Read Online Stealing Time by Leslie Glass - Free Book Online Page B

that around."
"No kidding."
"Get this: the husband of the victim says his mistress is the mother of the baby. She's married to someone in the military and has taken off for parts unknown.—Oh, and the victim is Chinese," she added suddenly. "The father's white. The whole thing makes me queasy."
"It has nothing to do with us," Mike said quickly, catching the subtext even before it came into focus in April's mind. Then he moved on. "I had a case once, man faked an abduction of his own baby. His motive was he didn't want a custody battle when he divorced his wife. Poor woman went around the bend when her baby disappeared. That's when he filed for divorce."
"What did he do with the baby?"
"Oh, he'd given it to his girlfriend in New Jersey the first day. He'd set up an apartment for her, everything. They wanted to get married and have a family right away."
Another girlfriend. And Heather Rose had no idea, her husband had said. April thought of the duck defrosting in the sink. People were out looking for a dead infant. She wanted to clear Heather Rose of any suspicion that she'd killed her rival's baby. "You voting for the husband as the kidnapper, then?" she murmured.
"Not yet. Remember those girls in New Jersey? One gave birth in the girls' bathroom during her high school prom, suffocated the baby, then went back to the dance. The other gave birth in a motel, killed her baby, and was back in her college dorm in time for her next class. Then there's the girl in Ohio gave birth and killed the baby while her mother was out to dinner. When the mother got back, they sat and watched TV for the rest of the evening—"
There went the duck-proves-innocence theory. "Those were young, unmarried teenagers, terrified of their parents. This is a mature—"
"Hell hath no fury . . ." he reminded her.
April had a stomachache. It had been bothering her for hours. She wanted baby Paul found alive and well, didn't want Heather Rose to be a killer or the father to be a kidnapper with a girlfriend in New Jersey.
Mike changed the subject. "You want to come over to my place? I'll make it worth your while."
"Can't, I'm staying with it," she said, and felt a guilty pang. Skinny was going to freak if she didn't come home two nights in a row—even if she had a good excuse. Then she thought if things quieted down, she might go home for a few hours, after all.
"Call me when you can."
"Sure." April hung up. Depression settled on her as she cleaned up her desk, picked up her jacket, and headed out into the field to see if the baby had turned up in the last fifteen minutes. He hadn't.
Three hours later, with no break in the case, April parked in front of the brick house she shared with her parents in Astoria, Queens, not far from Hoyt Avenue and the entrance to the Triborough Bridge. She got out of the car, locked up slowly, then stretched, feeling the space around her like a blind person picking out obstacles in the dark. All she wanted was to see her mom and have a quick nap before changing her clothes and heading back to work.
The street was quiet, but cop habits made her check for signs of trouble. Only a few lights in the surrounding houses were on this late. Some of the people who lived around here were old and had trouble sleeping. April knew everybody's routine. On this block all the houses were attached, single-family homes. A lot of Greeks and Italians, Brazilians and Indians, not that many Chinese. April's father, Ja Fa Woo, had chosen the place with the help of an almost-relative, the owner of Chen Realty in Long Island City. He'd chosen the location in spite of the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood because he was a commuter to Manhattan early and late and didn't want to travel too far at night when he was tired.
April's survey finished at her own house, and that was the only place something was wrong. The front light was off. She started up the cement walk. Though it was May, the air was still quite cold at night. Tonight it was in the mid-forties.