“Simon is fine,” she said, her tone brittle.
He gave her a half smirk. “So, one-night stands don’t work for you, do they?”
“I guess not, sir. I haven’t seen him since.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Well, he was pretty-damned worried about you when he came in to the hospital yesterday.”
“I think he was afraid that I might die on his watch.”
He shrugged and said, “Get yourself suited up, and we’ll see you at the media show.”
“Three-ring circus, you mean. That’s all it is,” she said.
“Its politics,” he said, his voice hardening. “And you will be there. Both you and Rodney.”
She shrugged and then winced because the last thing she should do is move that shoulder.
He laughed at her. “See there? If you weren’t so stubborn,” he said, “you’d be home in bed.”
“Fuck that,” she said. “An awful lot needs to be settled up in this case yet. So much paper to fill out, reports to write…”
“There is,” he said. “Not the least of which is that we’ve pulled in seven others from that chat room.”
“Do the names match up with the notebook?”
“They do, indeed,” he said with a fat grin, “and make sure that you’re there.”
She glared at him. “But, sir—”
He returned the glare. “No,” he said. “Dismissed.”
She turned and walked out. She didn’t bother going to her desk, just headed outside to the front of the police station. She stood here for a long moment, watching the hustle and bustle of the street and the traffic, something inside her calming down. This was her city. Her streets. And these were her people. She would do her damnedest to look after them. Even when they didn’t want her to. But the children in the hospital really broke her heart.
With that thought, she turned and her feet headed in the direction of the hospital all on their own. As she walked in, she found the family of the latest boy they’d found, Leonard. Was Simon here too? She saw him, happy at first, then remembered it was his ex-fiancée’s nephew. She stiffened and glared at him. He glared right back.
But the aunt had absolutely no problem showing her emotions. She raced over and tried to hug Kate, but, when Caitlin saw the shoulder sling, she stopped and smiled. “I really just want to say,Thank you for finding him.”
Kate smiled and nodded. “Hopefully he’ll get some help and recover from this without too much trauma.” She didn’t even go into what he might have gone through. Nobody wanted to go into that. She quickly escaped and headed up to the little girl’s room. As she arrived, grateful to see no greedy group of people gathered around, a young woman sat off to the side of the hospital bed. Kate looked at her and asked, “And who are you?”
“I’m her mother,” she said, tears in her eyes.
At that, Kate stopped and stared. “Verified by DNA?”
She nodded and whispered, “Yes. She’s my child. I was only seventeen when I got pregnant. At the hospital my parents told me that she’d died, but apparently they gave her to my sister for some damn reason, who then passed her on to someone else,” she said. “But I’m here now, and I’m much older. I’m stable and have nothing to do with my parents. I’ve grown up a lot, and nothing is more important than my little girl.”
Kate looked at the little girl and said, “Let’s hope that the rest of the years of her life are a whole lot easier than the first few she’s had so far.”
The mother had her jaw locked down, a small tic playing on her face. She nodded and said, “I am committed to making sure of that,” she said. “My family will have nothing more to do with her.”
“Good,” she said. “Because, somewhere in the middle of all that, she ended up on the street and then got sold into this nasty life.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” the mother said, standing up determinedly.
“I know that,” Kate said, noticing the shining wedding ring on her hand. “Your husband?”
“He’s talking to the doctors right now,” she said. “We want to know how long before we can take her home.”
“And is he on board with this little girl?”