Apb: Baby. Julie Miller

swallowed the pungent liquor in one gulp, savoring the fire burning down his gullet and chasing away the chill of a wintry night and air-conditioned hospital rooms that clung to every cell of his body. It had been beyond a rough day. His grandfather was a tough old bird, and Niall had been able to stanch the bleeding and stabilize him at the church well enough to keep shock from setting in. He’d ridden with the paramedics to the hospital, and they had done their job well, as had the ER staff. But the eighty-year-old man had needed surgery to repair the bleeders from the bullet that had fractured his skull and remove the tiny bone fragments that had come dangerously close to entering his brainpan and killing him.

      Although the attending surgeon and neurologist insisted Seamus was now guardedly stable and needed to sleep, the traumatic brain injury had done significant damage. Either due to the wound itself, or a resulting stroke, he’d lost the use of his left arm and leg, had difficulty speaking and limited vision in his left eye. Seamus was comfortable for now, but age and trauma had taken a toll on his body and he had a long road to recovery ahead of him. And as Niall had asked questions of the doctors and hovered around the nurses and orderlies while they worked, he couldn’t help but replay those minutes at the end of the wedding over and over in his head.

      Had Seamus Watson been the shooter’s intended target? And since the old man seemed determined to live, would the shooter be coming back to finish the job? Was Grandpa safe? Or was his dear, funny, smarter-than-the-rest-of-them-put-together grandfather a tragic victim of collateral damage?

      If so, who had the man with all those bullets really been after? Why plan the attack at the church? Was the Valentine’s Day date significant? Was his goal to disrupt the wedding, make a statement against KCPD, or simply to create chaos and validate his own sense of power? Even though others had been hurt by minor shrapnel wounds, and one man had suffered a mild heart attack triggered by the stress of the situation, the number of professionally trained guests had kept the panic to a minimum. So who was the shooter? Duff said he’d chased the perp up onto the roof, but then the man had disappeared before Duff or any of the other officers in pursuit could reach him. What kind of man planned his escape so thoroughly, yet failed to hit anyone besides the Watson patriarch? And if Seamus was the intended target, what was the point of all the extra damage and drama?

      And could Niall have stopped the tragedy completely if he’d spotted the man in the shadows a few seconds sooner? He scratched his fingers through the short hair that already stood up in spikes atop his head after a day of repeating the same unconscious habit. Niall prided himself on noting details. But today he’d missed the most important clue of his life until it was too late.

      His brothers would be looking into Seamus’s old case files and tracking down any enemies that their grandfather might have made in his career on the force, despite his retirement fifteen years earlier. Duff and Keir would be following up any clues found by the officers investigating the case that could lead to the shooter’s identity and capture. Frustratingly, Niall’s involvement with finding answers was done—unless one of his brothers came up with some forensic evidence he could process at the lab. And even then, Niall’s expertise was autopsy work. He’d be doing little more than calling in favors to speed the process and following up with his coworkers at the crime lab. Although it galled him to take a backseat in the investigation, logic indicated he’d better serve the family by taking point on his grandfather’s care and recovery so his brothers could focus on tracking down the would-be assassin.

      Niall picked up the Bushmills to pour himself a second glass, but the muted cries of the baby across the hall reminded him that he wasn’t the only one dealing with hardship tonight, and he returned the bottle to the cabinet. He wanted to have a clear head in the morning when he returned to the hospital for a follow-up report on his grandfather. He could already feel his body surrendering to the tide of fatigue, and despite his unsettling thoughts, he loathed the idea of dulling his intellect before he found the answers he needed. So he set the glass in the sink and moved into the kitchen to start a small pot of decaf.

      While the machine hissed and bubbled, he shrugged out of the soiled black tuxedo jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. After pulling out the rented tie he’d folded up into a pocket and laying it over the coat, he went to work unbuttoning the cherry-red vest he wore. Typically, he didn’t wear his gun unless he was out in the field at a crime scene. But with his family threatened and too many questions left unanswered, he’d had Duff unlock it from the glove compartment of Niall’s SUV and bring it to the hospital, where he’d strapped it on. Niall halted in the middle of unhooking his belt to remove it, opting instead to roll up his sleeves and leave himself armed. Until he understood exactly what was going on, it would be smart to keep that protection close at hand.

      Whether it was the gun’s protection, the resumption of his nightly routine or the discordant noise from across the hall receding, Niall braced his hands against the edge of the sink to stretch his back and drop his chin, letting his eyes close as the tension in him gave way to weariness.

      The distant baby’s cries shortened like staccato notes, as if the child was running out of the breath or energy to maintain the loud wails. Maybe Miss McKane was finally having some success in quieting the infant. Despite how much she liked to talk, she seemed like a capable sort of woman. Sensible, too. She carried her keys on a ring with a small pepper spray canister in her hand each time he saw her walking to or from her car in the parking lot. She wore a red stocking hat on her dark curly hair when the weather was cold and wet to conserve body heat. She sorted her jeans and towels from her whites and colors. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t completely practical. Why did a woman need so many different types of underwear, anyway? Cotton briefs, silky long johns, lacy bras in white and tan and assorted pastels, animal prints...

      Niall’s eyes popped open when he realized he was thinking about Lucy McKane’s underwear. And not folded up in her laundry basket or tucked away in a dresser drawer, either.

      Good grief. Imagining his neighbor’s pale skin outlined in that tan-and-black leopard-print duo he’d found so curiously distracting tossed on top of her folding pile was hardly appropriate. Exhaustion must be playing tricks on him. Pushing away from the sink, Niall clasped his glasses at either temple and adjusted the frames on his face, as if the action could refocus the wayward detour of his thoughts. It was irritating that he could be so easily distracted by curves and cotton or shards of glass or mystery babies who were none of his business when he wanted to concentrate on studying the events before, during and after the shooting at the wedding. Perhaps he should have skipped the shot of whiskey and gone straight for the steaming decaf he poured into a mug.

      He added a glug of half-and-half from the fridge and carried the fragrant brew to the bookshelf in the living room, where he pulled out a medical volume to look up some of the details relating to his grandfather’s condition. He savored the reviving smell of the coffee before taking a drink and settling into the recliner beside the floor lamp.

      Niall had barely turned the first page when the infant across the hall found his second wind and bellowed with a high-pitched shriek that nearly startled him into spilling his drink.

      Enough. Was the child sick? Had he completely misjudged Lucy McKane’s competence? Niall set his book and mug on the table beside him and pushed to his feet. Maybe the muted noise of a baby crying didn’t bother anybody else. Maybe no one else could hear the child’s distress. He was so used to the building being quiet at this hour that maybe he was particularly sensitive to the muffled sounds. And maybe he’d come so close to losing someone he loved today that he just didn’t have the patience to deal with a neighbor who couldn’t respect his need for a little peace and quiet and time to regroup.

      In just a few strides he was out the door and across the hall, knocking on Lucy McKane’s front door. When there was no immediate response, he knocked harder. “Miss McKane? Do you know how late it is? Some of us are trying to sleep.” Well, he hadn’t been. But it wasn’t as though he could if he even wanted to with that plaintive racket filtering through the walls. “Miss McKane?”

      Niall propped his hands at his waist, waiting several seconds before knocking again. “Miss McKane?” Why didn’t the woman answer her door? She couldn’t be asleep with the baby crying like that, could she? In