NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

“Where is my baby? Where is my pequeña pobracita?”

Nathan’s head popped up at the sound of the panicked female cry, just before he saw an army of people cut around the corner of the hospital’s hallway. At the forefront was Lucia Harper—or, he figured it was Lucia Harper.

She had the same dark hair as her daughter, and, in classic Jade form, Mrs. Harper’s hair was also pulled back in a ponytail.

Nathan’s lungs threatened to give out as he rose to his feet.

Right about now, he should be feeling victorious. He should be feeling like he could walk across the damn Mississippi River if he wanted—thanks to Jade, Zeker’s killer had been outted.

But he couldn’t . . . Jesus, he couldn’t even think about that right now, because the blow that Shawna Zeker had leveled on Jade’s head meant that Jade had yet to wake up. Shawna had struck to kill. Thank God for someone walking across the street who’d witnessed the whole thing go down—thank God they’d thought to contact the police.

Nathan ran a shaky hand through his hair, and briefly squeezed his eyes shut. He needed to pull himself together. For appearances’ sake with Jade’s family, even if he himself felt like crumbling.

He watched Lucia Harper swing toward the receptionist’s desk. “Mrs. Harper!” he called out, moving around the chairs and low tables.

Jade’s family turned to face him in unison. There were five of them. Sammie, Jade’s younger sister, he recognized off the bat from their Skype session. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she was dressed in jeans and a Hialeah High T-shirt. She looked young and scared, and Nathan wanted to wrap an arm around her shoulders and promise that her older sister would be okay.

He prayed that Jade would be okay.

Nathan didn’t have the chance to note the others, because, at Sammie’s urging, the flock swept toward him. They all spoke at once, a mixture of Spanish and English that flew right over Nathan’s head.

“Enough!” a man at the back snapped. Immediately, Nathan figured that this had to be Jade’s police chief father. He stood too straight, his gaze was too hard, and when he put a hand on Lucia’s shoulder, she immediately reclined into his touch.

Mr. Harper pointed a finger at Nathan. “Are you Danvers?”

Tempted as he was to say no, Nathan nodded. “I am, sir. I was the one who contacted y’all earlier this morning.”

“From Jade’s phone?” Sammie piped up.

“They, uh”—he slid a finger into the collar of his work polo—“when NOPD showed up on the scene, they took her cell phone and gave it to me.”

“Why would they give it to you?”

Nathan’s gaze found the owner of that unfamiliar male voice. And, when he did, a sick feeling curled in his stomach.

John Thomas, in the flesh.

Wasn’t he a lucky son of a gun.

Jade’s ex was exactly how Nathan had pictured him: styled black hair, clean-shaven face, dressed in tan chinos and a pressed blue shirt, even though the rest of the Harper family looked like they’d been through hell, as opposed to a two-hour flight over from Miami.

“I’m Jade’s partner,” Nathan said.

“He’s her boyfriend,” Sammie interjected right after. She glanced back at John Thomas. “I told you that, remember? I still don’t know why you’re here.”

“Because he cares about our Jade,” Lucia jumped in. “But that doesn’t matter right now. I need to see my Jade. I told her that New Orleenz would be no good for her. She should have stayed in Miami, with me, with her papa.”

No one had the chance to respond because at that moment, a door to their right swung open and the doctor stepped out, a clipboard tucked under his elbow. He pulled to a quick stop at the sight of them all hovering like buzzards, and then looked to Nathan. “Miss Harper’s family?” he asked, though Nathan doubted he needed confirmation for that.

“Si!” Lucia exclaimed, launching forward to clasp a hand around the doctor’s forearm. “Are you the one taking care of my Jade?”

The doc pulled back, but only got so far—Lucia’s fingers visibly strengthened their hold, and it wasn’t until her husband quietly told her to “let go” that she released Dr. Bentham.

“In answer to your question, yes, I’m the one with Jade,” the doctor said. His gaze flicked to Nathan again. “She’s awake and asking for you.”

Pleasure sank into his limbs. “She is?” He cleared his throat, wishing he didn’t sound so damn relieved. Nathan swiped his sweaty palms over his jeans. “I mean, I should let her family see her first. They’ve flown from Miami, and—”

“She apparently wants to know what happened with the case, Detective.”

The seedling of pleasure cracked.

Damn, he shouldn’t feel upset about that. She still wanted to see him, right? So what if it was about the case, and not about wanting to see him.

“If you step through the door and take a right, her room is the third on the left. She’s still drowsy, but mostly lucid. Why don’t you go answer her questions while I fill in her family about her prognosis?” Dr. Bentham tipped his chin toward the door. “Nurse is in there with her, in case she needs anything.”

The urge to sprint down the hall to her was tempered by the fact that her family’s eyes were on him the entire time. He blew out a deep breath. Calm. He needed to be calm.

She deserved to know what had happened—so, he’d tell her and then he’d step out so that her family could take their rightful place by her bedside.

The image of her ex holding her hand seated itself in his mind’s eye, and Nathan felt his mouth flatten with distaste. Yeah, that wasn’t happening, not if he had anything to say about it.

Pausing just outside of her hospital room, Nathan inhaled sharply and then knocked on the open door.

“Nathan?”

The sound of her sweet voice nearly brought him to his knees, and he ducked inside.

The breath left his body at the sight of her in the hospital bed. IV tubes pierced her skin, and a swath of white material encircled her head. She peered out at him, her eyes squinting like she couldn’t make him out.

Had the blow stolen her eyesight?

His fingers found the metal bed railing, curling tightly so he wouldn’t reach for her. “How are you?” he rasped, sounding so much like he’d smoked a pack of Marlboros today. He hadn’t, though right now the desire for a cigarette nearly rocked him back.

Her dark eyes lifted. “I can’t really see you.”

Regret slammed into him: regret that he hadn’t been there with her when she needed it, regret that something precious had been taken away from her. This time, he allowed his hand to gently land on her shoulder. “I’m right here, honey. I’m right here.”

She blinked. “Oh,” she murmured, sounding surprised, “you are. This is what I get for letting them take out my contacts.”

Nathan frowned. “Your contacts? You mean that you aren’t . . .?”

Her expression froze before her mouth curled up into a half-smile. “I had a concussion, Nathan. I can still see you. It’s just that you’re . . . blurry.”

He’d take looking blurry over the alternative any day.

Her hand reached up and curled over his. The warm look in her dark eyes . . . it slayed him. Nathan dropped to the chair at her bedside, his hands not once pulling from her grip.

There was so much to say and all of it warred in his head. Where the hell did he even start? But, God, she was a sight for sore eyes, even with the bandage wrapped around her head and her hair all tangled against the thin paper pillow.

“What happened, Nathan?”

He met her gaze. “What do you remember?”

Her nose scrunched in thought. “Well, I definitely remember thinking that I shouldn’t have gone to Ms. Hansen’s house without you. But I remember Shawna giving me the signature . . . ” Her eyes went wide, her fingers squeezing around his. “The signature! Mierda, did you or someone else get the—”

“Take it easy, honey,” he said in a low voice. “Brady has it. I definitely agree that you shouldn’t have gone there alone, especially without a single bit of equipment on you, but you did a good job.”

Her full lips parted. “Shawna did it, didn’t she? She murdered her husband. I heard her just before I passed out. She said she was sorry but that she had no choice. I should have known not to trust her.”

“Shawna didn’t murder Zeker.”

Jade’s fingers jerked in surprise, but he didn’t let her go. He never planned to let her go again, not after today.

“But if Shawna didn’t . . . then was it Miranda, like we thought?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then who?”

“Bev Hansen.”

Her only answer was silence, and Nathan didn’t blame her. It was hard to picture the little old lady, who smoked cigarettes by the pack on her front porch, as the woman who had murdered her son-in-law.

He rubbed the back of his neck at the same moment that Jade said, “I’m so confused. How in the world did she even manage that?”

Nathan sighed, finally pulling away to lean back in the chair. His shoulders slouched after the weight of the day’s events. “Do you want the long version or the condensed one?”

“What?” Despite the tubes linked up to her wrist, Jade lifted a hand to point at him. “All of the details, Detective. All of them.”

Of course she would want them all—his Jade was nothing if not inquisitive. And she’d worked beside him on this case. She deserved to know all the details. After asking the nurse for a little privacy, the door was shut and they were left alone.

“Nathan.”

It was all the prompting he needed.

“Apparently Beverly Hansen was tired of her son-in-law two-timing her daughter. She didn’t kill him herself, but she did hire someone to do so. A guy who lived two doors down.” Nathan dropped his head to stare at the floor between his boots. “That was a misstep on my part—the times I had been over to Ms. Bev’s house, I never noticed the man watching me.”

“Why in the world would that guy help her commit murder?”

“According to Shawna, they’d been friends since they were kids and he had an unfortunate life-long crush.”

Jade snorted. “Seriously? That’s so cliché. So, what, he just decided to get rid of Zeker? Why doesn’t anyone watch TV? We always know that person is going to land themselves in jail.”

Nathan felt a smile tug at his lips. Trust Jade to bring it back to the crime shows. She was a fan, that was for sure. But, in this case, she was also pretty accurate. He had no idea what Jeff Thompson had thought when he’d agreed to Ms. Bev’s scheming, other than to hope that Shawna might then turn around and give him a chance. Which was unlikely to have happened, even if Ms. Bev’s plan hadn’t gone awry.

“She planned it all,” he admitted gruffly, “every last bit. From the start, she had us running around in circles. She told me that her daughter had done it, knowing that Shawna hadn’t. She knew that once lab results came back, Shawna would be let go. Naturally, we’d turn our attention to the person with the most to lose—Miranda Smiley. That’s what Bev Hansen predicted, and I . . . ” Nathan squeezed his eyes shut, self-disgust slamming into him. “I fell right into the ploy. Didn’t even consider anything else.”

Jade’s brows came together, even as her eyes warmed. “Nathan, you just want to see the good in people. You wanted to see the good in Bev Hansen. That’s all. That’s not a bad thing.”

At her words, he recalled his conversation with Ms. Bev, when she’d asked him what his sin was—wanting too much. He nearly laughed, the irony was so acute.

“It is when my mistake put you in danger. I just—” All morning, in between thoughts of Jade, he’d considered one question: was he good for the job? Was he what the NOPD needed? Without intending to, he voiced the thought out loud.

“Oh my god, Nathan, no.” Jade clutched his wrist, her nails biting into his skin. “No. Stuff like this happens. It does. Look at all those instances on TV! Sometimes cases go unsolved for years.”

He cracked a smile. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Well, yeah.” She shrugged, grinning at him. “It took you less than a month.”

“Give me a participation ribbon, then.” He couldn’t help it—he returned her smile, flipping her hand over so he could touch their palms together. Maybe she was right. He wasn’t the only one Ms. Bev had fooled in the last few weeks. She’d blindsided the department as a whole, crime lab, the media . . .

“What about Shawna?” Jade prompted, as she shuffled around on the bed. “Obviously she had to have known.”

“Not, then,” he told her quietly, “not when her mom had everything taken care of, so to speak. She only found out after she was released from jail, but then it was too late . . . . You can’t hide a murder, no matter who did it. That makes you an accomplice.”

“So Shawna . . . ?”

Nathan watched Jade’s features pinch, and he had no doubt that if her hair had been back in a ponytail she would have tried to tighten it. “She’ll be going to jail, along with her mother and Thompson. Thompson was responsible for the pictures of Miranda Smiley. He’d taken them at Ms. Bev’s request. And you were right about the break-in, too. Completely staged by Jeff.”

“Díos mío,” she swore softly.

He agreed one-hundred percent. It was a crappy situation all the way around, made even crappier when Nathan thought about the fact that he’d put his ass on the line for both mother and daughter in this case. Talk about being burned.

“Is Miranda . . . did she and Charlie actually marry? His signature wasn’t real. I saw the credit card bill, and it—”

“Shawna forged the bill yesterday.”

He didn’t think it possible for Jade’s mouth to drop open more, but here she was proving him wrong. “You’re kidding me. So Miranda was actually married to Charlie Zeker?”

Nathan shrugged. “According to Heavenly Met, but not according to the state. Looks like Mr. Simms isn’t as reputable as an institution as he claims. Shawna and Zeker never divorced, so it seems that Charlie Zeker got around, if you know what I mean.”

Jade flopped back against the bed. “I think I’ve been given too many pain meds. None of this is making sense.”

“Welcome to the club. Maybe we’ll see this on TV one day.”

“Can I ask what she hit me with?”

“Shawna?” Now it was Nathan’s turn to shuffle around uncomfortably. “Well,” he said slowly, “it seems that she knocked you out with a porcelain doll.”

“Excuse me?”

Maybe she was still feeling the effects of her concussion. Intending to explain it better, he grunted, “One of those Victorian dolls. Big, terrifying, heavy?”

She did not look pleased. “She knocked me out with a doll. That is the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever heard!”

“To be fair,” Nathan murmured, “she apparently used to play softball. She had quite a swing, and she got you right on the crown.” He flicked his gaze up to her head. “It’s at crime lab right now, in case you were wondering.”

“The only thing I’m wondering is how she managed to grab it without me noticing! I was right there the whole time, and she didn’t have the opportunity to . . . ” Nostrils flaring, Jade pushed out a breath of air. “She asked me to go in front of her on the way out. She must’ve picked it up then.”

“Is your head okay?”

“No, it feels like someone’s taken a sledgehammer to it. Let’s pretend that’s what happened, not the doll thing. A girl has got to keep her dignity and everything—”

Nathan didn’t want to disappoint her, but . . . “The doll made the news.”

Her jaw dropped open. “You’re kidding me.”

“Technically, you made the news, but there’s some B-roll with this doll just laying discarded and fractured in the grass. You might become insta-famous.”

“I don’t want to be famous at all, insta or otherwise. If we ever have kids, I’m just going to ensure that . . . ”

Nathan’s heart skipped a beat as her words registered. “If we have kids?” Damn, but those words made him want to drag her close and crash his mouth down over hers. Mine, he wanted the kiss to tell her, all mine. “I think we’re going to need to back up a moment and pull a repeat on that.”

“I don’t . . . ” Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink as awareness dawned. “Oh. I said that.”

“You did.” He shifted forward, sliding off the chair until he rested at her bedside on his knees. As tall as he was, it didn’t even matter. They were practically eye level, and she was the prettiest damn sight he’d ever seen. “Jade, I need to apologize about . . . ”

He didn’t get the chance to finish.

The door burst open behind him, and then her family marched in.