Loving Baby
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Tyler Anne Snell
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Prologue
“Well, this isn’t good.”
Suzanne Simmons looked down at the body with a growing sense of dread. It wasn’t strong enough to scatter her thoughts or turn her stomach cold, but it did warrant a worried glance at Detective Matt Walker, standing next to her. His face was hard, his eyes sharp as they scanned the dead man at their feet. He crouched down.
“No, this isn’t good at all,” he agreed. “Not if that’s Gardner Todd.”
They lapsed into thoughtful silence as each did their own private inspection of the man without touching him. He was in his midthirties, white and dressed in work coveralls. His boots were new but dirty, with maybe a few weeks’ use. He had a tattoo peeking out at his wrist, a silver ring on his right index finger and three bullets in his belly.
But if it was Gardner Todd, then his death was the least of their worries.
“I guess that, for once, our department of front porch justice got it right,” Matt said after a moment. “Our caller did hear gunshots and not a car backfiring.”
The detective was referring to the older woman named June who had called in to the Riker County Sheriff’s Department, swearing up and down she’d heard a gunfight at the abandoned warehouse two blocks over from her house. Both buildings were on the outskirts of Carpenter, Alabama, and that put the issue square in the sheriff’s department’s jurisdiction.
Though Suzy wouldn’t normally be the one to answer the call, and neither would Matt, they’d been only a street over when it had come in. She might be the chief deputy now, but her sense of obligation to her county hadn’t changed with her promotion. Her soul was forever that of the young deputy she’d been the first day on the job. She took pride in every aspect of her work, even when it was something small.
“Thank goodness for cordless phones, sweet tea and an abundance of free time,” Suzy said. “If she hadn’t been snooping on the neighborhood from her porch, we might not have ever found him.” She did another cursory look around the old saw manufacturing warehouse. The power had been off for years. Shadows dodged rays of light that filtered in from the hole past the rafters, and the few windows not broken or boarded up were coated in dust, pollen and mildew. Like the rest of the large, open room they were in. Suzy’s sinuses pricked something awful. She’d have to take an allergy pill when they got back to her Tahoe. “I don’t think this place gets visitors on a regular basis.”
“That may be true, but I don’t think he was dumped here after he was killed,” Matt said, rising. He pointed to the trail of blood that had first grabbed her attention when they started searching the building. “For whatever reason, he was here, and so was his killer.”
Suzy eyed the two doors at the end of the main room. The offices, most likely. They’d already passed the break room and bathroom up front.
“Let’s finish going through the rest of this place before we dig any deeper into him,” she said, pulling her gun back up. “If that is Gardner, then if all hell hasn’t already broken loose, it will soon. We need to get out in front of this as fast as we can.”
Matt agreed, and together they cleared the last two rooms before coming up to the back door. The lot the warehouse was on stretched wide but was empty. No people, no cars, just dirt, sun and a woman named June two blocks over, probably already gabbing to the whole town about what she’d heard. Which meant that whoever had killed the man inside had already left and had probably taken his car, too.
“I don’t like this,” Matt said at her side. “There’s only two kinds of people who would kill Gardner.”
“The brave and the idiots,” she supplied.
He nodded.
“Either choice doesn’t bode well for us. If you can kill the infamous Alabama Boogeyman, taking out a cop or two trying to solve his murder is easy pickings.”
Suzy sighed. The beginnings of a headache started to throb, pressure wrapping around her right eye. It was going to be a long afternoon and night, she knew. Which meant that allergy pill needed to come sooner rather than later.
“I’m going to go pop some sinus meds and call Billy directly,” she said after a moment of deliberation. “Go ahead and take some pictures of the body with your phone. While everyone knows I’m a fan of our wonderful Crime Scene Unit, we all know they can have lead in their feet. I’d rather have something we can refer to while we wait on them to process everything.”
“You got it, boss.”
Matt went back into the warehouse while Suzy went around it. Her head might have been focused and calm, but her gut muttered a warning. One she didn’t listen to as she moved along the small strip of dead grass between the building and the side parking lot. Something felt off, but she wasn’t sure what that something was.
Until she saw him.
A man wearing a jacket, despite the heat, hurried around the corner of the warehouse.
Between breaths, Suzy barely had time to register two things. She didn’t recognize him.
And he had a gun.
Suzy reacted on instinct, pulling her service weapon up and yelling all at once.
“Drop it right now!”
The man was just as fast. His gun rose up in tandem, like they had planned the routine. It was the only reason Suzy didn’t shoot right away.
She wasn’t sure who had the upper hand.
“Whoa there, buddy,” she said, hurrying over. “Sheriff’s Department.”
The man—thirties, dark hair, and thin-framed glasses—hesitated. Again, just like her, he didn’t put down his gun. However, unlike her, he wasn’t able to justify why he had one aimed at her in the first place. She was law enforcement. Who was he?
“Put your gun down!” Suzy yelled, voice a mix between grit and calm. She didn’t want to agitate the man if she could help it. She’d prefer to talk him down if possible. The fact that she wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest was also a fact she was all too aware of. If she’d had the time, she would have cursed herself for leaving Matt before backup arrived.
But she didn’t have the time. All thoughts were focused on the detective only a building away from her.
The man pulled his trigger before Suzy’s brain could send the instruction to her finger to do the same.
The bang filled the afternoon air like it was a Fourth of July firecracker.
Suzy felt the weight of the world slam into her chest.
Then she was staring up at the sky.
Blue and white, and a little gray.
It was going to storm later. She hoped Justin didn’t miss the bus. His mimi wouldn’t be able to pick him up. Their car was still in the shop.
Another firecracker went off. Suzy tried to move to find the sound, but her body wasn’t listening.
“Officer down!”
A face swam into view. It didn’t belong to Matt. It didn’t belong to the man who’d shot her, either.
“You’re going to be fine,” he said. His voice was so smooth Suzy closed her eyes to savor it. “Hey, you stay with me, okay?”
But even though Suzy wanted to, she couldn’t follow the command.
Her last thoughts before diving into the unknown were about her son, the rain and the stranger with a voice like warm velvet.
