She continued before he could come up with a reasonable response. "I won't call you my date if that feels better. I'll say you're my friend. My good friend, I thought."
He leaned his head against the rest and approached the quiet address he'd been called to. Nice place, but appearances could be deceiving. "All right. But I'm telling Ryan so he doesn't hear it from some third party."
"Not that it matters if or how Ryan hears anything, but go ahead."
"Okay. See you Friday." He parked outside the Italianate villa. The report hadn't been clear on how the baby got there. Had someone left an infant on the doorstep? The place had a welcoming sort of peace about it, and if—He stopped the speculation. Get the facts and work with them. Trying to guess motivations and gauge intentions was part of his job—not imagining scenarios before he even saw what he was up against.
Sofie paced the parlor. Rese had insisted they call the police, but she could have told her it was too soon to legally consider Maria missing. Just because one day people were there and the next they were not didn't mean a crime had been committed. Not even when someone had waited six years for them to come back.
The police had, however, notified the child welfare division about the baby Maria left behind, and someone from Child Protective Services was on the way. Sofie swallowed the lump in her throat formed by the words
child
and
protective
. She wanted nothing more than to close herself into the carriage house out of sight. But Rese had asked her to listen for the door while she got ready for work and Lance searched the neighborhood one last time.
She turned at the bookcase and walked past the window. Would the person who made protecting children a profession identify that particular failure in another? Would it show like a blemish or stain? Her mind flooded with images of ribbons and barrettes, lacy socks and little pink shoes. She remembered the wiggly weight in her lap, small spongy palms pressed to her cheeks.
"Hear me, Sofie."
"I'm listening, sweetie."
She startled when the knock came. Her pulse fluttered. She made herself move toward the door and pull it open. She didn't know what she'd expected in the social worker, but not the tall man in rolled shirt sleeves who stood there. His brown hair and strong jaw registered, but it was the warmth in his deep brown eyes that undid her.
He offered his hand, a firm, encompassing grip. "Matt Hammond. Child Protective Services."
The woman who opened the door affected him on a visceral level that took him by surprise; the elegant curve of her neck, honey gold hair, and eyes like dark copper pennies with a green aura surrounding the pupils. Her features were defined, her figure exquisite, her expression quick and intelligent, yet somehow veiled. Without realizing, he'd enclosed her hand with both of his. He released her. "I received a call from the police about an infant?"
She nodded. "Come in. Rese will be out in a minute. Would you like to sit?"
"Sure. And you're . . ."
"Sofie. Sofie Michelli."
The name slid in and locked, fitting her so well he doubted he'd ever forget. The long room, broken into conversational groupings, felt more like a cozy inn than a home. He took a cream-colored chair by the window.
"Would you like coffee?"
"No thanks. I'm kicking the habit—this week." He smiled.
"Is there something else you'd like?"
"I'm fine, thanks. Is this a bed-and-breakfast? I didn't see a sign."
"It was going to be, but Rese changed plans."
He supposed Rese would address the issue he'd been called in for, but conversing with Sofie reminded him of the time he'd asked a girl to the prom and discovered he enjoyed the younger sister more. They'd been laughing too hard to notice the grand entrance his date made, and she hadn't forgiven him all evening.
"I haven't been in this neighborhood for a while, but wasn't this building burned?"
Sofie nodded. "Partially. Rese renovated it."
"He did good work."
A smile touched her mouth. "Here she is now."
Aha
. He stood and introduced himself to the woman who joined them, short dark hair framing an angular face.
She said, "I was hoping Lance would be back."
Just as he wondered if anyone there was going to tell him what he'd come to learn, the back door opened and a man of medium stature and somewhat gaunt appearance approached. Matt extended his hand.
The man returned a firm grip. "Lance Michelli."
"Michelli. You're Sofie's . . ."
"Sofie's my sister." He looked around. "Where are Nonna and the baby?"
"In my room." Rese crossed her arms.
Lance took off his jacket and finger-combed his windblown hair. "So, what are we doing?"
She shrugged. "Mr. Hammond just got here."
"Matt. Please." He liked things informal. People at ease were more accurately assessed, and he was about solutions, not control.
"This is an initial interview where I gather as much info as I can about the baby." Since the women seemed to defer to Lance, he directed his attention there. "You told the police the mother has been gone twenty-four hours?"
"Almost."
"And before she left, she asked you to watch the baby?"
"That's . . . what she meant."
A clever sidestep. "What did she say?"
"She was speaking Spanish and got pretty emotional, but that was the idea."
"Spanish is her first language?"
"Only language, as far as we can tell."
"Did she indicate how long she'd be gone?"
"No."
He took out a pad to jot notes. "Baby's name?"
"He doesn't have one yet."
Uh-huh
. "Mother is Maria . . ."
Lance shrugged. "That's all we know. Someone asked us to provide her a place to have her baby. She's only been here a week."
"Who asked?"
"Michelle Farrar. She's with a local church."
Matt took down her contact information. Michelle might know the mother's name and whether she intended the safe surrender of her infant. "When was the baby born?"
"The twenty-fifth. Around 2:30 a.m."
"What hospital?"
"No hospital. She had him upstairs. In her room."
Matt looked up. "Who attended?"
"No one. Maria had him before we knew it."
"Has a doctor seen him?"
Lance shook his head. "The nurse midwife came when he was born, and she's done a couple checkups."
"But Maria never took him to a pediatrician or emergency clinic?"
"The baby's fine."
Maybe so, but he was trying to determine her mindset, particularly whether she had abandoned the infant. Sonoma County's safe-haven law only allowed surrender of an infant within three days to a hospital emergency room. Maria may have thought she was leaving her baby in good hands, but he wasn't getting the idea they'd been prepared for her to disappear.
Lance studied the man who'd come on the baby's behalf. Why had CPS sent someone already? If one day was too soon for the police to investigate a missing person, wasn't it also too soon to call it abandonment? He appreciated Matt's interest in the infant's welfare, but Maria was the one they needed to find. Her little baby may not have seen a doctor, but he was hale and hardy and had more arms to hold and soothe him than most babies starting out.
Where was Maria, and who could she turn to? He could not forget her face as she told him the baby was his. The verbs she'd used didn't really translate to
watch
or
look after
, but he couldn't believe she'd given up the baby she had hardly let go of for a minute. How could she disappear so fast? He'd been right behind her. Unless someone had grabbed her. Maybe someone had been waiting. Maybe they'd arranged it.
"Look," he said, meeting Matt Hammond's eyes. "We don't mind watching the baby. But I'm worried about Maria."
"Did either she or—" he checked his notes—"Michelle indicate Maria intended to abandon her infant?"
"No. We didn't press her for details, but she never said anything like that. Until yesterday, it had been hard to get more than a word or two from her."
"And yesterday?"
He ran his hand through his hair. "She got upset, misunderstood things."
"What did she misunderstand?"
"When she first came, she asked what she had to do to stay here. I told her just have a strong, healthy baby. I meant she didn't have to earn our help, that we were willing to care for her, but she might have thought that meant I wanted the child."
Matt raised his brows. "What makes you think that?"
"She said I should name him. That he was mine."
"Is he?"
Rese stiffened. "She didn't mean Lance was the father."
Matt waited to hear it directly.
Lance shook his head. "I never saw her until a week ago. She meant I should have the baby because . . ." He kicked himself. He hadn't meant to bring up the rest of it. "I helped when he was born."
"I thought she was alone."
"After." Lance rubbed his jaw. "He had some problems. Wasn't breathing. She thinks I fixed what was wrong."
"You resuscitated the infant?"
"He was just lying there, so I picked him up. He . . . didn't look good."
"In what way?"
Lance swallowed. "Well, there was blood and . . . you know, birth stuff, and maybe it just looked like his mouth hadn't . . ."
"He had a cleft palate." Star joined them. In her turquoise beaded top and white caravan-style pants, with her pale skin and hair, she looked like a bleached belly dancer. And in that one sentence she'd undone all his careful hedging.
Matt said, "You are . . ."
"I'm Star." She lighted on the arm of Sofie's chair.
Matt honed in. "You saw what happened, Star?"
"Lance healed him."
Great
.
Matt cocked his head. "Healed him?"
"He does that," Star said. "Fixes people."
Lance tried to catch her eye and limit the damage, but she stubbornly avoided looking at him.
"Fixes them how?"
"However they need fixing."
Matt probably thought he'd landed in some Jonesian cult that required impressionable girls to donate babies. The charismatic male with his female devotees. Rese stared her down, but the damage was done, and he suspected Star enjoyed that.
Matt directed his attention back to him. "Did Maria think you cured the baby?"
Lance sighed. "She's overwhelmed."
"The midwife examined the infant? She noted his cleft palate?"
Rese planted her hands on her hips. "She wasn't here. She came after."
"After Lance miraculously healed the infant."
Lance expelled a breath. "I didn't—"
"Does Maria think you worked a miracle?"
"I don't know what she thinks."
"She thinks he walks on water," Star said.
Matt Hammond turned and fixed her with a probing look. "And does he?"
Star formed a secret smile. " 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' "
R
ese silently groaned when her mother took that moment to come downstairs. Her prematurely white hair sprang out of its straight below-the-ear cut as though she'd rubbed it with a balloon. Why hadn't Star stayed upstairs with her?
Surprised into motion, Matt Hammond got to his feet and held out his hand. "Hello, I'm—"
Mom swept past him with her jerky gait as though he were as invisible as Walter had been to everyone else. Clozapine kept Mom's hallucination away, but her other symptoms were unmistakable. She went to the window and murmured, "Gone, gone, gone."
Rese drew herself up. "That's my mother, Elaine. I'm her legal guardian." That should be all he needed to know.
Matt stepped toward the window. "Who's gone, Elaine?"
Rese almost pointed out the obvious, but Lance touched her hand. She ached in silence as Matt Hammond prodded.
"Is someone gone?"
Her mother looked into his face. "They took her away. They always take them away."
He would realize her confusion. And what difference did it make? He was concerned with the baby's welfare, not Maria's. And certainly not Elaine Barrett's. Mom had barely known the baby was there.
"Did you see something, Elaine? Something in the yard?"
"They aren't nice, you know. You have to be careful. She wasn't careful and now she's gone. Gone, gone. They took her and she's gone. They're all gone. All gone."
Rese clenched her jaw, ashamed and embarrassed, and angry with herself for both. Mom couldn't help her delusions any more than she could help trying to kill her only daughter, but that particular episode still colored their interactions. Maybe that was why she'd said yes to Brad's offer, why she'd surrendered the daughter role to Star, who had no blood tie whatsoever.
She glanced at the friend she'd had since they were little girls. Though two months older, Star had always seemed like a little sister, running to her to make things right, to take away the hurt, to help her go on. And even though she'd sometimes resented Star's self-centered tunnel vision, she had liked being the strong one. Only in these last months had they found a different balance.
With Mom, Star seemed to thrive for the first time on responsibility, to see outside herself to someone else's needs. They talked nonsense together, and Rese would hear them laughing in the attic like the Looney Tunes she and Star had been called by unkind classmates.
As Matt Hammond questioned her mother, Rese drew herself up. "She's probably said all she knows."
He turned. "Anyone else see someone taken from the front yard?"
She opened her mouth to explain, then caught Mom's face at the window. Why steal her moment? Why say aloud that her word was worthless? Or was it?
"Star?" Matt Hammond moved from folly to foolishness.
" 'Let every eye negotiate for itself.' Mine saw naught."
"Mom likes to watch out the window while Star paints." The words were out before she realized she had given weight to her mother's statement. "She probably notices more than the rest of us."