His tone hinted at more trouble. He terrified her, and she leaned toward him. “She’s not hurt, too?” If someone could do…that…to David, what might have happened to Maggie?
He narrowed his eyes, looking for guilt, as Noah would have done. “She’s fine, but tell me, do you believe in coincidence?”
“What coincidence?”
Weldon smoothed a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Your daughter died, didn’t she?”
His soft question tossed her into the past. Tessa tried to breathe and not see the persistent image of Keely’s face as she’d lain in her crib that morning. Add that to her gore-filled last memories of David, and she could barely speak. “What does my daughter have to do with Maggie?”
“You lost her and then your husband divorced you. How desperate are you to replace your family? Maybe you think a new child will bring Detective Gabriel back to you.”
Struck dumb, she stared at him. She couldn’t think of the family she and Noah and Keely had been if she wanted to deal with the life she was trying to build. “Even if you think I’d hurt David, why do you suppose my ex-husband would come back to me for someone else’s child?”
“You want the truth? I think the whole damn bunch of you are sick. I believe you were sleeping with David Howard, and his wife found out. To deal with his cheating, she relapsed into taking hard drugs and she was high when she wrecked her car. I think Mr. Howard knew he’d caused his wife’s death, and guilt made him move heaven and hell to persuade the power in this town to help him hide her drug use. And then he cut you off. But what do you want more than anything? You want to start over with what you lost—a husband and a baby. You may even love Maggie Howard, but if you couldn’t have her father, why not kill him and start over with your ex-husband and your lover’s child?”
“You’re the one who’s sick.” How had he discovered so much about Joanna? In a miasma of postpartum depression, she had only imagined an affair, but she had started using drugs again. And when Tessa discovered the truth after Joanna’s death, David had begged her to keep quiet. He’d loved Joanna deeply, and he hadn’t wanted Maggie to find out her mother had died under the influence. He’d bribed or pressured some powerful men to keep Joanna’s secrets, and Tessa tried to lead the chief away from his suspicions.
“David was my friend—and only my friend. He should be alive and raising Maggie. The last thing Noah or I would want is to love another child.”
Weldon narrowed his gaze, as sidetracked as she could have hoped for. “I don’t understand you,” he said. “Why did you agree to take custody of Maggie Howard?”
Because she’d never dreamed she’d have to.
She gathered her wits. Since she’d joined David in the law firm, she’d represented a few clients facing misdemeanor charges. And she’d lived with Noah long enough to understand how single-minded the police were on the trail of a criminal. Pushing away from the desk, she fired another defensive shot. “No one can replace my daughter. That’s all you need to know.”
She didn’t bother to tell him she was leaving. He’d probably figure it out.
He said nothing as she opened the door and then carefully closed it behind herself. In the overly bright hall, she flexed her fingers against the wall. It was the light that made her falter, not the torment of a past she’d buried deep enough to keep it from touching her anymore.
The door opened at her back. Declining to turn, she forced herself to straighten up and stride toward the reception area. A deputy stood as she drew even with his desk.
“Mrs. Gabriel?”
Let Weldon explain where she was going. She had to find Maggie.
“Mrs. Gabriel, your husband is on his way from Boston.” At the chief’s quiet announcement, she stopped.
She didn’t need Noah to rescue her from this police station or her grief for David. She should have chopped off her hand before she’d let herself dial his number.
“Please tell him I changed my mind. Send him back to Boston.” She faced the man who’d virtually held her prisoner. “Good evening, Chief Weldon.”
“Call me Richard. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
His jaded amusement all but brought Noah into the room. Police cadets must spend hours in front of their mirrors practicing that look.
“Why don’t you search for the real killer instead?”
She grabbed her dark green overcoat off the rack by the door and then hurried into the snow-spotted night. The wind snatched her breath out of her mouth as she pushed her arms into her sleeves and pinched her lapels together beneath her chin. She fumbled for the cell phone in her pocket.
Stopping beneath a feeble streetlamp, she dialed Information and asked for Child Protective Service’s number. While the operator connected her, Tessa leaned into the light to read her watch. Barely after six in the evening, it was already nighttime according to the January sky.
Tessa’s heart thudded as she made her way to her car. After four years of practicing family law in Boston, she’d turned all such cases over to David when they’d pooled their resources. She’d no longer wanted to deal with children or families. However, when the representative on duty answered her call, her old instincts took over.
“I’m looking for Maggie Howard,” she said. “She was put in your care today, but I’m her legal guardian, and we both know she’ll be better off seeing a familiar face.”
“I don’t think we need to disturb her—”
“I’ll be at your office in—” Tessa gazed up at the snowflakes falling out of the black sky. “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”
She hung up without waiting for the woman to answer. She pushed her phone and both hands into her pockets with such force her coat went taut over her shoulders. She’d never stopped believing she should have been able to save Keely. The mere idea of loving another child made her feel guilty, as if she were forgetting her own daughter, and afraid that the worst could happen again.
NOAH’S POST-HANGOVER headache had turned into a full-fledged migraine by the time he turned onto Prodigal’s typical New England town square. City buildings and small brick-and-glass shops closed around a wide lamplit, snow-covered lawn.
From spring through fall, the school bands would practice on that grass. Citizens would stroll to the gazebo where bird feeders of every size rocked together in the snowy night. If it was anything like the village where Noah had grown up outside of Boston, a farmers’ market and the local craft merchants would set up their stalls on the lawn on nice days, hoping for business.
He parked in front of the police station, opened the door and lifted his face to the snow. The icy flakes on his face relieved some of the pressure that had only intensified with each mile he’d driven on his four-hour trek. A sound of wood hitting against wood drew his burning gaze to the bird feeders on the gazebo.
He dragged himself out of the car and concentrated on walking as if he wouldn’t rather pass out. A deputy met him at the station’s glass doors.
“Can I help you, sir?” Suspicion colored his offer.
“I’m looking for Tessa Gabriel.” As soon as he said it, he wondered if she’d stopped using his name. But the deputy backed up, and his eyes went carefully blank.
“I just came on duty, but I can tell you she left about two hours ago. Are you her attorney?”
“Does she need a lawyer?”
The younger man’s slow blink made him look more like a kid wearing a toy badge. “We let her go. That’s all I’m able to say.”