between him, Gabby and Faye regarding Avery. Then he wouldn’t have to give her up for adoption.
Have to?
The phrase he’d just used came echoing back to him in his head.
Since when did he have to give the kid up for adoption? He wanted to give her up for adoption, he reminded himself.
At least, that was what he thought he wanted.
Damn it, the situation he was facing was getting him all jumbled up inside, he thought, annoyed with himself as well as the situation. He’d been spun around so many times, he didn’t know which way was up, which way was down anymore.
That had to change.
The kid was going up for adoption and that was that, he concluded. He couldn’t be a dad—who did he think he was kidding to even consider that? He never undertook anything unless he thought he had a chance of getting it right. There was no chance like that in this case. He had no example to follow, no fond memories to tap into. He certainly wasn’t about to emulate the father who’d dumped him on the Colton doorstep.
Annoyed, Trevor blew out a breath as he came closer to the nursery. This whole thing was getting damn confusing and really way out of hand. He had to stop overthinking it. He was going to put Avery up for adoption and that was that.
As Trevor drew closer to the closed door, nothing but a wall of silence greeted him. The corners of his mouth curved slightly.
He assumed the kid was still asleep after all.
That had to be a good sign. Maybe keeping her around wouldn’t be all that ba—
His thoughts were abruptly shut down as a scream suddenly tore through the silence.
The scream, followed by another, louder one, was coming from the nursery.
Instantly, Trevor broke into a run before the full import of the scream and what it could mean had a chance to sink in.
The door was unlocked and he yanked it open. The first thing he saw was Gabby on her knees in the middle of the nursery.
Obviously struggling to regain control over herself, Gabby was staring at the body she was kneeling over. Blood pooled around the body’s upper torso and it was steadily leaching into Gabby’s jeans where she was kneeling.
She didn’t seem to realize it.
Drawing closer, Trevor looked at the victim’s face. His lunch swiftly rose in his throat, threatening to come out, and he felt as if someone had stuck a hot poker into his gut and was twisting it.
The body on the floor was Faye. The short black hair she always kept so neatly was in complete disarray, a casualty of the physical struggle that had obviously taken place. Small-boned and slender, it was apparent that she had still fought like a tiger.
And lost.
There was no pulse when he felt for it in the woman’s neck. The expression on her lifeless face was a combination of anger and horror.
The exact same emotions he was now feeling, multiplied by ten.
Trevor realized that Gabby was desperately trying to stop the flow of blood from the woman’s chest with her hands. Both were covered with Faye’s blood. It was a futile undertaking.
“She’s dead,” he told her, his tone harsher than it should have been in order to mask his own pain.
“No, she’s not,” Gabby insisted frantically through her tears. “She’s alive.” Her tears fell, mingling with the dead woman’s blood. “We can keep her alive! Maybe if we—”
Trevor didn’t let her finish. Instead, grasping the back of her collar, he physically pulled Gabby away from the lifeless body.
“She’s dead,” he repeated a bit more gently this time, stepping back from his own grief and seeing the pain and tears that were in Gabby’s eyes. “There’s nothing you can do for her now,” he told her, drawing Gabby up to her feet.
Gabby’s knees suddenly buckled, giving way. Reacting, Trevor caught her and pulled her against him without thinking. For an instant, Gabby broke down, sobbing and clutching on to him for support.
“Who could have done this to her?” she asked between sobs. “Why would anyone want to hurt Faye? She was always so good to everyone.”
“I don’t know,” he answered, seething. There was now an entire myriad of emotions rushing and flashing through him like so many fireworks on a collision course.
As he stroked Gabby’s hair in an awkward attempt to comfort the sobbing woman, he looked around the rest of the room.
And suddenly froze.
This isn’t right.
“Where’s the kid?” he asked Gabby sharply.
Pulling herself together, Gabby drew her head back, blinked several times to clear her vision and then turned in the direction of the crib.
Her brain muddled by grief and confusion, she wasn’t sure she’d heard his question correctly.
“What?” she asked thickly.
“The kid. My kid,” Trevor bit off with harsh emphasis. Dropping his arms from around Gabby as if he hadn’t just paused to give her comfort, he strode quickly over to the fancy, canopied crib. “Where’s my kid?” he demanded hotly.
The crib was empty.
Trevor swung around to glare at Gabby, waiting for her to offer some sort of an answer.
“I thought you said that you put Avery down in this crib.” It came out sounding like an accusation, not a question.
“I did,” she cried.
Everything inside of her was shaking. Seeing Faye on the floor, bloodied and motionless, had blocked out everything else. She hadn’t even realized that the crib was empty or that the baby was missing.
Oh, God, how could she have missed that?
“I just came in to check on her when I saw Faye—when I saw Faye—”
Gabby couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. A sob threatened to break free in her throat and it took everything she had to get herself under control and push it back down.
Like a man trapped in a nightmare not of his own making, Trevor moved back to the crib again. This time he realized that although there was no baby in it, the crib wasn’t completely empty. One of the knitting needles he recognized as belonging to Faye was stabbed into an embroidered pillow.
The knitting needle was anchoring down a note.
His first impulse was to rip the note away from the pillow, but he forced himself to refrain. He knew that the chief of police would need the note untouched, the better to dust the surface for any fingerprints, partial or otherwise. The slightest piece of evidence could eventually lead them to Faye’s
