Save Her Child by CJ Lyons (book recommendations TXT) 📕

sighed. As much as he’d rather stay here and figure out Nate’s future, he had cases that wouldn’t solve themselves. Time to get to work.

As if on cue, his phone rang. He glanced at it, certain it would be Harper, upset that he’d asked Maggie to reschedule Lily Nolan’s autopsy, but was surprised to see that it was Leah.

“Morning,” he said when he answered it.

“How’s your leg?” Before he could answer, she continued, “Remember that patient I asked for your help with?”

“Your Jane Doe who almost had her baby in front of the kids? Yeah, she’s pretty unforgettable.”

“I couldn’t say more last night, not with the kids there,” she started with a rush of words. “But Nate may have taken some photos of her at the fair and Emily said she saw her throw a phone away. Emily’s grounded because of how she acted last night—and I apologize again about that—but do you think it would be okay for Nate to come over today so she can look at his photos? Emily remembers exactly when and where—”

“You know that photographic memory of hers is going to get you in trouble someday. But yeah, fine with me.”

“Great, thanks. I’ve been up all night worried about her—Beth, my patient, not Emily. Well, Emily, too, but that’s different. Why wouldn’t she tell us her name? Who was she running from? I thought if the kids can pinpoint where Beth tossed her phone, we could get it, check her contacts, see who she is and if she needs help—”

He’d grabbed his crutches and was hobbling across the room and so almost missed the implications of what she had said. “Wait, slow down. Who exactly is we? Because if it’s me, then I have no authority to—”

“I can’t shake this feeling of dread. My worry is that Beth’s a victim of domestic violence, on the run from someone. Luka, if you’d seen her face—” She finally took a breath. “We need to help her.”

Luka frowned. “Technically she hasn’t committed a crime—unless the hospital wants to prosecute her for not paying her bill, but that wouldn’t be until after she was discharged.” He thought about it. “I could speak with her if you think it would help.”

“Would you mind? The nurses were talking about getting a psych consult, but she’s definitely not psychotic or delusional, she’s good old-fashioned scared witless. She needs to know she’s protected and that her baby is safe here, then she might open up. After that, we can get her into a shelter or whatever help she needs.”

“Leah. I know you’re worried about Beth and her baby, but you need to understand that I can’t force her to talk. She’s hasn’t committed any crime that I know of and, even if she had, she’d still have the right to say nothing.”

“I know, I know.”

He could sense her anxiety threading through her words and couldn’t help but wonder how much was actually driven by Beth’s predicament and how much was about Emily and her tantrum last night.

“When do you think you can get over here?” she asked.

“You’re already at Good Sam?”

“Yes.” She sounded a bit sheepish. “Came in early to see Beth, but her nurse said she was sleeping, so I’m in my office.”

He glanced at the clock. It was too early to have any preliminary results from the Standish autopsy, but maybe by the time he’d finished talking with Beth? It’d be good to have some information to prepare for his interviews with Tassi and Foster Dean scheduled for later today. He’d been hoping to get some paperwork done, follow up on his other open cases, but… “I’m on my way.”

“Thanks, Luka. I owe you.”

Twenty-One

Leah hung up the phone, able to take a deep breath for the first time since she’d arrived at her office before seven this morning. She’d woken with the sun—not that she’d slept more than an hour or so, not that she ever slept through a full night since Ian had been killed. But last night was different. Usually she was tossing and turning, worrying about Emily, about what she could be doing better, remembering how Ian was such a natural at parenting, thinking about how much she missed him…

Last night she couldn’t stop thinking about Beth. The haunted, driven look on her face when Leah had found her. Her words kept echoing through Leah’s mind every time she’d closed her eyes: Help me. I can’t let them find me. Can’t let them find us. Help me.

Who was Beth, and who was she running from? Leah had to know; she couldn’t shrug it aside. Of course, Luka was right; Beth didn’t have to tell them anything. If she didn’t, then Leah would have to find another way to help—maybe by finding Beth’s phone. But she was hoping Luka would be able to get Beth talking. He had an easy way about him, at once gentle and understanding but also strong and protective.

While she waited for Luka, she tried to distract herself with work. After Ian’s murder, she’d left the ER with its evening and overnight shifts to take the job of medical director of Good Sam’s Crisis Intervention Center. While she still did some hands-on interventions herself, like providing forensic interviews for the police, the vast majority of her new job had turned out to be managing a near-constant budget crisis.

When she took over the department, it quickly became clear that they’d need additional funding. Thankfully, her assistant had a nose for finding grant money that would allow the CIC to continue its victim advocacy work here at Good Sam as well as providing mobile crisis response teams staffed by psychiatric social workers and specially trained EMS providers. Now that the money had been earmarked, it was Leah’s job to find people to fill those positions, hence the early morning arrival at the office to go through the résumés and decide who to interview.

The current staff functioned well together, so Leah needed to find people who would