“Can I interest you in some breakfast, Nurse Bergstrom?”

For an instant passion leaped across the barrier Hailey had created. She wanted to throw herself into Roy’s arms, because only there would she find peace. But a little round face swam between them, and the pain cut into her heart. The peace would be shortlived—only the length of time it took for the passion to ebb and resentment to take its place.

“I can’t.” She looked at him, shook her head and told him the bald truth. “You hurt me, and I’m scared you’ll do it again.”

“You’d end what there is between us just because you’re scared?” There was temper and challenge in his tone. “I thought you were braver than that.”

“Well, you thought wrong.” She dragged her keys out of her bag and walked around him to open the truck door. “Don’t call me, please. Don’t wait for me again. It’s over.”

“Don’t do this, Hailey.”

She was too tired to argue with him. She started the truck and backed out of the stall. As she drove away she wasn’t even crying. Her eyes were dry and burning with an echo of the pain in her heart.

Dear Reader,

Somewhere it says that the way to make God laugh is to tell Him your plans. For me and my original vision of this book, the truth of that saying grew more and more evident as the writing progressed.

The idea for Vital Signs was born when my son, Dan Jackart, a Vancouver fireman, told me about a disturbing call that involved an abandoned baby. He explained how deeply the firemen and medical personnel are affected when a baby is endangered, and how everyone wonders how such a tragedy could occur. What kind of mother could do such a terrible thing? In the beginning of this story, I admit that I felt the same way. But as I wrote, I began to see that in the heart of calamity is buried the seed of opportunity, the potential for greater growth and higher love. The story took me by the scruff of the neck and led me along paths that surprised and pleased me and, yes, forced me to change ideas of right and wrong. It became clear that I might as well give up on my agenda and let love follow its own circuitous and surprising path.

This was a book with a mind of its own. I hope it pleases you and touches your heart as it has mine.

Love always,

Bobby

Vital Signs
Bobby Hutchinson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Heartfelt thanks to social workers Stew Brown and Donna Miller for invaluable assistance and advice on the complex issue of abandonment and parenting.

Vital Signs is dedicated with love and gratitude to my dear and treasured friend Beverly Piebenga, who got me through this one with professional nursing advice, encouragement and, most of all, stir-fries and chocolate. From both my soul and my stomach, thank you, Bev.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

DAVID RIGGS was two years old when his mother abandoned him one hot Tuesday in July.

Shannon didn’t mean to do it. The welfare check had finally come, and she put Davie into the rickety stroller and walked to the corner grocery. The wizened Oriental man smiled at her when she paid her bill.

“No good this heat. S’posed to rain tomorrow. Good thing—too hot for Vancouver, right, missy?”

She agreed with him and bought diapers and soup and some bananas. Davie loved bananas. He chortled when she peeled one and gave it to him. Then they took the bag of dirty clothes to the laundromat, and Shannon took him out of the stroller. Davie discovered a blue plastic laundry basket someone had left behind. He climbed in and pretended it was a boat.

When they got home, Shannon fed him his lunch and he fell asleep on their bed in the bedroom, wearing only a diaper and clutching his favorite stuffed toy.

Shannon was folding clothes on the kitchen table when she heard the knock on her door. Her heart started to hammer when she opened it and saw Rudy, because she knew he was bringing news about Murphy. He had no other reason to be there.

“Somebody out in the car wants to see you.” Rudy’s acne-ravaged face twisted into a grin. She knew right away it was Murphy in the car, and her heart nearly jumped out of her chest.

She didn’t lock the door, because she’d only be gone a few minutes.

She had to tell Murphy about Davie—had to make him understand why she hadn’t had the abortion like she’d agreed before he got sent to jail.

Rudy opened the back door of the car, and she saw Murphy for the first time in almost three years. Her heart hammered and her knees started trembling at the familiar sight of his silky dark curls, his cobalt-blue eyes. Davie looked so much like him, right down to the cleft in his chin.

“Hey, babe, long time no see.” Murphy took her hands and pulled her into the car, and she collapsed against his chest, tears pouring down her cheeks. She forgot the times he’d hit her, the times he’d hurt her, the lies he’d told. All she remembered was that he was the first and only man she’d ever loved, and she’d been so lonely so long. When he kissed her, hard and deep, she was instantly wet with wanting him.

And then Rudy started the engine and roared off, and she panicked because her baby was back there alone in the apartment. She screamed at them to let her out, her kid was alone.

“Chill out,” Rudy growled, cracking his gum. “We’re only going around the block. I have to make a pickup and I’m late.”

Shannon knew he was talking about drugs. Rudy was a dealer. She’d worked for him—that was how she’d met Murphy.

Then Murphy got that scary look on his face and wanted to know what kid she was talking about. So she had to tell him she’d done exactly what he’d said not to do. She’d gone ahead and had the baby, not used the money he’d given her for an abortion.

Murphy got mad, and instead of going around the block, Rudy headed for Stanley Park. She could have jumped out when they stopped at the lights, but she didn’t. She went blubbering on about Davie, how sweet he was, how much he looked like Murphy, how proud Murphy would be when he saw him.

But Murphy was pissed off because she hadn’t done what he’d told her.

Rudy got the stuff, and she refused when they offered her some.

“Guess you don’t love me anymore,” Murphy said, and she denied it. He said prove it, and then she let him shoot her up the way he always had before, and after that, nothing was important except the feeling, the feeling she’d fought against and yearned for and dreamed of and managed to avoid since the day she’d found out she was pregnant.

Things were blurry after that. She told herself that Davie would be okay. He always slept a couple of hours, and Tonya was coming today. The door was unlocked. Tonya would be mad at her. Shannon had promised her never again, but she also knew Tonya would take care of Davie.

And for Shannon, time ceased to be.

For Davie, time stretched nearly into eternity, although when he grew older, he had no memory of sliding off the bed, calling for his mother, sobbing until his throat was raw from tears and terrible thirst. He never remembered the endless days or the long nights. He had no recollection of slipping finally into something more than sleep.

For Shannon, it seemed only a few minutes before Rudy pulled up in front of the apartment and she saw the ambulance and the police cars and the firemen, but it must have been longer, maybe lots longer. She couldn’t remember. She screamed and tried to get out, but Murphy held her.

“The kid’s okay. They’re taking care of him. Here, this’ll make you feel better.”

And after that she didn’t try to remember.

CHAPTER ONE

THE EMERGENCY ROOM at St. Joseph’s Medical Centre in Vancouver hummed in the midday heat. The sound came from huge air-conditioning units, white noise that the ER staff no longer heard. They heard, instead, the scream of sirens arriving at one of the emergency bays, and the intercom announcement that signaled incoming trauma.

“Trauma alert, emergency department. Paramedics arriving with abandoned baby—male, estimate two years old. Dehydrated, not conscious. ETA four minutes.”

“We’re set up in room three.” Triage nurse Leslie Yates did her best to keep her voice calm and steady, but the one thing that most disturbed her and the rest of the ER staff was a mistreated child.

One of the doctors cursed under his breath, and Leslie knew her own face mirrored the expressions of the rest of the ER staff when the medics arrived with their tiny patient. She found a moment to talk to one of them and he described where and how the child had been found.

“Apartment hotel downtown, a real dump. Must have been ninety degrees in there. The kid was too little to get to a tap. If he hadn’t turned on the TV, the neighbor would never have gone to investigate. She got pissed off when the sound went on all night and all morning.”

Leslie notified Social Services just to be sure they knew. It turned out the paramedics had already called, and probably the firemen and police, as well, but it didn’t hurt to make sure.

During the next half hour, she dealt with several more incoming crises, but every moment she was aware of the drama going on in trauma room three.

“How’s it looking with the boy?” Leslie asked one of the nurses when she hurried out with blood samples. The young woman shook her head, her expression grim. “Poor little thing’s dehydrated. His vitals are way off the scale.”

Ten minutes later Leslie saw a flurry of frantic activity in and around room three and her stomach tensed. The boy must have arrested. Tension was palpable in the ER as the staff fought to save his life. Leslie did what most of them were doing. She prayed.

By the time her shift ended at three o’clock, the boy had stabilized, much to everyone’s relief. He was sent up to pediatric intensive care, and a collective sigh of gratitude could almost be heard throughout the ER. The firemen and the medics who’d attended had called several times to find out how he was doing, and before she went off shift, Leslie made a point of phoning them all to tell them the child was stable.

They all knew the situation might only be temporary, that he could easily go bad again during the night. But at least for now, he was holding his own.

With one last fervent and heartfelt prayer for the little boy’s continued well-being, Leslie went home.

ROY ZEDYCK had gotten home late. There’d been an emergency—one of the foster kids he’d recently placed had pulled a fire alarm at his school. Roy had spent the past two hours meeting with the principal, the kid’s foster mother and the nine-year-old boy, trying to calm them all down. The boy’s explanation for why he’d done such a thing was that life was boring.

This from a kid who’d stolen a car the month before and run it through a neighbor’s garden, added bubble bath to a washing machine and dog-napped a mutt outside a grocery store. Roy could only pray that these new foster parents would persevere, that they’d see past the kid’s penchant for mischief to the brilliant potential Roy detected. The kid had an IQ right off the scale, but he’d managed to wear out three sets of foster parents in less than a year.

Roy pulled on the trousers to his gray suit—his only good suit. He zipped up the pants, noticing how loose they were around the waist. He’d dropped some weight since he last wore them, and he couldn’t afford to lose weight, because he had no intention of buying a new wardrobe.

Must be stress doing it, because it sure as hell wasn’t sex. His love life had been at a standstill for weeks, ever since Anna left in search of greener wallets.

It wasn’t exercise, either. He hadn’t been for a run in ten days, and he’d had to miss the last three pickup rugby games. The court case he’d been involved in had eaten up what little time the job hadn’t.

His testimony had resulted in the formation of a commission that would eventually make changes to the system, but Roy couldn’t forget that those changes had come about as the result of a child’s death. It seemed at times that the world was going to hell, and all social workers could do was spit on the flames. He was weary in a way he hadn’t been since he first took the job with the ministry seven years ago this month.

The phone rang, and he shot it a baleful glare. It might be work, and he already had a briefcase filled with files he’d barely looked at. However, he was part of the after-hours unit, and he was on call.

Or it could be his sister, Nicole, who was going with him to the family party at their sister Jennifer’s tonight. Or it might be the retirement home where his mother was battling another bout of flu. Whoever it was, he had to answer.

He picked up the receiver and silently cursed. It was his team leader, and that could only mean another emergency.

“Hi, Marty, what’s up?”

“That abandoned kid at St. Joe’s—did you see the item on him in the newspaper yesterday?”

Roy’s heart sank. Abused or abandoned kids were bad; they pulled out emotions already raw from overuse.

“I saw it.” There’d been a double murder in North Van, so the article had been buried on a back page of the Province.

“I know your caseload is crazy already and Larissa was supposed to be on this one, but she just called me. Her father died, and she’s flying back to Calgary tonight.”

They’d been shorthanded for the past five years, and with the recent government cutbacks, things had gone from desperate to ridiculous. It took restraint not to remind Marty of that. Roy let him ramble on about their co-workers’ latest personal problems.

“Rita’s getting married this weekend and Jake’s having a hemorrhoid operation. Larissa’s done the preliminary work on the case. The kid’s name is David Riggs. His mother’s known to the ministry—she’s on assistance, name’s Shannon Riggs. I’ve got the case file right here. Mother’s seventeen, she was on the street at twelve, heavy into drugs, but she straightened out when she got pregnant. One of the downtown volunteers, Tonya Cabral, took her in and helped her get clean. The police and the downtown street workers are watching out for Shannon, but so far no sign. David’s two years two months. He was taken to St. Joe’s forty-eight hours ago seriously dehydrated. A neighbor found him, called the fire department. Estimates are the boy was alone three days.”

Roy shuddered. He’d seen babies like that before. He’d watched one of them die.

“It was touch-and-go as to whether David would pull through, but looks as if he’s on the mend now. He’s in St. Joe’s—got out of intensive care this morning and was transferred to the pediatric ward. Harry Larue is the attending pediatrician.”

Poor little kid. Intense compassion, deep sadness and bitter anger ate at Roy’s gut, the way it always did when an innocent child was the victim of neglect. Along with the other emotions came resignation. This was, after all, social work—the job he’d chosen. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that he was having second thoughts. It went without saying that he’d do the best he could for David Riggs.

He went through the mental checklist of what needed to be done, then asked Marty where matters stood, how much Larissa had already waded through.

In cases like this, what had to happen immediately was legal removal of the child from the parent, for the boy’s protection. Larissa had taken the proper steps; the boy was now a ward of the ministry. Unfortunately that was about all she’d done.

Roy needed to talk to the kid’s doctor, the firemen who’d found him, and anyone else who’d been on the scene or knew anything about Shannon and David Riggs. It had to be done immediately, because firefighters and police were busy people, and he wanted to know what their impressions were while they were still fresh in their minds.

It was also important to go see the boy himself, so that he had a feeling for the little person, instead of just a name in a file. It was his policy to do that stat.

“We’ve managed to keep this out of the headlines so far, only because of that double murder. Be prepared for reporters, though. They’ll be after you because of your involvement in the Sieberg affair.”

Tragedy, Marty, Roy wanted to say. The Sieberg tragedy, where the authorities sent a little boy back to his birth mother and he died. But he held his tongue. What did semantics matter when the kid was dead?

“Better refer them to me,” his team leader said. Marty wasn’t a bad guy, but he was a publicity hound who longed to see his name in print. He’d resented the press coverage Roy had gotten during the Sieberg trial. Roy just resented the press coverage.

“Gladly.” He’d had enough run-ins with the papers to last him a lifetime.

So much for tonight’s family dinner. He wasn’t going to be able to stay long. He’d just drop off the gift for his sister Dana and then get to work. Nicole could get a ride home with someone else easily enough.

He’d been looking forward to dinner, though. He was famished. Maybe Jennifer would take pity on him and make him up a plate of food to carry with him.

“Okay, Marty, I’ll get on this right away.”

“Thanks, Roy.” Marty added with gallows humor, “Have a good evening.”

Roy glanced at his watch. Jennifer had said the birthday dinner was at seven-thirty. If he got out of here in five minutes, and if Nicole was ready when he got to her place—a big if, since his sister wasn’t often on time—he could just about manage a quick stop at St. Joe’s to see the boy. It was on the way to Jennifer’s house, anyway, he rationalized.

Well, almost. Ten minutes out of the way, give or take.

He shrugged into his jacket, ran a brush through his hair—he was two weeks past a date with his barber—and was out the door with a minute to spare.

Things seemed to be going well for a change, because there was a parking spot right in front of Nicole’s condo. Roy swung his aging blue Toyota into it and sprinted to the entrance. He punched in her code number and waited impatiently until she buzzed the door open.

Nicole was standing at the door to her condo. She tipped her lovely face up so he could kiss her cheek.

“Hey, handsome, love your suit. Is it new?”

“Vintage. Just had it dry-cleaned. Those guys do wonders.” It was an old joke. She’d seen the suit many times before. Nicole was a clothes freak, and she liked to tease him about his total lack of interest in his wardrobe.

“You look as gorgeous as ever,” he complimented her. He studied her and hazarded a pretty safe guess. “New dress?”

She nodded. “First time out. I’m testing it on you guys and then I’m going to wear it when that hunk of an airline pilot takes me to dinner on Saturday. Think it’s too dressy for a family birthday party?”

“Not at all. It’s a good color on you.”

Nicole burst into giggles. “Roy, its black, you idiot.”

“So?” He feigned hurt. “It’s still a good color on you. But then, any color would be a good color on you.”

It was the truth. His sister was stunning. At five-eleven, she was just three inches shorter than he was, with long, straight, gleaming blond hair. She had the slender figure of a fashion model and a mind like a high-speed computer, and under that golden tan were the muscles of an Amazon. Tonight she was wearing spiky heels, so they were nearly eye to eye.

Nicole was warm and funny and vulnerable. Out of three sisters and two brothers, she was his favorite sibling, a go-for-the-jugular divorce lawyer who dreamed of being a landscape architect. She fantasized about living in a cottage on acres of land where she could grow tomatoes and babies, but for convenience’ sake she lived in a condo with a postage stamp for a yard.

Single, as he was. Searching, which he assured himself he wasn’t.

She reached up and smoothed his hair back. “You could use a haircut, or are you going for that killer ponytail look? Crooked nose, dimple in your chin—you might just get away with it.”

He scowled at her. “It’s not a dimple, it’s a cleft. And I plan to get a haircut. In fact, I’m thinking of a brush cut.”

“I’ll get Mom and the sisters to vote tonight on whether or not you should. My money’s on the ponytail.”

“I won’t be around to hear the results. I’m gonna have to cut the evening short, Nicky. I got a call from work just as I was leaving. Can’t stay for dinner.”

“Just as well for the rest of us. Jen’s making Italian—the cake’s gonna be that cream-and-chocolate masterpiece. What’s the emergency?”

“An abandoned baby at St. Joe’s. I need to meet the little guy and talk to the doctor. You mind if we stop on our way?”

“Not at all. The family knows my car’s in for repairs, so it’s your head that rolls if we’re late.”

“That’s what I love about you, Nicky. You’re clear that it’s every man for himself.”

“It comes from growing up in a house where there was one bathroom and seven bladders.”

“That’s something I’m not sorry I missed out on.” Roy had reunited with his birth family when he was seventeen. His adoptive parents had had two bathrooms and one kid.

He handed her into the car, then took the slight detour that would lead them to St. Joe’s.

“Did you hear Dana’s pregnant again?”

“Nobody tells me stuff like that. This’ll make, what, four for her?”

“Five.” She shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Without me to remind you, you’d never remember how many nieces and nephews you’ve got.”

“It keeps changing all the time.”

“Lucky Dana.” Nicole’s soft brown eyes were wistful. “What did you get her for her birthday?”

“A Swatch watch. I asked Greg what she might like and that’s what he said.”

“I guess she’ll need it to time her contractions. I played it safe and got her soap and bubble bath. You can’t go wrong with that. She told me the kids used the last of her stash to make potions in the bathtub. They’re deep into wizardry. Harry Potter has created a whole new market for bubble bath.”

He laughed. “They’re good kids. And Dana and Greg are great parents.” It was reassuring to know there were people who took care of their kids. He saw so many of the other kind.

“What’s with the baby at St. Joe’s?”

“Two-year-old David Riggs, found abandoned a few days ago in a downtown apartment.”

“I think I saw a small article about him in the paper, but it didn’t give his name or anything.” Nicole frowned. “How could a mother leave a little kid alone for three days?”

It was more a sad statement than a question. Nicole heard too many horror stories to be surprised by much.

“She’s seventeen. She’ll probably insist she didn’t plan to be away more than a few minutes.” He’d heard it so many times before. “David’s now in the care of the ministry, so she’s gonna have to jump through hoops to get him back.”

Unless some idiot judge decides otherwise. Four-year-old Scotty Sieberg had begged to stay with his foster family, and Roy had petitioned the court to leave him there. But Scotty had been handed back to his birth mother. And her boyfriend had shaken the little boy for not picking up his toys, and Scotty had died.

Rage boiled in Roy as he pulled into the lot beside the medical center. He knew he had to shove the Sieberg case into a mental file drawer marked Don’t go there unless you have to.

“Mind if I come in with you?” Nicole asked.

“Well, I was really planning to leave you out here sweltering in the car,” he teased. “But maybe you can come, as long as you cling to me and do that swivel-hip thing you babes do in heels. Nobody here knows that you’re my sister, and it’ll get me a whole lot of respect from the male members of the staff.”

“And here I thought it was the females you wanted to impress. Is there something sensitive and personal you want to tell me, big brother?”

“Only that I need help fighting off the hordes of rabid women after my body.”

“In your dreams.”

The pediatrics ward was behind a locked door on the fourth floor. Roy presented ID, and the security guard let them in. There was no one at the nurses’ station, but they could hear children’s excited voices and loud laughter erupting from the playroom at the end of the corridor, so Roy headed that way.

“Sounds like a party,” Nicole remarked. “We’ve come to the right place.”

On the floor of the playroom, a group of children sat around a young woman with short, fiery-red curls. Huge, gray rabbit ears were secured to her head by a yellow ribbon. She was wearing a pink T-shirt patterned with garish sunflowers over a pair of green uniform pants, and she was sitting cross-legged, her head bent over a book she was reading aloud.

On the floor beside her, a live rabbit in a wire cage munched on a lettuce leaf, a bored expression on his face. The room was overly warm, and there was a pungent odor of children, antiseptic, urine and rabbit turds.

There was also the ripple of children’s laughter, and Roy smiled with pleasure and surprise. A hospital wasn’t usually a place where kids enjoyed themselves, and it delighted him to hear them having fun.

The sound of laughter died as one after another of the kids caught sight of Roy and Nicole. The woman stopped reading and turned toward them.

“Hi,” she said in a voice that was husky and filled with what musicians called blue notes. “I’m Hailey Bergstrom. What can I do for you?”

She was no beauty. Her nose was long and thin, her mouth too wide in a decidedly square face. Roy noticed those things, but he also noticed that she had unusual eyes, large, tilted, widely spaced. They were a peculiar color, like dark honey.

She made no move to get up. The tag pinned to her chest said she was an RN.

“I’m Roy Zedyck, David Riggs’s social worker. This is Nicole Hepburn.”

“Hi, Roy. Hello, Nicole.” She gave Roy a questioning look. “How can I help you?”

“I wondered if I could see David, and also whether Dr. Larue is around? I’d like to speak to him.”

She turned to the kids. “Sorry, you guys, I’ve gotta go.” She rose to her feet, rabbit ears flopping, and the kids sent up a protesting howl. She held out the book to an emaciated girl in a pink tracksuit. The child was bald, and her eyes had immense brown circles under them.

“Brittany, you finish the story, please.”

“Noooo, nooooo, we want you, Hailey, pleeeeeze,” the kids chorused.

“Brittany can read every bit as well as I can. Stop the noise or Skippy will freak out and have heart palpitations, and we’d have to call Doc Benson.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And you know how grumpy Doc Benson can be.” She pretended to shudder and then stood tall and held her hand to her forehead in a salute. “When duty calls I must obey, or I will live to rue the day.”

Roy noted that she was very tall in her flat sandals, probably five-eleven like Nicole.

“C’mon, David’s in 4B.”

Brittany’s clear, high voice followed them down the corridor.

Roy figured that Hailey Bergstrom was oblivious to the fact that she had a huge, furry bunny tail pinned to the seat of her uniform pants. It swished as she walked, emphasizing narrow hips. She was thin rather than slender, with long arms and legs, but there was a vibrancy about her that was almost palpable. She seemed to give off sparks. He wondered idly whether getting too close to her might result in an electric shock.

“David just came up from intensive care this morning. He’s my patient. I thought his case worker’s name was Larissa Mott.”

So she’d done her homework, Roy thought. Good for her.

“Larissa’s father died, and she’s off on bereavement leave. David’s got me now.”

She nodded and narrowed her eyes at him. “Any sign of his mother yet?”

Roy shook his head. “Police are watching out for her, but so far no luck. How’s he doing?”

“He’s a pretty sick little guy. His electrolytes are all out of whack and he won’t drink yet. We’ve got him on IV. There’s been a lot of phone calls about him. People saw the article in the Province.”

“I’m sure Larissa already covered this, but I’ll be leaving written orders of my own that David not be released to anyone, and if anyone tries, I’m to be notified immediately.”

Hailey nodded and opened the door to a two-bed ward. One of the cribs was empty, but in the other a tiny figure wearing a blue pajama top and a diaper lay sprawled on his back, deeply asleep, his curls dark against the white pillow. A stuffed dog, filthy and much the worse for wear, was clutched to his face, and an IV tube was attached to his foot with strips of tape. There were deep, dark circles under his eyes.

Roy looked down at the sleeping child and his heart contracted. Children were fragile and precious, their lives dependent on the adults whose job it was to care for them. This one had been betrayed, and it tore at his gut. It always did. The discouraging thing was that it happened all too often in big cities like this one.

“Were there other visible signs of abuse?” Roy knew he’d get the report, but he wanted to know now.

Hailey held up a cautioning hand, frowned and shook her head at him. “We can discuss that outside the room.”

“He’s so sweet, so very small.” Nicole’s voice was husky, and when he looked at her, Roy saw tears shimmering in her eyes. Her gaze was on the baby. “He can’t even tell anybody what hurts. That must be awful.”

“You’re gonna talk a blue streak when you wake up, though, aren’t you, David?” Hailey leaned over the crib and in a crooning voice added, “You’re such a beautiful, smart boy. We’re gonna be great friends, aren’t we, little one?” Her hand lightly touched the boy’s curls, one finger stroking his cheek. She checked the IV drip and carefully covered his legs with a blanket.

The boy turned his head restlessly to the other side and slept on, and Hailey led the way into the hall, her rabbit ears flopping around her neck.

“No matter how little they are, no matter how deeply asleep or unconscious, they hear us talking, and even the smallest ones pick up on what we’re saying,” she said to Roy in a ferocious tone. “He was seriously dehydrated when he came in, he arrested down in the ER, he’s gaining a little ground, but he’s still really sick.” Her tone turned sarcastic. “And in answer to your question, other than being alone for three days without anything to eat or drink, he doesn’t seem to have been abused. He’s well nourished, no bruising or old scars, no broken bones. Real fortunate little guy, wouldn’t you say?”

Roy felt like an idiot. “I’m sorry, Hailey, that was stupid of me. I should have known better than to talk in front of him.” He was embarrassed, but he also couldn’t believe he was being lectured by a woman wearing rabbit ears and a tail.

“Does he have anything of his own, any toys or clothes?” Nicole asked. She was still looking through the glass door at the small figure in the crib.

“The stuffed dog he’s clutching is all that came in with him. It’s his security blanket. It needs a wash, but there’s no way I’m taking it from him right now.”

“Maybe I can bring him some things?”

Hailey smiled at Nicole. “That’s sweet of you, but don’t go overboard. Stuff gets shared in here, and it also gets lost. But it is nice for the kids to have something that belongs just to them.”

“I need to use a phone.” Roy had to contact the police and the firemen who’d found David.

“There’s one at the nurses’ station.”

“Thanks. I’ll use it on our way out.”

“How on earth do you stand it?” Nicole was looking at Hailey, and there was awe and admiration in her voice. “I’d want to kidnap a baby like that and spoil the living daylights out of him.”

“All we can do is love ’em and let ’em go,” Hailey said with a resigned shrug. “Nursing is care, not cure.” She turned her attention to Roy. “And having said that, do you know anything at all about this so-called mother of his?”

Roy shook his head. “Sorry, that information’s confidential.”

“Figures. Protect the criminal at all costs,” Hailey said scornfully, giving him another of her scathing glances. “Makes you wonder what was going on in her head, walking out and leaving him like that.”

“He’s lucky to have you as his nurse,” Nicole said. “They all are. You’re obviously just what these kids need.”

“Hey, thanks.” Hailey’s resentment seemed to evaporate. Her grin was spontaneous and wide, her face animated. She had straight, white teeth, and her amber eyes sparkled. “It’s so good to hear that on the day you’re wearing a bunny costume at work.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “Whoops, speaking of work, I’ve gotta go. It’s time for meds.” She turned to Roy. “Dr. Larue is on his dinner break. He’ll be here later this evening if you want to speak with him. Or the aide can give you his cell number.” She waved a hand at Roy and Nicole and hurried off toward the nurses’ station, tail swishing with gay abandon.

Nicole watched her go. “Now there’s an unusual woman for you.”

“Vicious is more like it.” The looks she’d given him were lethal. He wouldn’t want her armed with a hypodermic.

“She’s not vicious, she’s gutsy.” Nicole looped an arm through Roy’s, and they hurried toward the nurses’ desk. “Balls enough to tell you off and enough perspective to accept the parameters of her job. It’s evident she really likes being a nurse.”

“Nurses, lawyers—power. It’s all about power with you females.”

But he silently agreed with Nicole. Hailey Bergstrom was an example of someone who’d obviously found the perfect job, and it suited her, even the part that included wearing rabbit ears and a tail.

Or cutting him into chunks and spitting out the pieces.

CHAPTER TWO

FROM THE NURSES’ STATION Hailey watched them go down the corridor, Zedyck’s arm looped around the woman’s shoulders.

They could have posed for a magazine ad, she mused. They made a striking couple, both tall, both blessed with an abundance of physical beauty.

Nicole was a stunner, but based on one short meeting, she also seemed to be a truly nice person, lacking the self-centered attitude that sometimes went with such good looks.

Hailey’s mind naturally turned to her older sister, Laura. Laura was drop-dead gorgeous, too, but in Hailey’s opinion, Laura was about as self-centered as it was possible to get. She’d carved out a perfect life, by her standards, and wasn’t the least bit interested in other people’s choices. She’d married Frank, a creep with the same sort of good looks she possessed, produced two perfect kids and decorated a house in the suburbs with a lot of help from Martha Stewart’s magazines.

Hailey wouldn’t know Martha Stewart if the woman had a stroke in her living room, which was probable if she ever laid eyes on it.

How different could two sisters be?

And it was interesting how beautiful women gravitated to men whose looks complemented their own.

Roy Zedyck was as dark as Nicole was fair, and in spite of his mental lapses, he was good to look at, if your taste ran to crooked noses and grass-green eyes and jawlines out of an old western. Good hair, too. She liked it wavy and covering a guy’s shirt collar, the way his did.

For the remaining two hours of her shift, Hailey worked steadily, checking on David often, changing babies and feeding them, telling wild stories and singing nonsense songs as she slowly got her older patients into their pajamas. She ensured that everyone’s meds were administered and did her best to make the kids laugh whenever she could. Even the sickest of them rewarded her with tiny smiles, and to her those smiles were precious gifts.

Hailey always took her time with the kids, even though she knew her supervisor, Margaret Cross, repeatedly documented her for spending too much time with the patients and not enough getting the paperwork done before the next shift arrived.

Margaret was a nurse of the old school who made a point of coming to work in a white dress uniform, white stockings and her nursing cap, a regalia that had the other nurses calling her TGONP behind her back—the ghost of nurses past.

It was obvious Margaret hated her, and Hailey pretended she didn’t give a flying fig. The head nurse couldn’t get her fired, no matter how much she disapproved. That was the beauty of knowing you were excellent at your job. Oh, yeah, and a good union helped, too.

The thing was, there was no way you could rush little kids, nor should you. It was hard enough for them, trapped in here, feeling sick, most of them horribly lonely for their parents. They needed to have some control over their environment, Hailey felt, and if it came in the guise of slowing down the system, so be it. Margaret could have been a general in the armed forces, she believed so strongly in discipline and rules.

When at last the reports had been made to the new shift and Hailey was done for the day, she took off the rabbit ears and tail and rescued her pet, Skippy, from the staff lounge, where he’d been banished after Margaret found him in the playroom.

Hailey was carrying his cage on her way to the elevator when she changed her mind, stowed Skippy back in a corner of the staff lounge and detoured to David’s room.

There was another child in the room with David now, but he was asleep. David was wide awake, lying silent in his crib, his stuffed dog held close to his body, his eyes big and scared when he looked up at her. Earlier she’d changed and bathed him, and held him for as long as she could possibly manage it. His electrolytes were still way below normal, which meant that he probably wasn’t feeling good at all. His sweet little face was somber, and the anxious, frightened look in his blue eyes tugged at her heartstrings.

“Hey, dumpling, you’re wide awake.” She grinned at him and held out her arms, but he just looked up at her with a solemn, wary expression.

“Just you wait, Davie. You’re gonna break down and smile at me yet,” she teased in a whisper, so as not to wake his roommate.

David smelled clean and fresh, and there was a sweet, elusive baby odor to his skin. She leaned down and pressed her nose against his neck and blew a gentle bubble. He lifted a tentative hand and touched her hair, his eyes wide.

“Some mad mess that mop is, huh, Davie? People keep suggesting I get it styled, but I’m a sucker for the natural look. And you little guys like it. You can get your hands in and really yank. Hey, partner, wanna go for a walk?”

She picked him up. His body stiffened with alarm, but he didn’t cry. He pointed at his dog, and she tucked it in his arms. Hauling the IV pole, she carried him on her hip down the corridor to an empty room where there was a rocking chair. Hailey sank into it, and after a while she felt David relax against her.

For forty minutes she rocked and sang him snippets from James Taylor and Janis Joplin. He fell asleep, and because his warm, soft little body comforted her, she went on rocking and singing.

At last one of the other nurses stuck her head in and smiled.

“Hailey, you still here? I thought you’d be long gone by now. You’ve gotta get a life, girl.”

“Hi, Karen. I needed a hug, so I kidnapped David.”

“He’s a real sweetheart. I heard about him from one of the ER docs.”

“He’s an angel.”

Karen came in and studied David, sleeping soundly against Hailey’s chest. “You’re right, he is an angel. But then, you say that about all of them. No word on his mom yet?”

Hailey shook her head. “His new social worker was by earlier. The other one’s dad died, so she’s gone to his funeral. This guy’s name is Roy Zedyck.”

“Oh, yeah, everybody’s heard of him. Big tall guy, great buns. Wow, he’s a celebrity. He was the one who was in the news a while back, the inquiry into that little boy who got sent back to his birth mother and ended up dead?”

Hailey shuddered. “I don’t watch stuff like that, or read about it, either. What we get in here is quite enough for me.”

“Everybody says Robertson’s testimony was the reason they set up that independent commission, so there’ll be someone else for kids to turn to besides the ministry. Hopefully decisions will be made that are truly in the child’s best interest, and not just some arbitrary ruling handed down by one judge.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t heard about it—it was all over the news. Becky’s gonna be green. She drools when Zedyck’s name is mentioned. But then, Becky drools a lot. I swear she’s got an extra few ounces of estrogen going for her.”

Hailey laughed. “She’s got a good eye for male beefcake, and in this instance she’s dead right. You’d have to be neutered not to notice how sexy Zedyck is.”

And he must have more gray matter than she thought, if he’d impressed the court that way.

“Tell Becky to give it up. He’s got a knockout for a lady, gorgeous and caring, really friendly, name of Nicole. She was with him. They were all duded up for a party or something.”

“Lucky them.” Karen wrinkled her nose. “How come some people get the full-meal deal and the rest of us have to make do with the forty-nine-cent special?” Hailey knew that Karen was going through a messy and painful divorce.

“It has to do with astrology.” Hailey got to her feet, careful not to disturb David. “I better get home. I left my rabbit in the staff lounge. If I don’t get him out of there, somebody’ll rat to Margaret and I’ll be getting a rabbit reprimand on my file.”

Karen giggled. The ongoing conflict between Hailey and Margaret Cross was constant entertainment for the rest of the pediatric nursing staff. And they were right to laugh. If you didn’t laugh about Margaret and her tantrums, you’d be tempted to smother her in the linen closet.

“I’ll bring the IV,” Karen offered. “You just carry him.”

They paraded down the corridor and Hailey settled David into his crib. She bent and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Night, little Davie. Sleep well. The angels will watch over you and keep you safe.” She told all her little patients the same thing when she took leave of them.

When they were out in the hall again, Karen gave Hailey a warm smile and a hug. “You need a dozen or so of your own. You’d make the best mom ever.”

Hailey’s smile felt strained. Kids of her own was the thing in life she most wanted. “I’ll settle for just one.”

“How’s the adoption process coming?” Most of her co-workers were aware that Hailey had recently applied for single-parent adoption.

“Slow.” Hailey grimaced. “They really check you out on all fronts. I guess it’s a good thing, but it kind of wears you down after a while.”

Karen nodded. “I can imagine.” She heaved a sigh. “I’m glad now that Jim and I didn’t have any kids. It would make this whole divorce thing that much harder, and God knows it’s tough enough as it is. But I’m getting older, and I guess every woman wants kids sooner or later.”

“For me, I hope it’s sooner,” Hailey said. “I’m gonna be thirty in another month. That’s old compared with when people used to have kids. My mom had my sister when she was twenty-four and me two years later.”

“People generally had kids earlier then. Now it takes time to be able to afford them, and with birth control we have the option of waiting.”

“Some of us, I guess. David’s mother’s only seventeen. One of the ER nurses heard it from a cop.”

Karen shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Sometimes there’s a good argument for abortion.”

“Or adoption.”

One of the monitors began to beep.

“Gotta go. Take care and enjoy what’s left of your evening.” Karen waved a quick goodbye as she hurried off.

Hailey made her way out to the car park and climbed into her battered red half-ton. She’d bought it a year ago, a few months after she purchased her house, trading in her cherished old Grand Prix for it when she realized how many deliveries she’d paid for from Home Depot and how many times she’d wished she could get rid of her own building debris.

The good news was that it took her and the half-ton only twenty minutes to get from St. Joe’s to her street. The bad news was that the two-story blue-and-white octogenarian she’d bought had turned out to be a money pit. She was slowly and for the most part single-handedly repairing and remodeling, but it was a painfully time-consuming, expensive process. The front lawn was full of moss, the back devoid of grass because of two tall cedars, a stand of overgrown lilacs and an immense fir tree that prevented sunlight from getting through. The trees did give the property privacy, though, and she’d pay more attention to the yard when she got the inside livable.

Her master plan was to finish the basement first and rent it out so she had additional income, and then turn one of the four upstairs bedrooms, the tiny one next to her own, into a nursery.

She parked on the street. None of the houses had garages. Gazing for a moment at her house, she felt the same thrill she always did when she arrived home. This funny old battered senior citizen of a house was really hers. She’d had to scrimp and save and practically offer the bank her soul to get it, but she wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Carrying Skippy’s cage, she made her way around to the back, where she’d used chicken wire to construct a pen for the rabbit. After she’d turned him loose and made sure he had food and water, she climbed the rickety wooden back stairs—gotta do something about those stairs—unlocked the door and went inside.

The phone on the kitchen counter was ringing. A glance at her watch showed that it was ten-forty-five. She picked up the receiver.

“Hailey?” Her mother’s voice made her shut her eyes and wish she’d let the machine take the call. “Where’ve you been? I called twice before. I thought your shift was over at seven.”

“Hi, Mom.” Hailey wished, not for the first time, that she’d gotten call display. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to her mother; it was just that she’d rather choose the times it happened, like Christmas and Easter.

“How you doing, Mom?” Hailey ignored the questions, knowing that Jean really didn’t expect an answer. “How come you’re calling this late?”

“It’s Laura. She was over yesterday, and something’s not right with her.”

Hailey rolled her eyes heavenward. As far as she knew, her sister’s problems were primarily whether or not to fire the gardener, change the living-room sofa, or enroll Hailey’s niece and nephew in yet another extracurricular activity. Poor little mites. At seven and nine their lives were already as regimented as Margaret would like the peds ward to be.

“Have you talked to her recently, Hailey?”

“Not for a couple of weeks.” That was about par for her and Laura. The last time Hailey had called, it was on impulse one Saturday morning. She’d wanted to take Christopher and Samantha to the Greek food fair. Of course it hadn’t been possible; they’d had karate and swimming lessons. Sometimes she suspected Laura of deliberately keeping the kids busy so they wouldn’t be overexposed to their whacko aunt. Christopher had once told her that’s how his father referred to Hailey. Chris, bless his heart, had wanted to know if “whacko” had something to do with boxing.

“Well, I wish you’d give her a call—see if she’ll open up to you. There’s something wrong with her and I can’t put my finger on it.”

Open up? What planet did Jean live on? Laura hadn’t opened up to Hailey since she’d gotten her first period at the age of twelve, when Laura had been kind enough to explain sex and the connection to babies. Hailey had already known, but she didn’t let on.

Her stomach rumbled, and she remembered she hadn’t eaten since lunch, and then it had been a tuna sandwich gulped on the run.

“Look, Mom, can I call you in the morning? I’ve just come home and I need to make some dinner. I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving. God knows where you put it, although you could stand to gain a few pounds. In the right places, of course. You will give Laura a call, won’t you?” Jean was nothing if not persistent. And consistent. She’d been on about Hailey’s weight, or lack of it, for years, as if the proper diet would pump up her boobs to a 36C and shorten her nose.

A wave of irritation washed over Hailey. She could probably tell her mother she was dying, and Jean would wonder what effect it was going to have on Laura. It had always been Laura, but then, in all fairness, Laura was the daughter who looked like Jean, whose values coincided with her own. They actually had serious discussions about things like leg waxing and facials and anti-aging cream.

Hailey wondered sometimes if the balance of attention would have been more even if her father had lived, but Ed Bergstrom had thoughtlessly died of a heart attack when she was eleven, leaving her alone with an alien species.

“I’m worried, Hailey. Do you think maybe she’s sick or something and just doesn’t want to tell us?”

“She’s fine, Mom.” Hailey heaved an exasperated sigh. “She’d tell you if anything was wrong with her.”

But Hailey wasn’t fine. She was starving, and her mother wasn’t giving up. God, anything for a little peace and some food.

“Look, Mom, I’ll call her. Not tonight, but soon. And yes, I’ll try to get her to talk to me about what’s bothering her.”

She hung up and muttered in a sarcastic tone, “And how are you, Hailey? What’s going on in your life? Any news about that adoption thing yet?”

The truth was, not much new was going on in her life, so maybe it was a good thing Jean didn’t care enough to ask.

She didn’t really believe that, Hailey admitted as she put water on to boil for pasta and found some fresh garlic and the jar of sun-dried tomatoes in the fridge, but it was some comfort.

It was better not to have Jean prying into her life, she told herself as she pulled wilted spinach out of the vegetable bin and tore it up for salad. What if she got on that kick again about finding Hailey a nice guy and getting her married off? Jean had driven her nuts about it there for a while two or three years ago. She’d tried to line Hailey up with the least likely candidates: loser sons of the people who worked with Jean in the doctor’s office; patients, for God’s sake; even a dentist Jean had gone to for a root canal. The dentist hadn’t been bad in bed, but after a while Hailey got sick of hearing about molars and incisors and bicuspids, especially right after sex.

Thankfully Jean had given up.

Not that Hailey had done any better on her own. Her last date had been…when? She calculated in her head. It would be about six months ago now, and even at the time, she knew Norman Patino wasn’t anybody’s idea of an eligible bachelor. But he was male and alive and breathing, and he’d shown some interest in her.

But then she’d gotten to know him better. Or worse. It was one thing for a guy to be overweight and balding—that she could overlook. After all, she was no beauty queen herself. But for him to also be arrogant, self-centered and downright cheap was too much even for somebody who was desperate.

And she had been desperate when she dated Norman, Hailey thought as she assembled her meal and sat down at the kitchen table to eat it. She’d been going through a spell when she wanted to get married and have a family so badly she was willing to compromise in all sorts of ways. But even she had limits. Norman bored her cross-eyed and expected her to pay for dinner once too often, and she’d finally realized she was worth more than the compromises she’d been making. It had been satisfying to dump him, and both maddening and sad to hear him blame the failure of their relationship totally on her. He’d accused her of being fussy, which would have been funny if it wasn’t so damned sad.

The pasta was good, and she ate her way through a heaping bowlful and then a second. After she put the dishes in the sink, she checked her telephone messages. There was only one, and it made her smile with delight. It was from her paternal grandmother, Ingrid Bergstrom.

CHAPTER THREE

INGRID DIDN’T WASTE time saying all the usual things like hello, how are you, even in a phone message. She simply started off where their last conversation had ended.

“So I went to the community center like I said I was going to, to register for that French course, but the lineup was a mile long, and there was another course being offered in belly dancing, so I signed up for that, instead. It’s still multicultural, don’t you think?” Ingrid giggled, the wicked, wild giggle that Hailey loved.

“Sam loves the idea,” Ingrid went on, “so now I’m going to buy myself some silk shawls and those things you use with your fingers—zills, I think they’re called. Phone me when you get a chance. Maybe you could come for brunch tomorrow if you’re still on that one-to-nine shift. Don’t worry if it’s late when you call. I’ve told Sam I’m staying up to read that last murder mystery you loaned me. Man, that woman can write.”

Among other things, Hailey had inherited Ingrid’s voice. As she listened to her gran’s husky tones move from one octave to another, she remembered once in school hearing her own voice on a tape recorder and being astounded and thrilled because it was exactly like Gran’s. It was the first time she’d ever liked anything about herself.

Hailey dialed the familiar number and Ingrid answered immediately.

“Hey, Haileybop, tell me what’s going on over at St. Joe’s. Any new patients?”

Ingrid loved hearing about Hailey’s work. For several years now she’d been one of the volunteers who came to the newborn section to rock and cuddle babies.

Hailey gave her a rundown on the kids Ingrid already knew about, and then she told her about David.

“He’s such a darling, Gran. Big blue eyes, black curly hair. He has a filthy stuffed dog he hangs on to for dear life.”

“I’ll add him to my prayers, and when I’m at St. Joe’s, I’ll come up and visit him if you’re on.”

“That would be great. How’s Sam?” Hailey adored her step grandpa, who openly admitted he had trouble keeping up with his madcap wife. He was sixty-three, Ingrid seventy-two. They’d married five years before, to the utter horror of Sam’s grown family, who considered Ingrid totally unsuitable.

“He’s sound asleep. He just finished a catalog shoot for one of those hoity-toity men’s stores. He says it was exhausting holding his gut in for so long, so finally he’s joining my gym. I told him a long time ago he should. Lifting weights counteracts the force of gravity. It’s helped keep my boobs firm, what there is of them, and that’s a not-so-minor miracle.”

Hailey giggled. Sam and Ingrid were her favorite people. They were also one of the few married couples she knew who were deliriously happy and had fun together every single day. She also strongly suspected they had sex every single day.

“I wanna be you when I grow up, Gran.”

“Just be yourself, darlin’. You’re perfect just the way you are.”

It was a litany Ingrid had repeated to Hailey ever since she was a little girl. It had helped deflect Jean’s disappointment in a daughter who lacked the physical beauty and graces that Jean believed were essential to a woman’s success.

“So how’s about brunch tomorrow? Can you make it?”

“I’d love to.”

“Come over when you get up. I want to try this new recipe for soy muffins.”

“You sure you don’t want to go out somewhere? My treat.” Ingrid wasn’t the world’s best cook. In fact, she just might be the worlds worst. No one had died from her cooking yet, but sometimes Hailey thought it was a strong possibility.

“Nope. There’s way too much sugar and fat in restaurant food.”

There was, but it was also edible.

“Okay, Gran, I’ll be there about ten-thirty. Can I bring anything?” She added in a hopeful tone, “I can stop and get some of those cinnamon rolls from that little bakery on Fourth.”

“Nope, just bring your appetite. I’ll make everything. See you in the morning. Sleep well, honey.”

“You too, Gran.” Hailey hung up. Talking to Ingrid made her feel as though everything was right with the world, and the feeling persisted as she showered in her decrepit bathroom and climbed into bed.

Her last thought was always for the children in her care at work, and she sent up a prayer for each and every one before she slipped into sleep, adding a special PS for David.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING Hailey took one bite of Ingrid’s soy muffins and tried her best to swallow, but it was a challenge. It was truly awful. Across the breakfast table she saw Sam smoothly transferring his own mouthful into his napkin. He raised an eyebrow and crossed his eyes when Ingrid wasn’t looking, and Hailey had to stifle a giggle.

“Take another muffin and put some jam on it,” Ingrid suggested. “Maybe they need a bit of sweetening.”

Nothing was going to improve those babies, Hailey thought. “I’ll just have more of the fruit salad, thanks, Gran.” She loaded her bowl.

“So what’s going to happen to this little David, then? Will he go into foster care?” Ingrid took a bite of her own muffin, chewed doggedly for several moments, swallowed with difficulty, then went to the cupboard and found a box of crackers.

“Maybe I should have put the eggs in,” she mused. “I figured the muffins would turn out just as good without, but they’re a bit on the heavy side.” She offered the crackers to Sam and Hailey. “I cut down on the butter, too. That’s probably what did it.”

“So what did you leave in, sweetheart?” Sam kept a straight face, but his brown eyes were dancing. His thick, white hair shone, his strong, craggy features were tanned a golden brown, and if he had a paunch, it certainly wasn’t evident beneath his navy tracksuit. It was easy to see why he was so much in demand as a mature male model.

“The soy flour, of course. I told you, they’re soy muffins.”

Hailey and Sam burst into laughter. Ingrid was infamous for changing recipes, and her experiments were always disastrous, but she never gave up. The wonderful thing about her was that she could laugh at herself, as she was doing now.

When Hailey looked at her grandmother, she saw her own face as it would be when she was seventy-two, filled with laugh lines and character. Ingrid was a handsome woman, and Hailey had inherited her tall, lanky body, her square face, even her red hair. Ingrid’s was nearly all white now, and what was left of the red had turned rusty, but it still stood out around her head in an incongruous halo of springy, incorrigible curls. The only features Hailey had inherited from her mother’s side were what she called her canine eyes.

Ingrid’s were a deep green, while Hailey had Jean’s toffee color.

“So forget the muffins. I’ll get it right the next time. What about this latest patient of yours, that little David you told me about?”

Sam and Ingrid listened closely as Hailey told them everything she knew about him, which wasn’t much. “The Department of Social Services and the courts will decide what eventually happens to him,” she explained. “He’ll probably go into foster care as soon as he’s released from St. Joe’s, unless some relative comes forward and offers to care for him.”

“And we all know that’s not very likely,” Ingrid said with a sigh. “There’s so many babies around that nobody seems to want I can’t see why they’re taking so long to find one for you, honey.”

Ingrid and Sam had eagerly offered to baby-sit their great-grandchild when Hailey finally became a mother. Like Hailey, Ingrid had had little opportunity to get to know Laura’s kids, and Hailey figured it probably had a lot to do with her mother. Jean was proprietary about Christopher and Samantha, and because she and Ingrid had never gotten along, it was a safe bet Jean would do her best to keep her beloved grandchildren out of the clutches of the person she’d long ago labeled her dipstick of a mother-in-law. It was easy to see why Frank and Jean got along so well, with vocabularies that contained labels like dipstick and whacko.

Although Sam had three grandchildren, there were problems in his family, too. His son and daughter had united in doing everything they could to keep him from marrying Ingrid, and they still hadn’t quite forgiven him for not bowing to their wishes.

He’d married his first wife in his early twenties. She died when he was fifty-five, and six months later he quit his job as an engineer and began a new career as a model, something he’d always wanted to try. When he began dating Ingrid, his children were aghast; she was the total opposite of what their mother had been.

“I could have a child immediately if I agreed to take one with severe mental or physical handicaps,” Hailey said. “I’ve really considered it, but I see kids like that at work and I know how much time, energy and money it takes to deal with their special needs. I’ve thought it over carefully, and I just don’t think I could manage alone.”

Ingrid nodded. “I think you’re wise to give it a lot of thought. A child isn’t something you can return to the store for a refund if it doesn’t work out.”

Sam reached across and put his hand over Hailey’s, his brown eyes brimming with kindness and affection. “When the time is right, exactly the right little girl or boy will be there for you.”

“And the right guy, too,” Ingrid said in a decisive voice. “Just remember, they take long enough to show up sometimes. After your grandfather died, I never dreamed I’d meet anyone I wanted to live with again. I certainly didn’t go out looking, but Sam came along, anyway. You recall, Hailey, I wouldn’t even let him get to first base for the longest time.”

Sam rolled his eyes and Hailey hooted. She happened to know that Ingrid had gone to bed with Sam on their third date.

“But eventually you caved,” Sam said. “Stubborn bloody woman. I knew from the first time I laid eyes on you that we were meant for each other, but would you listen?” His voice was gruff and tender, and he gave Ingrid a look that made Hailey feel lonely, but also reconfirmed that there were people who truly cared for one another.

As she drove to work that day, Hailey thought about Ingrid and Sam. Was love preordained? Did two people really come together at a certain point in their lives in spite of their own plans, in spite of themselves?

An old, deep longing made her chest ache. She’d pretty much managed to convince herself that the relationships in her life weren’t likely to be the male-female variety. It wasn’t that she believed any longer that she was ugly, the way she had as a teenager. In her twenties she’d come to terms with the way she looked, and she’d had her share of dates, but she’d also come to understand that her feeling of alienation from men went much deeper than physical appearance.

Maybe it came from growing up in an all-female household, with a mother who put all her emphasis on beauty and wasn’t able to conceal her disappointment at having a daughter who didn’t look the way she wanted her to look. Or maybe it had to do with losing her father and not trusting any guy to stay around for the long haul.

Hailey had no illusions as to why she’d chosen pediatric nursing as a career. With children, there were no expectations. With them she could let loose the full force of her madcap personality, truly be the person she was usually too self-conscious to reveal around adults. And pediatric nursing, more than any other career choice, offered the opportunity to hold children close, to care for them, to love them, to make them feel better in any and every way she could devise.

She loved her work. There were times when it was painful, when children couldn’t get well and her job was simply to help them die. There were times when she was physically sick from the emotional strain of letting go and saying goodbye. But even then, she never thought for one moment of doing anything else.

But—and it was a but that she managed not to think about most of the time—there was still the dream that every woman had. She wanted the kind of love that Ingrid had found with Sam, and because she was young, Hailey wanted even more. She wanted to know how it felt to carry a living being inside her, to give birth to a baby conceived in passion, to watch and listen to that precious soul as it grew. She wanted to share that experience with a man who felt the way she felt, who wanted what she wanted.

During the past year she’d decided it was time to give up that dream. It was time to compromise. There were children who desperately needed a mother, and she could do that. She’d considered going to a donor bank and having a baby, but she’d come to the conclusion that she had the capacity to love any child. It seemed a waste to grow one of her own when there were babies out there ready-made whose parents didn’t want them or couldn’t care for them.

She made her way up to the ward. Ordinarily she worked a twelve-hour, seven-to-seven shift, but this week she was filling in on her days off so a friend could go to Mexico. The eight-hour shift gave her a little break from routine.

The first thing Hailey did was check the charts to see how her patients had fared since she’d last seen them.

David had cried off and on all night, but today he was drinking a little more of the clear fluids he needed. A quick survey of his room showed Hailey he was sleeping.

Brittany Whitcomb had had chemo that morning, and Hailey went to check on her next. She was curled into a ball on her bed with the sheet and blanket pulled over her head, and Hailey could tell she was crying.

“Hey, sweetie, how goes it? You feeling crappy?”

There was a tiny nod from under the covers.

“Let’s try to figure out what would help. There’s ginger ale here—want a sip?”

Negative shake.

Hailey checked the chart. “You’ve had your anti-nausea meds, so can’t offer you any more of that junk. How about if I sing to you?”

Negative shake.

“Darn, I keep hoping one of you guys will miss the fact that I can’t carry a tune to save my life.” Rhythmically and tenderly she rubbed Brittany’s small, thin back through the covers. “So how about a story?”

A tiny nod.

“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess named Brittany who lived in a faraway land.”

Even though Brittany was twelve, the fairy-tale format seemed to comfort her. For the next ten minutes Hailey wove a fanciful story about a princess who had a lot of bad things happen to her. Her mommy and daddy, the king and queen, divorced. Her big sister, the crown princess, married a prince from another country and left home. Princess Brittany was sad and mad, and then, to top it off, she got sick and had to travel to a healing center a long way from her home.

By incorporating the things Brittany had confided to her from time to time into the story, Hailey could suggest ways for Brittany to manage her feelings about being lonely for her family and feeling sick. When the story was done, the young girl had emerged from the protection of her bedcovers, and although she wasn’t smiling, she wasn’t crying, either.

“Really, Hailey.” Margaret Cross’s high-pitched voice made both Hailey and Brittany jump. “It would be nice if we all had time to sit around telling stories, but the fact is, we’re shorthanded. Could you come along please and help collect the lunch trays?”

“I’ll be right there, Margaret.”

The head nurse obviously wanted to hurry the process along. She put a hand on her hip and sniffed several times, but Hailey didn’t budge. Finally she turned on her heel and left the room, and Hailey pulled a face and moaned, “Busted. I’m gonna get three demerits and I’ll bet I won’t get any ice cream for dinner.”

Brittany smiled at last. They talked for a moment about Brittany’s birthday, which was coming up soon, and then Hailey had to go. She left the girl a Stephen King novel she’d smuggled in—Margaret didn’t consider Stephen King suitable reading for a twelve-year-old—and went off to collect trays.

A half hour later she was showing two little boys in the playroom how to do a headstand when Roy Zedyck’s deep voice sent her toppling from her precarious position.

CHAPTER FOUR

“SORRY, HAILEY, didn’t mean to startle you. You okay?” Roy knelt beside her and tried to help her up.

“No.” She scowled at him and twisted away. “Owww.” She’d fallen hard and her elbow hurt. Rubbing it, she sat up. “Couldn’t you whistle or something? I was concentrating on balance here.”

“I really apologize. Next time I’ll give you fair warning. Wish I could do a headstand.” He turned to the boys. “Think if I asked her really nice she’d teach me?”

“Nope,” Tommy declared, shaking his head. “’Cause I think she needs more practice.”

“Yeah,” Ian agreed. “She don’t know how to do it right.”

Roy laughed and Hailey stopped being annoyed. He was easy with kids, and that made up for scaring her.

“You guys have really hurt my feelings. You’re way too critical.” She was never embarrassed by anything she did that amused the kids, but having Roy see her topple over like a felled tree had made her self-conscious. She brushed herself off and got to her feet.

He was still smiling at her, so she smiled back. Who could resist?

“I thought I’d drop by and see how David’s doing.”

Hailey was impressed. In her experience, social workers didn’t usually pay daily visits to clients.

“He’s been asleep since I came on shift, but let’s go check again.” She turned to the boys. “You guys practice those stretches I showed you. You’re not nearly ready for headstands, either. I’ll be back to see how you’re doing in—” she checked her watch “—fifteen minutes.”

She led the way down the hall and Roy walked beside her, easily keeping pace with her long-legged stride.

“Nicole is probably going to drop by this afternoon with some stuff,” he said. “She was shopping for David last time I talked to her.”

He had a great voice, rumbly and compelling. She sneaked a sideways peek at him. Hell, he had a great everything.

“How long have you been in pediatrics, Hailey?”

“Ever since I graduated. I wouldn’t work anywhere else—I love the kids.”

“And they love you. Nicole said it was refreshing to meet someone who’d found the exact job she wanted to do.”

“What does Nicole do?” It was obvious he was smitten with the woman. He kept bringing her up.

“She’s a lawyer, but her big dream is to have her own gardening business.”

“Wow.” Hailey was astounded. “I never would have guessed lawyer. She looks like a fashion model. And gardening. She doesn’t look like the type of woman…” She caught herself. “Would you just listen to me, making idiotic assumptions?”

“Nobody would guess that someone who looks like Nicole would like to be up to her elbows in compost and dirt.”

“She’d sure clean up good,” Hailey said. “She seems like quite a woman,” she added. “You’re a lucky guy.”

Roy looked surprised. “Hate to burst your romantic bubble, but Nicole’s my sister.”

“Your sister?” She was astonished.

“Yeah, she got all the looks in the family.”

That was debatable. “Is there just the two of you?”

“Nope. We’ve got four more siblings—two sisters, two brothers.”

No wonder he was so easy with kids. “Lucky you, growing up in a big family. I only have one sister, and I always wanted a brother, as well.” Maybe instead of, but she didn’t say that.

“I didn’t actually grow up with them,” he said. “I was adopted at birth, and I grew up as an only child. I found my birth family when I was in my late teens. Well, in fact, they found me. It’s a complicated story. I’ll tell you about it when we have more time.”

“I’d really like to hear.” God, that sounded lame, but she didn’t know what else to say. He hadn’t needed to tell her such intimate stuff, but he had, anyway. It made her feel privileged. “You’re sure honest about it.” That was one more huge thing in his favor. The guy must have some severe faults, but they weren’t evident right off the bat.

“I have to be honest, because I have a terrible memory.”

In unison, they recited, “And a liar needs a good memory.”

They both laughed, and Hailey said, “One of my gran’s favorite sayings. Who drummed it into you?”

“My mom. My adoptive mom, that is.”

“It must get complicated, having two mothers.”

“Two fathers, as well. Different as it’s possible to be. My adoptive dad was a farmer who also worked as a handyman. My genetic father is a lawyer.”

“Two dads,” she marveled. “Some guys have all the luck. The only one I had died when I was a kid.”

He didn’t respond because they’d reached David’s room, and Hailey could see through the window that he was awake. For the first time he was sitting up, watching the door, his little face somber. She had yet to see a smile, but she was going to work extra hard to win one. As always, his battered toy dog was clutched to his chest.

“Hey, Davie boy, just look at you, wide awake and rarin’ to go.” She went over to him and checked his diaper. It was dry. She’d be a lot happier when it was soaked all the time, which would mean his body’s fluid level was stabilizing. Next she checked the IV level, and then reached her arms out to him. “Wanna come walk about with Hailey? I should go and make sure my yoga students aren’t busting their necks.”

David gave her a long, searching look and then nodded, just once. She felt thrilled at his acceptance of her.

“Why, that’s a yes. Let’s do it. C’mon, sweetie,” she cooed. “Ooh, you’re such a big boy.” She lifted him into her arms, careful to take the dog, and kissed his downy cheek. Resting him on her hip, she pointed at Roy. “This guy’s your special friend. His name’s Roy. Can you say Roy?”

David gave Roy a suspicious look and shook his head.

Roy reached out and touched the toy dog with a forefinger. “Who’s this fellow, David? Does your friend have a name?”

They waited, and when David didn’t respond, Hailey said, “That’s Dog, silly. Anybody can see that’s Dog, right, Davie?”

To her surprise, he shook his head. “Bonzo,” he said clearly. He had a husky little voice, and his articulation was excellent.

“Oh, your dog’s name is Bonzo. That’s a good name for a dog.” Hailey was elated. He was beginning to talk.

“It’s time you and Bonzo met some of the other inmates, young man. Can you bring that pole, Roy?”

“Sure thing.” With Roy making engine noises and steering the IV, they sailed out into the hallway and down to the playroom. There were now several girls there, as well as the boys, all playing with a building set.

“Hey, everybody, this is David,” Hailey said. “And the big guy’s Roy.” She lowered herself to the floor with David on her lap.

“Are you a doctor, Roy?” Four-year-old Elizabeth had cystic fibrosis. She was giving him the once-over. “’Cause I didn’t see you before.”

“Nope, not a doctor,” Roy said with a wide smile. “I’m David’s social worker.” He sank down on the rug beside the rest of them, agile and easy. He was wearing jeans, and Hailey noted that they fit him the way jeans ought to fit.

“So what’s a social worker?” Elizabeth was noted for asking questions.

Roy was quiet for a moment as he thought that one over.

“It’s a person whose job is to help people who have troubles.”

“What kind of troubles does David have?”

“That’s sort of private between him and me,” Roy explained. “But I work with other people, too, and some of them might have problems with money, or with their family, or with getting a job. Mostly I help little kids who have no families find people who love them and want to take care of them.”

“So how does that make you feel?” Elizabeth was frowning, peering at Roy like a miniature psychologist, and it was all Hailey could do to keep from laughing. It was the question she asked most often of all her patients, and Elizabeth was a quick study. Hailey had found that too often with kids, adults didn’t ask how things made them feel. When she did, she always found the kids heartbreakingly honest and forthright in their answers, and she waited to hear what Roy would say.

He was obviously taken aback at first. He glanced at Hailey and lifted one eyebrow. She gave him an encouraging wink.

“Well, I guess sometimes it makes me sad,” he began in a hesitant voice, and Hailey was impressed. Most guys she’d met didn’t do feelings at all when asked that question. They answered from their head, instead of their heart.

“Do you cry?” Elizabeth was persistent. “I cry when the nurses hammer on me to loosen my mucus.”

“Yeah, sometimes I cry,” Roy admitted. He was redder than usual, and he didn’t meet Hailey’s eyes, but she was bowled over by his honesty. “And there’re other times that make me laugh, so I guess it balances out.”

“Hailey always makes us laugh,” Elizabeth stated.

Then Tommy, who’d been listening, said, “Hailey really, really makes us laugh. Sometimes she gets in trouble for it, too.” He leaned toward Roy and said in a stage whisper, “Some people don’t like hearing little kids laugh when they’re in here.”

“No kidding?” Roy looked surprised. “Why is that, do you think?”

Hailey really liked the fact that Roy didn’t talk down to the kids.

“They figure we get too excited and it wears us out,” Elizabeth explained. It was the answer Margaret had given Hailey when she reprimanded her for making the kids what she called “hysterical and unmanageable.”

“I don’t agree,” Roy declared. “Laughing is good. I always feel better when I laugh a lot.”

There was a chorus of agreement.

“So what’s wrong with him?” Elizabeth was standing beside Hailey, and she reached out and took one of David’s hands in hers. She looked at Roy. “Why’s he in the hospital? Why’s he need you to help him?”

This was tricky ground. Hailey glanced at Roy, wondering how he’d handle it. All the kids were listening, waiting for his reply.

“David’s mommy is having some problems and she can’t take care of him just now. He got sick, and he needs to get strong again, and this is a good place to get better.”

It was the truth, without going into details.

The kids all studied David for a few minutes, and then Elizabeth put her arms around him and gave him a gentle hug. David’s expressive blue eyes grew wide, but he didn’t pull away.

“It’s not too bad here, David,” Elizabeth told him, putting her small face close to his, almost nose to nose. “It’s not as good as home, but the nurses are nice, ’specially Hailey, and most of the doctors are okay. They don’t hurt you unless they really, really have to. Sometimes Ian and Tommy are bad. They run around like crazy, and once they upset the cart and scissors and stuff fell down, and Margaret got really mad, and we had to stay in our rooms. It’s hard when you’re in bed at night, though. It’s lonely then.”

Hailey had a lump in her throat, and when she looked at Roy, she could see that he, too, was touched by what Elizabeth had said.

“If you get too lonely, honey,” Hailey reminded her, “you can just push the buzzer. Whoever’s on will come in and talk to you at night.”

“I know.” Elizabeth nodded. “But I only want my mommy then.”

“Mama?” The word was barely above a whisper. “Mama?” David’s chin trembled and his face puckered. He whimpered, and Hailey could feel the tension in his arms and legs, but he didn’t cry out loud, and that was far more disturbing to her than if he’d howled and had a temper fit. He pointed a forefinger toward the door and repeated in a sad, questioning tone, “Mama come?”

“Sorry, Davie, Mama’s not here today.” Hailey could see her own reaction mirrored in Roy’s stricken expression. “How about we go and get you a new bottle of juice, young man? Does everybody want juice?”

There was a chorus of assent, and Hailey made a production of leading a conga line to the snack area. It was a cop-out for David, but Hailey didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t exactly tell the poor kid that his mother was missing in action and not expected to show up, could she?

“I’ve gotta go. I have a meeting in a few minutes.” Roy reached out and touched David’s cheek with his finger.

“Bye, David.” His voice was husky. “See you again soon.” He lifted a finger to his forehead in a salute to Hailey, and for one long moment their eyes met and a silent acknowledgment of the hurt little kids were forced to absorb passed between them. “See you, too, Ms. Bergstrom. Soon.”

Hailey took David back to his crib and he settled down with a bottle of apple juice and some toys she’d brought from the playroom. Soon he was asleep, and she went back to her duties, but anger at Shannon Riggs simmered in her. How did you walk away one afternoon and forget you had a baby?

She found herself wondering if Shannon had OD’d, and then was shocked at her callousness when she found herself thinking maybe that would be the best thing that could happen for David.

HAILEY WAS JUST coming back from her supper break when an aide appeared, looking for her.

“There’s someone here to see you, Hailey. She’s in the waiting room down the hall.”

It was Nicole. She had a huge shopping bag on the chair beside her, and she got to her feet when she saw Hailey.

“Hope I’m not interrupting something important. I only have a couple minutes. I’m due to meet a client, but I wanted to drop this stuff off.”

Nicole looked entirely different than she had the previous evening. She was wearing a dark pin-striped business suit and designer glasses, and her long hair was pulled to the back of her head in a nononsense bun. She was still beautiful, but now she looked like a woman no one would dare mess with.

“I thought about what you said, that the kids share stuff, so I got some things that I thought could be just for David and some that everyone can use.” She upended the bag. “He probably doesn’t much care what he’s wearing, but I couldn’t resist these.” There were four small tracksuits, soft fleecy cotton, in bright shades of red, blue, yellow and turquoise.

“With his eyes and hair, these colors should be great on him,” Hailey said.

There was also a huge stack of books that Hailey could tell at a glance were perfect for David’s age, and several ingenious learning games designed to attach to the bars of a crib. There was also a small fleecy white teddy bear.

“I wouldn’t dream of trying to substitute the one he’s got,” Nicole explained. “I know how much it means to him. I just thought maybe he could have two?”

Nicole was looking at Hailey with an uncertain expression.

“Of course he can. Maybe now I can even get Bonzo away from him long enough to wash. Thanks so much for all this, Nicole.” Hailey was examining the games. They were both unique and educational and more expensive than the hospital budget would ever allow. “Wow, these are great. Because of the IV, he has to spend a fair amount of time in his crib, and these will challenge him.”

As Hailey repacked the bag, she gave Nicole an update on David, telling her that he was drinking more liquids and that he’d asked for his mother.

“Wouldn’t you just like to strangle her?” Nicole’s blue eyes flashed fire behind her glasses.

“Absolutely. Around here, there’d be a lineup for the privilege.”

Ian and Tommy, laughing uproariously and clearly bent on destruction, went tearing past the door.

“Gotta go, Nicole. Those two are my patients and they’re hellcats when they get going. No telling what they’ll get up to. I gotta catch them before they pull a fire alarm or plug the toilets again.”

“I don’t suppose you’d want to have lunch one of these days?” Again Nicole’s voice was uncertain.

“Love to. Only trouble is, I’m starting the seven-to-seven shift tomorrow morning—I’ve been filling in for another nurse on this shorter one. So it would have to be a late dinner, instead of lunch.” Hailey figured that would be out of the question; any woman who looked like Nicole had dates every night of the week.

But to her surprise, Nicole gave her a wide smile and an enthusiastic nod. “That would be perfect. I don’t eat till late, anyway. And I’m free any evening that’s convenient for you.” She pulled a business card out of one of her pockets. “Call me—you set the time. I can work my schedule around yours.”

Hailey shot off down the corridor in pursuit of her rambunctious charges, wondering why Nicole would want to see her away from work. The two of them were obviously nothing alike, and what they might have in common beyond discussing David, she couldn’t imagine. But her curiosity was piqued, and she found herself looking forward to getting to know the other woman better.

She spent the late afternoon hurrying through the necessary duties so she’d have time to read that evening to the kids at the end of her shift. It was a difficult time for some of them, that hour or so before bedtime, and she hated the fact that they often got stuck in front of the TV because the nurses were busy. Many parents spent the end of their workday with their sick kids, but there were a number of kids on the ward whose parents lived far away or had other children at home to care for and so couldn’t make it to St. Joe’s.

They were the ones Hailey spoiled a little with balloons and stories and, if their diets permitted, special snacks and little treats from the kitchen.

She picked up David and took him with her to the playroom, where she sat in a rocking chair and read the kids a couple of chapters from a Harry Potter book. Of course the story was way beyond David’s level, and he kept looking up at her, a puzzled expression on his face. Once, he reached up and took hold of a fistful of hair.

She smiled at him, and there was the tiniest movement of his mouth, not quite a smile, but close. The other kids demanded equal time on her lap, so she strapped David in a wheelchair. He didn’t object. He watched the others, but most of all, he watched Hailey.

A full hour after her shift had ended, she carried him back to his crib and settled him for the night. She bent and kissed his cheek, and a dangerous thought flickered through her mind.

It was probably impossible, but if Roy couldn’t find any relatives who wanted him, was there any chance that she could take this little boy home with her?

ROY WAS FRUSTRATED. Four days had passed since he’d first visited David in St. Joe’s, and so far, all his attempts to find Shannon Riggs or anyone who could tell him where she was had come to nothing. First he’d checked her personnel file on the computer, getting whatever details were available about previous investigations. Then he’d located Tonya Cabral, the volunteer street worker who’d taken Shannon under her wing and helped her get off drugs. Tonya was somewhere in her sixties, a tiny, birdlike woman with deep lines in her face and dark, sad eyes. She’d put a wrinkled hand over her mouth and started to cry when he told her that Shannon had disappeared, leaving David alone.

“I feel so responsible,” she sobbed. “I usually go over and visit her Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I came down with a bad migraine and was knocked out for a few days.”

Shannon had gone through a drug-rehab program prior to David’s birth, and she seemed to have stayed clean, because there was no record of a complaint regarding her care of David. He’d called the social worker who’d been involved at that time, and she confirmed that Shannon took good care of her baby. She was attending parenting classes and working at getting her high-school diploma.

The troubling thing was that Shannon had never revealed who the baby’s father was or given any information about her own background, other than saying she’d grown up in Port Hardy, a coastal village on Vancouver Island. Her file listed her mother and father as deceased, with no other close relatives and no siblings, but from experience, Roy knew that teenagers often did that on their forms. If they were from troubled homes, they didn’t want their parents involved in their lives. The social worker had talked to street kids who knew Shannon, and they’d said she was often seen with a man named Murphy. None of them knew much about him or where he lived. The file wasn’t much help to Roy in finding Shannon. Tracing relatives would be difficult, if not impossible. He called the RCMP in Port Hardy and asked them to locate any families by the name of Riggs, but he strongly suspected that Shannon wasn’t using her real name.

He was also doing his best to locate her. He’d given her description to the people he knew who drove around downtown Vancouver in vans, distributing clean needles and condoms. He knew several of the firefighters who worked the downtown east side, and he’d asked them to be on the lookout for her. He’d checked emergency departments at all the Lower Mainland hospitals besides St. Joe’s, and of course the Vancouver police had Shannon’s description.

He’d interviewed the firemen who’d been first on the scene in the apartment, he’d talked to the paramedics and the staff in the ER, and of course he was keeping close contact with David’s doctor, Harry Larue.

Roy had other cases, far too many of them to be able to devote a full working day to David’s situation. As always, he was forced to do a great deal of work on his own time. And he was starting to really begrudge the fact that his private life and his profession were one and the same.

CHAPTER FIVE

SHANNON RIGGS came out of drugged oblivion and her first thoughts were of Davie, but the thought of him made the pain in her chest too sharp. She shoved the images of her son down into a dark box in her mind and tried to slam the lid.

Shaking and sweating, she struggled to figure out where she was. It was stifling hot. Sunlight penetrated through a rip in the dark-green curtains, and she could hear the sound of traffic outside. A picture of sunflowers was screwed to the wall, and a closed door must lead to a bathroom. A motel room, she decided.

She propped herself up on one elbow and studied the face of the husky man sleeping beside her. He wasn’t Murphy, and to the best of her knowledge she’d never seen him before. Her stomach lurched. She felt nauseated.

She slid out of bed. Her legs were rubbery, and she had trouble making it to the bathroom without falling. Her head felt as if it was about to explode, and the drug need went crawling through her veins like a hungry snake, making her itchy and edgy and frantic and sick.

For an instant memories surfaced, police cars, an ambulance in front of her apartment, urgent voices floating to her in the hot afternoon. A stretcher with a small figure on it—they were taking Davie away, and she had to stop them.

She’d tried to get out of Rudy’s car, but he’d grabbed her, pulled her back inside, then driven off as Murphy held her. She’d writhed and screamed and fought to get loose, but Murphy was strong.

“You’re high, baby, they’ll toss you in the slammer. The kid’s okay. They’re takin’ care of him. Here, have some of this—it’ll make you feel better.”

And from then until now, she couldn’t remember anything.

She retched into the toilet, gasping for breath, disgust and fear and shame gnawing at her soul. Where was her son? Terror and emptiness made it hard to breathe.

The door opened, and the man stood there, squinting down at her.

“You okay, doll? That was some party, huh? I got some stuff left—you want some?”

She shook her head. She managed to get to her feet, turn on the hot water in the shower and step inside. She pulled the curtain and turned the tap until the spray was as hot as it would get. It beat down on her face, and gradually the pain in her chest became unbearable. She opened her mouth and tried to howl, but no sound came out.

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