet at the sight of him. From the nice suit, he guessed she was the store manager. “I’m Laverne Dailey,” she said.

“Detective Bran Murphy.”

“Are the robbers still in the bank?” she asked.

“No, they were gone by the time the first unit arrived. I can assure you we’ll do everything in our power to identify and arrest them.” He heard the coldness in his voice.

The sight of those bodies had hit him harder than usual, maybe because of the location and the identity of the victims. This wasn’t a domestic, or the fallout from a bar brawl. The dead weren’t drug dealers or gang members. The bank was the kind of business where people expected to be safe. To the best of his knowledge, there’d never been a bank robbery in this county. And bank robbers didn’t usually kill.

“A uniformed officer will be stopping by to ask some questions, just in case an employee noticed activity by the bank.”

During his speech, the woman sitting with her back to him hadn’t turned around. In fact, she hadn’t given any sign she’d even noticed his arrival. She hunched over, her arms crossed as if she was hugging herself. Traumatized, and why wouldn’t she be?

Honey-colored hair was bundled on the back of her head. His gaze fastened on it. Some people’s hair was all one color. Hers had threads of pale gold, brown and red amongst the predominant dark blonde. He bet if he studied it long enough, he’d identify a dozen or more colors that together added up to a gorgeous, heavy mass of hair that...he knew.

No. It couldn’t be.

He grabbed the second chair in front of the desk, pulled it to face hers and sat down. “Miss—”

She looked up and his mouth went dry. The woman who had haunted his dreams for months looked at him with red-rimmed, puffy eyes.

“You,” she said flatly.

So she had recognized his voice. Bran let his gaze move over her, and what he saw made his heart stop beating.

She was pregnant. The curve of her belly was unmistakable. Bran wasn’t an expert on pregnancy, but she had to be past the first three months or so, when women didn’t much show. She wasn’t swollen so big he’d worry about her going into labor right now, either. If he had to guess—

Jesus. If he had to guess, he’d put her at five or six months.

Six months ago, almost to the day, he’d made love to her without using a condom. He’d worried about that for a long time, even as remembering what it felt like to have her without the irritating barrier of latex heated his blood.

When he lifted his stunned gaze to her face, he found wariness had joined the grief and myriad of other emotions already there. Bran opened his mouth but had just enough self-control to close it before he said the obvious. Did you plan to tell me? Later, when they were alone, he’d be asking that question. Right now, he had a job to do. And she’d seen something horrific enough, he wasn’t about to kick her when she was down.

“Ms. Dailey, may we borrow your office or the break room?”

The manager understood what he was asking. “Please, stay here,” she said, coming around the desk. “Lina, are you sure I can’t get you a drink?”

“That’s a good idea,” Bran said. “Something with sugar. She’s in shock.”

“I don’t need—” Lina’s brief defiance collapsed. “Thank you. But no caffeine, please.”

Laverne Dailey squeezed her shoulder. “Of course not.”

Lina and Bran sat in silence until the manager returned with a 7Up. Bran cracked it open and handed it to Lina. “Drink. The sugar will steady you.”

After a moment, she nodded. The door closed quietly behind Ms. Dailey.

Lina took a swallow, but her hand was shaking, so he took the can from her and set it on the desk. “I need your full name,” he said, wincing at how stiffly that came out.

He read the desperation in her eyes. “I wasn’t imagining things, was I? Maya is dead.”

“I’m afraid so. Maya...?”

“Lee. She is...she was a loan officer. And my best friend,” she whispered, desolate.

Battling the need to draw her into his arms, he said, “I’m sorry for your loss, and that you had to see something so terrible.”

She sucked in a breath. “Jurick.” She spelled it. “That’s my last name. I’m Alina Jurick.”

“You live locally, I take it.” He couldn’t help the wryness in his tone.

Her eyes slid away before meeting his again. “Yes. I live in Clear Creek and teach at the middle school.”

“What do you teach, Lina?”

“Social studies.”

Bran only vaguely recalled his long-ago middle school classes. Social studies had been a mishmash of history and government, maybe a little anthropology and archaeology thrown in. He’d have liked to ask more, like why she had chosen to work with kids that age, but made himself stay on topic.

“Okay. You came to do some banking.”

She shook her head. “No, Maya and I were going to have lunch. I talked to her about fifteen minutes before I arrived. I parked on the street instead of in the lot, because her boss doesn’t even let employees park there, never mind friends.”

He heard about her perplexity when she found the doors locked in the middle of the day, and resisted asking why the hell she hadn’t called the cops right then.

“It was the sign,” she said.

“Sign?”

“It was taped to one of the doors.” She told him what it said.

“It’s not there anymore. Which means they grabbed it on the way out.”

“I think there was another one at the head of the drive-through. If they were in a hurry, they might have left that one.”

“Good,” he said. “Give me a second.”

Charlie answered immediately and promised to send someone out to check.

Bran returned his phone to his belt.

“It did seem strange,” Lina said. “But...normal strange. You know what I mean? I sort of knew something was wrong. But, um, there’s this feeling of unreality. Who expects something like...” She wobbled to a stop, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

Bran lunged out of his chair and grabbed the wastebasket, putting it in front of her. She bent over and retched. When she seemed done, he found tissues on a credenza and gave her a handful, then urged her to sip more of the soda. At some point in there, he’d come to be crouched beside her, rubbing her back.

The look she gave him held such misery, he said, “Oh, hell, Lina,” and rose, pulling her to her feet and into his arms. For a moment she stood stiff. He was about to release her when she made a muffled sound, leaned on him and seemed to go boneless. They stood like that for a long time. Inhaling her scent, he cradled the back of her head with one hand while he held her up with his other arm.

The hard mound of her belly felt odd wedged between them. It was like a purse or a—no, not a basketball—a soccer ball. Maybe one of those kid-size ones. Then he had the dazed thought that what he felt between them wasn’t kid-size—it was a kid. A whole, complete person in the making.

That this particular baby might be his was something he couldn’t let himself think about, not yet.

Once he would have sworn her belly quivered, but probably all of her had.

Finally, she sighed and didn’t so much ease back as collapse onto the chair. “I’m sorry. You must have more important things to do than wait while I freak out. I guess you need to hear what I saw, don’t you?”

“I do, but you don’t have anything to be sorry for. Anybody would have been shaken up.”

He didn’t recall ever being reluctant to push a witness to tell her story like this before. Bran hoped he was a compassionate man, but softer emotions weren’t in his repertoire.