Then a few houses up he caught a good look at the would-be prowler. He was pajama-clad, about three feet tall and barefoot.
Whit might find some amusement in that, except that it was one o’clock in the morning, and no three- or fouryear-old had any business being out at that hour.
Where were the kid’s parents, anyway? At some damned party, leaving the boy home alone? Whit felt his blood begin to boil. In his job he saw what happened to neglected kids. He arrested them sometime after the age of ten. Occasionally sooner.
At least he didn’t have to call for backup on this one, but when he got the youngster home he intended to give his parents Holy Toledo for negligence. Hell, maybe he’d even run them in.
He stopped the car and got out. “Police officer,” Whit called out. “What’s the trouble, small-fry?”
It was dark, the moon obscured by clouds moving in, and as Whit stepped closer, he felt the first few drops of spring rain begin to pelt. Damn good thing he’d happened along or the kid’s pj’s would soon be soaked.
“What’re you doing out here this time of night?” Whit called again.
Then he saw the boy was crying, the biggest set of crocodile tears he’d ever run across. Something Whit wasn’t equipped to handle. Hell, he didn’t know a thing about kids. He’d had damn little experience in that department.
Another reason he wasn’t cut out for marriage. Marriage usually brought on fatherhood, somewhere around nine months later.
Deciding to let instinct take over and hope for the best, he walked up to the boy and knelt down eye level with him. “Hey, come on, it can’t be all that bad, can it?”
His reply was a snuffle and a sob.
“What’s your name, big guy?” he asked as gently as he could.
“Bro-Bro-Brody,” came a muffled answer.
“Brody.” Well, now they were getting somewhere. The boy was cute, the kind that tore at your heart-with red hair that at the moment was sticking up like a spike and fat freckles that danced across his kid-size nose. “Have you ever seen the inside of a police cruiser, Brody?”
Brody gave a slow shake of his red head. He wouldn’t look at Whit, just down at his bare toes he kept curling into the grass of the greening lawn. “Am…am I ‘rested?”
“Arrested? Did you steal anything?”
“N-no.”
“Shoot somebody?”
That brought a giggle combined with a hiccup.
“Then you’re not under arrest. But I’m getting wet out here in this rain.” The drops were coming down harder. And bigger. “Why don’t we talk in the car?”
He reached for Brody’s hand and felt a tug on his heartstrings as the child placed it in his big palm. When Whit seated him in the cruiser, the kid’s eyes went wide at the sight of the police paraphernalia—the squawking, squalling radio, the gun mounted to the dash—and Whit remembered the first time he’d seen the inside of a squad car.
He’d been nine years old, and his big brother—Officer Steve Tanner—had given him a quick ride down the block. Four years after that, Steve had taken a bullet, tracking down a man who’d been dealing drugs to children in an inner-city housing project. Neither were memories Whit would ever forget.
But right now Whit had a small kid to interrogate. “Okay, Brody, why don’t you tell me what you are doing out in your pajamas at this time of night?”
Though he’d softened his cop-edged voice, he still sounded like he was shaking down some street thug instead of an unarmed three- or four-year-old.
Brody squirmed a little on the seat. “Wolf,” he said, temporarily forgetting his interest in the police car to study his grass-stained toes instead.
For a fast moment Whit wondered what he was getting into here. Had the little guy had a nightmare involving werewolves and other things that go bump in the night? Whit wasn’t good with kids with nightmares.
“He’s my dog,” Brody said in a small, earnest voice. “He cried ‘cause he wanted to go out…so I letted him out, but then he runned away.”
So…the monster dog had hoodwinked his young master into letting him outside to water a bush or two, then split the scene. “And you went after him, am I right?”
“Uh-huh. I hadda ketch him,” he said, eyes wide and solemn.
Whit wondered how he could make a small boy understand just how dangerous a nightly adventure like this could be. He gave it a moment or two of thought, before realizing his small charge was sleepy and no doubt cold, so he decided to save the lecture for the parents. A stiff lecture.
“And where did you last see Wolf?” he asked the boy.
“In my yard.”
Whit glanced around the neighborhood. There wasn’t a porch light on, no one out looking for a child. He turned back to his young friend. “Which yard is yours, Brody? Can you show me?”
The boy turned around in his seat and peered out through the rain-streaked window of the squad car. Whit wasn’t sure just when he realized it, but somehow he knew there wasn’t anything up or down the block that looked familiar to the kid.
Jill Harper pulled her thin robe tighter around her shoulders in a futile effort to ward off the pelting rain and the fear that rose in her throat. Brody was gone from his bed. Wolf was missing, too. That meant the silly dachshund had run away again, this time Brody following him out into the night.
Heart squeezing with dread, Jill peered up the street and down, wondering in which direction her son could have gone. And how far. He was only four. They’d moved to this house less than a month ago, and Brody wasn’t familiar with his street.
Or neighboring streets.
A shiver raced along her spine. She had to find her son, but she wasn’t sure what to do first. Phone for the police. Or drive around and try to find him herself.
If only she could think clearly. Drive, she decided. She could do that faster than the police could get here.
But what if Brody came home in the meantime?
Just then fate solved at least part of the dilemma.
Jill prayed that the police car rounding the corner, its bar of red lights pulsing against the night, was real and not a figment of her fear. As it inched with maddening slowness down the street toward her, she knew it was no hallucination. She waved her arms in a frantic signal, though she doubted anyone could miss a woman in a silky white robe, standing on the curb in a rainstorm.
“Mom…!”
Jill heard the sweet sound of her son’s voice even before the car cruised to a stop.
“Brody!”
She tried to see past the officer, who filled the driverside window, to her small son beyond; needing the reassurance that only the sight of him could give her.
He was safe, wrapped in a large, dark blue blanket and looking very proud of himself as he sat beside the officer.
“Oh, Brody!” She wanted to cry and hug him all at the same time. That went for the man who’d brought him home, as well.
For the first time she glanced at the officer, noting his broad shoulders that looked as if they could take on the world—and the scowl of annoyance on his handsome, well-honed features. Yes, she thought, those dark eyes held censure, and for a moment she couldn’t understand why. Then it hit her like a lightning bolt. He thought her a negligent mother.
Momentary anger stiffened her narrow shoulders. He wouldn’t think that if he knew the bond