Lock, Stock and Secret Baby. Cassie Miles

focus was on his father’s murder. The cops were satisfied with the lame explanation that a burglar did the crime. Like hell. This killing wasn’t a random act of violence. Blake was determined to find the son of a bitch who pulled the trigger and the men who sent him.

      He stood behind Eve as she stared at shelves packed with an array of over-the-counter medicines. When she spied the pregnancy tests, she grabbed three of them. “Damn, I left my purse in the car.”

      “I’ll pay,” he said.

      At the counter, the clerk gave them a knowing smirk as he rang up the purchase.

      Eve added a pack of gum. “And two jerky sticks and one of these pecan things.”

      “There’s food at the house,” he said.

      “I have a craving. Isn’t that what pregnant women do?”

      When she plucked a magazine off the rack below the counter, she set down her car keys. He snatched them. “I’m driving. It’s easier than giving you directions.”

      “Fine,” she growled. “You drive.”

      Back in the car, he adjusted the driver’s seat for his long legs and headed toward his father’s house while Eve tore open the packaging on the pregnancy tests and read the instructions. “When we get to the house,” she said, “I’d appreciate being shown to the nearest bathroom.”

      He nodded.

      “I won’t make a scene,” she assured him. “I respect your father’s memory.”

      Several other vehicles were already parked on the street outside the long ranch-style house that his mother had loved so much. When they had first moved here fifteen years ago, there had been few other houses in the area. Development had crept closer, but his father’s house still commanded an outstanding view. To the south, Pikes Peak was visible on a clear day like today.

      No matter where in the world he was stationed, he treasured the memory of home—of translucent, Colorado skies and distant, snowcapped peaks. This vision was his solace and the basis for his daily meditation.

      As they went up the sidewalk to the house, he pocketed her keys, not wanting her to have easy access to an escape until she calmed down.

      Inside, he skirted the living room where people had gathered and escorted her down a long hallway that bisected the left half of the house. At the end of the hall, he opened the door to his dad’s office. Unlike the rest of this well-maintained residence, this room looked like the aftermath of a tornado. In addition to the papers and magazines, a fine coating of fingerprint dust from the police investigation covered many of the surfaces. The supposedly secret safe in the bookshelves hung open in its hinges. His father’s blood stained the Persian carpet behind the desk.

      When he closed the door, Eve stood very still. “Is this where it happened?”

      “Yes.”

      “You haven’t cleaned up.”

      “Not yet.” Valuable information could be hidden somewhere in this room. He’d already searched, but he would search again and again and again, until he found the killer.

      IN THE PRIVACY OF THE bathroom, Eve almost yielded to the overwhelming pressure of anger and fear. If ever there had been a time in her life when she wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, this was it. She didn’t want to be pregnant. Not now, possibly not ever. Having a baby wasn’t on her agenda.

      She knew that she’d skipped her last period but hadn’t worried because Dr. Prentice told her she might be irregular after her testing. Prentice, that bastard. Why had she believed him? With good reason, damn it. She had twenty-five years of good faith; Prentice and Dr. Ray had been part of her life since birth.

      Setting her purse on the counter, she took out the kits from the convenience store: three different brands. Two of the kits had two tests inside the box, and she set the extras aside.

      She followed the simple instructions and arrayed the three test sticks on the counter beside the sink. Then, she waited, counting the seconds.

      Each test had a different indicator. One showed a plus sign in the window to indicate a positive. Another showed a pink line. The third would turn blue.

      Though counting didn’t make time go faster, reciting numerical progressions had always soothed her. As a child, she learned to count prime numbers all the way up to 3,571—the first five hundred primes. Five hundred unique numbers, divisible only by themselves and one.

      The last time she had seen Dr. Ray over dinner, she’d talked about prime. He had suggested—in his kindly way—that she might want to pursue deeper interpersonal relationships. Make friends, join groups, go on dates, blah, blah, blah.

      She had told him that she was happy just as she was. Some people needed others to make them complete, but she was unique. Like a prime number, she was divisible only by herself. Singular.

      If she was pregnant, she’d never be alone again.

      One of the tests required only one minute to show results. She could look down right now and see. But the others needed five minutes, and she didn’t want to peek until all the results were in and could be verified against each other.

      But she couldn’t wait. She looked down. The first test showed a positive.

      Could she trust a kit from a convenience store? It hardly seemed scientific in spite of the claim on the box of ninety-nine percent accuracy in detecting a pregnancy hormone, hCG, released into the body by the placenta.

      The second test repeated the positive. And the third.

      She was pregnant, pregnant and pregnant.

      Tentatively, she touched her lower abdomen. Hello, in there. Can you hear me? An absurd question. At this point in development, the fetus wouldn’t have ears. But they shared the same body, the same blood. The food she ate nurtured the tiny being that grew within her. The miracle of life. Amazing. Infuriating.

      Damn it, this couldn’t be happening! She dug into her purse and found her cell phone. Dr. Prentice’s private cell phone number was in the memory.

      He answered after the fourth ring. “I’ve been expecting to hear from you, Eve.”

      “How could you do this to me?”

      “I assume you’re aware of—”

      “I’m aware, damn you. I just took a pregnancy test.”

      “You’re upset.”

      A mild description of her outrage. “You might as well have raped me.”

      “Not at all the same thing. Rape is an act of violence. You received the highest quality medical care. My intentions were for your own good. I could have hired a surrogate, you know.”

      “A what?”

      “A surrogate mother. Some women rent out their wombs like cheap motels.”

      “I know what a surrogate is.”

      Her voice was louder than she intended. Blake knocked on the bathroom door. “Eve? Are you all right?”

      She didn’t want to deal with him. This wasn’t his problem. Lowering her voice, she demanded, “Why, Dr. Prentice? Why would you do this?”

      “Ray’s research indicated the optimum condition for development comes when the biological mother carries the fetus and bonds with the infant.”

      Biological mother? Bonding? None of what he’d just said made sense. “I ought to hire a lawyer and sue you.”

      “Don’t bother. When you came for your examination, you signed a consent form.”

      With a jolt, she remembered being handed several documents on a clipboard. “You told me it was a routine medical procedure.”

      “If you like, I can fax you a copy.”

      He