“Right there.” She studied the container for several seconds more, and then her gaze shot up. “You said there was a note. I didn’t see one, but then I never thought to look for one. Where did you find it?”
Who was asking the questions now? It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. “In the basket.”
She really smiled this time, an expression so warm it could have melted ice along the banks of the James River. The smile gave him the same jolt he’d experienced when he’d caught her staring earlier. She’d met his gaze squarely then and hadn’t bothered to look away.
Mirth danced in her glistening black eyes now, but earlier he’d seen something else entirely in them, intense and soulful at the same time. Perhaps he’d only reacted to Pilar’s need to connect with another human being on a day when she’d witnessed a tragic side of humanity, but he’d felt her reaching out to him. Stranger still, he’d been tempted to reach right back.
That fact alone should have sent him hightailing it back to the station so he could ask the sergeant to reassign the case. He didn’t do relationships of any kind, let alone the male-female kind. He liked being alone. He was good at it. And people who were good at being alone didn’t have to risk losing anyone important to them.
And yet Pilar’s smile drew him in. That shouldn’t have surprised him. He’d seen at church how adults and children alike gravitated toward her as she met each with her welcoming smile. This time, though, she’d directed her grin at him, and he liked that more than he cared to admit.
“Why didn’t I think of looking there?” she said when the lull in the conversation stretched too long.
“You were too busy making sure the baby was okay.”
“True.” Her smile was gone.
Why did he suddenly want to perform clown tricks or do a stand-up routine to make her smile again? Still, he had a job to do, and he didn’t have time to kid around.
“The note was buried under the blanket. We’ll see if we can pull any prints from it. Want to see it?”
He slipped back on the plastic glove from his pocket and opened the brown paper sack he’d placed the letter in. He carefully unfolded the piece of thick, ecru stationery.
“It’s addressed to the staff of Tiny Blessings. It says, ‘Please find my baby boy Gabriel a good home full of love. And tell him I love him.’”
When Pilar didn’t say anything, he decided he couldn’t blame her. He was having a hard enough time scaring up sympathy for this mother who claimed to love her baby, and he didn’t work in a field full of childless couples desperate to adopt. He could only imagine the mixed feelings Pilar must have felt.
“Gabriel.” She nodded, her gaze distant. “It’s perfect for him. He’s named after an angel. You know that story, of how Gabriel appeared to Zechariah to tell him his elderly wife, Elizabeth, would have a son, right?”
Zach shot a sidelong glance at her, convinced he hadn’t heard her right, but she wasn’t laughing.
“The same angel who appeared to Mary later, telling her she would give birth to Jesus,” he said to prove he did know what she was talking about. He wanted to ask Pilar what her point was, but he doubted she had one. Why were they reciting biblical stories when they should have been out finding Gabriel’s mom and protecting her from making mistakes that couldn’t be fixed?
“Yes, his name is perfect,” she said, nodding her agreement with the choice.
The conversation was so strange that Zach wasn’t sure how to respond. Maybe she just needed him to cut her some slack since she’d been through a harrowing morning. She wasn’t herself, and probably needed a friend. Though he knew better, he was tempted to volunteer for the job.
“Pilar,” he said in his gentlest voice, “you do see that Gabriel’s life isn’t perfect, don’t you? You have to see that he needs his mother.”
She stiffened and looked past him at the street, which was beginning to fill with cars as the rest of Chestnut Grove headed to work.
“She probably had very good reasons for leaving her baby,” she said, but didn’t sound convinced.
“We don’t know what her situation is, but it’s my job to find her.”
“And arrest her?”
She had him there. Personally, he might want to find Gabriel’s mother to make sure she was okay, but the state of Virginia wanted him to find her so it could charge her with a crime. Zach opened his mouth and closed it again. What could he say to that?
“I just wouldn’t want to see her face more misery if she’s located,” she said. “She’s done a good thing by putting her baby in place where he could be found. Now he can have that good, loving home she wrote that she wanted for him.”
“But she might be in real trouble, bigger trouble than facing criminal charges. We don’t know if she received proper prenatal or postnatal care or if she even delivered in a hospital.”
“Zach, how do you know she even wants to be found?”
“She might not, you’re right. But I have to find her and not just because of child welfare laws.” He tried to take a breath, but his lungs only ached the same way his heart ached.
“I just don’t want her to end up like—” Zach stopped himself, amazed that he’d been about to say “Jasmine.” He’d told no one about his past, except his superiors at work, and he’d only informed them out of necessity. It was too painful, too private. Yet he’d nearly bared his scars to someone he hardly knew. What was wrong with him?
“Like what?” Pilar asked.
Zach shook his head. It was so clear that he shouldn’t have taken the assignment. If he had any sense at all, he would go back to the station and ask for it to be reassigned. But he wouldn’t, because to him this was more than an assignment. He felt a calling here to help, no matter how much it hurt. He might be the only chance that Gabriel’s mother had.
Lord, please give me the strength to do the right thing. Please be with the baby’s mother. Show her that You care and that others care, too. Zach would have said “Amen,” but he got the feeling this situation was going to require a lot more prayers.
“Like what?” Pilar asked a second time, apparently guessing he hadn’t heard her.
“Like other women who’ve made mistakes.”
He would have explained that he, like her, wanted the situation to be okay for the baby and for his mother, if Kelly Young hadn’t rushed up the sidewalk then, her long dress coat fluttering behind her like a superhero’s cape.
“Why was the ambulance here? Is there anything wrong? Are you all right?” Her multitoned blond hair fluttered in the wind as she peppered Pilar with questions.
Zach stepped forward to take charge as he was accustomed to doing, but Pilar, her posture straight, moved past him to the agency’s director. The jacket he’d placed around Pilar’s shoulders was now draped over her arm.
“Everything’s fine, Kelly. I just found an abandoned baby on the steps this morning.”
“Just?” Kelly’s eyes were wide as she repeated Pilar’s word. “You just found an abandoned baby? This is all we need.”
Pilar looked back and forth between them. “Uh, Kelly Young, this is Zach Fletcher, a detective from the Chestnut Grove Police Department.”
Zach nodded at the always-professional director. “Miss Young.”
“Detective Fletcher,” Kelly responded before turning to Pilar. “We’ve met.”
Pilar breathed in suddenly as she realized how the two had met—first during the investigation concerning the falsified birth records discovered