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Enchanting Baby

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Год написания книги
2019
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“Yes. Good job, Katherine.” Now Lydia patted the midwife’s shoulder.

“And you did the right thing, Lydia.” Katherine smiled at her boss. “If that is the stalker, thank God Miguel has hauled him off.”

“Yes.” Lydia looked out the window as the cruiser pulled away. “Miguel Eiden isn’t about to let that guy hurt anybody.”

THE POLICE STATION WAS BACK on the main drag, Paseo de Sierra. The sun had disappeared behind the mountains so that Greg couldn’t see much through the grimy rear windows as they pulled into the gravel parking lot. But it looked like the police department was connected by a short breezeway to the civic complex that housed the library and the chamber of commerce. The building was a timber-and-adobe structure that looked as if it had been restored and added onto a couple of times.

The cop took him inside and led him down a narrow hallway to a tiny office, brightly lit and sparsely furnished. He unlocked the cuffs and said, “Take out your driver’s license and have a seat.”

Greg pulled his license out of his billfold, then sat down in a folding chair at a bare utilitarian table. A yellow legal pad and pen were already in place there.

The cop removed his cowboy hat and pitched it onto the table. Before he sat down he snatched up a beige wall phone.

“Ernesto? Miguel here. I’ve got the guy in the interrogation room. Go ahead and start the tape.”

“Tape?” Greg said, “You’re taping me? Isn’t that illegal?”

The cop pulled a wry smile. “Get real.” He checked Greg’s driver’s license, then sat in the chair facing him.

“This is unbelievable.” Greg leaned forward in his chair while the cop scribbled some notes. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

A pretty young woman stuck her head in the door. “Officer Eiden—” her voice was saccharine sweet “—you want this?” She waved a sheaf of papers at Miguel. Without looking up from what he was writing, the cop held out a hand and she took her time sauntering the few steps across the room to deliver the papers.

“Thanks, Crystal.” Giving his full attention to the papers, the cop dismissed her.

But she lingered at Miguel’s shoulder, giving Greg an avid once-over. “You think this is the guy?”

The cop cut her a sharp glance. “Crystal. You can go now.”

She swished out, and the cop perused the pages, occasionally stopping to copy something he’d read onto the legal pad. He looked like he was about Greg’s age—early thirties, maybe. In this part of the country there were a lot of people of Navajo descent, and this man’s bronze skin and straight dark hair hinted at this heritage. When he finished reading he made a two-fingered signal at a picture-window-size mirror set into one wall, then he favored Greg with a cool, assessing squint. “I suppose you think just because this is a small town, we don’t tape perps?”

“So I’m a perp?”

“You tell me.” The cop looked at his watch and jotted something else on the yellow pad.

“What is it that you want me to tell you?”

Still writing, Miguel said, “Just answer a few simple questions…and don’t forget to smile for our camera.”

Greg refrained from waggling a sarcastic wave at “Ernesto,” who was evidently already videotaping from beyond the dark glass.

“What’s your full name?”

Through the Plexiglas in the cruiser Greg had seen Officer Eiden writing down the tag number on his Navigator, and he assumed what the cop had in his hands was an NCIC report—and maybe some additional information from the Denver police. But Greg knew this tactic. The cop would make notes of Greg’s answers to see if they jibed with the official report. “Gregory McCrae Glazier.”

“Age.”

“Thirty-four.”

“Occupation.”

“Land developer.”

The cop calmly jotted down this answer without comment. A lot of people didn’t know what a “land developer” did—buying and opening up new plots of land for housing and business. Greg was anxious to skip ahead. While this cop was playing twenty questions, Ashleigh Logan could be crossing another state line.

“And—” Greg leaned forward, hoping this would help move the process along “—at one time I was a deputy sheriff.”

This, the cop did not calmly jot down. He fixed his gaze on Greg. “Was? Are you retired? Ex-cop? What?”

Greg was well aware that within the brotherhood of the badge, the difference between an ex-cop and a retired cop was vast. An ex-cop was suspect. Had he been drummed out of the force? Had he screwed something up bad? Couldn’t he handle it?

“I’m an auxiliary deputy, but for all practical purposes I’m inactive.”

The cop frowned. “From what agency?”

“The sheriff’s department out in Last Chance, Colorado. My dad was the sheriff until he got killed in the line of duty. My grandfather was the sheriff before him. I guess you could say I inherited the job.”

“Why’d you quit?”

“Technically, I didn’t quit. I had to spend all of my time in Denver for a couple of years.” When Kendra’s kidneys had failed entirely, he’d moved her near the dialysis center. “I found a good replacement, a foreman on my ranch. Ever since, I’ve been inactive.”

He might as well have quit. Greg was through with law enforcement. He had stopped trying to fill his father’s shoes as soon as he found out how sick Kendra was. Playing deputy and keeping the ranch going in the years after his father died had siphoned off precious time that he should have spent with Kendra. Time he could never regain. But to keep from having to explain all of that to this cop, he gave the simple answer. “I still carry a commission card.”

And my gun, he added mentally. He wasn’t sure that fact would win points with this guy, either. “But I don’t do much duty.”

Eiden was a bit of a bulldog. “Why not?”

“It’s pretty quiet where I’m from. The sheriff only calls us if he needs backup on something. Not much call for crowd control out in Last Chance.”

“Okay. I get it.” Eiden scribbled another note. “So, how long have you been a deputy?”

“Since I was nineteen. I was sworn in right after my father was killed.”

“In the line of duty, you say?”

“Yeah. It was a long time ago.” Greg was growing impatient. It was, indeed, a long time ago. And they were all gone. His dad. Kendra. Gramps. All that mattered now was the baby.

Eiden was studying him with the instinctual squint of a cop who suspected he wasn’t getting the whole story, but Greg was in no mood to share. The fact that he’d made a lot of sacrifices—including his ability to father a child—in his desperate but futile battle to save Kendra’s life was nobody’s business.

“Why am I here?” Greg was anxious to focus the conversation back into the now.

The cop put his pen down. “Ms. Kane told me you came to the clinic looking for a woman, someone you believe is one of her clients.”

Greg frowned, thinking, So? What a weird little burg this was. “Do you haul everyone who walks into that clinic looking for someone over to police headquarters for interrogation?” It was all so bizarre that Greg couldn’t help adding, “Is that some kind of crime in Enchantment, New Mexico?”

“Would you mind giving me the woman’s name?”

“Ashleigh Logan. The one with the TV show.”
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