Midwife Cover. Cassie Miles

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СКАЧАТЬ he stepped inside, he hoped with all his heart that they wouldn’t find any other victims. He flicked a switch by the door. Light from two bare bulbs showed the detritus of former inhabitants. Clutter and rags. A couple of cardboard boxes. Bare mattresses. Sleeping bags. The stink of urine and sweat was overpowering.

      Cole grumbled, “This must be what hell looks like.”

      “It’s the end of the road for my investigation,” Brady said. “Escher was my last viable lead.”

      He heard a rustling noise coming from the far corner. Raccoons? Rats? Brady moved toward the sound. He looked down into a cardboard box. Inside, swaddled in filthy yellow blanket decorated with sheep, was an infant with round cheeks and a tiny rosebud mouth. This was what Escher had wanted him to find.

      The little arms reached toward him, and Brady scooped the baby from the makeshift nest. He snuggled the tiny bundle against his chest. “How old do you think it is?”

      “Not more than a couple of weeks,” Cole said.

      “You sure?”

      “Pretty much. With my wife’s job, I’m around babies a lot.” He reached out and stroked the fine black hair on the infant’s head. “Doesn’t seem to be injured, but we should check it out. I know where to take this little one.”

      The baby wriggled. The mouth suckled an invisible teat. Brady had nothing to feed this infant. All he could offer was a promise that he would point the abandoned child toward a better life.

      Trafficking in newborns was a new and horrible twist in the ITEP investigation—something he couldn’t ignore. Brady knew he wouldn’t be returning to Quantico today.

      Chapter Two

      In the front reception area of the Rocky Mountain Women’s Clinic in Granby, Petra Jamison stood on her head with her elbows forming a tripod and her bare feet against the wall for support. She’d propped the front doors open to allow the early evening breezes to waft inside and dispel the faintly antiseptic smell from the examination rooms. In about an hour, a group of pregnant women would arrive for Petra’s class on prenatal yoga breathing, and she’d decided to get in the mood by playing a CD of Navajo wooden flute music and doing meditation exercises.

      Even though the room was dimly lit with only one lamp on the desk behind the counter and a three-wick sandalwood candle on the coffee table, she was bathed in the warm glow of positivity. Her mind and body were in balance. The rush of blood to her brain gave her a burst of energy at the end of the day. As if she needed an evening wake-up. Petra had the circadian rhythm of a night owl, maybe because she was born at midnight. Or maybe her preference for the dark had something to do with her fair complexion—people who freckle shouldn’t go out in the sun. Or maybe …

      She heard a vehicle pull into the parking lot. A car door slammed. Still upside down, she saw a man in a black suit and white shirt holding a baby in his arms. He strode toward her and leaned over, tilting his head to squint into her face. He had tense eyes and the kind of high forehead that she associated with intelligence, even though she knew hairline was nothing more than a genetically determined growth pattern. Was he smart? Or clever? Did he have a sense of humor? Probably not. This guy didn’t look like Mr. Giggle.

      “Back up,” she said.

      “What?”

      “I need for you to back up so I can put my legs down.”

      When he stepped backward, the baby started crying.

      Petra lowered her legs, stood and adjusted the long, auburn braid that hung down her back. Before she could say anything, Cole McClure charged into the reception area.

      “Hey, lady,” Cole greeted her. “I need your help.”

      “Anything for you.” She liked Cole, even though her fellow midwife and friend, Rachel, had moved away from Granby when she married him. “How’s little Emily?”

      “Perfect.” He made the introduction. “Petra Jamison, midwife, meet Brady Masters, special agent.”

      “Hi, Brady.” She purposely used his first name instead of his title. The clinic was her space, and her protocol applied. In here, it didn’t matter if you were a bank president or a car mechanic—she’d delivered babies for women with both of those occupations. “May I take the baby?”

      “Be my guest.”

      When he transferred the tiny bundle into her arms, her fingers brushed against his chest. It was hard as a rock. “Are you wearing Kevlar?”

      “It’s a protective vest.”

      She glanced between the two men. Even though Cole had on a dark blazer, his jeans and blue shirt were casual. Quite the opposite, Brady matched the stereotype for men in black, right down to his body armor. His underpants were probably government-issue. “Do you mind telling me why this baby has an FBI escort?”

      “Long story,” Brady said.

      The poor thing was filthy, swaddled in a blanket with a sheep design. The baby’s cries were fitful. The little face twisted in a knot.

      She blew out the candle and went down the hallway that was covered with hundreds of photos of families who had used the clinic over the past five years.

      In a spacious lavender room with sinks, cabinets and a refrigerator, she placed the wailing infant on a changing table and removed the blanket. There was a logo in the corner and a blood stain, but she saw no wounds on the baby as she peeled off a grungy T-shirt and a cloth diaper that looked like it hadn’t been changed in a very long time. “When’s the last time this little boy ate anything?”

      “Don’t know,” Brady said.

      She shoved the discarded clothing and blanket aside. “You probably need those things for evidence. Trash bags are in that cabinet. Cole, would you prepare a bottle of formula? You know where everything is.”

      While the two feds did her bidding, she slid a portable tub into one side of the double sink. Using a soft cloth, she gave the baby a quick wash, inspecting him for cuts and rashes. The warm water soothed his cries until he was only emitting an occasional hiccup.

      “Is he okay?” Brady asked.

      “I think he’s going to be just fine,” she said. “Nothing wrong with his lungs, that’s for sure.”

      After she dried him off, she applied a medicinal salve to his chafed bottom, put on a biodegradable diaper and swaddled him in a clean white blanket. She took the bottle from Cole and teased the nipple into the baby boy’s mouth. After only a few tries, he started sucking.

      The whole process had taken less than ten minutes; Petra was an expert. She looked toward Cole who was on his cell phone. Even though she didn’t really want to talk to Special Agent Brady, she spoke to him in a soft voice that wouldn’t upset the feeding infant. “I’d like an explanation.”

      “Nothing you need to worry about,” he said. “Thanks for taking care of the, um, immediate problem.”

      “Are you referring to the poopy diaper?”

      He scowled as though it СКАЧАТЬ