The Baby's Bodyguard Read Free Page B

he’d pretty much run the gamut.
    And now, running on little sleep, he wanted to take someone down.
    Someone like the criminals who had set this whole thing in motion in the first place. Who stole someone’s child? Someone with no conscience. Someone who bought and sold people as commodities.
    He slammed the brush on the surface of his boat and scrubbed. One thing about living on a boat—somethingalways needed to be cleaned. Maybe it would help him work through some of his anger issues.
    “Permission to come aboard, sir?” Kelsey’s voice drifted out from the pier.
    “Permission granted, but be prepared to swab the deck.” Ethan reached for the T-shirt behind him on the rail and pulled it over his head.
    “Nuh-uh. I’ve lived in Sea Breeze long enough to know better than to get between a man and his boat.”
    Despite himself, he laughed, turning to greet her. She was dressed in a simple khaki skirt and a T-shirt, but she had on several long necklaces of brightly colored beads, and Janie had her hands twisted up in them. “I thought she would be in foster care by now.”
    “It’s always the goal to get kids placed as quickly as possible.” Kelsey passed Ethan the baby and lightly stepped on board. “Unfortunately, all of our emergency foster care placements were full. We’re on our way to the pediatrician for a checkup.”
    Janie grabbed his face and grinned, a half-dozen teeth on the top and bottom shining in her mouth. “She looks pretty happy.”
    “I think she’s doing fine. I came by because, as I was looking through her diaper bag this morning, I found this.” She handed him an SD card, the kind that would go in a digital camera. “I don’t know what’s on it, but I thought it might be more evidence. It was sewn into the lining of her bag.”
    Ethan stuffed the card into one of the pockets of his cargo shorts, one of the pockets that wasn’t wet fromscrubbing the deck. Janie bounced on his free arm, but as she bounced, her foot got caught in his pocket.
    She bounced again, but her foot didn’t come loose. Her face mashed up into a red-faced scowl. A wail came out of her mouth that rivaled the air horn he carried on his boat for emergencies. He hadn’t known she could do that. He looked at Kelsey. “A little help here?”
    Kelsey loosened Janie’s foot, but stepped away, leaving him to deal. She dug in the diaper bag. He patted the baby on the back and shushed and—what was that other thing he’d read in the baby book you were supposed to do with crying kids?
    His natural calm disappeared as she wailed. It was forever ago that he’d done baby stuff.
Think, Clark. You’ve got this.
    He started rocking back and forth. Yeah, that was it,
motion.
    It didn’t work, not even for a second.
    Janie didn’t stop crying, but she did hiccup and gasp as she cried. Screaming kids made all kinds of crazy noises, but she didn’t sound right. He laid her back on his arm to look at her. Her lips were blue. “Kels—”
    Kelsey came up with a sippy cup and a scrap of a blanket from the diaper bag.
    “I don’t think that’s it. There’s something wrong with her. She’s blue—look at her hands.” His voice had risen, and he felt something close to panic.
    “What?” Kelsey dropped the bag onto the deck. “Let me see.”
    Janie hadn’t stopped crying, and her breathing wasfast and shallow—not wheezing, like asthma, but as if she was trying to get more oxygen.
    “Call 911.” Ethan might be calm on the outside, but inside he was freaking out.
Oh, Jesus, please protect this little baby.
    “Wait just a minute.” Kelsey took Janie from Ethan and held her close, letting her have the blanket, which didn’t really work. She didn’t even notice it. But then she tucked Janie’s legs up, almost against her own little armpits and held her close against her chest, rocking and singing to her—in Russian, he guessed.
    Slowly, the baby calmed and began to suck her thumb. Her color returned, not quite