Echoes by Kristen Heitzmann Read Free Book Online Page A

gone?"
    "No."
    He took out a pad to jot notes. "Baby's name?"
    "He doesn't have one yet."
    Uh-huh . "Mother is Maria . . ."
    Lance shrugged. "That's all we know. Someone asked us to provide her a place to have her baby. She's only been here a week."
    "Who asked?"
    "Michelle Farrar. She's with a local church."
    Matt took down her contact information. Michelle might know the mother's name and whether she intended the safe surrender of her infant. "When was the baby born?"
    "The twenty-fifth. Around 2:30 a.m."
    "What hospital?"
    "No hospital. She had him upstairs. In her room."
    Matt looked up. "Who attended?"
    "No one. Maria had him before we knew it."
    "Has a doctor seen him?"
    Lance shook his head. "The nurse midwife came when he was born, and she's done a couple checkups."
    "But Maria never took him to a pediatrician or emergency clinic?"
    "The baby's fine."
    Maybe so, but he was trying to determine her mindset, particularly whether she had abandoned the infant. Sonoma County's safe-haven law only allowed surrender of an infant within three days to a hospital emergency room. Maria may have thought she was leaving her baby in good hands, but he wasn't getting the idea they'd been prepared for her to disappear.
    Lance studied the man who'd come on the baby's behalf. Why had CPS sent someone already? If one day was too soon for the police to investigate a missing person, wasn't it also too soon to call it abandonment? He appreciated Matt's interest in the infant's welfare, but Maria was the one they needed to find. Her little baby may not have seen a doctor, but he was hale and hardy and had more arms to hold and soothe him than most babies starting out.
    Where was Maria, and who could she turn to? He could not forget her face as she told him the baby was his. The verbs she'd used didn't really translate to watch or look after , but he couldn't believe she'd given up the baby she had hardly let go of for a minute. How could she disappear so fast? He'd been right behind her. Unless someone had grabbed her. Maybe someone had been waiting. Maybe they'd arranged it.
    "Look," he said, meeting Matt Hammond's eyes. "We don't mind watching the baby. But I'm worried about Maria."
    "Did either she or—" he checked his notes—"Michelle indicate Maria intended to abandon her infant?"
    "No. We didn't press her for details, but she never said anything like that. Until yesterday, it had been hard to get more than a word or two from her."
    "And yesterday?"
    He ran his hand through his hair. "She got upset, misunderstood things."
    "What did she misunderstand?"
    "When she first came, she asked what she had to do to stay here. I told her just have a strong, healthy baby. I meant she didn't have to earn our help, that we were willing to care for her, but she might have thought that meant I wanted the child."
    Matt raised his brows. "What makes you think that?"
    "She said I should name him. That he was mine."
    "Is he?"
    Rese stiffened. "She didn't mean Lance was the father."
    Matt waited to hear it directly.
    Lance shook his head. "I never saw her until a week ago. She meant I should have the baby because . . ." He kicked himself. He hadn't meant to bring up the rest of it. "I helped when he was born."
    "I thought she was alone."
    "After." Lance rubbed his jaw. "He had some problems. Wasn't breathing. She thinks I fixed what was wrong."
    "You resuscitated the infant?"
    "He was just lying there, so I picked him up. He . . . didn't look good."
    "In what way?"
    Lance swallowed. "Well, there was blood and . . . you know, birth stuff, and maybe it just looked like his mouth hadn't . . ."
    "He had a cleft palate." Star joined them. In her turquoise beaded top and white caravan-style pants, with her pale skin and hair, she looked like a bleached belly dancer. And in that one sentence she'd undone all his careful hedging.
    Matt said, "You are . . ."
    "I'm Star." She lighted on the arm of Sofie's chair.
    Matt honed in. "You saw what happened,