The Stranger's Sin

“What were you thinking bringing a baby with you?” she demanded.

He was thinking he needed to talk his retired father into carrying a cell phone. Then he could have reminded him of his promise to babysit.

“My dad and I got our signals crossed.” Chase should have mentioned the talk when he got home from work, but figured whatever errand his father needed to run wouldn’t take long. He’d figured wrong.

“Your dad?” Her voice had a hard, suspicious edge. “Isn’t he a widower?”

How had she known that? Tourism had arrived in Indigo Springs years before Chase’s parents bought the vacation home where Chase now lived with his father. While Indigo Springs still had a small-town feel, it wasn’t so insular that residents automatically knew everyone else’s business.

“Yes, he is.” Chase bent to lower Toby into the carrier and started buckling him in, making sure the straps went over the baby’s shoulders and between his legs. “My mother died nine months ago.”

“I was sorry to hear about that,” she mumbled, then added in a clearer voice, “So if your father’s watching Toby for you, that must mean Mandy’s still out of town.”

Chase looked up at her sharply at the mention of Toby’s mother. “How do you know Mandy?”

“She was a regular at the library. She mentioned once she was living with a wildlife conservation officer. That’s how I got the idea to ask you to speak.”

Chase turned back to Toby and finished buckling the gurgling baby into the carrier. He squashed an impulse to demand Louise immediately tell him what she knew about Mandy. Picking up the carrier by its sturdy plastic handle, he forced himself to sound casual.

“Were you and Mandy friends?”

“Oh, no,” the librarian said. “She just came in here to read her magazines— People, Vogue, Cosmo. Never touched Parents magazine or American Baby, though she had this little one and told one of the other librarians she was pregnant. She had a miscarriage, didn’t she?”

Chase kept his expression stoic, determined that Louise not guess she’d hit on a sore spot. “Yeah, she did.”

“Wasn’t that about three weeks ago?” Louise didn’t wait for confirmation, suggesting she’d been downwind from some serious gossip. “I heard she left town right after. Where did she go anyway?”

That was the million-dollar question.

“Nowhere in particular,” he said carefully. “She just needed to get away.”

“From her baby?” Louise arched a skeptical eyebrow. “When will she be back?”

Chase nearly told her to mind her own business, but she clearly liked to gossip. Since she was bound to give her co-workers a cry-by-cry account of tonight’s bring-a-baby-to-work fiasco, it would be best not to alienate her.

“Soon,” he said.

“I certainly hope so,” she said. “A baby needs his mother.”

In Toby’s case, Chase disagreed.

Toby uttered some gibberish, awarding Chase with one of his priceless grins.

“Thanks again for having me,” he told Louise, “but I need to get this happy little guy home so I can get him to bed on time.”

He felt like a politician on the campaign trail, putting the best possible spin on a situation after getting called for a misstep. Damage control, the politicians called it.

He headed for his Jeep before she could ask another question. He’d been facing more and more of them lately, most dealing with whether he and his father were equipped to handle a baby.

It was only a matter of time before somebody guessed that Chase didn’t have a clue where Mandy had gone.

Or whether she was ever coming back.

T HE GLOW OF THE microwave brightened the dark side of the kitchen; Chase hadn’t bothered to turn on a light. He waited for the shrill beep, then opened the microwave door, noting the time on the digital display.

Eleven fifty-six, a good three hours since he’d put Toby down for the night and at least an hour since Chase had turned out his own bedside light.

He’d switched it back on again a few minutes ago.

He removed the mug from the microwave, his eyes drifting to the whiteboard affixed to the side of the refrigerator. It was too dark to read the lines his father had scribbled in black marker but he knew them by heart.

Don’t worry. Home late.

The mystery of where his early-to-bed father had gone paled only in comparison to Mandy’s disappearing act.

Chase heard the mechanical sound of the garage door raising, signaling that he’d soon find out the answer to at least one of the puzzles.

“Hi, Dad,” he said when his father walked into the kitchen a few moments later.

His father’s body jerked, then relaxed. A tall man with a full head of gray hair, he’d nearly shattered when his wife died but lately Chase had seen signs that he was coming back to life. Not only had he gone out tonight, but he’d taken care with his appearance, wearing a new-looking short-sleeved polo shirt with his favorite khakis.

“I didn’t see you there.” Charlie Bradford carried his shoes in one hand, as though afraid the click of his heels on the hardwood would wake up the household. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

Chase held up his mug. “I’m trying Mom’s remedy.”

“Ah, warm milk,” his father said.

Chase brought the mug to his lips, blew on the liquid and took a sip. The thick, chalky taste filled his mouth, and he made a face. “Ugh. As terrible as ever.”

His father chuckled softly. “I never could stand the stuff. Always thought it was better to talk about what’s keeping you up.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Asked the man drinking warm milk in the middle of summer,” his father quipped.

Chase set the mug down on the kitchen counter. “It’s Toby.”

“Is he all right?” his father asked sharply.

“He’s fine,” Chase assured him, “but I’ve been thinking about that message Mandy left on my cell phone.”

Chase had received the voice mail a few days after he discovered her “miscarriage” was a convenient way to explain away a pregnancy that had never been, not that he’d shared that embarrassing tidbit with his father or anyone else.

He’d met Mandy Smith at the tail end of a year he’d been in Harrisburg attending training school to become a Pennsylvania Game Commission employee. After his March graduation, he’d been assigned a territory that included Indigo Springs. Weeks later, she’d phoned to tell him their single night together had resulted in pregnancy.

What else could he do but invite her to live with him? Had the pregnancy progressed, he would have asked her to marry him. It would have been the right thing to do. Instead he’d been played for a fool.

In the voice mail Mandy had rambled on about leaving Toby, but explained that she wasn’t cut out to be a mother.