Nightwatch. Jo Leigh

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      GUY DIDN’T GET BACK to his office and privacy for two hours. The longest two hours he’d ever spent.

      It was just that he had to know. For certain. So he’d gone to the morgue. In that cold room, with the sterile sinks and the gleaming drawers, he’d found her. Death had changed her, stiffened her soft features, made her face a mask. But it was Heather. God, what had she done to her hair? It was short, uneven, as if cut by ragged scissors without a mirror.

      He stood there for a long time, wishing he could remember some prayers. Finally he spoke, quietly, hoping someone, something, listened.

      It was over now, and he knew for sure. After he put all the paperwork on Heather in front of him, he sat down behind his desk, sinking into the fine leather, and closed his eyes. Memories of Heather laughing, braiding her hair, begging him for a Madonna album despite the adult lyrics. He’d only had her for four years. Four years of emergency calls, late-night surgeries, missed school plays, forgotten birthdays. He’d been as lousy a stepparent as he’d been a husband. But he’d loved Heather. More than her mother, at the end, although that was no one’s fault but his own.

      He’d never blamed Tammy for leaving him. She had every right, and in fact, she’d probably stayed too long. His damn job. That was what she’d always called it. His damn job. And it had given him the only real satisfaction in his life.

      He wasn’t meant to be married, but the lesson had been learned the hard way. With other people’s pain. And now, Heather was gone.

      Guy hadn’t known she was pregnant, or even that she’d had a boyfriend, a lover. He’d lost touch, and whose fault was that?

      It took him a moment to locate Tammy’s number in his Rolodex. She was living in Bordeaux, France, away with husband number three, studying art and learning to cook. Last time they’d talked, she’d sounded happy.

      He got through after dialing all those numbers, and Tammy’s voice sounded as if she were in the next room, not overseas.

      “Bonjour.”

      “Tammy.”

      There was a pause, long and static-free. “Guy.” She always used the French pronunciation. “To what do I owe this honor?”

      He swallowed, picked up his pen and squeezed it. “I don’t know how to…Oh hell, Tammy…Heather.”

      “What about Heather?”

      He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Tammy. She’s dead.”

      Nothing. No sound. No sharp cry, no keening wail. Just perfect silence.

      “If this is a joke—”

      “It’s not. I wish it were.”

      Then came the sound of pain, and it was as terrible as anything he’d heard in all the years he’d been telling parents about their children, husbands about their wives…This was his grief, and her grief, and it was too real. It hurt like hot metal in his gut, like a gunshot wound.

      “How?” Tammy said, her voice slurred.

      “I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”

      “What? What are you talking about? Heather’s not pregnant. She’s with her father. With Walter. In Los Angeles.”

      “No, she’s not. She’s here, in Courage Bay. I think—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I think she was trying to find me.”

      “Wait a minute. This makes no sense. I spoke to her two weeks ago, and she said everything was fine. That she was in L.A., that Walter was at the office, but that she would tell him hello.”

      Guy ran a hand over his face. “So you had no idea where she was? Who she was with?”

      “No.”