Chapter 1
“False alarm,” the nurse said with a disapproving look. “Again.”
I cringed with embarrassment. This was the second time in a week that I’d come to the hospital in false labor.
The first time I’d called Joe at two in the morning, dragging him out of a deep sleep, and he’d rushed out to the farm and brought me to Fenton County Hospital. The nurses had admitted me, hooked me up to a monitor, and checked to see if my cervix was dilated.
“Nope,” the friendly labor and delivery nurse had said. “You’re locked up tighter than a drum down there.” Then she shot an ornery grin at Joe, who was standing close to my head. “You know, they say sex can get things going.”
My face flushed beet red, but Joe took it in stride, grinning as he winked and said, “We’ll keep that in mind.”
It was easier to let it go rather than to tell her that while we were together, we weren’t together. Not that it was anyone’s business.
My contractions faded to nothing mere minutes after she told me to get dressed, and I apologized profusely to Joe. He’d just pulled me into a hug and told me it was okay, his manner as reassuring as always.
By mutual agreement, Joe had moved into Neely Kate’s old room after that, which had been our plan for after the baby was born. Although he’d lived in the farmhouse last fall, he’d moved out months ago, after my first meetings with the criminals in the county. I’d become their mediator, for lack of a better word, and Jed had quite rightly said it would be safer for Joe to (temporarily) move out given his role as chief deputy sheriff. But the meetings had stopped months ago, and the matter was mostly moot. The fact was, I needed Joe. And I wanted him around too.
This morning, four days after the first false alarm, the contractions had started again while I was getting ready for work. Joe, of course, had already left. These contractions were irregular, but stronger than the Braxton Hicks contractions I’d been having for the last month. I’d tried to ignore them at first, not wanting to make a fool of myself again, but part of me had wondered if this was the real thing. I was still two weeks from my due date of May 3, but at my last visit, Dr. Newton had said, “The baby’s headfirst but not dropped yet. Nevertheless, I hope you have your bag packed, because you could deliver at any time now.”
My bag was packed, perpetually in the car, and I’d arranged for Maeve to dog-sit Muffy while I was in the hospital. So I’d brought her to work with me this morning, just in case.
The contractions had continued all morning, sporadic at first but then ten minutes apart. They’d stopped briefly at lunchtime, making me glad I’d held off telling anyone, but they were back an hour later, this time only five minutes apart. So I’d taken a walk around the block to see if they’d stop. They hadn’t, so an hour later I’d called Joe and pulled him out of an important meeting, only to end up hearing those fateful words.
False alarm.
I cried as soon as the not-so-nice nurse walked out of the room, and Joe sat down next to me on the bed.
“I’m so sorry, Joe,” I said through my tears. “They were coming all day and then they changed to five minutes apart.” I looked up at him. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” he said with a warm smile, his eyes shining with what looked like happiness. “You’ve never been in labor before. How are you supposed to know what it feels like?”
“But you were meetin’ with the sheriff and someone from the state police.”
His smile stretched wider. “And that meetin’ was borin’ as shit. You did me a favor.”
I knew his statement was a partial lie. While I’d accept that it might have been boring, I knew it was important. He’d told me so the night before, but he’d insisted that I call him anyway if I went into labor.
“How can you look so happy?” I asked through my tears. I’d been extra weepy lately—which was saying something. “I’m a mess.”
“Rose, you’re havin’ a baby. Our baby. How can I not be excited?”
“But I’m not havin’ it now. I’m just a fat whale, waddling around like a penguin.”
He laughed. “You’re not a fat whale. You’re pregnant. You were a beautiful woman before, but now you’re glowing.”
If I was glowing, it was only because I was perspiring. I was hot all the time.
He wrapped an arm around my back and gave me a sweet smile. “Let’s get you dressed and take you home so you can rest.”
“I don’t want to go home,” I said in a grumpy tone. “I hate bein’ alone out there. Yesterday I dropped a wooden spoon, and try as I might I couldn’t reach it. I had to have Muffy pick it up and jump up on the sofa so I could get it from her.”
“Just imagine how handy she’ll be with fetchin’ diapers,” he said as he helped me slide off the bed. “How about you get dressed and we’ll do something together?”
“I’m supposed to see Ashley and Mikey tonight, remember?”
Mike had agreed that I could take them out to dinner, which was nothing short of a miracle. After my sister, Violet, had died last October, my former brother-in-law had kept me from seeing my niece and nephew. But then I’d run into them at Walmart the week before. Ashley, my six-year-old niece, had cycled through shock, excitement, then anger to see that I was so pregnant, given she hadn’t known I was expecting. I’d tried my best not to shame Mike in front of them, and when Ashley said he’d been telling them for months that I was too busy to see them, I just shot him a dirty look and suggested I get them for a few hours this week.
“I’m totally free,” I’d said with a bright smile. “Any day.”
With no graceful way out, he’d settled on tonight. When I’d offered to pick them up from daycare, his body had stiffened. “I’d have to add your name to the list of approved people,” he said in a short tone. “So just pick them up from my house.”
I used to be on the list of approved people, so I had to wonder why he’d gone to such lengths to push me away. What was he really up to? Then again, I’d been wondering that very thing for months.
I was fairly certain he had some criminal ties that circled back to James “Skeeter” Malcolm, the crime lord of Fenton County, Arkansas, though I had yet to figure out any details. I was even more sure Violet had known. Other than a few personal items, she hadn’t left anything to the kids, instead leaving her one-third share of the nursery to my best friend, Neely Kate, and everything else, including our childhood home, to me. Her attorney had said she’d given him an envelope for me to open after her death, some sort of directive that would help me understand the terms of her will—including her wish to grant me custody of her children (something she couldn’t do without just cause)—but his office had been broken into after the funeral. The only thing missing was that envelope.
I’d given the theft a lot of thought over the last few months as I tried to figure out how to handle the Mike situation, and I’d come to the realization that it had been intended as a message.
I’m powerful. Don’t mess with me.
And the only person in the county powerful enough to stand up to the Lady in Black, my alter ego in the criminal world, was my ex-lover and the biological father of my baby.