Look What the Stork Brought
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Dixie Browning
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Chapter 1
He was closing in. So close he could almost smell blood. Lifting one hand from the steering wheel, Joe Dana pinched the place between his eyes where it throbbed. It was just past ten on a steamy July morning, and he’d pulled over onto the side of the road. Briefly, he’d considered checking into a hotel, catching a shower and a few hours’ sleep first, but he was too close. After going flat out for the past five weeks—the last twenty-two hours of it without sleep—he wanted only to wind things up and go home.
Wherever home was. At the moment, it was a storage unit in Fort Worth. That and some unfinished plans.
For the time being, he’d seen enough sheriffs and small-town cops to last him a while. As for women hanging all over him, soaking his shirt with their tears, he could do without those, too.
He yawned again, inhaling the stale aroma of his own sweat and too many fast-food containers. Once this gig was finished, he was going to the best hotel in town to soak his carcass in hot water for a few hours, send his boots out to be polished, his laundry out to be finished, order in a slab of beef, cooked just the way he liked it, with a basket of fries, a gallon of milk and half-a-gallon of ice cream....
And then he was going to sleep for a week.
The slip of paper with instructions to the Bayard woman’s house said turn right off Highway 158 onto the first dirt road past Frenchman’s Creek; pass a mobile home on the left, a log tobacco barn on the right, go a mile farther and look for a mailbox mounted on a busted hay-rake.
“Can’t miss it,” the deputy had said. “Last place on the road. County don’t gravel past there. She wanted for something? Heard she worked in a bank in town till she moved to Davie County a few months back. I went and got a raccoon out of her attic, first week she moved in. Seemed like a real nice woman, but these days you never know, do you?”
No, thought Joe, you never know. He didn’t know if she was the brains of the organization—if there even was an organization, instead of just a one-man scam—or one more in a long line of tearful victims.
He did know that the eighteenth-century jade vase she’d described in The Antique and Artifact Trader was a part of the collection he’d been tracking all the way from Dallas. He’d picked up the trail in Amarillo, lost it in Guymon, found it again in Tulsa and chased it all the way to North Carolina. Along the way, he’d checked out every pawn shop, every law enforcement office and heard more sob stories than any broken-down ex-cop needed to hear when he was officially retired.
He had a hunch about this one, though. A strong feeling that he was finally closing in.
Then again, the feeling could be just the result of too many chili dogs. As for his headache, that was a result of too many hours behind the wheel. His knee was killing him—also the result of driving too long without a break.
On the other hand, it was usually at a time like this, when he was scraping the bottom of the barrel, that his luck suddenly took a turn for the better. Hell, he’d been flat on his back in a hospital bed when he’d thought of the one thing they’d overlooked in the Drayton case. Once he was back on his feet again, he’d been able to wrap things up. All three brothers were indicted and behind bars, and he’d earned himself another commendation to go with his early retirement papers.
Joe yawned again, then pulled onto the highway and turned right on the graveled state road. A mile or so farther, he turned off onto a rutted, weed-cluttered driveway. The house looked like a few million other old farmhouses. Four rooms up, four down, with a one-story shoot off the back. This one had flowers. Vine-covered trellises at each end of the porch and blooming beds underneath the windows. Crook or not, the lady had a way with plants.
He pulled up in front, set the parking brake and eased himself out of the cab, moving stiffly until he worked out a few kinks. Before he even reached the front door he had a feeling the house was empty, but he knocked anyway, because it was the polite thing to do.
Knocked twice and waited. And then his instincts kicked in. It was called situation awareness, and his was usually right on target when it came to sensing if a house was really empty or if somebody was in there hiding, ready to blow his head off.
This one was empty. He’d bet his best boots on it. Quietly he eased down off the porch and headed around back. With or without a badge, he wasn’t into breaking and entering, but if the back door just happened to be open...
And then he saw her and stopped dead in his tracks, staring over the chicken-wire fence. His first thought was that she was big. His second, that she was a genuine blond. No dark roots. His third, that she was in trouble, which was an indication of just how tired he was. Normally in a situation like this, he’d have taken her vitals by now, and might even be administering mouth-to-mouth.
She was lying flat on the ground—or as flat as possible under the circumstances—in some kind of a garden. Rows of growing stuff, mostly vegetables. Her knees were bent, there was a big floppy hat with a sunflower on the brim resting on one of them, and a pile of weeds beside her left elbow. Her face looked flushed to him, like she was either feverish or she’d been out in the sun too long.
Heatstroke? Possibly. The temperature was hovering around the century mark, with the humidity not far behind.
Her eyes were closed. Both her hands were resting on top of a belly so big it hiked her skirt halfway up her thighs.
As for the thighs, they were long, firm and tanned. Just for the record.
Long years of training kicked in before he could actually start drooling. Moving swiftly to her side, he let himself inside the fence, mentally skimming files of all the things that could go wrong with a woman who looked to be about twelve months pregnant. He was halfway down on his good knee, reaching for her pulse when she opened her eyes and smiled up at him.
It was the smile that froze him in a muscle-killing crouch. It was slow, sleepy and nowhere near as wary as it should have been, under the circumstances. “Do I know you?” she murmured.
“Are you all right?” He settled on his knees, ignoring the stiffness and the hard, rocky ground. The Ch’ien Lung vase had waited this long—it could wait a few minutes more.
“I’m not real sure.” Her voice was like her smile, sort of slow and sleepy. And sweet.
“You’re, ah...lying down?” In other words, why the devil are you lying down in the middle of the yard, in the middle of the morning?
“My back hurt. I was weeding, but it’s so hot. Who are you? If you’re selling something, I’m afraid I can’t buy. If you’ve come about my car, the garage already called. I’ll pick it up Monday, if that’s all right.”
“I’m not selling, and I don’t know anything about your car. If you’re Ms. Sophie Bayard, I’d like to—”
“Help me up, will you? I’m clumsy as an ox these days but if you can get me on my feet, I’ll go inside and pour us some iced tea. Lawsy, it’s hot, isn’t it? What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t, but it’s Joe Dana. Ma’am, I’d like to—”
She grabbed the sunflower hat with one hand and held the other one up for him to take. Both hands were dirty. And ringless. Which didn’t necessarily mean anything. “Don’t hurt yourself, I weigh a ton,” she warned.
She was a big girl, all right. Big boned. He figured her for about five foot eight, a hundred-fifty, maybe one fifty-five, at the moment. She was carrying a lot of excess cargo. That denim tent she was wearing looked about ready to give up the ghost.
Joe glanced at the prominent breasts resting on her even more prominent belly and quickly looked away. Funny thing, he’d never before noticed just how female a pregnant woman looked.
He got her up off the ground with only a few minor twinges in his bad knee. Her skin had a nice smell. She was hot, dusty, and she’d been working in onions, but underneath all that she had a nice, soapy, womanly, herbal smell. Joe was a noticing man. Too many times his life had depended on just such subtle details.
For one brief moment she leaned against him, and he let himself be leaned on, but then he steadied her and stepped back. It didn’t pay to get too friendly with the enemy. It only got in the way of what he had to do, which no longer seemed as simple as it had back when he’d first picked up the lead.
“All right now? Not dizzy or anything, are you?”
“No, I’m just fine except for my back. It—” She reached back and rubbed down low, and then a startled look came over her face. Joe was watching her closely for any sign of—well, for any sign of anything. Guilt. Shame. Fear. She sure as hell wasn’t going to try to run from him, not in her condition.
His eyes narrowed. “What is it?”
“Warm. Wet. Oh, my mercy, something’s happened.” Her eyes got as round as marbles, and Joe noticed their color for the first time. They were gray with a hint of green. Like Spanish moss after a rain.
“You got a cramp? Where? Your leg? Your back?” Not your belly. Please, lady, not your belly. Don’t go into labor on me now...this I don’t need!
“I’ve wet my pants, and oh—! It’s still happening!”
He uttered a profanity under his breath. “Your water just broke. When are you due?”
“My water?”
“Yeah, your water. Don’t you know anything?”
“If you mean about having babies, I’ve never actually had one before, but I went to a few classes at the Y. And I’ve read all this stuff—you know, about what to expect and all, but—oh, lawsy, this is so embarrassing!”
“Tell me about it,” Joe muttered, and calmly went into action. “First thing we’re going to do is we’re going to get you inside.”
She moaned. He didn’t think she was actually hurting, just scared, but then, he’d never had a baby. How would he know?
“You can walk, can’t you? I can carry you if you think you’ll have trouble with the steps, but walking’s supposed to be good for a woman at a time like this.”
He hoped it was. If he had to carry her, they might both come to grief right here between the onions and the butter beans. Joe was a big man—six-two, a hundred eighty-seven. But he’d been horse-busted, gunshot and otherwise mistreated a few too many times in his thirty-eight-and-a-half years. No sense in pushing his luck.
With his arm to steady her, she made it just fine. She had nice, delicate features, but that jaw of hers told a different story. He might not be able to wind things up here quite as easily as he’d hoped.
“I want to take a real quick shower before I go to the hospital. Will you stand outside the bathroom door so I can call you if I need you?”
Joe was busy looking around, just in case she was dumb enough to keep the stuff right out in plain sight. His grandmother always had, but then, she’d had the right to show it off.
“Are you sure you ought to do this?” he asked. First time or not, she might be one of those women who popped out babies like spitting out watermelon seeds.
“Nothing hurts. I feel fine. In fact, I feel better than I’ve felt in ages.”
“Euphoria.”
“I beg your pardon?” But before he could explain that sometimes, even in the midst of a crisis, a feeling of well-being could overcome a body and make him think everything was all right when it wasn’t, she was already headed down the hall.
“Can you do it in three minutes?” he asked, going after her.
“Not if I shampoo my hair. Give me five.”
“Lady, they’re not mine to give. If you get into trouble in there, I’m the one who’s going to have to bail you out, and I’ve got a bad knee, so don’t push your luck, all right?”
She beamed at him. Positively beamed. Joe forgot all about her big, gravid belly and her dirty, green-stained, onion-scented hands. And the fact that she was trying to sell off a trinket belonging to his grandmother that was valued at eighteen grand.
Euphoria. By the time he snapped out of his version, she was barricaded behind the bathroom door. He could hear her humming something that sounded suspiciously like a lullaby.
“Hand me that bottle of lotion from my dresser, will you? Second door to the left,” she called over the sound of rushing water.
Well...not exactly rushing. Trickling would be more like it. He’d already noticed that up close, the house lost some of its bucolic charm and was just an old house, with worn floorboards, rattling windowpanes and a couple of wheezing window units fighting a losing battle to overcome the heat and humidity.
He fetched her lotion, and while he was at it, he glanced around the bedroom. Just in case. Joe, after all, was a man with a mission.
Seven hours later he was on his fifth cup of black coffee, which was the last thing he needed, when a nurse wearing scrubs came through to the waiting room. He stood, thinking it was about time, and she came on over.
“Are you Joe?”
“Has she had anything yet?”
“Not yet. She’s asking for you again.”
As frustrating as it was, Joe had figured it was only common decency to let her have her kid and catch her breath before he got down to business. Not that he’d had much option. Back at the house she’d been too distracted. While she’d timed her pains, he’d asked if she’d ever heard of a Ch’ien Lung vase, and she’d said, oh, that reminded her—she needed to feed her fish.
She had a goldfish. Women were wacky, and broody women were worse than that. He’d given up on getting any reasonable answers and asked if there was anybody he could call for her.
She’d said, yes, he could call her a cab because she might as well go in and stay instead of waiting until the last minute. So he’d made up his mind to stick it out. It wasn’t like she could run out on him, not in her condition.
He’d stuck by her, and when the pains were eight minutes apart, he’d helped her climb into his truck, gone back and gotten her suitcase and driven her to the county hospital.
After she was settled in her room and a string of folks wearing white or green had pulled the curtains shut and done whatever it was they had to do, he’d dragged a chair up beside her bed and helped her wait.
He could’ve questioned her then, but he hadn’t. They’d talked about nothing in particular. Her goldfish. He was called Darryl. The weather. It was hot. Her garden—it needed rain. And then the pains started piling in on her, and he’d let her crush his fingers and wished there was more he could do.
Not that it was any of his business, but she needed someone, and nobody else had showed up.
“It won’t be long now,” he’d told her, hoping to hell he was right. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.
“I think I...left the...back door unlocked,” she’d said through clenched teeth.
“I checked. It’s locked.” She had nice teeth. Not perfect, just nice and white and square. Joe tried to convince himself that she couldn’t possibly be involved. In the hospital gown, in spite of a few fine lines at the outer corners of her eyes and a few more across her forehead, she looked more like an overgrown kid than a woman in the process of having a baby.
But she had the goods. She was fencing the stuff. None of the other women he’d talked to had been left with anything. The jerk had seduced them, promised them marriage, cleaned them out and left them, every last one Joe had interviewed, flat broke and either mad as hell or brokenhearted. Or both.
This one was still in possession of the J. J. Dana jade collection. A collection that had been valued at a million and a half nine years ago when the old man had passed away and was probably worth a lot more now. And if she was carrying either a grudge or a torch for the jerk, she covered pretty well.
Once they’d rolled her into the delivery room, Joe had returned to the waiting area. He’d considered going out and finding himself a hotel, figuring he could come back in a day or so, talk to her once she’d had time to settle down and wind things up. There was time. She wasn’t going anywhere.
But he hadn’t. Instead he’d hung around some more. Waiting.
“Are you the father?” Roughly an hour and forty-five minutes had passed. The woman in scrubs was back.
Not about to get himself thrown out on a technicality, Joe cleared his throat and said, “He couldn’t be here. I’m standing in for him. Is she okay? Has she had it yet?”
The nurse shoved a lank chunk of hair back up under her paper hat. “It’s a girl. Mother and daughter doing fine. She’s been moved to Room 211 and is resting now, but you can see the baby if you want to.”
Joe didn’t know what to say. It seemed pretty callous to tell her he had no interest in babies, but the truth was, he didn’t. He’d delivered a few. Cops occasionally did. Sometimes he’d followed up with a visit, sometimes a donation, but it wasn’t his nature to get involved with the people he came into contact with through his work. Not that this case was work, exactly. It was more in the nature of a family obligation. Still...
“Sure,” he heard himself saying. “Might as well.”
Well, hell—somebody had to welcome the little tyke into the world. Once he’d done his duty he would check into that hotel and get something to eat. He’d had enough of machine food to last him a while. Candy bars. Peanuts. Barbecued pork rinds. One of these days he was going to have to get started on a health food and exercise regimen. Maybe after he wound up this business for his grandmother, Miss Emma, and returned home.
