The Chosen Child. Brenda Mott

and already it felt like forever. He hated the emptiness of their house without her. It felt as if his life had suddenly veered south to hell the minute she’d driven away. One minute he’d had it all, right down to the proverbial white picket fence and family dog—if you could call a retired police dog with an attitude proverbial. And now he sat looking for excuses not to go home.

      He scooted his chair closer to his desk and bent over it a little more intently. But his thoughts circled back to Nikki.

      He’d called her on her cell phone so many times he’d lost count and had been relieved to know she’d made it to Boone’s Crossing safely. But when he’d hung up after their last conversation, he’d felt alone and empty, as though a lifeline to her had been broken.

      He hoped her visit to Amanda would help Nikki. She felt so much guilt for having asked her sister to act as a surrogate in the first place.

      And he knew he needed to call Amanda himself to apologize for the horrible things he’d said to her before she’d left Colorado, running from demons of her own.

      How could you be so stupid, Amanda? So irresponsible. Stopping on a dark highway like that, for God’s sake!

      He hadn’t meant it. In the pain of losing his baby girl, he’d lashed out at everyone. The fact that Amanda had pulled over to offer her cell phone to Caitlin Kramer—stranded on the side of a mountain highway with a flat tire—was typical of Amanda’s generous and caring nature. She couldn’t have known what would happen. Dear Lord, it had taken him longer than it should have to realize the depth of Amanda’s suffering. Baby Anna had been hers as much as she’d been his and Nikki’s.

      The thought instantly caused Cody’s self-imposed safety mechanism to kick in, the one that kicked in every time his thoughts veered too close to little Anna. The hurt was still too great, too fresh. Instead, he tunneled all his energy, his grief, into revenge. He’d find the scumbag responsible for tearing apart his family if it was the last thing he did, and see to it that the guy went to prison.

      “Man, now I know you’re desperate.”

      Cody looked up at the sound of his partner’s voice. Jordan Blake had been with the Deer Creek PD a year longer than Cody, his tenth anniversary around the corner. A beefy man with a deep voice, Jordan had a way of putting the fear of God into a suspect with nothing more than a sharp word or two. He’d cover your back with his life, and Cody couldn’t think of anyone he considered a better friend.

      “Yeah, well, it beats going home to my remote control and a cranky police dog that only understands German.” The dog had been trained in non-English commands so that a perp couldn’t distract him.

      Jordan perched on the corner of Cody’s desk, his dark eyes sober. “You know the invitation to stay at my place is still open. You can even bring Max. I think I’ve finally figured out what kind of dog biscuits he really likes.”

      Cody laughed, then shook his head. “That I doubt, but thanks.”

      Jordan sat there a minute, as though fishing for something more to say. Apparently, he came up empty. “I’m out of here,” he said, standing. He gave Cody’s shoulder an affectionate cuff. “Don’t stay too long, cowboy. Go home and take a ride. You know what they say…nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.”

      Cody nodded. “I might just do that.” The horses could always use a workout, and riding usually helped clear his head and bring things into perspective. Only this time, he was afraid there were no answers.

      A short time later, he made his way to the parking lot. The sun beat down on the blacktop, the evening temperature still hovering high enough to make him glad his squad car had air-conditioning. He strode toward where it was parked off to one side of the building. And did a double take.

      A boy who looked to be perhaps ten or eleven crouched in front of the car, a can of spray paint clutched in his hand, and as Cody watched, he reached up to finish the job he’d already started. Red initials—DH—big enough to read even from this distance, spread across the hood of Cody’s squad car as the kid’s finger depressed the button on the paint can.

      “Hey!” Cody sprang forward. “What the hell are you doing!”

      The boy’s eyes widened as he cast a hurried look over his shoulder. Then he ran. Thin as a whip, he wasn’t very tall, but the kid could move. He sprinted from the parking lot and into a field of unmowed grass behind the police station. The mountainous, rural area that surrounded Deer Creek offered plenty of places for a boy to hide. If Cody didn’t catch the kid quickly, he’d be out of sight and long gone.

      The boy sped on like a downhill train. He ditched the paint can in a clump of bushes and vaulted over a six-foot chain-link fence at the end of the field as if it were nothing. Berating himself for spending a lot less time at the gym lately than he should have, Cody kept after him. He clambered over the fence but, as he hit the ground, the toe of his shoe caught in a tangle of deep grass, and down he went.

      His knee slammed into a rock hard enough to bring a string of creative curses to his lips. With a grunt, Cody scrambled to his feet, feeling like an idiot, hoping the kid hadn’t seen him fall. Even madder than he’d been moments before, he took off again, trying to ignore the fresh shot of pain through his knee. Great. He gave chase as the boy zigzagged through the quiet neighborhood, down a side street.

      “I’m warning you, halt!” Cody shouted. Or what? He couldn’t exactly draw his gun on a kid who’d been armed with nothing more than an aerosol can. The boy cast a glance back at him, but made no move to slow down. He wore baggy jeans that exposed colorful boxer shorts, and Cody couldn’t see how he could possibly run without his pants falling around his ankles. Shaggy hair stuck out from under a black ballcap, bill tilted at an angle, and a yellow basketball jersey with the number twelve bunched above his skinny hips.

      Cody swerved, taking a shortcut across the front lawn of Old Man Parker’s place—a retired Navy admiral well-known for his dislike of children. The kid was already headed toward the backyard, ready to rocket over the fence, where he could cut across the alley and likely lose Cody by ducking through the next yard, then on into the sagebrush of the surrounding countryside. Cody’s heart flew to his throat, knowing what was on the other side of Parker’s fence.

      Luckily, the enormous Doberman pinscher hit the chain-link before the boy did. Teeth bared, the dog barked in a way that said he meant business. The boy skidded to a halt and turned to run the other way, too late. Cody caught him by the arm and spun him around. “Hold it right there!” Fuming, out of breath, he glared at the child.

      For a moment, Cody saw fear flicker behind the boy’s brown eyes, but then it was gone, replaced by defiance. The kid squirmed in his grasp. “Let go of me, man.”

      “What the hell were you doing—spray-painting my squad car?”

      “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Breathing rapidly, the boy shrugged from Cody’s grasp and tried to bolt again.

      Cody caught hold of him, simultaneously reaching for his handcuffs. “Oh, really? I suppose that red paint on your hands got there by itself.” He snapped the cuffs on the kid’s scrawny wrists.

      “Hey! What the hell are you doing, dude?” The kid squirmed and twisted, tossing a fiery look of resentment over his shoulder.

      “That’s Officer Somers to you, and I’m placing you under arrest.”

      Panic snaked across the boy’s features before hiding behind a defiant mask once more. “You can’t arrest me. I didn’t do nothin’.”

      “Tell it to the judge.” With a not-so-gentle push, Cody set the boy walking, back toward the station.

      The kid cursed loudly and vehemently.

      From the yard, Parker’s Dobie barked with renewed fervor, and the old man jerked his door open to see what the commotion was about. “Everything’s under control, Admiral Parker,” Cody said. He hurried the kid away before Parker could utter a word. Given the choice between