John’s mind went back to the night before. The softness of Molly’s body as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed up against him. The little sounds she’d made in her throat as he’d kissed her. The eagerness with which her nipple had hardened beneath the palm of his hand as he’d cupped her breast.
“I think so,” he said, and then had to clear his throat. “Yes, I like her, and I think she likes me. I asked her out for dinner sometime later in the week, and she said yes.”
Pete hooted so loudly that John had to hold the phone away from his ear. “That’s what I like to hear,” he said. “Now don’t mess it up.”
“How am I going to mess it up?”
“Well, like we just discussed, it’s been a while since you dated, buddy. The rules have changed. Don’t think you can take this little librarian out to dinner and then jump her bones.”
John was horrified. “I wasn’t planning on doing that.”
“Good. Because it takes three dates, bud.”
“Before you can jump someone’s bones?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. Unless she jumps yours first.”
“How very enlightening. Thank you for this information, Mr. State’s Attorney.”
“Oh, and none of that, either,” Pete said. “None of this acting like a grumpy dad instead of your actual age. She won’t like it any more than I do.”
John was offended. “I don’t act like a grumpy dad.”
“Are you kidding me? May I introduce you to Sheriff John Hartwell? I can’t have more than one beer on a weekday. My pants are too tight. The music these kids today listen to has too many bad words. Get off my lawn.”
Although some of these sounded slightly familiar, John still felt annoyed. “I’ve never said that last one. And if you drink too much beer, your pants are going to get tight, unless you work out. That’s a fact.”
“Just try to play it cool with the librarian, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Such as jump her bones before the third date?”
“Such as text her right away. Or bring her flowers when you haven’t even—”
Fortunately, another call came through. When John glanced at the screen of his phone, he saw that it was Dr. Nguyen.
“Pete,” he said. “I gotta go. It’s the ob-gyn. She’s probably calling about the abandoned baby or her mom.”
“Talk to you later, buddy.” Pete sounded as cheerful as ever. “And keep me posted about—”
John clicked over to the other call. As was her habit, Dr. Nguyen wasted no time on social niceties. What she lacked in bedside manner, she made up for with competence.
“You can come interview the mother now if you want to, John. She’s out of the ICU.”
John was sure he knew who she was talking about, but since it seemed too good to be true, he checked to be certain. “Tabitha Brighton?”
“Correct. We got her temperature back to normal, but she’s still a little weak from blood loss. So please go easy.”
“But she’s going to be okay?”
“She’s going to be fine,” the doctor said. “Physically. Mentally? It could take a while. She’s been through a lot.”
Out of habit, he reached for his notebook. “She tell you anything? Who took the baby? Who the father is?”
“No, nothing like that. Giving birth to a baby under conditions like she did is trauma enough. Still, she asked to see the baby, and as you know, our goal, as well as Child Services’, is always to reunite mothers with their babies if we possibly can. Tabitha’s been holding her baby, and even took a stab at nursing. I consider both hugely positive steps forward.”
John grunted. “And the baby is okay?”
“Baby’s fine. Tox screens were completely clean. The mother’s were, too.”
“So she wasn’t partying while pregnant.”
“Not at all. But I’m still worried about her. She’s barely eating. And she hasn’t asked to make a single phone call, which I find unusual. You’d think someone who’s been through what she has would call someone. No one has called her room, either, or come to visit her. Part of that is because you’ve been so careful not to release any news about her to the press—but doesn’t she have any family? Or friends?”
“Yeah.” John tapped his pen against the page he had open. No cell phone had been found among Tabitha’s belongings. Beckwith had probably taken it, the way he’d taken the baby, and stashed it somewhere. “She does, but they don’t seem too anxious to get in touch. Something’s not right. Thanks, Doctor. I’ll be over there soon.”
And he was, twenty minutes later. Standing in what served as the maternity ward for the small island—four private rooms and a desk—he stood with his arms crossed in front of Nurse Dani, who seemed to have made a remarkable recovery from her inebriated state at the ball last night and was looking professional and alert in pink scrubs covered in purple teddy bears.
“Don’t you normally work in the ER?” he asked.
She smiled. “I do! Thanks for remembering. Couple of the nurses up here were out sick with that cold that’s going around, so I volunteered to fill in. What a week to be short-staffed! Ever since that news station showed us on TV, we’ve been getting calls around the clock from people begging us to let them adopt Baby Aphrodite. As if we have any say in the matter.”
John shook his head grimly. The same thing had been happening down at the station house, and probably, he suspected, at the library, too. He wondered if Molly regretted her well-intentioned but enormously ill-considered decision to go on TV with her story about finding the infant.
“Has Tabitha Brighton said anything to you?” he asked the nurse. “Anything at all about how she ended up here, who put the baby in the library, who the father might be?”
He’d noticed that women opened up more to other women than they did to men—and certainly to members of law enforcement—and Nurse Dani was the chatty type. If anyone could get a kid to talk, it would be her.
But she disappointed him by shaking her head.
“Sorry, no, nothing. She just lies there and cries and watches TV. Food Network, mostly, which is weird, because she won’t eat. We’ve got her on an IV for hydration, of course, but Dr. Nguyen says if she doesn’t eat soon, we might have to resort to a feeding tube. Which is terrible, but what else can we do?”
He shrugged. “If someone won’t help themselves, how can you help them?”
“Exactly. Honestly, I know what she did is awful, but I feel bad for her. You’re not going to charge her, are you? She’s just a kid.”
John was getting a little tired of everyone—mainly women, mainly Molly Montgomery—asking him this. Luckily, Marguerite chose that moment to come strolling up.
“What took you so long?” he asked. He didn’t want to do the interview without a female officer present, and he preferred Marguerite over his younger female deputies because the sergeant was both more experienced and possessed a mother’s radar for lying.
“Incentive.” She held up a white paper bag with a couple of golden arches on them. “I heard the kid wasn’t eating.”
John shook his head. “But fast food? I thought these eco-friendly hippie types stayed away from it . . . except for pizza, of course.”
“Trust me, when she gets a whiff of these fries, she’ll go to town on them. I remember not wanting to touch a thing they were serving in this place after I gave birth to my kids. It all looked like congealed mush. But this stuff? Manna from heaven. She’ll eat every speck.” Marguerite wasted no time throwing open the door to the girl’s room. “Hi, honey. Hope we aren’t disturbing you.”
They weren’t. At least John didn’t think they were. The pale, slightly doughy-faced girl was doing exactly what Dani had said she’d been doing—watching the Food Network, with tears streaming down her face.
“Oh,” she said when she saw them, looking startled but not wildly so. “Are you the police?”
“Sheriff’s office, honey,” Marguerite said, swinging the girl’s food tray around so it sat in front of her, and unpacking the white paper bag. “This is Sheriff John Hartwell, and I’m Sergeant Marguerite Ruiz. We brought you a little something to eat, just some fries and a couple of cheeseburgers. I already checked with your doctor, and she said it was okay.”
John knew this was a complete lie, but he didn’t imagine it could matter much. The girl’s nose was twitching like a hungry rabbit’s at the aromas coming out of the paper sack. “Are there any chicken nuggets?” she asked faintly.
“There are,” Marguerite said. “I didn’t know which dipping sauce you liked, so I brought them all. And a soda and a vanilla milkshake, too. You’ve been through a lot, so you really need to eat. I know, I’ve had three kids myself, right in this very hospital. I also know how bad the food is here. So try this instead.”
The girl, her gaze darting nervously between John and his sergeant, murmured a polite “Thank you so much,” even as she began discreetly shoveling fries into her mouth. Score one for Marguerite: the hospital food was why she hadn’t been eating. Though she probably had plenty of deeper trauma, too.