The Long Paw of the Law Read online

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Thank you for buying this

  St. Martin’s Press ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  To Holly Ingraham. Thanks for taking a chance on an aspiring novelist and making my dream of becoming a published author come true. Working with you all these years has been a privilege and a pleasure.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Colonel (Retired) Patricia A. Mance for suggesting the title of this book. It’s perfect!

  As always, a big thanks to the talented team at St. Martin’s Paperbacks who took this book from the first draft to the bookstore shelves. Oodles of gratitude to my editors, Holly Ingraham and Hannah Braaten, for being so wonderful to work with. Thanks to Jennie Conway, Nettie Finn, Sarah Melnyck, Paul Hochman, Allison Ziegler, Titi Oluwo, Talia Sherer and the rest of the team at St. Martin’s for all of your work in getting my books into the hands of readers, reviewers, and librarians. Y’all are the best!

  Thanks to Danielle Christopher for creating such fun book covers for this series.

  Thanks to my agent, Helen Breitwieser, for all you do to advance my writing career.

  Thanks to Liz Bemis and April Reed of Spark Creative for your work on my Web site and newsletters.

  Thanks to fellow authors D.D. Ayres, Laura Castoro, Angela Cavener, Christie Craig, Cheryl Hathaway, and Angela Hicks for your feedback and friendship. It’s great to have such a wonderful support system!

  And finally, thanks to every one of you wonderful readers who chose this book! Enjoy your time with Megan, Brigit, and the gang.

  ONE

  HUMAN SACRIFICE

  The Father

  It was two in the morning on a late September Thursday when the Father waited in the dark parking lot of a former convenience store on Rosedale. Like many of the older buildings on this stretch of the road, it had been razed to make way for new construction. Temporary chain-link fencing had been erected around the rubble until it could be hauled away.

  The outdoor temperature was unseasonably cold for north Texas. He’d kept the engine and heater running in his truck, and now the inside of the windshield had fogged. He pulled the end of his flannel coat sleeve over his hand and reached out to wipe the glass with the cloth.

  A shadow appeared ahead, moving toward the truck, eventually taking the shape of a man. The man’s breaths were visible in the air, hanging about his head like conversation bubbles in comics.

  The Father hit the button to unlock the doors and the man climbed inside, quickly closing the door behind him.

  “Any problems?” the Father asked.

  “None.”

  Good. The Father gave the man an approving nod and slid the truck into gear.

  TWO

  BYE-BYE BABY

  Fort Worth Police Officer Megan Luz

  My K-9 partner Brigit and I were patrolling the Mistletoe Heights neighborhood in the wee hours of the night when my cell phone jiggled to life. I cast a glance at the screen, which indicated it was my boyfriend Seth calling.

  I pulled over to the curb, jabbed the button to accept the call, and put the phone to my ear. “Hey.”

  Brigit raised her furry head off the cushion in her enclosure behind me, her brown eyes watching me closely. My partner wasn’t just a large shepherd, she was a smart one, too. She knew that me talking to someone on my phone or radio meant we might be called into action. Brigit lived for action. Me? I’d be happy if everyone obeyed the law, took each other’s hands, and sang “Kumbaya.” Of course if everyone conducted themselves so perfectly, there’d be no need for police officers or detectives, and I’d have to come up with new career goals. But human nature being what it is, my job was in no danger of becoming obsolete any time soon.

  “Can you come to the station?” Seth worked as a bomb squad technician and firefighter for the Fort Worth Fire Department. His station was located within the confines of my beat, only about a mile from my current location.

  “I’m not due for another break yet.” As much as I’d like to see him, I couldn’t shirk my duties.

  “This is official police business.”

  Instinctively, I sat up straighter in my seat. “It is? What’s going on?”

  He kept his cards close to his vest. “Come see,” was all he said before hanging up.

  “Official business,” I repeated, looking back at my partner. She pricked her ears to listen. “What do you think that means, girl?”

  She offered a small wag of her tail, the canine equivalent of a shrug.

  I slid the phone back into the cup holder, made a quick check of the dark street, and pulled out, aiming directly for the station. When my cruiser pulled into the front parking lot, I spotted Seth standing in the station’s lighted foyer, his broad back to the glass door. An army reservist, Seth sported blond hair cut in a short, military style. His angled head and bent elbows told me he held something in his arms. Three other firefighters and one of the paramedics were gathered around, looking down at whatever he was holding.

  Seth glanced over his shoulder as I parked. His yellow Lab, Blast, recognized my cruiser and ventured closer to the door, his wet nose pressed to the glass, his tail eagerly whipping back and forth.

  I opened the door of my cruiser and stepped out into the night. The air was unusually cold tonight, a not-so-subtle reminder of the winter weather to come. It couldn’t come soon enough for me. The summer had been a scorcher. Grassfires fueled by dry, dead vegetation had kept Seth and his fellow firefighters busy the last few weeks.

  I opened the back door to let Brigit out of the car. If I was going to get a little time with my boyfriend, she should get some with hers, too, right? Her nails clicked as she hopped down to the pavement and trotted along beside me.

  Doug Harrison, a seasoned, dark-skinned paramedic, pushed the door open as I approached. I acknowledged his gracious gesture with a nod and smile.

  “All right, Mister Mysterious,” I said as Brigit and I stepped inside. “What’s the big secret?”

  As the door swung shut behind me, Seth turned around. Cradled in his arms was a newborn infant swaddled in a baby-sized quilt. The baby was sound asleep, its chubby face pink against the white trim of the colorful blanket. Atop its head was a knit cap in the same brilliant purplish blue as the accents adorning the quilt.

  I stopped in my tracks and looked from Seth to the other men and back again. As far as I knew, none of their wives or girlfriends had been pregnant. Besides, who’d bring their child to the station at this late hour? I took a step closer, noting tufts of shiny black hair peeking out from under the tiny cap. “Whose baby is this?”

  Seth shrugged. “I don’t know. I was checking the hoses on the truck a few minutes ago, and a guy just walked up and handed the baby to me. Said he was making a safe drop.”

  My mouth fell open. Though the Texas Safe Haven Statute, sometimes referred to as the “Baby Moses Law,” had been in effect since 1999, it had rarely been utilized. The law allowed parents of a baby up to sixty days old to leave the infant at any designated safe place, w
hich included hospitals, freestanding medical clinics, and fire or emergency medical stations. So long as the baby was handed over to an employee and was unharmed, the parent would not be charged with abandonment or neglect. The statute was enacted after a rash of dangerous abandonments, with the hope that the law would save young lives by giving desperate parents a legal and anonymous way out of difficult, hopeless situations.

  As Brigit raised her head to give the baby’s blanket a curious and thorough sniff, I reached out to run a finger over the baby’s soft cheek. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

  Doug chimed in. “Girl. I checked her for signs of trauma. Everything looked okay.”

  Thank God. Domestic violence was one of the most difficult things police officers faced on the job, and the stakes and emotions increased exponentially when children were involved.

  The baby began to stir inside the blanket, her eyes fluttering. “Uh-oh.” Being the oldest of five children, I knew newborns had only two modes—fast asleep and feeding frenzy. And if you didn’t feed them fast enough, they’d scream loud enough to wake Satan’s minions in the deepest circle of hell.

  Seth’s eyes flashed in alarm and he held the baby out to me. “Here! Take her!”

  I scoffed. “You run into burning buildings and defuse explosives for a living, but you’re scared of a tiny baby?”

  “Yes!” He thrust the baby at me again. “Babies are terrifying.”

  I rolled my eyes but took the baby from him and settled her in my arms, gazing down at her. “Hi, cutie.”

  Her body wriggled and her tiny mouth opened in a toothless yawn as she struggled to wake. Looking at her, I couldn’t help but have questions. Why did her parents give her up? What circumstances had they faced that forced them to make this heartbreaking choice?

  Despite the Texas legislature’s attempts to restrict abortion in the state, it was still legal under certain circumstances. The mother of this child would presumably have had the option of terminating her pregnancy if she’d had the means and inclination to do so. But she hadn’t. What does that tell us? Where did you come from, baby girl? My gut squirmed with that same sense of frustration I felt when it was clear Brigit knew something I didn’t and couldn’t communicate it to me.

  As the other men wandered off to return to their tasks, Harrison said, “One of the guys ran to the store for diapers and formula. He should be back soon.”

  “Great.” Instinctively, I hiked the baby into a more upright position in my arms and began to bounce and sway side to side. She yawned a second time, blinking her eyes against the harsh glare in the bay. When I looked up again, I caught Seth eyeing me, a soft smile on his face.

  He lifted his dimpled chin to indicate the baby. “Don’t get any ideas.”

  I rolled my eyes a second time. “Don’t you, either.” I planned to take the detective exam as soon as I was able. The last thing I needed was a child getting in the way of my career aspirations. That said, I’d want a kid or two later, once I’d had a chance to solve some big cases, prove my mettle. Did I want my children to also be Seth’s kids? Maybe. Probably, even. But there’d be time to figure all of that out later. We’d only been dating a little over a year and we were in no rush to settle down and start a family.

  The baby began to fuss, emitting little mewling, hicuppy cries. “It’s okay, baby girl,” I told her in my best soothing voice as I cranked my bounces up a notch. “Everything’s okay.”

  Of course that wasn’t true. Everything was most definitely not okay. If things were okay, she’d be with her mother and father right now. Only a few hours old and already she’s been abandoned by her parents and lied to by a cop. Not an auspicious start, was it?

  I pushed the button on my shoulder-mounted radio to contact dispatch, giving my current location. “A baby girl was dropped off here. Can you notify Child Protective Services so they can send someone over to pick her up?”

  The dispatcher’s voice came back. “Will do. How’s the baby doing? Is she all right?”

  I pushed the button to respond, but before I could get the word out the baby mustered up every bit of her strength and let loose a wail. Waaaaaaaah!

  “My Lord!” the dispatcher cried. “She’s got some lungs on her!”

  “Sorry.” I pulled the baby away from the mic lest she burst the dispatcher’s eardrums. “But I guess that’s a good sign, huh?” A sick baby wouldn’t have been able to muster up such a strong sound.

  Thankfully, the firefighter who’d gone for formula pulled into the lot. Seth met him at his car and took the bag of provisions from him. As Seth carried the bag into the station, I followed with the baby. Waaaaah! Brigit and Blast padded along after us. When we reached the kitchen, Seth pulled the items from the bag and set them on the table. He looked from the table to me, raising his voice to be heard over the baby’s cry. “What now?”

  It had been a long time since I’d been around an infant. None of my friends were mothers yet, and the last time I’d babysat was over a decade ago. But having helped my parents with my four younger siblings, I remembered the basics.

  “Rinse the bottle and nipple,” I directed. “Then pour a couple of ounces of formula in the bottle and run it under hot water for a few seconds to warm it up just a little.”

  Seth did as I’d told him and handed the warm bottle to me. I checked the temperature by dabbing a drop on my wrist. As Goldilocks would say, it was just right.

  “Dinnertime, little g-girl.” Actually, it was more of a midnight snack, but she was too young to know the difference. She was also too young to realize I suffered from what was now only a minor stutter, but which had virtually silenced me during my childhood. Of course my struggles with my speech seemed minor in comparison to what this baby faced.

  I slid the nipple between the baby’s lips, teasing the roof of her mouth until she clamped down and began to drink. The little thing had darn impressive suction, the bottle pulling against my fingers. I had to tighten my grip lest she suck the bottle right out of my hand. Suck-suck-suck.

  Her cry having been answered, she blinked to clear the tiny tears she’d mustered along with her wail, the little drops running down her temples to dampen her hair. As I gazed down at her, I couldn’t help but wonder who her mother was. Was the baby also wondering if I was her mother? My mind recalled the children’s book Are You My Mother? The bird in the book had an acute lack of self-awareness, inquiring whether various animals of other species and even a piece of construction equipment were its mother. Sorry, kiddo. Not me.

  I took a seat at the table while she ate. Now that the baby was at dog level, Brigit and Blast took the opportunity to check her out more fully. They sniffed her blanket and her little curved ears, sniffed at the bottle, too. As if to get a complete look at the baby, Brigit grabbed the loose tip of the knit cap and pulled it off the baby’s head, releasing a cascade of fluffy black hair that would be right at home on a Muppet.

  “Bad dog!” I tucked the bottle under my chin to hold it still for the baby and reached out to grab the cap from Brigit’s teeth. “Give me that.”

  Brigit released her hold on the cap, turning her attention back to the baby. She sniffed the infant’s dark hair twice—sniff-sniff—then opened her mouth and gave the baby’s head a slick lick from back to front. Slup. The girl’s hair now stuck up in a point above her forehead, like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals. Unsanitary, sure, but adorable as heck, too.

  I looked up at Seth. “Take a picture.” Whoever the baby ended up with long term, they should have a glimpse into her first few hours. Hopefully they wouldn’t be disgusted by dog germs. They didn’t seem to bother the baby. She continued to drink, undeterred by the dog slime. Suck-suck-suck.

  Seth pulled out his cell phone and snapped a quick pic of the baby with her canine coif. “She must get that dark hair from her mother.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The guy who handed her off was blond. Or at least his beard was.”

  Hmm. Were blond
genes recessive? I wasn’t sure. “Was he young?”

  “No. I’d put him around my age.”

  In other words, the guy was around thirty. Again, hmm. I’d expected the father of the baby to be younger, maybe even a teenager, but I supposed parents of all ages could find themselves unable to take care of a baby. And while the Baby Moses Law had an age limit for the child, it didn’t impose any age restrictions on the parents giving up the baby.

  Brigit and Blast gave the little girl one last sniff before losing interest in her and wandering over to the fridge. Brigit nudged the door with her nose, looked over at Seth, and woofed. The dog might not speak English, but she could nonetheless communicate very clearly with us humans when it came to certain things.

  “All right, Brigit.” Seth stepped over and opened the fridge. “What sounds good?” he asked my furry partner. “Hot dogs? Bologna?”

  Brigit stuck her nose into the fridge. She started by sniffing the lower drawer where the fruits and vegetables were kept, but worked her way up to the higher drawer, which contained hot dogs and a variety of lunch meats. She nudged the upper drawer and sat back on her haunches, gazing up at Seth expectantly.

  Seth opened the drawer, reached inside, and retrieved the hot dogs, a package of ham, and a package of bologna. Brigit nudged the bologna with her snout.

  “Bologna it is.” Seth returned the other items to the drawer and finagled a couple slices of the lunch meat from the package. He tore the slices into strips and hand-fed them to Brigit and Blast, who wagged their tails in appreciation.

  One of the other firefighters wandered in, grumbled when he found the coffeepot empty, and set about brewing a fresh pot.

  The baby’s sucking eventually slowed and I removed the bottle from her mouth. “Tummy full now, sweetie?”

  She replied with a cute baby toot.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” I rounded up a dish towel and draped it over my shoulder. Properly protected now, I put her up to my shoulder and patted her back until she offered up an itty-bitty baby burp. Burp. Fortunately, the burp was all that came out of her. Burping my younger brother Joey had always been more akin to an exorcism. You never knew what manner of demon might spew forth.