Page 1 of Child In Jeopardy

Chapter One

Deputy Slater McCullough saw the baby the moment he opened his front door. Still, he blinked a couple of times to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. They weren’t. He was looking down at a tiny newborn wrapped in a white blanket that was nestled into an infant car seat on the welcome mat of his porch.

Once he shook off the shock, Slater’s head whipped up, his gaze firing around the darkness. He spotted a flare of red taillights just as a vehicle sped out of sight on his driveway that led to the road.

What the hell was going on?

Moments earlier, someone had knocked at his door, and since his house wasn’t exactly on the beaten path, he’d figured it was someone in his family who’d dropped by. He hadn’t taken long to get from his bedroom to the door, but obviously during that short span of time someone had left the baby and driven off.

Since Slater had put on his holster on the way to the door, he slipped his hand over the butt of his service weapon and continued to glance around, looking for any signs of danger while he also checked the baby. Sleeping. And thank God, he or she didn’t appear to be harmed. There wasn’t a mark or a bruise on that tiny face.

He didn’t have to give a lot of thought as to why someone would have left the child here. He was a cop, after all. A deputy in the Saddle Ridge Sheriff’s Office. Abandoned babies were rare in the small ranching town, but it did occasionally happen, and the baby could have been brought here by someone desperate enough to leave the infant on a cop’s doorstep.

Even though it was mid-October and the sun had already set, it wasn’t cold. Another thing he could be thankful for. Still, he didn’t want the baby out in the night air, so he hoisted up the carrier, brought it inside and set it on his coffee table while he took out his phone. He called Sheriff Duncan Holder, who was not only his boss but also his brother-in-law, and even though Slater knew Duncan was off shift, he answered right away.

“A problem?” Duncan immediately asked.

The question was edged with concern, probably because Slater never called just to chat. Duncan and Slater’s sister, Joelle, and their infant daughter lived only a mile away, and if there was a family matter to discuss, Slater paid them a visit.

“Someone left a baby on my doorstep,” Slater said. “I didn’t see who. The person sped off before I could catch any details about the make of the vehicle or the license plate.”

Duncan was silent for a couple of moments and then muttered some profanity. “Is the baby all right?”

“Fine as far as I can tell.” But Slater did more than just a visual check of the infant’s face. Sandwiching the phone between his ear and shoulder, he eased back the blanket and saw the blue pj’s with little birds and clouds. He lifted the top that was no wider than his hand and saw what he’d already suspected.

“It’s a newborn,” Slater relayed. “The umbilical cord is still attached, and it doesn’t appear to be a home job for clamping off the cord.” Which meant the baby had likely been born in a hospital, or at least with someone with medical knowledge attending the birth.

Slater heard Duncan relay the info to Joelle, and since she was also a deputy, she would no doubt start the search for missing infants along with having the night deputies combing the area for the vehicle. The CSIs would have to be called in as well to examine the baby’s clothes and the carrier. And finally,Child Protective Services would have to be alerted. Thankfully, they had a foster home nearby that took in infants.

While Duncan finished giving the info to Joelle, Slater did a check of the baby’s lower body. Still no signs of any kind of injury except for a bruise on the heel of the baby’s right foot. Since all three of his siblings had babies, he recalled that was the location where blood was drawn for tests. So, more proof that this newborn had been born in a hospital.

“The baby’s a boy,” Slater added to Duncan, doing a quick check in the diaper. They’d need that gender info to compare to any missing babies, but the diaper also told Slater something else. It was dry, and since the baby didn’t appear to be dehydrated, it meant he’d recently been changed.

Slater was about to relay the heel bruise and the dry diaper to Duncan when he heard a sound that stopped him cold. Something or someone had stepped onto his porch. Only then did he remember that he hadn’t locked the door.

He hadn’t heard the sound of a car engine nor seen any headlights through the windows, but he doubted it was a coincidence that he’d get a visitor minutes after someone had left the baby. It was possible this was the child’s parent who’d already had second thoughts about what’d happened and had parked at the end of the driveway and come back for the baby.

“I might have a visitor,” Slater whispered to Duncan. “I’ll call you back.”

Slater ended the call so he could put his phone away and free up his hands. It definitely wasn’t something he wanted to happen, but it was possible this might turn into some kind of altercation. Because even if this was a remorseful parent, there was no way Slater could just hand over the child, not until he was certain the little boy would be safe.

Keeping an eye on the doorknob to see if it moved, Slater eased himself in front of the baby and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.

The door opened a fraction. “Slater?” the woman asked.

She’d used his first name, not Deputy McCullough, but Slater didn’t recognize the voice.

“It’s me, Lana Walsh,” she added.

Slater frowned and his shoulders snapped back. No way had he expected Lana to show up.

Or to have abandoned a baby on his porch.

For one thing, he hadn’t seen Lana in nearly a year. Eleven months and twelve days to be exact. He knew the specific date because Lana had come to his dad’s funeral. A hellish day that even now spurred the equally hellish memories of finding his father murdered.

Yeah, that wasn’t going away anytime soon.

There’d been dozens of people at the funeral, but Slater had spent a good half hour talking to the sisters even though they weren’t what he would call close. They once had been, though. He’d dated Lana’s sister, Stephanie, when they’d been in high school, but when their parents had moved them to San Antonio, he and Stephanie had only kept in touch with the occasional text and lunch. His contact with Lana had been less frequent than that because she’d gone into the military, but he was pretty sure she was out now and was working in personal security.