Their Baby Girl...?: The Baby Mission / Her Baby Secret. Marie Ferrarella

a sigh she opened the microwave door and reached for the bottle. The phone rang. Now what?

      “This’ll just take a minute,” she promised her daughter. Picking up the receiver, she wedged it against her head and shoulder as she returned to the microwave. “Hello?”

      Warrick was on the other end. His voice was grim. “There’s been another murder, C.J.”

      She didn’t have to ask if this concerned their killer. Her stomach instantly tightened.

      Letting out a breath, she punched in one minute, three seconds and pushed the start button. “Where?”

      “In Santa Barbara.”

      She frowned. That didn’t sound right. “Santa Barbara? Is our boy spreading out?” God, she hoped not. C.J. shivered.

      “That’s what I’m going up there to find out.”

      Where was this coming from? “Not without me you’re not.”

      “This is just a courtesy call, C.J. I figured you’d want to know. Stay home and take care of your baby.”

      C.J. frowned. This was getting old. Ever since she’d returned to work, Warrick had been treating her differently. Not as an equal, but like someone who needed protecting. She didn’t know if it was because of the kiss that shimmered between them like a silent entity, or because of the baby, but either way, she didn’t like it and she wasn’t about to stand for it.

      “Warrick, this is my case just as much as it is yours. Now just give me a few minutes to get some things together so I can take the baby over to my mother’s. I can be there in—” she realized she didn’t have enough information to make a time estimate “—where are you?”

      “I’m still at the field office. But C.J., there’s no need—”

      The microwave bell went off. She opened the door, then drew out the arm that was supporting her baby just far enough to test the temperature of the milk on her wrist. Perfect. Unlike this conversation.

      “Yes, there is a need,” she insisted. “I have a need.” Moving the chair away from the table with her foot, she sat down, then shifted the baby onto her lap. Cradling her daughter to her, she began feeding the infant, all the while never losing an ounce of her indignation. “Damn it, Warrick, I’m still the same partner you always had.”

      “No, you’re not.” His voice was low, steely. Unmovable. “You’re someone’s mother now.”

      That didn’t warrant the preferential treatment. “And as someone’s mother, I want to catch this bastard before he robs some other mother of her child.” She smiled at her daughter, keeping her own voice calm so as not to frighten the baby. But it wasn’t easy when her temper was flaring this way. “Now stop treating me as if I was made of porcelain and give me the courtesy of waiting for me to get there.”

      Soft tone or not, he knew C.J. well enough to know she was mad as the proverbial wet hen. “I’m not sure I want to do that now. You sound like you’re breathing fire.”

      “You bet I’m breathing fire,” she said between clenched teeth, her smile never wavering. “I worked long and hard to get here and I’m not about to give it up because you suddenly feel the need to treat me with kid gloves. I wouldn’t treat you any differently if you had a baby.”

      She heard him laugh. Even though she was angry, the sound rippled against her ear, undulating through her. Did postpartum syndrome include hallucinations?

      “If I had a baby, the world would treat me differently.”

      The baby was chugging away at the bottle, draining it like a trouper. At this rate, C.J. estimated, she would double her size in no time.

      “Very funny. Now let me get off the phone and do what I have to do. And you’d better be waiting for me when I get there or I swear I will fillet your skin off your body when I get my hands on you.”

      She heard him laugh again. “Love it when you talk dirty like that. Okay, I’ll wait. Just don’t take too long.”

      C.J. hung up. The bottle was empty. She put the baby over her shoulder and just before she began burping her, she hit the speed dial to call her mother and switched to speakerphone. Multitasking had become a way of life for her.

      She heard the phone being picked up. “Mom? Guess what—”

      Thirty-five minutes later, C.J. was dashing off the federal building elevator and into the task force room.

      Warrick was the only one in there. He looked up as she entered. “You look winded.”

      She was winded. There had been no need to pack up anything, her mother had spares of all the necessary items for the baby. She’d made the trip from her house to her mother’s in record time. For once, every light was with her. The hardest part was leaving the baby. You’d think it would get easier with each day, she thought, but it didn’t. Some days it just got harder.

      Still, C.J. waved away his observation. She was eager for news. “Never mind my wind, what have we got?”

      He handed her a picture that had come in over the fax less than an hour ago. “Sally Albrecht, twenty-three, blond, blue-eyed, strangled, poetically arranged, pink nail polish.”

      She nodded grimly, taking the photograph from him. This wasn’t the kind of thing any of them welcomed hearing. She studied it for a moment. Like all the others, the latest victim appeared as if she were sleeping.

      “Sounds like our boy’s gotten tired of the local area and is making his way up the coast.” Putting the fax down on her desk, she crossed to the map that had a tight little circle of pins on it. She’d been hoping that they could keep narrowing the circle, not widen it. Usually, serial killer victims were all over the map. This was supposed to make it easier for them. It didn’t.

      When she turned back from the map, she was frowning. “I don’t like it. This blows the whole theory to pieces that he’s a local guy.”

      “I know.” He’d signed out a Bureau vehicle in the last half hour. Ready to go, Warrick gave her one last chance to change her mind. “You sure you don’t want to stay home?”

      He was just trying to be kind, she told herself. She had to remember that and stop taking offense where none was intended. There was no doubt in her mind that if he had some personal reason impeding him, she’d be trying to get him to stay behind.

      C.J. nodded. “I’m sure. After my mother finished complaining that the Bureau doesn’t let me have a life, she was thrilled to have to watch the baby.”

      “I’ve got a company car waiting downstairs. Let’s go.”

      Walking through the office door first, Warrick didn’t bother holding it open. C.J. put her hand out in time to keep it from shutting on her. “Hey!”

      Warrick looked at her innocently. “You said not to treat you any differently from any of the other guys, remember?”

      She strode past him to the elevator and punched the down button. “I don’t recall you slamming the door in any of their faces.”

      “No slamming,” he pointed out. “Just every man for himself.”

      “Person,” she corrected as the elevator arrived and opened its doors. C.J. walked in ahead of him. “Every person for themselves.”

      Warrick followed her in and sighed. He pressed for the first floor. “I got a feeling this is going to be a long road trip.”

      Santa Barbara was approximately 150 miles north of the county that had previously been the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s stomping grounds. Ordinarily C.J. loved driving up the coast, but the unexpected rain with its gloom made the trip dreary.

      They’d flipped a coin, and Warrick had lost the toss. Taking the keys, he’d gotten behind the wheel of the midsize vehicle the Bureau had provided.