Jessica Andersen - Under the Microscope

Raine winced at his forthrightness, but it seemed to work on Summerton. He visibly collected himself and shifted his grip on the baby once again as she squirmed, still heading for Raine.

Thwarted, the little girl burst into loud, miserable tears.

“I’m sorry,” Summerton said, trying to shush the baby and looking close to tears himself. “I’m sorry, she misses Cari. Shush, sweetie, it’s okay. Daddy’s here. I’m sorry.”

“Here. Let me.” Raine transferred the dribble rag from Summerton’s shoulder to her own and plucked the baby from his arms. With motions honed by too many hours of babysitting to count, she perched the child on her shoulder and soothed her with a combination jiggle-bounce and circular back rub.

When the baby quieted, she nodded to a stunned-looking Max. “Go ahead.”

He stared at her for a moment longer before he turned to Summerton. “Okay, here goes. What can you tell me about your wife’s family medical history? Any heart problems, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, that sort of thing?”

Summerton divided his attention between Max and his daughter, who had cuddled right up against Raine’s neck. “Cari’s mother is staying with me. She’ll be back any time now, and could answer that better than I can. But I think she’s got an aunt with late-onset Alzheimer’s, and her great grandfather died of a heart attack in his forties. Beyond that, nothing that I know of.”

“How was Cari’s health in general?”

“Good,” Summerton said quickly. Then he took a breath. “It was good. She was healthy. A little heavier than she’d been before the baby, but she was working on that. She was a little depressed, I think, because I’ve been away so much lately and she’d been here alone with the baby…” He shot a look at his daughter, as though fearing she’d overhear and take it the wrong way. “There just hadn’t been much time for the two of us, you know?”

Max nodded sympathetically. “Anything problematic about the birth?”

Raine paused in her jiggle-bounce, startled by the question, but he was right. What if all four women had recently given birth? It was definitely something to check out. A risk factor, of sorts.

“Well, she had a C-section. Something about her pelvic conformation wasn’t optimal. They said it was the safest way.” When Max nodded encouragingly, Summerton continued, “As long as they had to open her up, Cari got a tummy tuck. She’d been hinting about wanting breast implants recently, but I didn’t want her to get them. She’s-she was perfect already.”

His face nearly crumpled, but he pulled it together, and held it together through the remainder of Max’s questions. Raine couldn’t tell if they were gathering useful information or not, but the baby grew heavy and warm as she dropped off to sleep, in turn relaxing muscles that Raine hadn’t even realized were tight.

She leaned her cheek against the pink-clad back and indulged in a moment of baby smell.

Contrary to what Max might think, she didn’t have anything against babies. She just didn’t think a woman should have one just because she happened to have a uterus. Until she could say without hesitation that she was willing to give up her other goals, or at least put them on hold for twenty years or so, then she didn’t feel she was ready for a child of her own.

If she never was, that would be okay, she told herself firmly, ignoring the little ache that fisted beneath her heart when Baby Summerton cooed in her sleep.

“Thanks for your time,” Max said. He stood and shook Summerton’s hand. “My cell number is on the card, please feel free to call me if you or your mother-in-law think of anything else that might be helpful.”

“I will.” Summerton looked over to Raine and his eyes softened. “Thank you for taking her. That meant a great deal to both of us.”

“Of course.” Raine eased the sleeping child off her shoulder and placed her in the crib. She handed Summerton the dribble rag. “She’s a beautiful girl.”

Still looking down at his sleeping daughter, he nodded. “Yes, she is. I just wish-” He broke off and swallowed hard. “I wish she’d gotten to know her mother.”

Eyes filling, Raine mumbled something appropriate, shook Summerton’s hand and fled to the rental car. There, she breathed deeply and had herself more or less under control by the time Max joined her.

He started the engine and pulled out of the driveway before he glanced over at her. “That was quite a scene back there.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant her with the baby, or Summerton talking about his loss, so she went with a noncommittal, “Neither of us expected this to be easy.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not sure I expected it to be this hard, though. Even though I know I did everything I could to ensure that Thriller would be safe for its users, I can’t help thinking…” She trailed off and stared out the window, throat closing on tired, hopeless tears.

This time, when he took her hand, he simply held it.

Though it was only midday, Max could see that Raine was near collapse. He thought about driving through, but he was low on sleep too, so he picked a hotel at random and checked in under a totally bogus name, paying cash from the emergency stash he’d retrieved from the bottom lining of his duffel bag.

With only a few hundred dollars, he thought about saving money by just getting one room. But ever since earlier that day, when he’d opened up to Raine about Charlotte, he’d felt his natural anti-Raine defenses weakening. They’d taken another hard hit when he’d seen her holding Baby Summerton and something had clicked in his brain, in his gut.

That’s what I want, the click had said. Only that. Only her.

Too bad he couldn’t fully trust the feeling, or the woman. They might make a good couple for a while, but she’d run in the end. That was her pattern, and he didn’t see any evidence of it changing.

So he asked for separate rooms without a connecting door. If he was near her, he would only want her. And from the looks he’d intercepted once or twice over the course of the morning, he had a feeling she wanted him right back. But anything they’d have together would be temporary, and he wasn’t looking for temporary.

Especially not the kind that took a part of him when it left.

He led the way to the fifth floor and handed her a key card. “I’m right next door. Knock if you need me.”

She looked startled for a moment, then her face flooded with a complicated mix of emotions. “Does that mean you trust me not to run?”

“I trust that you’re smart enough to know you’re safer with me than without me at this point. And I know you’re smart enough to figure out you won’t get far without using your credit card number, which I can pretty much guarantee has been flagged by both Detective Marcus and The Nine.”

He wasn’t sure when the existence of the shadow group had gone from impossible to probable in his mind, but too many of the facts fit best when he plugged them into a group rather than a single individual or company.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, I guess,” Raine said, lips twisting in a rueful smile. “I’m going to get some sleep. Want to meet for dinner?”

“I’m going to get room service and keep working.” He jammed his key card in the slot with more force than necessary. “I’ll call the next-of-kin in Richmond. We’ll go there tomorrow morning, then swing back up to the third victim’s family in New York City.” Saying it like that brought home a point he’d begun to consider that afternoon.

Apparently Raine caught the connection, too. “Do you think it’s significant that three of the four deaths were on the east coast?”