Chapter Nine
“We were in town,” the boy on his feet said. “Aren’t you going to arrest her? She kicked Matt in the balls.”
Sniveling bullies. She’d like to smash the other one’s balls, too. “You both attacked Smoke. Two on one isn’t fair.”
“Kini,” Smoke said, his voice full of censure.
One of the emergency responders approached. “Can we go inside now? If there’s a dead body and not a live patient, you don’t need us, you need the coroner. We need to know for sure.”
“We have to clear the house first,” one of the cops said.
“I’ll call for backup,” the other said and headed to his car.
The first cop looked at Smoke. “On your knees, hands behind your back.”
As soon as he complied the officer put his gun away, pulled out a set of handcuffs, and approached Smoke.
What? They couldn’t do that. Confusion tossed her into a shallow, cold pool she had to fight herself to get free of. She and Smoke had a job to do.
She glanced at the teens. They were both grinning. “I don’t understand. What’s happening?”
Smoke glanced at her. “We’re getting arrested.”
“But—”
“All of us.”
She looked at the two teenagers.
Their grins were gone. They looked from the policeman in the car to the one putting the handcuffs on Smoke and bolted. The two boys sprinted past the house and out into the scrubby bush and untamed land beyond it.
The officer with Smoke finished putting the handcuffs on him then followed the boys at a jog. A jog? This has to be a joke.
But the other officer stood outside their cruiser, his hand on his weapon, watching Smoke like he was an escaped felon.
Smoke kept his head down and didn’t move.
The other cop came back a few seconds later.
“They’re long gone,” he told his partner.
“Shit.”
“Guess they’re not pressing charges.”
Kini crossed her arms over her chest. “We ar—”
Smoke interrupted her. “Aren’t.”
“Hold your horses, lady,” the first cop said. “There’s still a dead body to deal with.”
“That’s got nothing to do with him,” she said, gesturing at Smoke.
“Kini,” Smoke growled the warning again.
She ignored him. “He never saw the body. He didn’t even go into the house.”
The two cops looked at each other then at Smoke. The first one shrugged while the second one nodded.
He came over and took the handcuffs off Smoke and said, “For what it’s worth, you have my condolences.”
“Yeah.” Smoke sighed.
The officer approached her. “Turn around ma’am, and put your hands behind your back.”
“You’re arresting me?”
“Ma’am,” he said again, an overabundance of patience in his voice. “Turn around.”
“But—”
The baby started to wail and ran over to cling to Kini’s legs. She looked down at the little girl as the officer handcuffed her. “So,” she asked the three men. “Which one of you is going to look after the baby?”
Smoke strolled over, crouched down, and opened his arms.
The baby looked at him, her bottom lip quivering. “Ki?!”
“I’ll take care of Kini, too,” he promised her.
She scooted over and he picked her up, cradling her against his wide shoulder.
The officer who cuffed her waited with Smoke, the baby, the EMTs, and her while the other went into the house. He came out after a minute.
“Clear. The body is in the basement.”
The two EMTs went in with the cop and came back out a couple minutes later. “Call the coroner,” one of them said.
“How long has he been dead?”
“We don’t do time of death, that’s the coroner’s job, but the body is cold to the touch.”
“I only got here about twenty minutes ago,” Kini said to the cop babysitting her.
“Can you prove it?” he asked.
“Yes. Smoke and I were at the hospital, then his grandparent’s home for a quick bite to eat.”
The two cops moved aside to talk. They came back after a minute. “Ma’am do you have ID?”
“In my purse, which is inside the house, along with my collection kit.”
One of the officers went in, while the other took the handcuffs off her.
She held out her arms to the baby.
She came and gave Kini a kiss on the cheek. “Hungy.”
“I think she was left alone for more than just a couple of hours,” Kini said to the officer. “She keeps saying she’s hungry.”
He stared at the child, dismay obvious in his expression. “We’ll have to call child services.”
“Her mother is in the hospital on life support,” Kini continued. “You may have to do some digging to find a relative who can take care of her.”
The other officer came out with Kini’s purse and kit. “She checks out,” he said to his partner. “We can call the CDC to confirm, but her ID looks legit.”
“What the hell is really going on?” the other cop asked Smoke and her. “You have any idea why people are suddenly deathly ill or dropping dead?”
“No,” she answered. “That’s why I’m out here trying to ask questions and collect blood samples. If this is an outbreak of hantavirus, I need to confirm that and figure out where people are coming into contact with the virus.”
Another police car pulled up, and two officers got out.
“Okay,” the lead cop said. “I’m going to call all this in, then I’ll let you know what the sheriff wants to do.”
“How long will that take?” Kini asked.
“An hour, maybe two. Depends on what else is happening in the county.”
Kini glanced at Smoke. “Might as well finish making that soup for the baby.”
He nodded and walked beside her into the house. One of the cops came along, as if it were an afterthought on his part.
She ignored him.
The pot of soup was still sitting on the stove. She’d turned the burner off when she left the house, so she turned it back on and went to the fridge. Milk…the baby was young enough that she must drink milk every day. There was a carton at the back of the fridge, three-quarters empty.
Kini found a glass and gave her young friend a full serving of the white stuff.
Smoke settled on a seat at the table next to the baby and seemed content to simply watch her move around the kitchen. The police officer wandered the house, looking in on them often.
Impatience jerked at her focus repeatedly. The delay in her fact-finding mission could result in a big problem if this was an outbreak. More cases, more deaths that could have been prevented.
She checked her watch. “It’s been a couple of hours since we left the hospital. I’m going to call, see if there’s been any change in the condition of the other suspected HPS victims.”
“New cases, too,” Smoke said, getting to his feet and walking toward her. He stopped only one foot away and slowly reached out a hand to take the spoon she was using to stir the soup from her. “Call.”
“You don’t say much, but you’re still a little pushy.”
He gave her a half smile and lifted one shoulder.
Not an apology, but recognition of her role. Cocky man.
She gave up the spoon to him and pulled her cell phone out of her purse. First, she called the hospital ER. The receptionist wouldn’t tell her anything and put her on hold. The next person to talk to her was one of the nurses she’d met earlier.
The nurse confirmed that both of the other suspected cases were still alive but that their conditions had worsened. Another six suspected cases had been identified, with more possibilities coming in the door all the time. They’d run out of beds and had called in extra staff to deal with the influx of sick. No one was saying Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, but that was the prevailing theory.
The chief of staff was still wavering on calling in the CDC officially, despite knowing a call would bring in more help, more supplies, and more medical staff to deal with whatever this was. He obviously didn’t want to lose control of the situation, staff, or hospital, because he refused to allow anyone to use the word “outbreak.”
The man was a moron, but there wasn’t anything she could do about him. She needed to focus on getting her job done, so the appropriate decisions could be made.
Kini explained that she’d be longer than initially thought and hung up. She turned to give Smoke a synopsis of the conversation and found him feeding the baby with all the patience of a man who had several of his own children and loved being with them.
It made her heart ache to see him, this rough, rugged man, play with the little girl like she was the center of his universe. A memory surfaced of her father before he’d gone overseas, of him playing with her like that. His smile had been so bright…her breath got tangled up at the base of her throat. She cleared it and wiped her eyes before Smoke noticed the tears on her face.
He was making a game out of eating the soup, pretending to put the spoon in his own mouth so the baby would grab his hand and force him to put the spoon in hers. She crowed in delight every time she got the spoon in her mouth, like she’d scored the winning point in a championship title match.
“Good news,” Smoke asked her. “Or bad?”
“Bad. No new deaths, but everyone is worse, so it’s likely only a matter of time. They’ve got a bunch of new cases, too.”
“They call in the CDC yet?”
“Nope. Not enough evidence for the chief of staff.”
Smoke sighed. “Ass…jerk.”
“Nice save,” she told him. She watched him get another spoonful into the baby’s mouth. “Do you have nieces and nephews?”
“No. I used to play this game when I fed my boy,” was his answer after a moment’s pause.
Boy? He had a son? She opened her mouth to ask him but paused when she saw his face.
The playful man feeding the baby was gone. In his place was a stranger with a tense mouth and angry eyes.
“Your son?” she asked cautiously.
He flinched. Something had happened to his child? Did she want to know?
“He…died.”
Oh no. A double-edged sword, recognition on one side, comprehension on the other stabbed her lungs. What he’d lost equaled the empty places in her own heart.
It took five long seconds to figure out how to breathe around this new piece to Smoke’s puzzle.
“I’m sorry,” she finally managed to say.
“He died because I wasn’t here,” Smoke said with a hard edge to his voice.
“I don’t believe that,” Kini whispered. No matter how it happened or who was to blame, losing a child this young would open a wound that might never heal. “Don’t believe that.”
Smoke held himself so still with such cold resolve he appeared to be carved out of glacial ice. Frozen between layers of tragedy and horror until all that was left of him was strong enough to wear down stone. But an attempt to heat that ice—he’d melt away into nothing.
“I’ll never know.” His voice was scored by the rough gravel glaciers ground into dust. “I wasn’t here.”
Pain was etched in every line of his body, every muscle and nerve and bone. A pain no drug could stop or medicine could heal. She knew it, recognized it, suffered it. Running away from it was futile.
She’d tried that, too, but it hadn’t helped, only made things worse.
“It’s hard,” she said, fighting to breathe through the heavy weight of knowing he’d been hurt right down to his soul like she had been. “Don’t give up.”
The police officer who’d been shadowing them came into the kitchen, and Kini had to consciously pull her thoughts back to the problem at hand.
The officer looked…irritated and resigned. “Okay, we’ve confirmed your credentials,” he said to her. “You’re to finish whatever you were doing and report back to the CDC as soon as possible.”
He sounded grumpy. Someone had bitched to someone else’s superiors.
“The baby?”
“Someone from child services will be here shortly. We’ll keep an eye on her until they arrive.”
“Hmm, let me try something.” Kini wet a cloth and wiped the baby’s face clean then held out her hands to the little girl and asked, “Nap?”
The child reached for Kini.
She picked the little girl up and headed toward the bedrooms. Next to the master bedroom was a smaller one with a crib, diaper changing station, rocking chair, and dresser.
Kini put the child into the crib, covered her with a blanket. The baby wiggled into a comfortable position and blew her a kiss.
“Trouble,” Kini said. “That’s what you are.” She smiled and kissed the little girl on the cheek then left the room.
Smoke met her in the hallway. “I’m not leaving you alone this time.”
She studied his face. It was so blank she knew he’d been told something more, something she didn’t know. “What? What’s happened now?”
When he didn’t answer, she said, “Just tell me.”
“That asshole ER doc has a fever.”