Lisa Jackson's the Abandoned Box Set (35 page)

Heat crept up her neck. “I must've dropped it here when I found the baby. I was so concerned about him, I didn't think of much else.”

Bodine grunted as he checked the chamber.

“Nothing up here,” Deputy White called down from the loft.

“I could've guessed,” Bodine muttered under his breath as he turned his attention back to the stall, instructing Chandra to reconstruct the scene. She pointed out the
position of the baby and answered all the questions he asked. Deputy White climbed down the ladder from the loft and, after observing the stall, asked a few more questions that Chandra couldn't answer.

The deputies didn't say as much, but Chandra read in their expressions that they'd come up against a dead end. Outside, they walked through the paddocks and fields, and even followed a couple of trails into the nearby woods. But they found nothing.

“Well, that's about all we can do for now,” Bodine said as they walked across the yard. He brushed the dust from his hands.

“What about the baby?” Chandra asked, hoping for just a little more information on the infant. “What happens to him?”

“Don't worry about him. He's in good hands at the hospital. The way I hear it, Dr. O'Rourke is the best E.R. doctor in the county, and he'll link the kid up to a good pediatrician.”

“I see.”

Bodine actually offered her a smile. “I'm sure O'Rourke will let you look in on the kid, if you want. In the meantime, we'll keep looking for the baby's ma.” He opened the passenger side of the cruiser while Deputy White slid behind the wheel. “If we find her, she's got a whole lotta questions to answer before she gets her kid back.”

“And if you don't find her?”

“The baby becomes a ward of the state until we can locate a parent, grandparent or other relative.”

Chandra's heart wrenched at the thought. “He'll be put in an institution?”

“Probably a foster home—whatever Social Services decides. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, we have to find the mother or next of kin. We'll
keep you posted,” he said, as if reading the worry in her eyes for the very first time.

Bodine slid into his seat, and Deputy White put the car into gear. Chandra waited until the car had disappeared around the bend in the drive before returning to the house with the rifle.

So what happens next? she wondered. If nothing else, the baby was certainly a part of her life.

As she walked into the house, she heard the phone ringing. She dashed to the kitchen. “Hello?”

“Miss Hill?”

She froze as she recognized Dr. O'Rourke's voice. “Hello, doctor,” she said automatically, though her throat was dry. Something was wrong with the baby. Why else would he phone her?

“I thought you'd like to know that the baby's doing well,” he said, and her knees nearly gave out on her. Tears of relief sprang to her eyes. O'Rourke chuckled, and the sound was throaty. “He's got the nurses working double time, but he's eating, and his vital signs are normal.”

“Thank God.”

“Anytime you want to check on him, just call,” Dallas said.

“Thanks for calling.”

There was a long pause before O'Rourke replied. “You seemed concerned last night and…since the boy has no family that we know of…”

“I appreciate the call.”

* * *

A
S
D
ALLAS HUNG UP
the phone in his office at the hospital, he wondered what the devil had gotten into him. Calling Chandra Hill? All night long he'd remembered the worry in her eyes and, though he wasn't scheduled to work for hours, he'd gotten up and gone directly to the hospital, where he'd examined the baby again.

There was something about the boy that touched a part of him he'd thought was long buried, though he assumed his emotions were tangled up in the circumstances. The baby had been abandoned. Dallas's emotional reaction to the infant was because he knew that baby had no one to love him. No wonder he had felt the unlikely tug on his heartstrings when he'd examined the baby and the infant had blinked up at him with trusting eyes.

“This is crazy,” Dallas muttered, and headed back to the parking lot. He would drive over to the club and swim out his frustrations before grabbing some breakfast.

* * *

R
IVERBEND
H
OSPITAL APPEARED
larger in daylight. The whitewashed walls sprawled upward and outward, seeming to grow along the hillside, spawning several clinics connected by wide breezeways. The Rocky Mountains towered behind one facility, and below it, within view, flowed the Rattlesnake River. The town of Ranger was three miles away.

Chandra parked her truck in the visitors lot and prepared herself for a confrontation with another nurse on an authority trip. She wouldn't have to pass anywhere near the emergency room, so in all probability, she wouldn't run into Nurse Lindquist again. Or Dr. O'Rourke. He'd appeared dead on his feet last night, surely by now he was sleeping the morning away.

Probably with his wife.

Chandra's eyebrows pulled together, and above her nose a groove deepened—the worry line, Doug used to call it. The thought that Dr. O'Rourke was married shouldn't have been unpleasant. Good Lord, he deserved a normal life with a wife and kids…yet…

“Oh, stop it!” she grumbled, walking under the flat roof of a breezeway leading to the main entrance of the
hospital. The doors opened automatically and she walked through.

The reception area was carpeted in an industrial-strength weave of forest green. The walls were gray-white and adorned with framed wildlife posters hung exactly ten feet apart.

A pert nurse with a cap of dark curls, a dash of freckles strewn upon an upturned nose and a genuine smile greeted Chandra from behind the information desk. “May I help you?”

Chandra returned the woman's infectious grin. “I hope so. I'm Chandra Hill. I brought in the baby—”

The nurse, Jane Winthrop, laughed. “I
heard
about you and the baby,” she said, her dark eyes flashing merrily. “I guess I should transfer to the night shift in E.R. That's where all the action is.”

“Is it?” Chandra replied.

“Oh, yeah. But a lot of it's not too pretty, y'know. Car accidents—there was a bad one last night, not too long before you brought in the baby.” Her smile faded and her pretty dark eyes grew serious. “Anyway, what can I do for you?”

Jane Winthrop was a refreshing change from Alma Lindquist.

“I'd like to see the baby, see how he's doing.”

“No problem. He's in pediatrics, on two. Take the elevator up one floor and turn to your left. Through the double doors and you're there. The admitting nurse, Shannon Pratt, is still with him, I think. She'd just started her shift when they brought the baby in.”

Chandra didn't waste any time. She followed Jane's directions and stopped by the nurse's station in the pediatric wing on the second floor. Chandra recognized Nurse Pratt, the slim brunette, but hadn't met the other woman, plump, apple cheeked, with platinum blond hair, a
tanning-booth shade to her skin and pale blue eyes rimmed with eyelashes that were thick with mascara.

“You're back,” Shannon said, looking up from some paperwork on the desk. “I thought you would be.” She touched the eraser end of a pencil to her lips as she smiled and winked. “And I bet you're looking for one spunky little guy, right?” Before Chandra could answer, Shannon waved toward one of the long corridors. She leaned closer to the other nurse. “I'll be back in a minute. This is the woman who brought in the Baby Doe.”

The blond nurse, whose nameplate read Leslie Nelson, R.N., smiled and a dimple creased one of her rosy cheeks. “He's already won over the entire staff—including Alma Lindquist!” She caught a warning glance from Shannon, but continued blithely on. “You know, there's something special about that little guy—” The phone jangled and Leslie rolled her huge, mascara-laden eyes as she picked up the receiver. “Pediatrics. Nurse Nelson.”

“She's right about that,” Shannon agreed as she led Chandra down the hallway. “Your little friend has wormed his way into the coldest hearts around. Even Dr. O'Rourke isn't immune to him.”

“Is that right?” Chandra asked, lifting an eyebrow. She was surprised to hear Dr. O'Rourke's name, and even more surprised to glean a little bit about the man. Not that she cared. He was just a doctor, someone she'd have to deal with while visiting the baby.

“One of the nurses caught him holding the baby this morning. And he was actually smiling.”

So there was a more human side to the gruff doctor. Chandra glanced down the hallway, half expecting to see him, and she was surprised at her feeling of disappointment when he didn't appear.

Shannon clucked her tongue and shook her head. “You know, I didn't think anyone could touch that man, but
apparently I was wrong.” She slid Chandra a glance. “Maybe there's hope for him yet. Here you go. This little guy's still isolated until we get the results of his tests. But my guess is, he'll be fine.”

They stood behind a glass partition. On the other side of the clear wall, the dark-haired infant slept, his face serene as an ultraviolet light warmed him. There were other newborns as well, three sleeping infants, who, separated by the wall of glass, snoozed in the other room. Nearby, a nurse was weighing an unhappy infant who was showing off his lungs by screaming loudly.

“We're busy down here,” Nurse Pratt said.

“Looks that way.” Chandra focused her attention back on the isolated baby, and her heart tugged. So perfect. So beautiful. So precious. The fact that he was separated from the rest of the infants only made his plight seem more pitiful. Unwanted and unloved, living in a sterile hospital with only nurses and doctors—faces, hands and smells that changed every eight hours—to care for him.

A lump formed in her throat—a lump way out of proportion to the situation. She'd been a physician, for God's sake, a
pediatrician.
She was supposed to handle any given situation and keep her emotions in check. But this time, with this child, she was hopelessly ensnared in the trap of caring too much. Involuntarily her hand touched the cool glass. If only she could pick him up and hold him close….

Chandra felt Shannon's gaze resting on her, and she wondered just how much of her emotions played upon her face. “It looks as if he'll be okay once we get the jaundice under control,” Shannon said softly.

“And his caput—”

“Nothing serious, according to Dr. O'Rourke, and he's the best E.R. physician I've ever met.”

“And the pediatrician?”

“Dr. Spangler was on duty and looked him over last night. Agreed with O'Rourke right down the line. Dr. Williams will check the baby later this morning.”

Chandra felt a sense of overwhelming relief. She stared at the perfect round cheeks and the dark sweep of lashes that caressed the infant's skin, watched as his tiny lips moved ever so slightly, as if he were sucking in his dream. On whose breast did he subconsciously nurse?

Chandra's heart wrenched again and she felt rooted to the spot. Though she'd seen hundreds of babies, they had all come with mothers firmly attached, and she'd never once experienced a pang of devotion so deep. The feeling seemed to spring from an inner well of love she'd never known existed.

True, she had been married, had hoped to bear her own children, and so, perhaps, all her motherly instincts had been turned inward. But now, years later, divorced and having no steady man in her life, her nurturing urges seemed stronger than ever, especially where this tiny baby was concerned.

“Uh-oh.” Nurse Pratt exhaled softly. “Trouble.”

“What?” Chandra turned and discovered two men striding toward her. Both were of medium height, one with curly black hair, the other straight brown. They wore slacks and sweaters, no hospital ID or lab coats.

“Make that double trouble,” Shannon corrected.

“Miss Hill?” the man with the straight hair and hard eyes asked. “Bob Fillmore with the
Ranger Banner.
”

Chandra's heart sank as the curly-haired man added, “Sid Levine.” He held out his hand as if expecting Chandra to clasp it. “Photographer.”

She felt Sid's fingers curl over her hand, but she could barely breathe. Reporters. Already. She wasn't yet ready to deal with the press. “But how did you know—”

“Have you got permission to be here?” Nurse Pratt cut in, obviously displeased.

Fillmore ignored her. “I heard you found an infant in the woods near your home. Abandoned, is that right?”

“I don't think this is the place to conduct an interview,” Nurse Pratt insisted. Behind the glass, the baby started making noise, soft mewing sounds that erupted into the hard cries Chandra had heard the night before. Chandra whipped her head around and the sight of the infant,
her
baby—no, of course he wasn't hers, but he
was
in distress and she wanted desperately to run to him and pick him up.

“Is that the kid?” Fillmore asked. “Any idea who he belongs to? It is a he, right?” He looked to Chandra for verification as he withdrew a small pad and pen from the inner pocket of his jacket. He'd also unearthed a small tape recorder from his voluminous pockets and switched on the machine.

The baby cried louder, and Chandra felt her back stiffen. “Look, I'm not ready to give you an interview, okay? Yes, I found the baby—in my barn, not the woods—but since this is a case the police are investigating, I think you'd better go to the sheriff's office to get your facts straight.”

“But why your property?” Fillmore insisted, his tape recorder in his outstretched hand. Memories, painful as razors, cut through Chandra's mind as she remembered the last time she'd had microphones and recorders waved in her face, how she'd been forced to reveal information to the press.