Valley of the Lost Read Free Page B

a body had been found in the woods.
    She’d gotten home at four, and had been woken only a few minutes ago by a screaming baby.
    Lucky took a bottle off the stove and squeezed a drop onto her forearm. She reached into a laundry basket on the floor beside the stove and gathered up a pink blanket. Sylvester, the big sloppy golden retriever, sniffed at the bundle.
    “Mom, where did that baby come from?”
    “This is Miller,” Lucky said. “He is not ‘that baby’, Moonlight.”
    To her constant embarrassment, Molly Smith’s given names were Moonlight Legolas. Her parents had been ‘60’s era hippies, Americans who fled the States for refuge in Canada when Andy received his draft notice. They’d named their daughter Moonlight for the light falling on snow the night she’d been born, and Legolas because they were big Lord of the Rings fans. Molly’s brother, now a lawyer with a petroleum company in Calgary, endured the moniker of Samwise.
    “That’s the baby of that woman found dead behind the center, isn’t it?” Smith said.
    Smoke began to rise from scrambled eggs cooking on the stove. Andy pulled the frying pan off the heat, with a shrug of his shoulder toward his daughter.
    Lucky lifted her eyes from the baby. “I remembered his name after you’d left. I’m only looking after Miller until his family can be located.”
    “Gee, Mom. There are government people to do that.”
    The phone rang and Andy Smith answered it. “Nope,” he said, “she’s right here.” He passed it to his daughter.
    “Hello?”
    “Morning, Molly.” Sergeant Winters. “As you seem to be up already, how’d you like to come with me to Trail? The autopsy’s set for noon.”
    Smith’s chair might have been an ejection seat on a fighter plane. “You bet, John. I’m ready.”
    “I’ll pick you up at eleven.” He hung up without bothering to say good-bye.
    Smith looked at her parents. Lucky’s attention was concentrated on the baby, happily sucking on the plastic teat. Andy watched his wife, his face dark and troubled.
    Smith went upstairs to get dressed. Her parents had almost split up recently. But the marriage had held. After all they’d been through it was unlikely a baby would be able to come between them.
    Ready well before Winters said he’d pick her up, she went back to the kitchen in search of coffee.
    “Where’s Mom?” she asked her father.
    “Taken Miller upstairs to change him.”
    “Mom needs some help, Dad.”
    “Perhaps they’ll be able to track down Miller’s family today, and someone will come and get him.”
    “I mean help dealing with this.”
    Andy Smith looked into the depths of his own cup. “She’s fine.”
    “She’s certainly not fine.” Smith took a mug off the shelf and poured black liquid into it. “She found a dead woman in the woods. Granted there wasn’t blood and gore or anything, but the woman was still dead.”
    “She doesn’t seem bothered by it.”
    “That’s my point, Dad. She should be bothered. She needs to deal with it, and I don’t think she is. She should see a counselor. Victim services will send someone out. I’ll give them a call.”
    “Don’t.” Andy tossed the remainder of his coffee into the sink, and put his mug into the dishwasher. “Time to get to the store. Your mom can’t come in long as she’s looking after Miller, and we’re short staffed without Duncan as it is.”
    “Dad. Listen to me. Despite appearances, Mom is not handling this well.”
    “Leave it, Molly,” he said, with a sharpness in his voice she rarely heard these days. “You of all people should know that your mother would hardly appreciate any interference from the police, or anyone associated with them.” He grabbed his car keys from the hook beside the back door and left.
    Smith chewed on a fingernail.
    Her parents hadn’t exactly been overjoyed a year ago when she’d told them that she’d been accepted by the Trafalgar City Police. But she’d thought they, her father