phone the Child Help Center direct. But I’ve heard Anna’s replacement is a regular battle-ax.”
Ethan had received a memorandum announcing that a Regan Grant was taking over Anna’s post. He’d never met this Grant woman, nor would he add to unfounded rumors. He merely grunted a noncommittal response and reiterated his estimated time of arrival as he hung up and stowed his phone in the pocket with his badge.
While he did a cursory shave, Ethan thought about his fifteen-year tenure on Desert City’s police force. For more than half of those years, he’d been called the Baby Cop. It was a nickname that had nothing to do with age but with his far-reaching connections in the city and outlying communities, which allowed him to instantly place kids who needed temporary shelter in loving homes. Homes where the adults cared more about a child’s welfare than the money the state paid every month for that care. Ethan had started by educating his eight brothers and sisters about the need in the community for safe homes. What had begun as a small network expanded over the years to include the families of police buddies and other friends. He’d convinced all these people—anyone of good heart and moral character who could offer a bed, food and TLC to traumatized kids—to license their homes for care. He’d done all this with the assistance and support of Anna M., the previous Child Help supervisor. Although he was a bachelor, even he was approved to provide emergency housing. An erratic work schedule precluded his taking a kid for longer than a night or two, but there had been times he’d used his vacation hours to turn up a safe house for a child.
Ethan’s grandfather, the first Knight to be a cop, had willed Ethan his rambling four-bedroom home. The old man’s charge to Ethan had been to fill the house with a passel of noisy kids. Of course, he’d meant that Ethan produce a family in the normal way. Ethan’s failure there hadn’t been for lack of trying, he frequently assured his nagging parents and siblings. He just hadn’t managed to connect with the right woman.
Running a hand over a now-clean jaw, Ethan turned his thoughts from his family to his job. He had worked out a good system with the compassionate Anna Murphy. Her unexpected death of a heart attack last month at only fifty-five had caused a lot of hardened men on the force to shed tears as they bore her casket to her final resting place. None shed more than Ethan. Anna had been one of a kind. Not a bureaucrat like the majority of city caseworkers who made police officers wade through miles of red tape in order to help victims of violent crimes. Anna’s focus from the outset had been to do everything possible to speed the care of innocents. Especially kids hurt by family disputes. Or kids who lost their next of kin to accidents and random crime.
Anna had trusted Ethan to take care of the children first. She allowed him to file the reams of messy paperwork once things calmed down and he had time to concentrate. Ethan would then supply Anna with the name and address of a foster family, and she’d do her requisite visit, making it appear as though she’d placed the kids all along. There was nothing wrong with their procedure except that it was backward. Unorthodox in the eyes of some Family Assistance personnel. Namely Nathaniel Piggot, the CHC director.
Fortunately for the kids, Anna Murphy had said screw protocol—and Director Piggot. Her first priority had been to ensure a child’s safety. To alleviate a child’s heartbreak.
“Anna’s and my method was the only sensible one,” Ethan grumbled as he let Taz into the front passenger seat of a perpetually unwashed Suzuki SUV. Flipping his headlights on high, Ethan headed into a dark moonless January night, determined to do his part to help two sweet kids make the transition into a cold cruel world that no longer held their anchor—a mom who’d served as punching bag for the scum she’d had the misfortune to marry.
Ethan hauled out his cell phone and called his cousin, Jessica Talbot, a woman with a tender heart. She’d never yet turned away a child in need.
“Jess, it’s Ethan. Sorry to wake you. Listen, have you and Dave got any vacant beds? I’m looking for two. Got a four-and six-year old.” Without waiting for a reply, he continued, “Didn’t I hear the judge gave custody of Megan and Caitlin Porter to their maternal grandparents? Figured that meant you had a couple of free beds.”
In the background, Ethan heard clothing rustle and a murmured deeper voice. “Apologize to Dave,” he said. “You guys know I wouldn’t call this late if I wasn’t desperate.”
His cousin, who’d finally collected her wits, responded as Ethan had predicted. “Bring them. But I swear, Ethan Knight, you have an unbelievable pipeline in this community. I barely washed the sheets on Meg and Cait’s beds.” Jessica chuckled, then yawned. “Dave’s already on his way to an all-night market to pick up extra milk and more kid-approved cereal.” Sobering, she asked Ethan, “How bad? Do these kids need medical attention?”
“I’ll arrange for psych counseling tomorrow.” He condensed an explanation of the circumstances as he turned down the street leading to the cordoned-off complex. He could see twirling red and blue lights grotesquely outlining huddled residents in nightwear. All were in the throes of interrogation by uniformed police. Two rows of yellow tape secured the crime scene.
Concluding his business with Jessie, Ethan angled the SUV next to a patrol car. He saw the heads of two small figures pressed ear to ear in the back seat. Exiting his vehicle, he popped the rear hatch and chose a soft white fuzzy bear and one dressed in Paddington rain gear from a laundry bag full of stuffed toys. Too well versed in the routine, Taz closed his teeth gently around both bears and trotted, ears erect, to the car where the children clung together. Ethan opened the cruiser door for him, and Taz approached the kids.
They recognized the dog at once. The girl, Kimi, disengaged from her brother and snatched the white bear, which she cuddled close to a thin chest. Mike, whose pinched face reflected both pain and fright, couldn’t seem to accept Taz’s offering. His vacant eyes were beyond seeing toys denoting childish endeavors he might never again pursue. Ethan understood. He’d handled too many of these cases not to gain some insight into the roller-coaster emotions that followed acts of violence.
“I’m Officer Friendly. Remember me visiting your class at school?” Ethan spoke directly to Mike in clear yet mild tones. “And you know Taz. We’ve come to take you somewhere safe, like the last time Taz and I came to your apartment.”
Kimi pulled the comforting thumb out of her mouth and erupted in tears. “I want Mom-meee,” she wailed.
Her brother stared mutely at Ethan from war-glazed eyes. Bending, Ethan lifted the little girl and cradled her close. He stretched out a hand to the boy. “You both need sleep now, Mike. I know a nice lady who has a couple of soft warm beds. Tomorrow we’ll talk about what happens next. I promise. Vince,” Ethan called to a broad-shouldered, uniformed cop talking to an elderly couple, “I’ve got the kids. Okay?”
Looking up, Vince nodded grimly and gave a thumbs-up.
A WEEK AFTER the sad incident, local newspapers still treated the story as front-page news. In that time Ethan made a drug bust, accompanied Kimi and Mike to the psychologist and attended their dad’s initial hearing. He also placed another child in a safe home, this one a ten-year-old girl who’d been repeatedly molested by an uncle. Sometimes there seemed to be a rash of bad calls. And Ethan had to step outside his job and remind himself that for a city of almost half a million residents, a population that doubled when winter visitors and other transients migrated here for the sun, crime statistics weren’t particularly high—no more than average for a community of this size. Still, it was easy to lose a sense of proportion when, day in and day out, you dealt with the dregs of society. For Ethan, a new perspective came through volunteer work with a county search-and-rescue unit.
In fact, over the weekend, Ethan and Taz had been airlifted to Canyon De Chelly, where they’d helped locate a lost camper.
Four
