With Child. Janice Johnson Kay

The sergeant didn’t move. Like Quinn, he seemed to have forgotten her. “Dean radioed in a license-plate number. There may have been an arrest already.”

      She listened without real comprehension. Dean was dead? It made no sense. She would have worried if he’d still been a cop, but he owned his own security company. He hardly ever took a shift as a guard anymore. He met with property owners and businessmen, did payroll and billing, grumbled about how hard it was to find and keep good employees.

      “They all either want to be cops or prison guards.” He’d made a sound of disgust. “They like the idea of swaggering around in a uniform with a gun in a holster. They find out how boring it is patrolling warehouses and apartment complexes at night, they opt out.”

      Mindy came back to awareness of the present when she realized that Sergeant Dickerson had sat on the coffee table. Quinn stood to one side.

      “Mindy? You with me?”

      She nodded.

      “Do you know why Dean worked tonight?”

      She nodded again. “A new guy called in sick. Dean was really mad, because it was last minute. The dispatcher offered to go out, but Dean said he’d do it. He liked to once in a while, you know.”

      “Any good businessman gets down in the trenches. He’d be a fool not to.”

      “I wish…” Tears leaked out although she’d thought herself cried dry. “I wish somebody else had been there. But I feel guilty wishing they were dead instead.”

      Dickerson covered her hand with his. “It’s natural, Mindy. You didn’t know them.”

      “I do know Mick Mulligan. He’s the dispatcher.” She tasted the tears. “He’s married, and he has two little girls.”

      That thought caused a lurch within her, of fear, of renewed guilt, of raw grief. Dean had really wanted to have children. She was the one to put pregnancy off.

      “Let’s wait a couple of years,” she’d coaxed. “Let’s be selfish and just have each other for a while first.”

      Quinn said explosively, “What if it was a setup? Goddamn it, Dickerson! Let me work this one.”

      “Go home. Go to bed.”

      A vast, terrifying emptiness swelled within Mindy. They’d both leave any minute. She’d be alone in the house. It was a big house, bigger than she liked, with a cavernous three-car garage and bedrooms they didn’t use, a den and a family room. She could feel those empty, dark rooms around her, echoing her inner fear.

      She made a sound—a sniff, a gulp. Still engaged in their argument, both men turned their heads to look at her. She looked down at her hands, clutching the comforter.

      “We can’t leave her alone.” Quinn sounded irritated. “I’ll stay.”

      That brought her head up. “No! You don’t have to.” But she wanted him to stay. He made her feel safe, and tonight she was terrified of being alone.

      His mouth, she’d have sworn, had a faint curl. “If you don’t have a friend you can ask to come over, I do have to stay.” He sounded as if he were talking to a five-year-old who had just announced that she could walk across town all by herself to Grandma’s house. His gaze left her; she was dismissed. To Dickerson, he said, “You’ll keep me informed?”

      Mindy shrank into her comforter, wishing she had the spine to stand up, say with dignity, “No, thanks, I’d like to be alone,” and walk them to the door. She’d have been grateful for Quinn’s offer if it had come from anyone but him, or even if he’d made it more kindly. He’d always had a talent for making her feel small.

      Her care settled, Sergeant Dickerson expressed his sympathy and regret one more time, then left. Quinn walked him to the door, and they stood out of earshot talking for several minutes, their voices a rumble.

      Finally Quinn locked up behind the sergeant and came back to her. “Why don’t you go back to bed?”

      “No!” She shuddered. “No. I can’t get in our bed.”

      “The guest room, then.”

      She didn’t want to go to bed at all. Did he really imagine that she’d lay her head on the pillow and fall into blissful slumber? In the dark, all she would do was imagine a thousand times what had happened to Dean. Had the shot come from nowhere? Or had he been held at gun-point, threatened, beaten? Did he know he might die? She both wanted and didn’t want to know. I’m a coward, she thought. She would lie there wondering what would happen tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

      But she also saw that Quinn wanted her to go to bed, so she nodded and put her feet on the carpeted floor. When she stood, she swayed, and he was at her side instantly, his strong hand clamped on her elbow. He walked her to the downstairs bedroom, and she felt like a child being put to bed. When she climbed in, he spread the comforter over her, then stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed.

      “Can I get you anything?”

      Mute, she shook her head.

      Quinn came around the bed, his hand out to switch off the lamp. She shook her head violently. “No! Leave it on. Please.”

      He frowned at her. “You’re sure?”

      “I don’t… The dark…”

      “Okay. I’ll be right out there. Call if you need me.”

      “Thank you,” she said dutifully.

      Seemingly satisfied, he left, switching off the overhead light and pulling the door almost closed. His footsteps receded toward the living room.

      The sheets were cold, the pillow squishy. It was like being in a hotel room. But she couldn’t seem to care enough to try to bunch up the pillow or even reach for the second one. She just lay on her back and stared at the ceiling.

      The house was Dean’s, not hers. The life his. One she’d put on like a borrowed evening gown. She’d felt beautiful and loved and fortunate, but not quite secure. Because, she saw now, it wasn’t hers.

      A broken sound escaped her.

      Dean. Oh, Dean.

      The tears came again, so easily, as if only waiting to be released. But this time she cried silently, alone.

      JUST AFTER SIX IN THE MORNING, Quinn’s cell phone rang.

      “We got ’em,” Dickerson said without preamble. “They didn’t realize Dean had had time to call in their plate.”

      “What were they after?”

      “They’re nineteen and twenty-one. They were manufacturing meth in the young one’s father’s trailer. He moved it to storage without them knowing. They’d come to get their stuff, or steal the trailer. Sounds like they were still arguing about that.”

      “And the guard that called in sick?”

      “Had a hot girl over. Dobias said when he realized he’d be dead if he had gone to work, he barely made it to the toilet to puke.”

      “He might not be dead,” Quinn said. “Maybe he’d have timed his route different. Been lazy and not gone in if the gates were closed.”

      “He’ll figure that out eventually,” Dickerson said without sympathy. “Apparently, Dobias didn’t feel inclined to point that out.”

      Quinn sank onto the couch and bowed his head. He swore. “A couple of goddamn punks.”

      “Strung out.”

      “And that’s it.” He shoved his fingers into his hair, uncaring when they curled into a fist and yanked. “Dean’s gone, and Daddy’ll probably hire a good lawyer who’ll claim they were too stoned to take responsibility for pulling the trigger.”

      “You know the D.A. will try