She watched Tyrell as he brought towels, hot water and a knife into the room. He had removed his jacket, and he moved easily, gracefully around the small room, deciding what to do next.
‘You act like you know what you’re doing,’ she observed.
Tyrell smiled. ‘I try to look that way,’ he said.
‘You don’t?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Well, I learned how to do this at the Academy. Though I can’t say I ever had any hands-on practice, if you know what I mean.’ He glanced at her tired face and shook his head. ‘Don’t worry. I remember what to do.’
He sat back down beside her, and she reached for his hand again. ‘Do you mind?’ she asked.
He smiled, and covered her hand with his. ‘Not at all.’
Dena sighed and closed her eyes. ‘I have been a fool, haven’t I?’
‘Aw, don’t say that.’
‘Are you kidding? I live with a man who hits me, so, in order to get away from him, I leave town with a man who wants to kill me.’
‘You do have terrible taste in men,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you that.’
Dena turned her head on the pillow to face him, and tears rolled down the sides of her face. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing,’ she said.
Tyrell frowned. ‘I feel a little bit like I’m to blame for this whole mess. I didn’t do enough to protect you when you asked me to. Even after I found out about Riley’s … history.’
‘Jennifer’s sister,’ she said.
Tyrell nodded. ‘And he told me you were having an affair with this guy.’ Tyrell angled his head toward the door. ‘I thought it might be true.’
‘I appreciate your high opinion of me, Sergeant.’
‘I’m not the best judge of people myself,’ he said, thinking of Lou, in his hospital bed, revealing the ugly secrets of his life.
‘So why did you come after me?’ she asked.
Tyrell didn’t know how much she knew. He decided not to tell her about Jennifer. Or any more about Mrs Kelly, for that matter. She had enough on her mind right now, just getting this baby safely brought into the world. But, if he was honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he hadn’t just come after her as a policeman. There was more to it than that. And he wasn’t quite ready to admit that right now.
‘Let’s just say … I was worried about you,’ he said, wiping her forehead.
‘Thanks for being worried about me,’ she said.
‘That’s OK. Glad to do it,’ he said.
She smiled at him, and they shared a glance that both quickly looked away from.
A glance that left Dena feeling both happy and nervous inside. ‘Let’s concentrate on Junior here,’ he said.
Dena nodded, and then gasped. ‘Oh, Tyrell.’ Her eyes widened. ‘I think this one is it. I have to push.’
‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘We’re ready.’
In the frightening hectic minutes that followed, he strove to help her, to help her baby be born. It was the first glimpse of the baby’s hair that he would always remember. It was not bald, as he subconsciously expected it to be. The baby had hair on its tiny scalp. Hair, soft and wheat-colored, like his mother’s. As if he was already claiming his individuality. Such a fragile thing, a baby, but resilient as well, like a silky strand of hair.
‘Is he all right?’ Dena was crying. ‘Is he breathing? He’s so tiny,’ she worried aloud, the blueprint of her life to come.
Tyrell did his clumsy best to clean up the slippery creature and swaddled him for his mother to hold. When he released the baby to his mother’s arms, Tyrell felt a pang of regret and, at the same moment, a fierce sense of responsibility for his life. Up until that moment, he had never imagined himself wanting children, being a father. It had always seemed a thankless, confusing chore. Suddenly, he had a glimmer of something rapturous in it. The surprise of it was humbling. It made him feel … grateful for this moment.
Dena cradled her baby and studied his face. ‘He’s perfect.’ She looked up at Tyrell and gave him a radiant smile. ‘Thank you, Tyrell. How will I ever thank you?’
Tyrell could hardly stand to look at her face, it was so bright. He pressed his lips together and tried to think logically. ‘We need to get him to a hospital,’ he said.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’m getting up. Let’s go.’
‘You can’t get up,’ he said, awed by the amount of blood and fluid in the heap of towels around her.
‘Watch me,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Are you sure?’ Tyrell asked, helping her as she started to rise. He knew she was not going to be dissuaded.
‘Positive,’ she said.
‘Negative,’ said a voice from the doorway.
They both looked up and saw him. Peter stood watching them, an open switchblade glinting in his hand. ‘I’ll take that,’ he said, pointing to the baby Dena had pressed against her chest.
‘Are you crazy?’ Dena demanded.
‘I’ll take care of it from now on,’ he said. ‘You’re unfit.’
Looking at the man’s cruel, selfish face, Tyrell felt a fury that was overwhelming.
This murderer, this kidnapper had the audacity to stand in the doorway and waste precious moments of this baby’s fragile life. To try to prevent them from carrying a newborn to safety. It occurred to Tyrell that he would kill this man in front of him, without hesitation, for the sake of this still nameless infant. He knew it was bad to go into a fight with too much emotion. He couldn’t help it. He saw the knife in Peter’s hand, but it might as well have been a crackerjack toy for all he cared. He didn’t think any further. He lunged at Peter, and seized his wrist as if to tear it off his arm.
Tyrell’s furious assault took Peter by surprise. He fell backward into the living room and hit the floor with a thud. Tyrell landed on top of him and they rolled on the floor in a vicious embrace, each grasping and pounding the other, for the advantage.
Tory and Megan, huddled together in the doorway, started to scream. Dena was crying out also, although her voice was weak.
All of a sudden, there were the sounds of sirens piercing the air, and the thump of vehicles coming quickly down the road outside. In that minute, the room was filled with the reflection of blinking, red lights.
They all froze, momentarily stunned by the arrival of the outside world into their struggle. Then Tyrell whooped in triumph. He looked down at Peter who was struggling frantically to free himself from Tyrell’s grasp. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ said Tyrell. ‘Got you now, you mother,’ he said.
Their eyes met and Tyrell had to steel himself not to shrink from the venom in Peter’s gaze. Tyrell was tempted to jump up and run out the door, to flag down the paramedics and direct them in, to urge them not to lose a second. But he did not dare to leave Peter, now pinned beneath him, alone in the house for a moment with Dena and the baby. Tyrell shouted out, ‘Help, in here.’
‘Police,’ shouted a voice outside. ‘We’re coming in.’ An instant later the door burst open, and two cops in bulletproof vests, their guns drawn, were in the doorway.
They looked in and saw Tyrell straddling Peter, pinning him to the floor. Since he wasn’t in his uniform, Tyrell hoped they knew that the man they were looking for was a white man. One of the cops pointed his gun at Peter.
‘Peter Ward,’ he said.
‘That’s him,’ said Tyrell, relieved. Then he looked up. ‘Have you got an ambulance out there?’
‘Just pulling in now,’ said one of the cops.
‘Get somebody in here quick. We’ve got a newborn, premature … how early?’ he asked, looking back at Dena.
‘Six weeks,’ she said.
The first cop came in and the second went outside to pass the message to the EMTs. As Tyrell climbed off Peter, the armed officer held a gun on the wanted man. Before anyone could stop them, Tory and Megan ran shrieking to their father and buried themselves in his arms.
A woman carrying a medical bag and dressed in a blue coverall appeared in the doorway. Two men, similarly dressed, crowded in behind her. ‘Someone here had a preemie?’ asked the woman.
‘In here,’ said Tyrell, leaving Peter on the ground clutching his girls, while the cop held a gun on him. Tyrell followed the paramedics into the bedroom, where Dena sat on the edge of the bed, rocking her baby against her chest and crooning.
‘Help my baby,’ Dena cried. ‘He wasn’t due yet.’
‘We’re going to help you both, ma’am,’ the woman said, gently taking the child from his mother as the EMTs began their work.
As the paramedic lifted the child from Dena’s arms, Tyrell could see that the baby’s skin had a sickly pallor, a faint bluish tinge. ‘Is he all right?’ Tyrell asked. ‘Is he breathing?’
The woman did not respond directly to Tyrell. She turned to the man behind her, who was unpacking medical equipment. ‘Breathing’s shallow. Let’s try to clear his lungs.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’ Dena cried, as Tyrell put a comforting arm around her shoulder.
The woman flashed a reassuring smile at them both. ‘He’s not too bad. I’ve seen much worse. Did you deliver him?’
Tyrell nodded, feeling at once proud and helpless.
‘Take it easy,’ said the other EMT as the woman and the first man obscured the child from view with their ministrations. ‘How’s your wife?’
For a second, Tyrell was confused. Then he realized that the man, seeing Tyrell in his civilian clothes, had made a mistake. It didn’t seem like a natural assumption, given the color of the baby’s skin, but the man was looking at him with a disarming openness.
Tyrell realized, in that moment, that Dena was leaning into him as if she had always been there. At the man’s words, she looked at Tyrell, apprehensively. He smiled, embarrassed, and she smiled back.
‘I’m OK,’ she insisted. ‘It’s the baby I’m worried about. What are you doing to him?’
‘First, we’ll make sure he’s stable. Then we’ll transport him to the hospital.’
‘Can I go with him in the ambulance?’ she asked.
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll be right back,’ Tyrell said. Dena nodded and looked back at her baby.
Outside there were two Redmark police cruisers idling beside the ambulance and waiting for the officers inside to herd Peter out the door. It was a difficult process because the girls had thrown themselves on Peter’s neck, while he was still on the floor, and refused to let go of their father. One cop had crouched down and was trying to reason with them to let go, while the other cop held a gun nervously on the wanted man.
All of a sudden, over them, was a deafening, thudding noise, as if something huge was about to fall on the house. Tory and Megan began to scream at the sound, and everyone looked up as lights flashed from above.
A helicopter, carrying Captain Van Brunt, Laura Mallory and Skip Lanman was coming in low, preparing to land in a field across the highway from the lake. Laura saw the shimmering surface of the lake, and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles below her, but it was impossible to see what her gaze sought. Two little girls, even blonde-headed girls, were not visible from that height in the dark of night.
Van Brunt, sitting behind her, watched her leaning against the window, shredding, in her lap, a Kleenex she had wept into on the way. She had begged, like a small child, to sit next to the pilot, so that she could look out and try to spot them. At least someone would come out of this nightmare with their heart’s desire, he thought.
He wondered if the Russell woman was all right. It was ironic that she had been trapped here with Clifford Mallory while the man she fled, Brian Riley, had been kicked to death by a horse. Word of his death had come in around dinnertime. Some rich guy who boarded his horse with Riley had found him there when he went in to pay his bill.
Van Brunt wondered how Dena Russell would react to that news. Or even if she had lived to hear it. It was entirely possible by now that Peter – Clifford Mallory, he corrected himself – had put an untimely end to her and her pregnancy. He wondered about Tyrell, too. Van Brunt didn’t approve of hot-dogging, grandstanding and all the rest. He believed in doing things by the book, and this was most certainly not by the book. Still, he didn’t like to see harm come to one of his officers. Even Tyrell Watkins.
The pilot shouted at Van Brunt that they were about to descend. The so-called field looked like little more than a clearing, surrounded by trees. The pilot did not seem to be nonplussed by the lack of elbow room.
Van Brunt leaned forward, toward Laura. ‘Almost there,’ he shouted.
She nodded, but did not look back at him. Her gaze swept like a searchlight over the earth below.