“I guessed. Come sit down.”
Noah shrugged off her helping hand. “Carry the baby. I’ll manage.”
Shadows intensified the paleness of his cheek where his beard grew more sparsely. Tessa swallowed, trying to wet her dry mouth. She’d forgotten that small patch of skin she’d kissed so many times she could feel its texture now against her lips.
“How did you get out of the police station without an attorney, Tessa?”
“I don’t need an attorney.”
“Weldon hinted you did, and you should pay attention when a cop talks like that.” He enunciated each word too carefully. “Don’t tell me you’re representing yourself.”
With sudden impatience, Maggie brought the fleshy part of Tessa’s thumb to her mouth. Sharp baby teeth grazed Tessa’s skin, making her draw a deep breath. Leaning down, she grabbed the shopping bag and then headed for the kitchen. “Let me feed her and I’ll drive you to a hotel, Noah. We can talk tomorrow.”
She switched on the kitchen light, but Noah, who’d driven at least four hours in excruciating pain, gazed at her through slitted eyes, trying to filter out the brightness. “What hotel?”
Maggie’s protest at the lack of anything filling in Tessa’s hand left little time to argue. “You can’t stay here.”
“Why? We don’t love each other anymore. I can’t hurt you.”
“You know why.” She wasn’t about to admit how long she’d worked at sleeping in a house where she couldn’t even hope he’d be coming home. “We got divorced. We didn’t part on good terms. I called you because with David…gone…I didn’t know who else to turn to.” She pushed the shopping bag onto the kitchen counter.
“I’m sorry about David.”
“Me, too.” She couldn’t keep moisture from gathering at the corners of her eyes, but she used her forearm to wipe it away. Better get Noah out of here before the shock of David’s death finally wore off.
She kept remembering how painful “never” was when you realized you wouldn’t see someone you loved again. Saying goodbye to David would feel something like letting Keely go. She couldn’t do that with Noah watching her.
He’d been unable to share her pain for the daughter they’d both loved deeply. She wouldn’t expose herself to his reserve again.
Fortunately, he had his own concerns, and he seemed oblivious to hers. “You don’t seem to understand how angry someone must have been to stab David like that,” he said. “It could have been a client. It could have been a friend. It had to be someone who knew him.” Noah’s investigative instincts were so strong he’d trained half the detectives on Boston’s homicide force. “I don’t care how you and I split up, I’m not leaving you alone tonight when someone killed David in your office this morning.”
“What use would you be?” She softened her voice. She wasn’t out to get him, just to remind him he wasn’t at top strength. But she was used to helping him when he had a migraine. Keeping a tight grip on the baby, she eased Noah toward a chair. “You can barely stand up straight.”
“I could throw you my gun.”
His wry tone threw her off balance. Maggie began emitting an “aiyiyi” sound that apparently meant she was ravenous. Tessa peered from the baby to the man. Maybe now wasn’t the time to prove she didn’t need him. She just might.
“For tonight,” she said. “Until we’re sure no one has a grudge against David that includes Maggie.”
Unexpected wistfulness colored his exhausted gaze. “She is kind of cute.”
“You could have met her at the christening.”
“No.” In response to the invitation David and Joanna had sent him, he’d simply scrawled “I hope you understand” on the RSVP card. “I couldn’t,” he said now.
Tessa wanted to think badly of his weakness, but she remembered how she’d sweated outside the church, furiously trying to force herself through those doors. Only her friendship for David and her growing concern for Joanna, whose second addiction had begun to show itself, had pulled her inside.
The last of Maggie’s temper went up in a shrill cry that whitened Noah’s already pale skin. Tessa reached into the bag and pulled out a baby monitor. Noah stared at it, and she stared at him.
They’d left Keely’s monitor on that last night, but it hadn’t helped. If she had to strap this one to her hip and turn up the sound until she heard ice forming on the windowpanes, this baby would survive.
“I’ll wait in there,” Noah said, and departed the field for the safer confines of the living room.
Tessa nodded, taking out the formula mix to refresh herself on the recipe. Maggie drank most of a bottle before her eyes drifted shut, but Tessa waited to make sure she was sound asleep. She backed through the kitchen door, clutching the baby and the monitor.
She tried not to wonder where Noah would turn up. Had he scouted out a bedroom? Hardly seemed likely.
She had to cross the living room to reach the stairs. Noah sat hunched forward on the sofa, resting his head between splayed fingers.
“Did you take anything?” she asked in a low tone.
He looked up. “The medication knocks me out. I was waiting for you to finish in there.”
“We don’t have to talk tonight.”
“You found a murder victim today, and Weldon wants me to believe he suspects you. Think of Maggie if you can’t see you’re in trouble.”
“I’m not afraid. I didn’t hurt David.”
“You’d better be afraid. You know how many people have been ruined because the police falsely suspected them, and you know someone hated David enough to kill him. Put the baby to bed and come back down here.”
When he reminded her Maggie was her priority, she had no choice. She had to give in.
She carried the baby up the stairs at the far end of the room and turned onto the gallery that led to the three bedrooms. She managed not to look down at Noah as she took Maggie into hers.
Mentally preparing herself to make their talk quick, she recounted each second of her morning. Noah had despaired more than once about witnesses who’d kept “inconsequential” case-breaking information to themselves.
She glanced at Maggie, who suckled in her sleep. “We’ll find the guy who did this to your daddy. I won’t let you forget him and your mom. I promise you.” Her voice broke under the strain of holding on to her grief, but she kept her mind on getting Maggie to bed and seeing Noah once more tonight.
She searched her room for a safe bed for a nine-month-old. The armchair wouldn’t do, and neither would her bed. She wasn’t used to sleeping with a baby, and she didn’t want to risk rolling over on Maggie. Maybe a dresser drawer?
Tessa positioned pillows on the bed and eased the baby into the center. Then she opened her dresser’s bottom drawer and emptied it. She fished a quilt out of her closet and lined the drawer before adding a blanket. Then she checked Maggie’s blessedly dry diaper.
The baby whimpered when Tessa laid her in her makeshift bed, but after one strong stretch, Maggie burrowed into the little nest.
She might manage to crawl over the side, but she’d only slither onto the floor. Just in case, Tessa surrounded the drawer with a comforter from the hall linen closet and then set up the monitor by the baby’s head. Tomorrow she’d find a crib, but for tonight, Maggie would be safe.
Tessa took a scarf from another drawer and settled it over the lamp shade to dim the light. Cupping the monitor’s receiver in her hand, she tiptoed from the room.