Raphael wouldn’t know what hit him. Neither would Anapa. And if any evidence of Anapa’s connection to the deaths of the shapeshifters existed, I would do my best to find it.
When I walked into Cutting Edge’s offices, a man was sitting in my client chair. He was bent over, doing something with his feet, and as he turned his head at my approach, I saw a car seat. A baby lay in it, a little spot of white and pink against the green fabric patterned with cartoon dinosaurs. The man’s face seemed familiar. It took me a second, and then I placed it. Nick Moreau.
The last time I’d seen him, in June, he’d looked ten years younger. The man who sat in front of me now seemed old and tired, and when he gazed at me, his eyes were devoid of life, as if they had been covered with ash.
“I told him you were out,” Ascanio said, from the storeroom doorway. “He said he didn’t mind waiting.”
I sat in the other chair next to Nick. He ran his hand through his light brown hair.
“That’s my son,” he said.
“He’s beautiful,” I told him.
“Would you like to hold him?”
“May I?”
Nick picked the baby up and put him in my arms. Baby Rory looked at me with dark gray eyes, puzzled and fascinated, his mouth slightly open. He was nearly bald, his hair a soft peach fuzz on his head. His eyelashes were a happy, sunny blond.
So tiny. Such a fragile little life.
“Hey there,” I whispered.
Baby Rory looked at me and I could see no fear in his eyes. No sadness, no bitterness, nothing jaded. The world was a big wonderful toy and Baby Rory had no idea how badly it had hurt him. I wanted to wrap him in my arms and make it all be okay. I wanted to give him his mother back.
“He’s beautiful,” I told Nick again.
“His mother was, too,” he said. “He can’t even talk. He’ll never remember her.”
Baby Rory cooed and I hugged him to me, gently. How do you tell a baby his mother died? How do you even begin to explain why?
Nick reached inside his jacket, took out his wallet, and handed me a photograph. On it a woman smiled. Her hair was a mass of cinnamon curls around her face. Here was a pretty girl with freckles on her nose. Her file said she was twenty-six, only two years younger than me. She’d had no idea, but Rianna Moreau had been living my dream. She had a husband who loved her without reservation. She had a fulfilling job she loved. She had Baby Rory. They were a family together and their future looked bright until some asshole came over and robbed them of it.
Nick’s eyes watered. He squeezed his hand into a fist. “He won’t know that she was kind. He’ll know that she loved him because I’ll tell him, but he will never feel that love. My son is barely born, and his life is already broken.”
I wished I could say something, but nothing that would come out of my mouth would make his loss easier to bear.
Baby Rory made little noises, oblivious to his father’s grief.
“I’ll never see my wife again.” Nick’s voice faltered. He pulled himself back. “I want you to understand. I want you to know what they took from me. To me, she was everything. I can’t even say her name anymore.”
I reached over and rested my fingers on his clenched fist.
“Raphael said you’re the best. He said you would find them.” Nick’s gaze searched my face. If only I had the right words…
“You’re a carpenter,” I said. “You build beautiful things because that’s what you do. Investigation is what I do. I live it and breathe it, I’m trained for it, and I’m damn good at it. Your wife is not a name on the report, Nick. You and your son, you aren’t some meaningless statistic. Rianna is real, and so are the two of you. I know what you had and I know what it’s like to lose it. I understand.”
I saw the split second when Nick broke down: something in his eyes snapped, the line of his mouth sagged, and he cried. I set Rory back into his car seat and hugged Nick. He shuddered in my arms, not sobbing but spasming, as if the pain inside him was breaking out in short bursts.
“I can’t promise you success,” I told him, patting his back. “But I promise you I won’t stop looking. I’ll never stop looking. I’ll do everything I can to get you and your son your answers and your justice.”
In the corner Ascanio stared at us, his eyes freaked out.
Nick shook, rigid, his voice a low guttural growl with bits and pieces of words coming through. “…Take her from me…”
“I promise you that when I find them, they will suffer,” I told him. “It won’t bring your wife back, but when we’re done with them, they will never rob anyone else of their life again. You must stay strong, Nick. You must be strong for your son. He still has a father, a tough, fierce father who loves him, who will be there for him.”
Gradually the shudders stopped. Nick pulled away from me, suddenly, as if just realizing that he had been crying. He picked up the child carrier. Baby Rory yawned.
“You’ll tell me when you know?” Nick asked.
“I will.”
He went out the door. I slumped in my chair.
Ascanio came over and sat on my desk. “Man, that was heavy.”
“That’s the other half of the job,” I told him. “You are accountable to the victims of the crime you’re investigating. You accept responsibility for it. They place their trust in you and they expect you to bring them justice. You must never forget that it’s about people. It’s about suffering and loss.”
“That sucks.”
“Congratulations—you’re catching on.”
He frowned. “But I thought you were supposed to be detached. So it’s not personal.”
I sighed. “You can’t let it get to you, because you still need to focus. You need some distance to be objective. But it’s personal. It’s always personal. You can’t ever forget that there are people involved. You also can’t let your compassion for the wronged cloud your judgment, because there are more important things at stake than getting Nick his vengeance.”
Ascanio studied me. “What can be more important than that?”
“Making sure that the guilty never do it again. The people who killed Rianna and the other shapeshifters broke the most sacred of laws—they murdered. Since they did it once, they will probably do it again. First and foremost, we have to make sure we keep them from destroying another life.”
Ascanio pondered it. “Nick doesn’t see it this way.”
“Nick doesn’t need to. It’s our job to worry about that, not his.”
“I think he wanted you to tell him you would find the killer and solve the whole thing.”
“Yes he did.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because I don’t make promises I can’t keep. Now get off my desk and bring me Doolittle’s report.”