In Protective Custody Read online

  Whatever she thought her in-laws were involved in could wait. Hadn’t he already bitten his tongue regarding the Rialtos for more than a year? While Max had instinctively distrusted Joe from the start, Emily had been blinded by love.

  Emily drew an unsteady breath and frowned. “Joe…murder’d.”

  This much he already knew. The police had filled Max in on witness accounts of how an armed man had barged into the restaurant where Emily and Joe had been dining and shot her husband in cold blood.

  Max choked back the bile that rose in his throat, imagining his sister’s fear and pain the night Joe’s killer had opened fire on them. The horror. The violence.

  “I know, Em. The police are working a few leads to try to find the man—”

  “Joe…murder’d.”

  Acid burned his gut. Was she saying she knew who killed Joe? That his murder was somehow linked to his family and drugs?

  Max mentally reviewed what he knew of Joe and his father. Their shipping business was small but enormously lucrative. And could easily have been infiltrated by drug smugglers.

  Or did Joe’s murder mean the Rialtos’ involvement was consensual?

  That possibility kicked Max’s pulse up a notch, stirred a cold frisson of suspicion in his bones. Either way, living on the fringes of such a volatile business was no life for Emily. Or her son.

  “Pr’tect…baby from…Rialtos.” Emily’s pleas echoed his own thoughts, and a foreboding chill washed through him.

  “Maybe you could get a restraining order to—”

  Emily shook her head, her eyes reflecting the same skepticism that twisted in him. After witnessing Anthony Rialto in action, Max knew she was right. A court order wouldn’t stop the Rialtos from taking what they wanted.

  He tried to reason out a better option, but Emily nixed every idea, offering cold truths she’d learned about her father-in-law. When he suggested involving the police, she claimed Anthony Rialto had dirty cops on his payroll.

  Gasping her beliefs one key word at a time, she argued breathlessly that if the Rialtos got the baby when he was released from the hospital, they’d take him out of the country and fight her custody rights. Her impassioned pleas for her child, even as she fought for her own life, wrenched Max’s emotions in knots.

  “You’re only…one I…trust. Don’t…let baby…outta…your sight.” She was truly winded now, struggling for air, and Max place his free hand over her lips.

  “Easy. Hush now.” He clenched his teeth and sighed. “I won’t go to the police, and I won’t let Joe’s family get near your son. I promise.”

  Her grip loosened, and relief softened the tension in her face. “You’ll…take…m’baby? Hide?”

  Her breathlessness plucked at his heart as much as her determination. The pleading in her eyes tore him apart. The fear and resignation in her voice tormented him.

  What else could he do? The Rialtos didn’t negotiate. They had the money, the lawyers, the power and influence to get their way, right or wrong.

  “But what about you, Em? I can’t leave you like this. And I can’t care for a baby and be here for you at the same time.”

  Tears welled in her eyes, and Max knew he’d lost. He was a sucker for a woman’s tears. Especially Emily’s.

  “I don’t know anything about babies,” he mumbled, dragging a hand over his stubbled chin.

  “You’ll…learn. All new…fathers do.”

  “But I’m not his father.”

  “If…I die—”

  Ice sluiced through his veins. “Don’t talk that way! You can’t die. You have a baby to raise.”

  “Raise him…for me.”

  A cold ball of fear lodged in his throat. He’d tried the family-man thing once.

  And failed. Miserably.

  He was all wrong for the job of raising a child.

  Another tear escaped his sister’s eyelashes. Hell!

  “How am I supposed to get the baby out of the hospital without Joe’s family knowing? They’ve hovered around the nursery like a pack of wolves since he was born.”

  That news seemed to suck the spirit from Emily. The hope in her eyes dimmed, and pain sliced Max’s chest. If she gave up hope and quit fighting for her life…

  He had to do something. But what she asked of him was daunting. A baby! Memories of his failed marriage rose to haunt him. Emily’s need battled the demons of his past.

  Finally, Emily’s desperate, tormented expression swayed him. He leaned close and whispered fiercely in her ear. “Emily, listen to me. For once in your life, do what I’m telling you. I’ll make a deal with you, okay?”

  She met his gaze, hope lighting her eyes.

  “I’ll find a way to get your son out of here, to hide him from Joe’s family and keep him safe for you, if…” He wagged a finger in her face to punctuate his point. Already the hurdles of getting the baby past the Rialtos loomed in his mind. “Swear to me, promise me now, you will fight. You cannot give up hope. You have to get well, so that you can take care of your baby yourself. Like I tell my Pee Wee football kids—no quitters on my team. Understand?”

  A flicker of warmth lit her eyes, and Max knew he’d made the only choice he could. If his promise would give Emily the hope she needed to survive, he’d promise her the moon and figure out how to get it. Despite his track record.

  Maybe helping Emily would redeem him in some small way for his failures in the past. He refused to let her down.

  “I’ll keep your son safe for you.”

  The next afternoon, Max backed out of his sister’s hospital room and closed the door. Tucked to his chest, he carried the duffel bag he’d used to bring her clean pajamas and a pillow from home. The police detective, having gotten a few minutes alone with Emily earlier in the day, had finally left the hospital. Only one hurdle remained.

  Max cast a wry grin to the beefy-armed thug standing guard at her door. “She’s nursing the baby and doesn’t want her big brother watching,” he lied.

  The Rialtos’ lackey, obviously assigned as watchdog while the family attended Joe’s funeral, shifted his bulky weight and cut a nervous glance toward Emily’s door. Max’s ploy worked as he’d hoped. The guard seemed uncomfortable with the idea of a breast-feeding mother and didn’t enter the room to check on them.

  Max aimed a finger at the duffel bag. “I’m gonna drop her dirty clothes at the laundry and get a bite to eat. Want anything from the snack bar?”

  The Rialtos’ man glowered at Max and shook his head.

  “Whatever.” Max turned and headed for the elevator, praying that the baby hidden in the duffel continued to sleep until he got out of the hospital. He hoped no one looked too closely through the large gap in the duffel’s zipper he’d left open for air.

  After he’d promised to take care of her son, Emily’s mood and condition had improved enough that her doctor and the baby’s pediatrician had both agreed to let her see her son. And Max’s sketchy plan began to take shape. He spoke to the pediatrician privately and convinced the man to sign for the baby’s discharge while the Rialtos attended Joe’s funeral.

  During Emily’s visit with the discharged baby, they waited for his nephew to fall asleep. Now, careful not to jostle the boy in the vented bag, Max exited the medical center New Orleans natives fondly called Charity Hospital. He made his way across the divided street to the visitors’ parking garage.

  Phase one of his mission complete, Max buckled his nephew in the car seat he’d bought on the way to the hospital that afternoon. When he slid behind the wheel of his Jeep Cherokee and cranked the engine, the radio blared from the rear speakers. Mick Jagger woke the sleeping baby, who tuned up and added his vocals to the Stones.

  Max cringed and turned in the seat to try to comfort the infant. “Hey, easy, little guy.”

  As he jiggled the baby’s seat, he spotted the Rialtos’ thug at the front door of the hospital. The man scanned the street then zeroed in on Max’s SUV. Reaching under his coat, the henchman started toward t
he parking garage. No doubt Mr. Thug kept something besides his wallet tucked inside his jacket.

  “Hell!” Max had no time to do anything about the crying child. His first priority was getting out of Dodge. Fast. He might have the child with Emily’s permission, but the Rialtos made their own rules.

  Max pulled out of the garage and darted into the evening traffic. Emily’s son continued to wail like a fire engine siren. The thought of the Rialtos’ armed guard on his heels kicked Max’s pulse up a notch. He zipped through a yellow light, anxious to put distance between himself and the gorilla at the hospital.

  He thought of the wistful expression on Emily’s face as she’d kissed her son goodbye, and his throat clogged.

  “I’ve done my part, Em. Now you fight, damn it!” He hated not being at her side. What if she got worse or…?

  Don’t think that way. Visualize success. Make it happen. Wasn’t that what he told the kids he coached in the Pee Wee football league?

  Max drew a deep breath and flexed his fingers on the steering wheel.

  Focus. Focus.

  But the baby’s cries reached a fervid pitch, and he couldn’t think, much less concentrate on the problems at hand. As he headed away from the hospital, he encountered a roadblock where a construction crew was fixing the street. A backlog of cars inched toward the detour.

  Frustrated with his slow progress, Max zipped around a bus of tourists and turned down a side street. He crawled a few more blocks until he turned onto Canal Street headed toward the French Quarter. Snarled in traffic, Max flicked a glance to his rearview mirror. No sign of the armed henchman. But Max knew the thug hadn’t given up. He was still hunting him.

  When a group of women dashed in front of him to catch one of the city’s famous streetcars, he stood on the brakes to avoid hitting them. The near miss sent an extra jolt of adrenaline through his already edgy system. By the time he turned on Baronne, headed toward the Crescent City Connection and his home in Belle Chasse, his nephew’s screams had completely frayed his nerves. What if the kid was in pain?

  Remembering the pacifier he’d jammed in his pocket at the hospital, Max fished the little plastic device from his jeans and picked off the lint that clung to the nipple.

  “Easy, little guy,” he crooned to the baby. “Here.” He twisted toward the backseat and fumbled to find the baby’s mouth. Tiny fists hit his hand as Max searched for his target. By now, the child’s screams could curdle blood.

  He swerved to avoid a pedestrian who seemed more interested in the panhandling saxophone player on the corner than the traffic. Keeping an eye on the bumper in front of him, Max groped blindly across the baby’s face until he found his nephew’s mouth, opened wide in a deafening howl. The infant latched on to his finger and sucked hard.

  “Try this instead.” He swapped the pacifier for his finger, and a blessed silence filled the car.

  For about thirty seconds.

  He heard the soft clunk when the pacifier fell out of the baby’s mouth, and Max braced himself.

  His nephew let out an angry wail. Max groaned. Escaping the Rialtos’ thug no longer seemed his biggest problem. What if he never got the little banshee to stop crying?

  Max could enter a burning house with confidence in his firefighting skill and training, but knowing he was in charge of a tiny, needy, noisy life scared him spitless. What if he did the wrong thing and hurt the kid? What if he didn’t get the hang of it the way a new father was supposed to? If he failed this time, he’d let two people down, Emily and her son.

  Sighing, he turned toward the backseat and fumbled in the car seat for the lost pacifier. When his fingers closed around the cool plastic, relief zinged through his blood.

  He stuck the device in the baby’s mouth and glanced back to the traffic—just as his Cherokee plowed into the back of a white Camry with a nauseating crunch.

  More screeching tires. Then the jarring crunch of another car hitting him from behind.

  Max muttered a scorching curse.

  The driver of the Camry climbed out and glared at him.

  And his nephew lost his pacifier again.

  Laura Dalton winced as she watched the black Cherokee ram into the Camry. Right after that, a pickup truck smashed into the back of the Cherokee. The crunch of the collisions skittered through her system, shooting adrenaline through her veins. Heart thudding, she pulled onto a side street and climbed from her Honda on shaky legs to see if she could help.

  Please don’t let anyone be hurt. She could handle all the baby barf and dirty diapers that her job at the day care center doled out, but the sight of blood sent her into a panic.

  She scowled, realizing none of the other drivers who’d witnessed the accident had stopped to assist or give their statements to the cops.

  But Laura knew too well what it was like to need someone yet have no one to turn to. She couldn’t easily turn her back when she saw a chance to help.

  The driver of the Camry climbed out and scowled at his crumpled fender, but he seemed unharmed. One down. As she approached the scene, the driver of the Cherokee, a tall, good-looking man with jet black hair, got out and stepped to his back door. While he leaned in the backseat of his car, Laura made her way to the pickup where the driver had yet to emerge.

  She knocked on the truck’s window, and the blond teenage girl at the wheel rolled down the window.

  “Are you all right?” Laura asked, searching the teen’s pale face.

  “I…yeah. Oh, God…my dad’s gonna kill me!” The girl buried her face in her hands and groaned.

  “But you’re okay physically? You’re not hurt?”

  “No. I’m fine…thanks.” The girl flashed her a weak smile.

  Laura returned a relieved grin. “Just remind your dad what’s important. You’re safe. That’s what matters. I have a cell phone in my car if you need to call your parents.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” The girl gave her another timid grin, flashing a set of braces.

  The familiar howl of a baby in distress called Laura’s attention away from the teenager in the truck.

  The Cherokee’s driver pulled an infant, still strapped in a baby carrier, out of his backseat and set the carrier on the ground beside the car. Images of an injured child flashed through Laura’s mind, chilling her blood. “Oh, no.”

  She hurried over to the raven-haired man who hunkered over the car seat, fumbling to unfasten the baby from the straps.

  “Is she hurt?” Laura asked.

  “It’s a boy. And he’s okay. I think.” The man added an obscenity as he struggled with trembling hands to free the infant from the straps.

  “Here. Let me.” She nudged the man aside and mashed the release button that freed the baby of the seat straps. The infant’s cries wrenched her heart. He was tiny, like a newborn, and his face had turned beet red from bawling.

  The man raked a hand through his black hair, leaving the thick waves rumpled. Taking his son from her, he awkwardly put the infant on his shoulder and rubbed the baby’s back. “Thanks.”

  “Glad to help.”

  Deep worry lines etched the man’s face as he surveyed his crumpled bumper and scanned the gathering crowd. Obviously shaken by the accident, he patted the baby’s back harder and began pacing. “Easy, fella. You’ll be all right. Shh.”

  The baby’s howls didn’t abate, and the louder the baby cried, the more agitated the father grew.

  Laura couldn’t blame him. The infant’s shrieks had her edgy too. She hated hearing a child in distress. At the day care center, she was always the first worker rushing to soothe an upset child.

  She remembered too well what it felt like to be young, scared and all alone. No one to comfort you, no one to dry your tears, no one who even noticed you were there.

  She fell in step with the dark-haired father as he strode anxiously back and forth beside his wrecked Cherokee, muttering.

  “If you’d like, I’ll hold your son while you talk to the police.”

  The man c
ame to an abrupt halt, and his head snapped up. He pinned her with a dark brown stare. “What?”

  “I work with children, and I’m good at calming them down, if you want me to—”

  “The cops. Damn!” He squeezed his eyes closed, scrunching his face in frustration.

  Laura tipped her head and studied the father, who seemed even more disconcerted now. A thin sheen of perspiration dampened his forehead, and a palpable tension vibrated from his square jaw. His concern seemed ridiculously out of proportion to the circumstances.

  “Is there a problem, sir? I’d be happy to help if—”

  He spun to her with an abrupt jerk. “Where’s your car?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your car. I need it.” He tore his dark gaze away and glanced nervously around the accident scene.

  “My car? Wh-why?”

  The man’s odd behavior set her on edge. She backed away from him a step, only to have him grab her arm. His touch sent a strange jolt through her. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had touched her. The sensation of his strong, hot hand on her arm was overwhelming. He balanced the baby with one hand while his long fingers tightened around her upper arm. The first inkling of panic fluttered to life in her chest.

  “I’ve gotta get out of here before—” He clamped his mouth shut and sighed. “Where’s your car?”

  The baby now screamed so hard Laura feared he’d hurt himself. Her stomach bunched with worry for the infant’s well-being. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to hold your baby just for a minute? I really think I could calm him down.”

  The father gave her a wary look then glanced down at the hollering infant. Finally he released her arm and thrust the tiny boy at her. “I’m sure not having any luck. Go ahead.”

  Laura cradled the wiggling infant against her chest and rocked him gently. “How old is he? He’s so small.”

  “Huh?” The man pulled out his wallet as he surveyed the area. “Oh, he’s…uh, just a couple days old. Listen, I need your help.” He seized her arm again and guided her farther away from the bustle of people examining the damage to the vehicles.