Protecting the Pregnant Witness

Chapter Two

The Present

“You didn’t bring me any cigarettes?”

Josie Nichols let the accusation in her half brother Patrick’s tone sink in and curdle with the nausea already rolling in her stomach. “By the end of this summer, I’ll be a registered nurse, and I’m not going to support such an unhealthy, expensive habit. Anyway, you promised me you were quitting.”

“That was last month.” Patrick leaned back from the plastic table in the KCPD detention center where she’d come to visit him between classes at UMKC and her nightly shift at the Shamrock Bar. His blue eyes narrowed as he brushed his dark hair off his forehead. Their black-Irish looks were about the only thing she had in common with what was left of her so-called family. “I’ve got pressures in here that keep me on edge, and a couple of smokes could go a long way toward making me feel better. Besides, they’re like cash in here.”

Josie slipped her hand below the tabletop, gently rubbing at the small bump on her belly, trying to coax some cooperation from her stomach. “What do you need to buy in jail?”

“Protection. Weed. Private time in the shower.” He leaned forward again, propping his elbows on the table. She noticed the sinuous lines of a snake circling his forearm. Great. He’d given himself another tattoo. Sanitary considerations aside, their father would be so proud. Not.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

He paused for a moment, blinked, then sat back, silencing whatever he’d been about to share. “No more than usual. You bring me cigarettes next time you come.”

Although her regular bouts of morning sickness had passed, long times between snacks and stress like this visit could easily trigger that unsettled feeling. Josie hadn’t told Patrick about the baby. She hadn’t told anyone beyond their Uncle Robbie—who’d found her in the Shamrock’s restroom kneeling over the toilet two afternoons in a row, and said he recognized the signs from his own dear late Maureen—and the nurse practitioner-midwife who was taking care of her. The midwife was paid to be discreet, and no one kept a secret better than Robbie, even though he’d pestered her time and again to give him the father’s name so he could “set the ruddy bastard straight.”

Her relationship with Rafe had tanked after that night in the parking lot. Oh, he was just as protective as ever—annoyingly so—showing up to escort her to her car after work, coming over to her apartment to fix her car when it wouldn’t run. But he’d turned into such a bear, nit-picking her every decision as if she was a child, arguing over trivial things, refusing to discuss anything deep or meaningful. He put in as many hours with his SWAT team—training, answering calls, volunteering for off-duty assignments—as she worked in a day, leaving them no time to sit down to talk and reconnect. Rafe had once again become the loner she’d first met all those years ago—afraid to attach himself to anyone, afraid to care.

Josie splayed her fingers, cradling the precious life growing inside her even more carefully. Sooner or later, her secret could no longer be hidden beneath loose clothes. But if Rafe couldn’t deal with her in a healthy, reasonable way, then how would he deal with a child? If nightmares of dying children and his own abuse growing up still haunted his sleep, then why would he want one of his own? While she had no doubt that Rafe would do right by her once she found the courage to tell him, she knew his support would be all about providing money or a name or whatever the kid needed that didn’t involve any emotional commitment.

If he couldn’t or wouldn’t love her or their child, then how could they ever hope to be a real family?

So Josie intended to treasure this baby all by herself, delaying the fight and the blame and the guilt Rafe would surely heap upon himself once he found out. She’d never known a man to hurt as deeply as Rafe Delgado did. He’d suffered so much loss in his life that he trusted duty and honor more than his heart. Or hers. So Josie kept her secret.

Yeah. Aaron Nichols would be real proud of both his children.

“I brought you the magazines you asked for.” Even the seedy ones she’d swallowed her pride to purchase at the convenience store for him. “Happy Birthday. I’d have baked you a cake and brought that, too, if it wasn’t such a stereotype. You know, hiding a hacksaw inside it.”

But Patrick didn’t laugh with her, or even smile. Or thank her.

Instead, he signaled for the guard at the door, indicating the visit was over.

“I love you, Patrick. Be good. I want you to make your parole and get out of here…” by the time the baby comes. So she wouldn’t be quite so alone. But Patrick didn’t care about her wishes any more than Rafe did. “I want you out of here soon.”

“Me, too. Bring me those cigarettes.”

No “I love you.” No “thanks, sis.” No “goodbye.”

Tears blurred her vision as the guard released him from the room and another escorted him to his cell. Josie pulled a tissue from her pocket and quickly dabbed them away, wishing she could blame the sudden sense of loss and loneliness she felt on her fluctuating hormones. She sniffed loudly enough to embarrass herself and glanced over at the two men across the room, shaking hands at their table. The prisoner in the orange jumpsuit seemed startled by the consideration that her own brother hadn’t even shown her. But the man in the suit and tie—his lawyer, most likely—said a few words that calmed his client. A few gentle words, some show of caring and support would have been enough for her as well.

The tears welled up again and Josie quickly turned away to dab her eyes and collect the sack she’d brought Patrick’s magazines in. Ashamed by her weakness, she stood and hurried toward the exit. She’d taken only three steps before plowing into the attorney’s chest.

Instinctively, her hand went to her abdomen and she backed away. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking.”

She looked up to offer him an apologetic smile, and would have grinned outright when she saw his toupee sitting slightly askew on his forehead. But there was a blank look behind his glasses, something so cold and devoid of emotion in his light-colored eyes, even more so than Rafe’s, that her smile died and she took a second step back.

“My fault entirely, ma’am.” He smiled. But even that outward gesture of civility didn’t reach his eyes. He was wiping his fingers with a crisp, white handkerchief. And was that…? Were those drops of blood she glimpsed before he tucked the crisp white cloth back into his pocket?

“Are you all right?”

“No harm done.” He nodded to the guard and reached for the open door. “After you.”

Maybe her hormones were out of whack and her imagination was working overtime. He’d probably suffered something as simple as a nosebleed. Lord knew the air in this place was dry as a bone. “Thanks.”

But a gurgling sound behind her caused Josie to stop and turn. And go on instant alert.

The prisoner had slumped over the table, clutching his throat.

“Wait a minute. Is he…? Is your client all right?” When she spun around, the man had disappeared and the guard was closing the door behind him. “Guard!”

The uniformed black man hurried right behind her. The prisoner was shaking now.

“He’s convulsing. Help me get him to the floor.” All of Josie’s training kicked in as she cleared the man’s throat and turned him onto his side.

The guard was on his radio, calling for backup, while she checked the prisoner’s thready pulse and fixed, pinpoint stare of his pupils. He wasn’t breathing. His heart was stopping. She had nothing but her hands to help him. He needed a tracheotomy. Now. “Do you have a knife?”

Fifteen minutes later, the medic on staff at the detention center pronounced what Josie already knew. “He’s dead.”

She wiped the blood from her hands and dashed over to the corner of the room to empty her stomach.

THE NOISE OF clacking pool balls and TV broadcasts and dozens of conversations was particularly grating tonight. Josie waited a moment in the Shamrock Bar’s walk-in freezer, counting the clouds formed by each breath, savoring the utter quiet of insulated walls and cold, heavy air.

But she was already shivering. She’d be hypothermic if she waited in here long enough for her headache to pass.

Ignoring the throbbing inside her skull and the twinge in her lower back, she lifted a crate of bottled beer off the shelf and backed her hip into the door release. The noise assaulted her eardrums the moment the door swung open. But this was rent money, or maybe that oak crib that was in such good shape at the thrift store. So she’d sucked up the pain and pasted a smile on her face by the time she left the back hallway and pushed through the swinging door that took her behind the Shamrock’s polished walnut bar.

“There you are, girlie.” Uncle Robbie plucked the crate from her hands and winked one crinkling blue eye. His robust Irish voice warmed with concern. “I wondered where you’d got to. Everything all right?”

Josie nodded, resisting the urge to touch her belly out here where the other staff and customers could see. “I just needed some fresh air.”

“You know I’ll give you all the time off you need.” His silvering dark curls bobbed up and down as he cradled the beer on his hip and opened the cooler behind the bar to drop the bottles in one by one. “You only have to ask.”

Josie eyed the two waitresses at their station, waiting to have trays filled, and took note of the customers standing two and three deep behind the green vinyl bar stools while Lance, another part-time student bartender hurried back and forth. Robbie Nichols was short-staffed, as usual, his nose for business not nearly as reliable as the charity in his heart.

“Who called in sick tonight?” Josie asked, answering the high sign from one of the waitresses and pulling two pilsners from the rack above the bar to draw a pair of beers.

Robbie’s thick stomach jiggled as he laughed. “You know me too well, girlie. Enrico called, said he was under the weather. Odds are that’s a lie, but what can I do?”

It was a bet she wouldn’t take. Knowing Enrico Gonzalez, he was probably under the sheets with his girlfriend—or sleeping the evening away after staying too late at her apartment the night before. Josie set the beers on the tray and took the next server’s order for a round of whiskey shots.

How was she ever going to leave Robbie to his own devices long enough to finish her nursing practicum at the Truman Medical Center or go on maternity leave? “Why don’t you let me run this for a few minutes, and you go in the office and call Allison to see if she can come in and help out. You really need to fire Enrico and hire someone more reliable, too, so we don’t get shorthanded like this again.”

“You sure got your daddy’s level head, didn’t ye?” He crushed the box between his meaty hands and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Fine. I’ll go call. But I don’t want to come back and find you lifting anything heavier than that whiskey bottle, understand?”

Josie grinned and shooed him toward the swinging door. “Yes. Now go before we lose any more customers for being too slow to serve them.”

“I’ll wait as long as you need me to, Miss Nichols.” Josie set the shot glass she’d just filled on the tray and turned to the red-haired man in a suit and tie sitting at the corner of the bar. Something about him seemed familiar, but with the chaotic distractions going on all around her, she couldn’t immediately place him. He pulled a leather wallet from his suit coat and flashed a brass and blue enamel badge. “My name’s Spencer Montgomery. I’m a detective with KCPD.”

Maybe that’s what she recognized. Being located just a few blocks from KCPD’s Fourth Precinct station, the Shamrock Bar drew the majority of its customers from cops and KCPD support staff. He must be a returning customer. “What can I get you, Detective Montgomery?”

“A cup of coffee is all right now. I’m on the clock.”

Josie went to the counter behind the bar to pour him a mug of coffee. “Here you go. The coffee is always on the house.”

But his light green eyes warned her that he wasn’t really here for something to drink. “When the baseball game rush is over, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“About what?”

“About the murder you witnessed today.”

AT 1:42 A.M., Josie locked the door behind her and turned to face the Shamrock’s parking lot. What she needed after this endless day and longer night was a hug and a hot shower.

What she got was Rafe Delgado.

The springtime air was cool and pleasant, but a shiver rippled down Josie’s spine when his truck door opened and he strode out across the parking lot to meet her. He was still wearing his SWAT uniform, crisp black from head to toe, with only KCPD and his last name embroidered in white on his chest pocket, the badge on his belt and a gun strapped to his thigh to break up his lean, dangerous look.

“Are you on duty?” she asked, pulling her shoulders back, bracing for another impersonal, duty-motivated meeting. “How many times have I told you I can get someone else to walk me to my car when you’re working?”

“And who’s that going to be?” He propped his hands on his hips and scanned the nearly empty lot from side to side. He glanced up at the dark windows on the building’s second floor. “Did Robbie already turn in? He should walk you out.”

“He would if I asked. He’s on the phone with my cousin, Susan, back in Ireland.” She could do a little contemptuous scanning of her own, up and down his tall, rangy build. “Besides, he knew you’d be here like clockwork, so why bother?”

Rafe no longer took her arm when he walked her to her car, but instead fell into step beside her as she headed for her Fiesta. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you’d gone to see Patrick today?”

Josie bristled at his tone. “It’s his birthday. I always go.”

“I would have gone with you.”

Like having him lurking in the corner, standing watch over her, would have made the day go any better. “You weren’t invited.”

His breath seethed between his teeth. “So now I hear you’re running a trauma unit there?”

Josie stopped in her tracks, cinching the straps of her backpack in tight fists as she tilted her chin to meet his downturned gaze. She stood five foot seven, and he could still make her feel small when he glowered like that. “Not tonight, Rafe. Just get back in your truck and wait for me to drive away.”