1st to Die - James Patterson [113]
So I came here… to Hope Street.
And the good news was, it was working a little.
I peered up from my cards at Angela, a new arrival who sat in a metal chair across the room, cuddling her three-month-old son. The poor kid, maybe sixteen, hadn’t said much all night. I would try to talk to her before I left for the night.
The door opened and Dee Collins, one the House’s head counselors, came in. She was followed by a stiff-looking black woman in a conservative gray suit. She had Department of Children and Families written all over her.
“Angela, your social worker’s here.” Dee kneeled down beside her.
“I ain’t blind,” the teenager said.
“We’re going to have to take the baby now,” the social worker interrupted, as if completing this assignment was all that was keeping her from catching the next CalTrain.
“No!” Angela pulled the infant even closer. “You can keep me in this hole, you can send me back to Claymore, but you’re not taking my baby.”
“Please, honey, only for a few days,” Dee tried to assure her.
The teenage girl drew her arms protectively around her baby, who, sensing harm, began to cry.
“Don’t you make a scene, Angela,” the social worker warned. “You know how this is done.”
As she came toward her, I watched as Angela jumped out of the chair. She was clutching the baby in one arm and a glass of juice she’d been drinking in the opposite hand.
In one swift motion, she cracked the glass against a table. It created a jagged shard.
“Angela!” I jumped up from the card table. “Put that down. No one’s going to take your baby anywhere unless you let her go.”
“This bitch is trying to ruin my life.” She glared at the DGF agent, gripping the broken glass so tightly it cut into her hand. “First, she lets me sit in Claymore three days past my date, then she won’t let me go home to my mom. Now she’s trying to take my baby girl.”
I nodded, peering into the teenager’s eyes. “First, you gotta lay down the glass,” I said. “You know that, Angela.”
The DCF worker took a step, but I held her back. I moved slowly toward Angela. I took hold of the glass, then I gently eased the child out of her arms.
“She’s all I have,” the girl whispered, and then started to sob.
“I know,” I said gently. “That’s why you’ll change some things in your life and get her back.”
Dee Collins had her arms around Angela, a cloth wrapped around the girl’s bleeding hand. The DCF worker was trying unsuccessfully to hush the crying infant.
I went up to her and said, “That baby gets placed somewhere nearby, with daily visitation rights. And by the way, I didn’t see anything going on here that was worth putting on file… You?” The caseworker gave me a disgruntled look and turned away.
Suddenly, my beeper sounded, three dissonant beeps punctuating the tense air. I pulled it out and read the number. Jacobi, my ex-partner in Homicide. What did he want?
I excused myself and moved into the staff office. I was able to reach him in his car.
“Something bad’s happened, Lindsay,” he said glumly. “I thought you’d want to know.”
He clued me in about a horrible drive-by shooting at the Harrow Street church. An eleven-year-old girl had been killed.
“Jesus…” I sighed, as my heart sank.
“I thought you might want in on it,” Jacobi said.
I took in a breath. It had been over three months since I’d been on the scene at a homicide. Not since the day the bride and groom case ended.
“So, I didn’t hear,” Jacobi pressed. “You want in, Lieutenant?” It was the first time he had addressed me by my new rank.
I realized my honeymoon had come to an end. “Yeah,” I muttered back. “I want in.”
Contents
Front Cover Image
Welcome
Acknowledgments
A Preview of 2ND CHANCE
Prologue: INSPECTOR LINDSAY BOXER
Book One: DAVID AND MELANIE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter