“She wouldn’t leave her baby, right? And she wouldn’t leave all her stuff, either,” I said more firmly.
“But her car is gone, not the one Craig came in.”
“That was Craig’s car?” Martin didn’t bother answering: Of course, Craig had gotten here somehow; he hadn’t dropped from the sky.
Not that the scenario was unknown to me; a body had dropped from the sky into my garden the year before. But it seemed unlikely it would happen twice, even to me.
So, I reasoned, Craig had come after Regina. He’d been in his own car. Maybe Regina had left him and Craig wanted her to come back. They quarreled and Regina took the hatchet that… How did the hatchet enter the picture? Where had it been before it landed in the middle of Craig’s forehead?
Okay, ignore that mental image. Say Craig had been threatening Regina with a hatchet he’d gotten out of his own car- “Come back to me or I’ll kill you”-and she got it away from him and killed him with it.
While he stood passively below her on the stairs?
And then she wrote a note to her uncle and fled, leaving her baby to the care of whoever walked in the apartment door?
Okay.
Craig had brought a friend with him, who had taken a letch to Regina. This friend got a hatchet and killed Craig and abducted Regina, but didn’t want to be burdened with Hayden. Or the friend didn’t even know there was a baby, so to save the child Regina had snatched a moment to stash Hayden under the bed.
I thought that scenario covered everything. I relayed my theory to Martin.
“That would exonerate Regina,” he said, sounding as if that was a very remote possibility. He seemed a smidge more hopeful, though. “I’m sure she left because someone forced her to. I can’t believe she’d leave the baby unless she was under duress.” Martin kissed my forehead to say thank you, but the arm beneath my neck felt like a log, it was so hard with tension.
I decided to relieve his stress in the happiest way. I nuzzled his nipple. He drew in his breath sharply and his unoccupied hand found something pleasant to do.
“Eh!” said a little voice behind me.
I shrieked.
“It’s the baby,” Martin said, after a fraught moment. “In the crib. By the bed.”
“Eh!” said Hayden. I rolled over, to see two tiny hands waving in the air.
“Oh, no no no,” I moaned, all thoughts of sex flying out of my head like rats leaving a sinking ship. “I don’t know what to do. You had a baby, you have to help.”
“Cindy took care of Barrett when he was a baby.”
Why was I not surprised?
“I was always… too scared to do things for him. He was so little. He was three weeks premature. And by the time he was large enough, when I was sure I couldn’t hurt him by accident, Cindy and I had gotten into the habit of her taking care of him, bathing and feeding and diapering.”
Absurdly, it was not Martin’s ignorance of baby care that made tears spring to my eyes as I dragged myself from the bed. It was the thought of Martin and Cindy’s shared experiences: the birth of Barrett, the concern about his health and fears for his survival after the premature birth, his slow growth and improvement with Martin and Cindy watching as parents. All this he’d had with her, and would never have with me.
I hadn’t ever been jealous of Cindy before, and I’d certainly picked a bad time to start.
Already feeling tired, I hoisted Hayden from his portable crib-surely he’d gained weight during the night?-and laid him on the bed beside Martin while I found my bathrobe. When I turned back, Martin was propped up on one elbow, looking down at the baby, his finger extended for Hayden to grasp. The baby was regarding Martin solemnly. I stood for a long moment looking, feeling my heart break along several different fault lines.
I turned away to pull my mass of wavy hair back into a ponytail and secure it. Hayden had showed a tendency to grab and pull the night before, and I hadn’t enjoyed the experience. I tied the sash of the black velour robe and cautiously bent down to lift the infant from the bed.
“How old do you reckon he is?” I asked, startled to think I didn’t even know this child’s age.
“I have no idea.” Martin stared at the baby, running some comparisons in his head. “He seems a little smaller than Bubba and Lizanne’s kid.”
He did to me, too. “Maybe-a month?” I hazarded.
He shrugged his bare shoulders.
“People will ask,” I said, and to my own ears I already sounded tired. “People always do.”
“Oh, God.” Martin rolled onto his back, pressing his hands against his face as if to guard it from the world.
“You’d better call Cindy,” I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “Regina halfway implied they were close. Maybe she can tell us some more about this baby. Maybe she knows how to contact Barby.”
I went down the stairs carefully, holding up the nightgown and bathrobe with one hand while pressing Hayden to me with my free arm. I was relieved when I reached the bottom safely, and felt foolishly optimistic at this good omen.
There was a discreet tap at the kitchen door. Now, this knock was unmistakable. My mother.
I canceled the security and opened the door.
My mother, Aida Brattle Teagarden Queensland, is fifty-seven and stunning. She is Lauren Bacall on a good day. She is sharp, smart, and by her own efforts she’s amassed a small fortune. I love her. She loves me. We live on different planets.
“Have they found the girl?” Mother stepped inside.
“The girl” would be Regina. “No. Not that we know of. I just got up,” I explained unnecessarily.
“Martin still in bed?” She glanced up at the clock. It was already nine-thirty.
“We had a late night,” I reminded her. I’d called Mother as soon as I could after the police arrived so she wouldn’t hear our news from someone else.
Mother held out her arms and made a peremptory gesture. I gave her the baby. Mother had three step- grandchildren now, and to my amazement she was very fond of them.
Mother looked down at the boy, who looked back, for a wonder in silence.
“Maybe two, three weeks old,” she said briefly, and put him in his infant seat, still in the middle of the table. “Got formula?”
“Regina mixed some up before she…” I trailed off into confusion. Before she murdered her husband and ran? Before she was abducted by aliens?
“You need a nurse for that baby,” my mother observed. Her voice was absolutely matter-of-fact; she judged me totally incompetent at child care, which wounded me somehow. But then, why should she have any faith in my ability to take care of a baby? I never had before.
It was funny what hurt, and what bounced off. This really hurt.
“You’d better call your friends and see if you can find a temporary baby-sitter,” Mother suggested.
I stared at her. She wasn’t offering to do it for me, or rather to have her office manager do it? It dawned on me that all was not well with Mother. I’d been so absorbed in my own problems that I hadn’t even looked at her with much attention.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. I hated the quaver in my voice.
“John had a mild-well, maybe a heart attack-last night, about two hours after you called,” she said.
“Oh, no,” I said, my eyes filling with tears immediately. I was fond of John Queensland, having been his friend before he dated and married my mother. I took a deep breath. Mother wasn’t crying, so I couldn’t cry. “How is he doing?”
“I’ve moved him to Atlanta. They’re doing tests right now,” she said, and I could read the exhaustion in her face, and the fear.
“I’m so sorry,” I said quietly. “What can I do to help you?”
“You have your hands full,” she said, looking out the kitchen window. It was another windy, overcast day; a leaf from the gum tree whirled past. “It’s just a lot of hospital sitting, and you can’t help me sit.”
I thought of Martin, the baby, the missing woman, the dead man.
My mother finally needed me and I couldn’t help.
“Are Avery and John David there?” I asked. These were John’s two sons, both in their thirties and married.
