Maternal Instinct

Nell froze with the fork halfway to her mouth. As if the spark had found gas fumes, it exploded into a painful ball of terror that immobilized her.

He hadn’t used a condom, had he? He was drunk, too.

Why had it taken her this long to worry?

Nell tried to breathe slowly, in through her nose, out through her mouth. Her period was due any day. Certainly by next week. Wasn’t it? She didn’t keep track, but she knew it must be. It was surely too late in the month for her to get pregnant. And what were the odds after one time anyway?

She didn’t have to worry. All those years ago, she and her teenage boyfriend had had sex for several months, sometimes using birth control, sometimes not, before she got pregnant. They had challenged the fates, instead of just flirting briefly with them.

She could not possibly be so unlucky.

Nell made herself take the next bite, but the worry had taken root and would not be pulled out until she had proof of her escape from calamity.

CHAPTER THREE

IVY MCLEAN HAD aged shockingly in the past two days. When she arrived at Connor and Mariah’s house for dinner, the sight of her stooped carriage and the deepened lines in her face had all three brothers shooting to their feet. Hugh knocked over his chair and had to mutter an apology to his sister-in-law, Mariah. His big brothers beat him to their mom.

“Let me take your coat,” Connor said smoothly, the furrows in his brow betraying his perturbation. He cuddled his four-month-old daughter against his shoulder.

“What is it, Mom?” John asked more bluntly.

“What is what?” she retorted, tone cranky but rustier than usual. The voice of an old woman, which at barely sixty she wasn’t.

With a warning flash from her eyes at John, Mariah took over. “In their tactful way, they’re trying to say that you look as if you haven’t been sleeping well. Here, have a seat. Dinner will be on the table any minute,” Mariah said before heading back to the kitchen.

“How can I sleep, after such a terrible thing?” Ivy demanded querulously. “I expected John and Hugh to be too busy to come tonight, even if Connor can’t do anything useful.”

Her addendum didn’t need to be spoken aloud: And why aren’t you? The dig at Connor didn’t go unnoticed, either. Mariah touched his arm, but didn’t say anything.

“We’ve been working straight for two days.” The tiredness on John’s face was visible. “We have to eat, say hello to our families.” His gaze rested briefly on his wife, Natalie, who was feeding their one-year-old daughter a green glop Hugh presumed was pureed vegetables.

His mother sat heavily, as if she hurt. “Think of the women who won’t see their husbands again.”

John’s jaw clenched. He and Mom had always butted heads.

Figuring it might be well to intervene, Hugh bent and kissed her cheek. “We’re doing everything we can. Do you have any idea how many witnesses there are to interview? Besides, the son of a bitch is dead. All we can do is hope hell is a lot uglier than the pen.”

Her eyes beseeched him. “You’re sure he’s dead? The TV news is still hedging.”

“We’re sure.” Hugh’s voice was rock hard.

She sagged. “How can this happen again? Why would anybody do such a terrible thing?”

Connor, having put Jenny in the playpen, set a glass of wine in front of her. “We know better than anybody that there aren’t any answers.”

“Grandma!” Evan said from behind his uncle. “What’s wrong?”

“Is that all anybody can ask?” Her back stiffened. “I’m sure I haven’t changed at all.”

“You look sad,” the ten-year-old said. “Are you missing Grandpa more because of the shooting?”

Hugh laid his arm over his nephew’s shoulders, prepared to deflect the acid rejoinder he expected. Instead, her eyes filled with tears.

“Yes.” Her voice broke. She cleared her throat. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

“I’m sorry.” Evan left the shelter of his uncle’s casual embrace and went to his grandmother. He gave her a quick, awkward hug. “I wish I’d known him.”

She actually made the effort to smile, although her lips trembled. Unnoticed, tears overflowed. “I wish you had, too. You and all his grandchildren.”

Hugh’s gaze met Connor’s and then John’s. All three brothers backed unobtrusively away. As though sensing the need, Mariah appeared from the kitchen with a huge bowl of salad. She set it down, saw her mother-in-law, and exclaimed, “Mom! Let me get you a tissue.”

Within minutes, their mother had firmly blown her nose, mopped up the tears, and tried to insist on helping bring food to the table. Her two daughters-in-law squelched her, but did allow her to settle Jenny in her high chair.

Once everyone but Maddie, who was away at a soccer tournament, sat and began dishing up, Mom pinioned first John and then Hugh with a stern look more familiar to them than were her tears.

“Haven’t you learned anything?”

Evan and nine-year-old Zofie, Mariah’s daughter, listened with wide eyes.

“You know we can’t talk about it,” John said.

She sniffed. “Surely, with the press haunting your every move and talking to those same witnesses, nothing you discover will remain a secret for long.”

“True enough.” John grimaced. “Okay, here’s the bare facts. We know the shooter made a fraudulent claim. An insurance investigator found him out and the claim was denied. That’s the only motive we’ve determined.”

The pathetic part was, the claim had only been for a few thousand dollars. The fraud was petty, the claimant’s loss nothing that would ruin his life. He’d been incapacitated for a back injury, supposedly; the investigator had snapped photos of him playing an early morning round of golf at the county club. Why getting caught had enraged him to such a violent degree, nobody knew.

Yet.

“That’s all?” their mother asked in disbelief. “He was angry?”

John only nodded.

“And you’re certain he was by himself? He wasn’t used by a terrorist, or…” She groped for another villain, another explanation, and failed to come up with one.

“Most murder isn’t that sinister or purposeful,” Hugh said quietly. “It’s committed by troubled people who crack. Not by psychopaths or assassins or terrorists with causes. You know that, too, Mom. You’ve heard us talk over the years.”

“But…so many people,” she faltered.

“Another one died in the hospital an hour ago.” John’s jaw knotted. “A twenty-one-year-old filing clerk whose only sin was working in the claims department.”

Hugh had heard. The others reacted with pity and anger.

He withdrew from the conversation, brooding over his bad mood, a product of lack of sleep, frustration with how useless he felt on the job, and stunned disbelief at his own idiocy in screwing his new partner.

What irritated him was that he now had to watch every word, every glance, every nuance. He’d fouled up big time; he couldn’t compound his sins by being caught enjoying the sway of her hips in snug uniform trousers, by being crude or foul-mouthed, by criticizing her softheartedness.

And what a time to have to be on his best behavior! Hugh hadn’t lied to her: he had turned down promotions to detective several times. For the first time, he regretted it. If he were in Major Crimes, he’d have been doing something today, not laying out tape measures and making poor sketches.