What do I do? It keeps crying.” Connor gripped the phone, staring at the baby, now red-faced, nose running, sitting up in the crib. He had called in a BOLO for Regina Berger and had Juan and Mark researching what kind of car she drove.
“It? Is it a girl or boy?” Mildred asked, and Connor struggled to hear what she said over the baby’s screams.
“I don’t know. Can’t you come here?” Juan and Mark were supposed to be on the way, but Connor suspected they weren’t any more equipped to take care of a baby than he was. When he called the office, he’d discovered Mildred had left the precinct, so he’d called her cell.
“I told you, I’m babysitting for my neighbor. I’m supposed to be there in five minutes. Poor thing, I can hear the screaming. Are you holding it?”
“No.”
“Well, pick it up.”
“I don’t know how!”
“How old is the baby?”
“I don’t know.”
“Men,” she snapped. “How big is he or she?”
“Bigger than a puppy,” he answered.
“Is the baby sitting up? Standing up?”
“It was standing, now it’s sitting.”
“Then you can’t break it. Just pick it up.”
He walked over to the crib. The baby screamed harder. “It doesn’t like me.”
“Pick the baby up!”
He put the phone between his shoulder and his ear, and reaching under the child’s arms, he picked it up. It squirmed, but he held on tight.
“Okay, I got it. He held the child up a few feet away from his body. “But it’s still screaming.”
“Does it have a dirty diaper?”
“How can I tell?”
He could swear she laughed. “Smell it. Or stick your finger inside the diaper. The latter one is kind of dangerous.”
He lifted the child closer and sniffed. “Oh gawd, it stinks.”
She laughed, and this time he heard it clear as day. “Are there any diapers around? A changing table?”
Connor looked around. “I see diapers. I don’t know what a changing table is.”
“A table with a flat surface where you can lay the baby. But don’t let the baby roll off.”
“I can’t do this,” he said.
“Connor, this isn’t disarming a bomb. You can do this. I’ll walk you through it.”
Ten minutes later, he’d managed to change the diaper and was pacing with the baby in his arms. It, or rather she, had curled against his shoulder and was breathing in shaky breaths.
The doorbell rang and he hurried to answer it.
Mark and Juan both stood on the other side of the door.
“Did you find her?” Connor asked.
“No,” Juan said, then both of his partners burst out laughing.
“It’s not funny.”
“I don’t know, Mildred called us, and if you could have heard her tell the story it was hilarious,” Mark said, laughing so hard he could barely talk. “I heard you gagged changing the diaper.”
“Take her.” He pulled the child off his chest. The baby screamed.
“No!” Both guys backed up like he’d offered them a poisonous snake.
Connor brought the crying child back to his chest. She buried her face against him, and the crying at least lowered in volume.
“If she were five or older, I could do it,” Juan said. “I’m an expert with five-year-olds. But I have no experience with them any younger.”
“Don’t you have nephews?” Connor asked Mark.
“Yeah, but I never babysat them.”
“Did you check and see if Regina had any family?” Connor began bouncing the baby when she started crying harder. He’d found she stopped crying when he did that.
Mark shook his head. “Regina grew up in foster care. But I called CPS. Unfortunately, they probably won’t be here for several hours.”
“Damn,” Connor said. “Mildred said we needed to feed her. I found some formula in the kitchen. But all the bottles are dirty. Can one of you wash a bottle and fill it with formula?”
“I think I can handle that,” Mark said.
Connor tried to put the baby back in her bed, but she started screaming again.
An hour later, Connor was holding a fed and sleeping child against his chest when the CPS worker, Mary Stanley, showed up. She was a middle-aged woman who looked crumpled, exhausted, and at wit’s end. Connor continued to hold the baby while the woman filled out paperwork.
“Do you know the child’s father?”
“No,” Connor said. “We came to ask her mom some questions about a case and she fled. We have nothing.”
“And the mother has no family?” she asked, as if she hadn’t heard what Connor said.
“Our records show she grew up in foster care,” Mark answered.
“Great,” the woman said and sighed. “First, we take care of them and then their kids.”
For some reason that annoyed Connor. It sounded as if she blamed the baby for her mother’s abandonment.
“Does the mother work? Who cares for the child during the day?”
“We don’t know,” Connor answered, this time frustration sounded in his voice. “Like I said, we just came to ask her some questions.” Then he remembered. “She said she worked at a maid service?”
The woman made a note of that. “Is the child sick?”
Connor looked at the baby. “I…I don’t know.”
She came over and examined the child quickly. “She doesn’t look it.”
Connor almost asked where she’d gotten her medical degree, but bit it back.
Then Ms. Stanley haphazardly packed a bag with some diapers, clothes, bottles, baby wipes, and formula.
When she took the baby from Connor’s arms, the child screamed.
“Bounce her,” Connor said. “She’ll stop crying.”
The woman frowned. “I got this.”
But she didn’t. She didn’t start bouncing. The child screamed harder and held her hands out to Connor.
Connor’s arms suddenly felt empty. “Bounce her,” he repeated. The woman frowned at him and started out. He followed her to the door. “Where are you taking her?”
“To a temporary foster home. If you find her mom, call CPS.”
Connor wanted to lash out at the woman for her incompetence. Instead, he targeted the real villain. “What kind of mother leaves her child with a stranger?” he spat out the question to Mark and Juan.
“A piss-poor one,” Juan said.
“Fuck! I can’t believe I let her get away.”
“That’s not on you. You didn’t know she’d run,” Juan said.
Connor looked at his partners. “You think the kid is okay?”
Before they could answer, Connor’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket.
He looked at Juan. “It’s Detective Quarrels from Vice.”
* * *
The doorbell woke Brie up from a dead sleep. She jackknifed up, causing Psycho to bolt off the mattress. She caught her breath and looked at the clock. It was nine p.m.
She’d come home from the hospital around three and started going over her sister’s file. When she couldn’t keep her eyes open, she’d decided to grab a power nap. So powerful, she’d slept five hours.
Brushing her hair off her face, she scooted off the bed. A knock now sounded at her door.
Remembering her place had been broken into, and the only thing protecting her from an intruder was the old-fashioned slide lock Connor had attached, she grabbed her gun off the bedside table.
Connor had left a message that the perp she’d caught on her nanny cam had been arrested, and Dunn had been given the cover story, but considering she seldom had visitors…better safe than sorry.
She went to the front window and pulled back the curtain. Connor stood perched on her doorstep, looking unhappy. His frown said something bad had happened. Her first thought was Carlos, but surely someone would have called her. Still, she hurried and opened the door.
“What is it?” She stepped back as he walked in.
“Were you asleep?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry.”
“What’s wrong?”
“We found Regina Berger.”
“Who?”
“Linda Kramer. Her real name is Regina Berger. Your sister’s roommate.”
Wasn’t this good news? He didn’t look happy. “Does she know anything?”
“She’s definitely hiding something.”
“What’s she saying?” She shut the door.
“Nothing now. She got away.”
Brie pulled her hair back. “Then how do you know she’s hiding something?”
“Because she lied. She said she had spoken to your sister a few weeks ago.”
Brie shook her head, still feeling half-asleep. “Wait. You found her and you’ve already lost her?”
“I know.” Frowning, he added, “She said she was going to check on her baby…but then she fled, leaving the baby there, screaming.”
His words were running amok in her head. She moved to the sofa and dropped down, her brain trying to play catch-up. “She left her baby?”
“Yeah. What kind of mother does that?” He sat beside her. She almost got up and moved to a chair. “We’ve got a BOLO out on her. We found out what kind of car she drives. Hopefully, we’ll find her. But that’s not the only reason I’m here.”
“What else?”
“One of the other names you gave us, Tammy Alberts. It was familiar to one of the vice cops. He’d helped out on some cases with ICE last year and he asked if he could run the name by them. He did and found out he was right about the name. On one of their cases, a fake driver’s license with that name was found last year at a crime scene right across the Mexican border.”
“What kind of crime scene?”
“Six bodies were found in the back of an old delivery truck. All females. They are believed to be victims of human trafficking. The truck had been set on fire, but it appeared the women had died a day or two earlier. Probably from heat exposure.”
Brie closed her eyes, then opened them. “So I’m right. That’s what happened to my sister. Human trafficking.” Brie had believed it from the start, but hearing it brought the hurt to her chest all over again, and not just for her sister, but for the other victims as well.
“It looks like it.”
“Do you have the other victims’ names? Do any of them link up with the Black Diamond or Dillon Armand?”
“They’re looking into it. They couldn’t get prints on all of them, and a couple of them still haven’t been identified.”
“Why didn’t the name come up when I searched the database for a Tammy Alberts?”
“ICE used the real names they had on the report. The license was damaged in the fire, all they got was the name on it. They could tell it was a fake, but they weren’t even sure which girl’s picture was on it.”
She shook her head. “And we don’t have anyone on Armand. He’s in the wind. He could be kidnapping other women right now. He could be halfway to Guatemala.”
“ICE has been looking into the human trafficking case. They have agreed to help. We have an agent going to the strip club in Houston where my friend said he spotted him.” Connor pulled out his phone. “He should be getting there any time now, and will let us know when he has eyes on Armand.”
She swallowed, trying to find relief in what little he offered.
“I also contacted the airlines, and if any changes are made to the ticket Armand flew over here on, we’ll be contacted. I want this guy as badly as you do.”
Yeah, but wanting something didn’t make it happen. If so, Armand would have been behind bars from the instant she’d recognized his name in the Guatemalan police report. And the FBI, her own agency, would have been the ones to investigate it.
“What if he decides to leave the U.S. the same way he got my sister out? There was no record of her leaving.”
“I don’t think he’d do that unless he believes we’re on to him. We’re doing everything we can.”
She sat there silent, trying to wrap her brain around the new information.
Right then, Psycho came strolling into the room. He moved between the coffee table and sofa, and sniffed Connor’s pants leg. It was then Brie remembered what had happened the last time they’d shared the sofa.
Connor didn’t move. Neither did her cat. Then the feline jumped up on the sofa between them, almost as if he’d decided Connor wasn’t out to hurt him.
Brie’s mind went back to the news he’d delivered. “Do you think Berger knows what happened to my sister?” Psycho eased closer and curled up in her lap.
“I think she was lying and ran for a reason.”
Before he could say more, Connor’s phone rang. When he pulled it out, Psycho watched him—leery—but he didn’t jump down.
“It’s the ICE agent in Houston.” He took the call. Brie held her breath, hoping it was good news.
“You got him?” Connor asked in lieu of hello. His frown told her what she needed to know. “Okay,” he said. “Yeah, do that.” He hung up.
She fought the wave of disappointment. “He’s not there, is he?”
“No.”
She shook her head. “How are they proceeding? If they talk to the owner, he could warn Armand we are on to him.”
“He’s been told to stay completely under the radar. The agent is going to remain at the club to see if Armand returns. Mark and Juan are calling to see if Armand checked into a hotel in the area.” He dropped his hand over hers.
The touch sent a spark—part pain, part pleasure—right to her chest. She pulled her hand out from under his. “Thanks for coming here to tell me. But you should go.”
For one second, she thought he was going to argue, and a small part of her wanted him to. Instead, he stood up. “I’m going with you to Willowcreek tomorrow to interview the waitress.”
The thought of being in the car with him for several hours had her chest tightening. “What time?”
“Nine okay? You want me to pick you up here?” he asked.
“No. At the hospital. I’ll be there.”
He started for the door then turned. “I called on the way over here and they said Agent Olvera’s vitals are doing better.”
“Yeah.” Was his concern for Carlos supposed to make her feel better? It didn’t.
It appeared as if he wanted to say something else, but he finally just walked out.
Her cat meowed. She looked at the feline. “Great. You start trusting him right when I realize I can’t.”