Interrupted Lullaby. Dana R. Lynn
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in hiding, she might feel exposed out in the open like this. He would. She pushed the stroller at a jog up the driveway and around the back of the house. A minute later, the blinds in the front window twitched.
He sent off a brief text to Paul, letting him know what was happening.
Chief Garraway would be interested in the developments of this case, seeing as he was in her jurisdiction. Knowing how much she detested texting, he dialed her personal cell number. He knew if he dialed the office number, it would probably go to her voice mail.
She answered on the second ring.
“Garraway.”
“Willis here, Chief,” he identified himself. “I found her.”
He could hear Chief Garraway suck in a breath. “Is she alive?”
“Yes, ma’am. But it seems we were missing some information.”
“What information, Willis? Don’t play games. Just spit it out.”
Dan grimaced. Better just say it and weather the explosion.
“She has a couple of babies with her. Twins.”
Silence. That didn’t bode well. Then Chief Garraway’s voice exploded across the line.
“Twins! We checked all the hospitals, didn’t we? How could a juror from a high-profile case go missing for over a year, then waltz into a hospital, give birth to twins, then walk out again without us being any the wiser? Can you explain that to me, Lieutenant?”
Dan sighed. “No, Chief. I can’t explain it.”
“Are they hers?”
“I can’t say for sure, ma’am, but my gut says yeah, they’re hers. I haven’t made contact yet.”
“All right. Keep me posted.” She ended the call.
Dan leaned over slightly and slid his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. His hair fell over his eyes. He shook his head, knocking the hair back. He’d never intended to let it grow this long. It was starting to annoy him, so he’d probably cut it when this case was over. He’d probably shave his short beard, too. Right now he had a job to do. Time to meet Miss Maggie and find out why she had disappeared all those months ago.
He reached back and grabbed a leather jacket from the rear seat and put it on. Zipped, it hid the holster with his service revolver. He set off at a casual stroll. Remembering Maggie’s secretive posture, he walked around to the back door. He might have a better shot at getting her to open her door if she didn’t feel as though any passersby could see them talking.
The back door was opened a crack. That was surprising. A woman that wary, he would have assumed she’d have the door shut and bolted.
A scream inside the house jolted him from his thoughts. A woman’s scream. Followed by the distinct sound of a slap. The woman cried out in pain.
“Where is it hidden?” This was a man’s voice, speaking in a menacing snarl.
Dan broke into a run and burst into the house. Two people were locked in a furious struggle.
With a cry, the woman shoved her elbow into the man’s abdomen. He grunted and his hold loosened. She broke away. Her assailant grabbed a fistful of her brown hair and yanked.
Her hair fell off. She had been wearing a wig.
“Police!” Dan yelled, holding his service revolver in front of him. The assailant jerked around and immediately switched targets. Thrusting Maggie aside, he lunged at Dan with a bellow, a large hunting knife in one hand. Dan aimed but was unable to shoot without risking hitting Maggie. In seconds, the assailant was upon him, the wicked knife catching the light as it slashed down.
A burning sensation in his side alerted Dan that he had been stabbed. No time to worry about that now. His attacker was strong but clearly had no training. Dan, on the other hand, had specialized military training—training he hadn’t needed to use in several years. But now it kicked in as automatically as if a switch had been flipped. In short order, he had the attacker handcuffed and seated on the ground while he called in to the station to report the situation.
He was aware of Maggie running to check on the children still strapped in the stroller. Listening to the dispatcher, he twisted around to watch her. Maggie had taken a protective stance in front of the stroller, her glare hot and fierce. A grin threatened to form at her resemblance to a protective mama bear. He squelched it. Pretty sure she wouldn’t appreciate it in the current situation.
“I’m sending a black-and-white to your location, Lieutenant Willis,” the slightly nasal voice of the dispatcher informed him.
“Glad to hear it. Tell them to come around to the back door.” Dan snapped his phone shut and slipped it into his back pocket. That done, he turned to face the woman he had been searching for—Maggie Slade, aka Mary Connors. Her black curls were starting to slip from the bobby pins. Her skin was pale, but her dark blue eyes were alert. Close up he couldn’t believe he had doubted it was her.
“Maggie, I’m Lieutenant Dan Willis with the LaMar Pond Police Department. I’ve been searching for you for a long time.”
It hardly seemed possible, but her face paled further.
* * *
Maggie retreated several steps before realizing there was no place to run. No way to grab her babies and escape. She was trapped.
And confused.
The jogger, a man who had been waving at her for weeks, was sitting on the floor, handcuffed, cursing and spewing ugly threats at her. He had followed her into the house, sneaked in while she had been setting the brake on the stroller and then attacked. If it hadn’t been for the policeman standing in front of her, she was certain she would have been killed. Her eyes went to the knife lying on the floor. She shuddered.
She had been saved by a cop. A cop from LaMar Pond. It could be a trick. Cops were clever. She didn’t know which ones she could trust. Was this cop one of the good guys? Or was he connected to the man who had killed Phillip?
The cop glared at the man sitting on the floor. “You can stop that right now. I’m gonna read you your rights, and then you’re going for a ride to jail. So you can sit and think about the error of your ways.”
Maggie was shocked when her would-be killer obeyed, although his eyes continued to shoot pure venom at Maggie and her rescuer.
What was the cop’s name again? Williams?
“Detective Williams,” she began but stopped when he shook his head.
“Willis, ma’am. Lieutenant Willis.” He moved his right arm but suddenly sucked in a breath and winced. He lifted his elbow away from his body, angling his head so he could look at his side. His leather jacket gaped open. That’s when she noticed the blood seeping from a wound on his right side.
“You’re hurt! Did he stab you?” Her eyes flicked from the offending knife back to his side. The stain was spreading across his T-shirt. An ugly chuckle sounded from the attacker. Both Maggie and Lieutenant Willis ignored the man. It was difficult to see the extent of the injury because of the leather jacket he wore. “I didn’t hear you call for an ambulance.”
A fleeting expression crossed his face—annoyance, embarrassment?—before it once again smoothed out.
“I’ll take care of it, ma’am. No need for you to worry about it.”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he swayed. Maggie leaped forward, grabbed his left arm and hauled him over to a chair. Relying on her first-aid training, she grabbed a towel from the basket of clean laundry on the kitchen table. She used the towel to apply firm pressure to the wound.
“Hold this,” she ordered him.
“I’m fine,” he grumbled, his voice gruff. “Just tired.”
“We still need to stop