“Pulll-eeze,” the woman stated, holding herself further erect in her black widow’s costume. “I am Andréas Chernkoff’s girlfriend. Like I need some retired beat cop for protection. Andréas, he likes me for a reason. I’m not afraid of blood. And I can handle my own dirty work. Plus,” the actress added, “I do a Google search: How to kill a man. Find a most excellent website. Everything you need to know. So of course, I go out, buy a baseball bat, show Samuel I am already diva material.”
“How’d you get the drop on a cop?” D.D. couldn’t help but ask. The bands of her stomach muscles were tightening again. A slow, definitive ache. In the way true partners could, Alex was on to her discomfort. Slowly but surely, he was nudging her farther and farther behind him. Parenthood, D.D. was discovering, happened way before birth. She was keenly aware that both she and Alex were in jeopardy. And already, stubbornly, resiliently, she was plotting ways for her child to live. They were expendable. The baby, no.
“Vodka,” Natalie said. “He nodded off. I picked up the bat, went to work. It’s not so hard, almost like breaking a watermelon. Oh, I have an alibi,” the aspiring actress finished brightly. “I was at home, watching M*A*S*H. That silly Hawkeye.”
D.D. peered out at the woman from behind Alex’s shoulder. Natalie seemed genuinely pleased with herself. She had killed a cop, and she was proud of it. D.D. made a mental note never to work as a film consultant ever again. Then she held on to her stomach, as the bands tightened impossibly hard, and a shooting pain raced up her spine.
Oh, yeah. Definitely in trouble. Right now.
In front of her, Alex tensed, as if preparing for action. She wanted to grab his coat. She wanted to yell No, I can’t do this without you. But the iron bands of her stomach had squeezed the breath from her lungs and she couldn’t talk, couldn’t speak. She panted, like a cow calving, she thought in the back of her mind.
As Alex took a step forward.
As Joe said, “Hey, Natalie, I got an idea—”
And Donnie Bilger yelled, “Noooo!”
The film producer careened off the sofa. He shoved D.D. to the ground, where she dropped like a sack of bricks, still holding her stomach, still panting. Then he was charging Natalie, body ducked low, aiming for the legs, as Joe and Alex, recognizing the opportunity, went high.
The gun: Boom, boom, boom.
Then Natalie was screaming and falling backwards and Joe was cursing and Alex was saying nothing at all.
Please speak. Please curse, please scream, please exclaim, D.D. willed with all of her heart. But nothing from Alex as Natalie went down, and the gun got kicked across the floor of the trailer, and D.D. on her hands and knees, resiliently tracked it down between labor pains.
She got the gun. Clutched it between her hands. Turned to kill the woman who’d harmed her Alex, except Alex was there, standing up, holding a kicking and squirming Natalie between him and Joe, while Donnie Bilger sat up before her, eyes opened, but dazed, as he held a hand to the blood on his forehead.
“She shot me,” he said.
“I’d help,” D.D. ground out, “but I think . . . maybe . . . I could use an ambulance.”
Alex, still standing, but going pale. “D.D?”
“Hey, Joe,” D.D. gasped, “think you can handle booking?”
“Been known to have some competence,” he answered.
“Oh, good. Hey, Alex, think you can handle becoming a father?”
“It’s too early!” he blurted out.
“Yeah. Not disagreeing. Oh, would you look at that. Breaking water . . . is just like breaking water.”
Donnie Bilger chose that moment to pass out cold.
D.D., however, remained absolutely, positively awake. As Boston police, then FBI agents flooded the scene. Natalie was stuffed into the back of a patrol car right about the same time D.D. was stuffed into the back of an ambulance.
Alex went with her, holding her hand and reminding both of them to breathe.
Six hours later, they named the baby Jack.
The Boston FBI field office sent flowers to the hospital. So did Donnie Bilger.
So did Chernkoff. One of his last moves before he was arrested for money laundering, with Donnie Bilger becoming the key witness for the prosecution.
Alex read her the story in the newspaper the next day, as D.D. lay in the hospital bed, nursing Jack. Born six weeks early, their boy was impossibly small, more kitten than baby, she thought. He’d been whisked away to the NICU first thing, some issue with stabilizing his blood sugar levels. But this morning he was back, and she was holding him; the doctors said all was well, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt as happy.
“What about Natalie?” she demanded now, still gazing down at her fuzz-topped child.
“Arraigned for murder, currently being held without bail.”
“Great, a drama queen in jail. Hope they pay the COs double.”
“Maybe they’ll organize a play on life skills. Could be a valuable educational opportunity for all.”
“We should investigate the murder blog,” D.D. said. “Natalie said she found some script online that helped her plot out Chaibongsai’s killing. Call me crazy, but we should investigate that.”
“Internet postings fall under freedom of speech.”
“I’m not saying we arrest the blogger for the postings. I’m saying we search the blogger’s basement for dead bodies, then nail him for those crimes.”
Alex folded up the paper, tucked it under his arm. “You know you’re nursing our child.”
“Yeah.” She glanced down. Ten impossibly tiny fingers, ten impossibly tiny toes. She counted them at least every hour.
“And you’re discussing dead bodies in crawl spaces.”
She looked at Alex. The next word came out flat: “Yeah.”
He said, “I love you.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“But I’m in a maternity ward, holding our newborn, talking violent crime.”
“I didn’t realize I was having any trouble following the conversation.”
“Alex, I’m a cop. I can’t quit, I can’t give it up. I love you, and I really, really, really love him. But I’m a cop.”
“I know, D.D. And I’m partial to blood spatter.” Alex moved closer, taking a seat on the edge of the hospital bed, where he could touch her cheek, then brush the top of Jack’s downy head. “I love you, Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren. It would make me happy if both you and Jack moved into my house. And I’m only saying my house, because your condo is too small. Or we could buy, or rent, or build a place on the moon if you prefer. But I love you. And I really, really, really love him, and I want us to be together. A criminalist, a detective, and a baby boy who’s going to grow up in a very interesting family.”
“I don’t like being scared,” D.D. mumbled.
Alex smiled down at her and their now sleeping child. “Honey, we’re parents. Better get used to it.”
D.D. and Jack went home to Alex’s house. Her squadmates Phil and Neil helped pack up the few things she had in her condo, while a couple of neighbors helped paint the nursery. In a matter of days, it was done.
Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren, on maternity leave, sharing closet space.
Life is good, she decided, holding her baby close.
And for six whole weeks, it was.
Click here for more books from this author.
Read on for an exclusive early look at