Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(32)

Eight P.M. Lights out. We should change into our PJ’s, but we don’t. Instead, we move the cribs around, creating a small pocket of space. We have to lie on our sides on the tattered carpet in order to fit. We don’t mind. We’ve slept in smaller spaces.

Briefly, I let myself relax. I feel my sister’s breath on the back of my neck, as I have so many times before. The house is old. It creaks, it hums, but there’s no screaming, no crash of bottles, no slamming of fists into walls. If anything, it is too quiet for me.

The babies stir, make rumbling noises, sigh little baby sighs.

I start to drift off.

The door opens. Backlit from the glow in the hall, I can make out the form of the larger boy, Roberto, with golden Anya beside him. She’s giggling. It’s not a good sound.

“Hey, newbies,” the boy whispers. “Time to come out and play . . .”

Behind me, Lola whimpers.

I am the oldest. These things are my responsibility.

I finger the butter knife.

I climb to my feet.

I square off against them.

? ? ?

I know this: Perfect families don’t just happen. They have to be made. Mistakes. Regret. Repair. A mother drinks, the children are taken away. One child is separated, two must work to stay together. A younger sister is threatened, the older takes a stand.

Mistakes. Regret. Repair. This is my family’s story. And we’re not finished yet.





Chapter 13


GIVEN IT WAS A BUSY Saturday afternoon at the hospital, it took D.D. and Phil some time to find a supervisor who knew Juanita Baez and could point them in the right direction. But thirty minutes later, they were ensconced in the staff lounge with Nancy Corbin, an ER nurse who supposedly was close to the victim.

“It’s true then?” the nurse was asking. She was a middle-aged woman with short-cropped blond hair and deep blue eyes. Her hands were shaking as she raised her coffee cup, but her face remained set, a woman who’d given and received bad news before in her life. D.D. appreciated the nurse’s composure. She didn’t have time for theatrics right then. Five hours after the first report of shots fired, time was not in their favor.

“We heard a report on the news. The family’s dead, Roxy’s missing?” the nurse continued.

“Did you know Juanita’s family?”

“The kids, sure. She talked about them all the time. Her family was her life.”

“What about Roxanna? Have you seen her today?”

“No. But the ER has been very busy. We keep the TV on in the waiting area, which is how we knew about the Amber Alert. If Roxy showed up—someone would’ve noticed.”

“When was the last time you saw Juanita?” Phil asked.

“Umm, we both worked graveyard Wednesday night. Juanita is designated night shift. She works Monday through Thursday graveyard, off for the weekends. I bounce around more, some days, some nights.”

“But Juanita’s schedule is set?” Phil pressed. “Isn’t that unusual for nursing?”

“Yes, but Juanita has seniority, plus not everyone wants to work nights. For her, however, it meant more time with the kids. She’d work eleven P.M. to seven A.M., which really turns out to be eight or nine A.M. Then she’d head to a local meeting—you know she’s an alcoholic, right?”

“Yes.”

“Post shift, straight to a meeting. That was very important to her. Then she’d finally make it home, sleep for three to six hours depending, and wake up when the kids returned from school. She’d spend all afternoon and evening with them before reporting back to work.”

“Grueling schedule,” D.D. observed. She was content to let Phil take the lead with the interview. She considered Phil the yin to her yang—while she was hard-edged and intense, his presence was warm, even comforting. Between his thinning brown hair and relaxed-fit trousers, he looked exactly like what he was, a happily married father of four, which for many nervous witnesses or arrogant suspects was the perfect fit. Certainly, Nancy Corbin had gravitated toward him from the first moment they’d sat down. It probably didn’t hurt that, receding hairline and all, Phil retained a certain older-guy charm.

“Please,” Nurse Corbin was saying now. “That’s only half the battle. On Fridays, Juanita basically had to keep herself awake all day, so she’d be tired enough to sleep Friday night and be back to days on Saturday and Sunday, before returning to night work on Mondays. Take it from me, that kind of flip schedule never gets any easier. But for Juanita that made the most sense. Night shift is good money, plus she could be home for her kids’ waking hours, even if it was at the expense of her own.”

“She sounds like a caring mom,” Phil said.

“Absolutely. She lost the kids once. I’m sure you’ve heard? She’s very open about it. As an alcoholic, her rock bottom was the day child services took her kids away. She had to battle addiction, depression, the entire system, to get her children back. She’ll tell you she counts every day with them as a blessing.” The nurse’s expression faltered, broke. She looked down at her mug, then raised it for another shaky sip of coffee. “Do you know who did this?” she asked quietly.

“Does she have any enemies? Maybe recently lost a patient, has a family who blames her?”