Aurora 06 - A Fool And His Honey by Charlaine Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

unknown to me; a body had dropped from the sky into my garden the year before. But it seemed unlikely it would happen twice, even to me.
    So, I reasoned, Craig had come after Regina. He’d been in his own car. Maybe Regina had left him and Craig wanted her to come back. They quarreled and Regina took the hatchet that. . .
    How did the hatchet enter the picture? Where had it been before it landed in the middle of Craig’s forehead?
    Okay, ignore that mental image. Say Craig had been threatening Regina with a hatchet he’d gotten out of his own car— “Come back to me or I’ll kill you”—and she got it away from him and killed him with it.
    While he stood passively below her on the stairs?
    And then she wrote a note to her uncle and fled, leaving her baby to the care of whoever walked in the apartment door?
    Okay.
    Craig had brought a friend with him, who had taken a letch to Regina. This friend got a hatchet and killed Craig and abducted Regina, but didn’t want to be burdened with Hayden. Or the friend didn’t even know there was a baby, so to save the child Regina had snatched a moment to stash Hayden under the bed.
    I thought that scenario covered everything. I relayed my theory to Martin.
    “That would exonerate Regina,” he said, sounding as if that was a very remote possibility. He seemed a smidge more hopeful, though. “I’m sure she left because someone forced her to. I can’t believe she’d leave the baby unless she was under duress.” Martin kissed my forehead to say thank you, but the arm beneath my neck felt like a log, it was so hard with tension.
    I decided to relieve his stress in the happiest way. I nuzzled his nipple. He drew in his breath sharply and his unoccupied hand found something pleasant to do.
    “Eh!” said a little voice behind me.
    I shrieked.
    “It’s the baby,” Martin said, after a fraught moment. “In the crib. By the bed.”
    “Eh!” said Hayden. I rolled over, to see two tiny hands waving in the air.
    “Oh, no no no,” I moaned, all thoughts of sex flying out of my head like rats leaving a sinking ship. “I don’t know what to do. You had a baby, you have to help.”
    “Cindy took care of Barrett when he was a baby.”
    Why was I not surprised?

    “I was always. . . too scared to do things for him. He was so little. He was three weeks premature. And by the time he was large enough, when I was sure I couldn’t hurt him by accident, Cindy and I had gotten into the habit of her taking care of him, bathing and feeding and diapering.”
    Absurdly, it was not Martin’s ignorance of baby care that made tears spring to my eyes as I dragged myself from the bed. It was the thought of Martin and Cindy’s shared experiences: the birth of Barrett, the concern about his health and fears for his survival after the premature birth, his slow growth and improvement with Martin and Cindy watching as parents. All this he’d had with her, and would never have with me.
    I hadn’t ever been jealous of Cindy before, and I’d certainly picked a bad time to start.
    Already feeling tired, I hoisted Hayden from his portable crib—surely he’d gained weight during the night?—and laid him on the bed beside Martin while I found my bathrobe. When I turned back, Martin was propped up on one elbow, looking down at the baby, his finger extended for Hayden to grasp. The baby was regarding Martin solemnly. I stood for a long moment looking, feeling my heart break along several different fault lines.
    I turned away to pull my mass of wavy hair back into a ponytail and secure it. Hayden had showed a tendency to grab and pull the night before, and I hadn’t enjoyed the experience. I tied the sash of the black velour robe and cautiously bent down to lift the infant from the bed.
    “How old do you reckon he is?” I asked, startled to think I didn’t even know this child’s age.
    “I have no idea.” Martin stared at the baby, running some comparisons in his head. “He seems a little