Hadley & Grace(19)

“Here,” Hadley says, “give him to me while you make a bottle.” She holds out her arms.

Grace shakes her head, more reaction than response, her brain clearly overwhelmed with distress nearly as severe as her son’s. Her jiggling is almost frantic now, the bouncing causing the baby to flop up and down.

“Grace,” Hadley says firmly as she pushes to her feet. Pain shoots through her ankle as blood rushes into it. “Let me take him.”

Grace blinks as if just remembering Hadley is there, and her head almost shakes again, but Hadley’s stern look stops her. “Grace, give him to me and go make a bottle.”

The baby howls louder, and Grace’s nostrils flare; then she practically throws him into Hadley’s arms, frantically rummages through the grocery bag to retrieve a bottle and formula, and races to the bathroom.

Hadley places the baby over her shoulder so his belly is pressed against the round bulge of her muscle—a position Skipper was particularly fond of—then she lowers herself back to the chair and gently rocks him back and forth. “Shhh,” she soothes as she pats his back.

He chews on his little fist, and his crying softens to whimpers. “That’s it. You’re okay. Your bottle’s coming.”

She hums softly, no particular song, just a gentle sound to let him know she’s there, and he quiets. He’s a solid baby, thick and strong. His chubby legs climb against her chest, and the fist that is not in his mouth tugs at her hair. She buries her nose in the sweet folds of his neck, the smell spiraling her back to when Mattie and Skipper were babies, that miraculous time when they needed her so much it was as if they were a part of her.

Grace races from the bathroom, a woman on fire. She thrusts the bottle at Hadley, then pulls it back. “How’d you do that?” she says, staring at the baby, who now snoozes peacefully on Hadley’s shoulder.

“What?”

“Get him to stop crying?”

Hadley gives her a thin smile. She’s always had a way with babies. “Why don’t you get some rest? I’ve got him. Leave the bottle.”

Grace’s head starts to shake.

Hadley rolls her eyes. “Rest. You’re exhausted. You helped me; now I’m helping you. If you don’t trust me, sleep with the money. But you’re tired and he’s tired, and there’s nothing you can do tonight that can’t be done in the morning.” It’s something her mom would have said, and she likes the way it sounds coming from her mouth.

“You’re very bossy,” Grace says.

“And you’re a pain in my ass.”

For a long moment, Grace looks at her, searching for the lie. Finally, not finding one, she says, “Fine, but wake me if he wakes up again.”

“Go. To. Sleep.”

Grace lies down on the bed, distrust still in her eyes as she fights to keep them open, but eventually exhaustion overtakes her and she falls into a deep, still sleep.

Hadley stares at the striped bag beside her filled with Grace’s half of the money, and again she thinks of Mattie and Skipper in the room next door, and about the past and the future and about what she needs to do.





16





MARK


Senior Special Agent Mark Wilkes wakes to buzzing he thinks is in his head. He squints into the brightness streaming through the blinds, then at the clock beside him: 7:32.

Saturday? Yes. Last night was Friday. The song “Yankee Doodle” from Shelly’s spring recital still plays in his head. His six-year-old was a sunflower, then a chipmunk; then, in the finale, she was herself.

He almost smiles, but the buzzing still vibrates somewhere to his right, so he gropes around on the folding chair that serves as his nightstand to find his phone. The ticket stub from the recital falls to the floor, along with an empty taco wrapping from his dinner. After finally unearthing his phone, he brings it to his ear and grunts into it.

“Boss,” Kevin Fitzpatrick says in way of greeting.

“Fitz.”

“We’ve got a problem.”

Mark’s mouth tastes like a sock coated with athlete’s foot, so he pushes to his elbow and takes a swig of the half-empty beer also on the folding chair as he waits for Fitz to continue.

Fitz is Mark’s deskman on the Torelli case, a two-bit racketeering case Mark’s been coordinating for a year. Frank Torelli is a small-time hustler running a gambling and drug operation out of his parking business in Orange County, California. It should be a regional case handled by the LA field office, but because Torelli has a cousin running a similar racket in Chicago, it’s multijurisdictional, and since it also involves multiple agencies—FBI, DEA, local law enforcement—Mark was assigned the job of coordinating a task force.

The case isn’t complicated and should have been wrapped up months ago, but they hit a snafu when the marked money they’d put in circulation never showed up in Torelli’s accounts. Not a big deal: it simply meant Torelli was stashing the money somewhere other than the bank.

Mark set up surveillance cameras outside Torelli’s office and his garages, and now they’re just waiting on a search warrant. As soon as they have it, a team will go in and find the money, and Torelli, his brother, and his cousin will be sent away for a nice long stay at their local federal penitentiary, compliments of the US government.