Tommy's Mom

Shaking his head, he went to the file cabinet. Extracting a folder labeled Poston, he thumbed through it.

The physical evidence was minimal and inconclusive. The murder weapon was something sharp, like a knife, but hadn’t been found at the scene. Sheldon Sperling had said a decorative letter opener, part of his artsy stock, seemed to be missing. His shop had been dusted for fingerprints, scoured for hairs and other clues, but it was open to the public. Even if everything could be identified, it still might not point to the perpetrator.

Sperling. He’d been hit on the head and didn’t remember much. But he was a person Gabe wanted to question himself, a lot more than he’d been able to at Holly’s after Poston’s funeral.

And if he just happened, in Sperling’s shop, to see some of the needlework created by Holly Poston…

He was becoming obsessed with the woman, damn it, and he’d only just met her.

No. He was obsessed with the case. She was an integral part of it. Thomas Poston’s murder was his first big challenge as the head of the N.B.P.D.—his first big official challenge. He would solve it, and quickly. And, hopefully, the unofficial assignment, too.

But as soon as the Poston case was solved, he would let the others on his force play guardian angel to the Postons.

GABE DIDN’T MAKE it to Sheldon’s shop as anticipated. While driving his department-issued brown sedan along Naranja Avenue toward Pacific Way, he saw a familiar vehicle. Holly Poston’s bright red minivan was parked at a meter along the street.

Where was she? He pulled over at a yellow line—one of the perks of his job—and looked around. City Hall, where the N.B.P.D. offices were located, was a mile behind him. In this area, Naranja Avenue contained rows of low-rise stucco office buildings and a few retail shops—much less trendy than those along Pacific Way. Two blocks down was Naranja Community Hospital.

Gabe wasn’t able to guess where, around here, Holly had gone. But then he spotted her, hand in hand with Tommy, emerging from the nearest building. It contained mostly medical offices.

His insides compressed as if in a vise. Was one of them ill?

He exited his car and approached them.

Holly looked tired. Her lovely dark eyes drooped, and the dark circles beneath them had grown larger.

But somehow the sight of her spurred not only his sympathy but sexual stirrings, too. Again. The heat he felt looking at her wasn’t only from the strong California sun that beat down on the avenue on this midsummer afternoon. Not at all.

Holly was dressed in jeans and a form-fitting short-sleeved T-shirt that showed off every soft curve. Curves that just begged to be touched….

Idiot, he berated himself. Or was it pervert?

Holly watched her cute little son, who was clinging to her hand but lagging behind. He was in bright red shorts, a navy T-shirt and sandals.

“Holly?”

She looked up quickly, a startled expression on her face.

“Sorry,” Gabe said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I was just driving by and saw your van.” He glanced behind her toward the medical building. “Is everything okay?”

“Sure,” she said, her tone a shade too bright. “We just came to see the doctor.” She knelt down beside her son and gave him a hug. But Tommy looked listless and didn’t hug back.

Gabe’s heart went out to him. To both of them.

“Tommy woke up a couple of hours after you left,” Holly continued, “and didn’t get back to sleep. He had a bad dream.”

Stooping down to their level, Gabe read between the lines. Tommy had awakened, crying, after a nightmare and had kept Holly up all night. She was frightened for him. What caring mother wouldn’t be? She had taken him to a doctor. A pediatrician or a psychologist? Poor little Tommy might need both.

“Did Tommy have a tummy ache?” Gabe asked gently, though he suspected what the answer would be.

“No.” The frantic expression in Holly’s eyes suggested that she had reached her wits’ end and didn’t know how to help her scared son. “We saw Tommy’s new doctor again, a special one who likes to talk to children and likes them to talk to her, too.”

“I hope it was a good visit,” Gabe said. But he could tell from Holly’s demeanor that it hadn’t been, that Tommy hadn’t opened up even to a specialist.

“It was a fine visit,” she said nonetheless, her voice falsely cheerful. “It was so good that we’re going back to see the doctor again next week. And maybe then Tommy will take his turn and talk, too.”

“Great. How about if I come over tonight and read Tommy another bedtime story. Would that be all right with you, sport?” Gabe held his breath. Tommy obviously had something he was keeping inside. Gabe wasn’t an expert like the doctor they’d seen. He wasn’t likely to be any more successful at extracting whatever it was from the child. But someone had to, for Tommy’s sake, as well as for the investigation. And Gabe was going to try. He’d gotten one word from the boy, at least. Maybe he could get more.

He allowed himself to breathe again when, very slowly and solemnly, the sweet-faced child nodded.

Gabe stood. “Great. You guys like pizza?”

Holly rose, too. “You don’t have to do that,” she whispered very softly, so only Gabe could hear.

“I know I don’t have to,” Gabe replied. “I want to.” The damned unsettling thing about it was that he did. He wanted to return to that pretty beach community house with its attractive furnishings. He wanted to spend more time with this very sexy woman whose only interest in him, if any, would disappear as time passed and memories of her husband faded.

Any man she became attracted to now, when her emotions were turned upside down by her loss, would be thrown out like yesterday’s pizza crusts when she began to heal.

And that wasn’t for Gabe. Not again.

But he intended to unravel the threads that had led to her husband’s death. As quickly as possible.

Almost subconsciously, his conditioning as a longtime cop kicking in, he heard the sound of someone driving too fast down this busy street. He looked up. At the same time, he heard one bleat from a siren. Good. A patrol officer was on it.

A small, white car pulled over to the side of the street into an empty space right beside where Gabe, Holly and Tommy stood, a patrol car with rotating lights hugging its rear. It was the unit assigned to Bruce Franklin and Dolph Hilo.

Gabe, and all the people on the sidewalk, watched as the two officers did all the right things: taking their time getting out of their vehicle—undoubtedly checking the plates with their onboard computer, then approaching the stopped car.

Dolph Hilo was the officer who got out on the passenger side, nearest where Gabe stood with Holly and Tommy. He smiled and saluted.

And just as at his father’s funeral, Tommy Poston began to scream.

Chapter Four

Terrified, wanting to cry herself, Holly dropped to her knees on the hard pavement and hugged her wailing son. “Tommy, honey, it’s all right,” she soothed. But her voice broke, and she knew she was lying. It wasn’t all right.

Why did Tommy scream this way? Of course it had something to do with Thomas’s death, but why this reaction? Had Tommy seen how his daddy was killed? Then why was he still alive?

Thank God he was still alive….

Holly looked up. Gabe—kind, thoughtful Gabe who had been there for her at Thomas’s funeral and last evening, too—knelt beside them. Bruce Franklin and Dolph Hilo had joined them. They had been friends of Thomas’s, fellow patrol officers, and…

And they were in uniform! Gabe was dressed in a well-tailored suit, befitting an administrator, but the other cops were in patrol uniforms—complete with navy blue military-style shirts with epaulets, badges and emblems, Sam Browne belts, matching dark trousers. Could that be it? There had been many officers in uniform at Thomas’s funeral, when Tommy had begun to shriek. Some were dressed more formally, but some looked just like this: the uniform Thomas had usually worn.

“Tommy, honey, are you upset because you see the uniforms like your daddy wore?”

He stopped screaming in her ear, took a breath. When she looked him in his red, blotchy, wet face, he stared at her. He didn’t nod, but didn’t shake his head no, either.

She looked desperately at Gabe, whose expression was both compassionate and angry, as if he would choke with his bare hands the demons tormenting her son. “Could that be it, do you think?” she asked. “Is this because he misses his father so much that every time he sees someone in uniform he gets upset?”