"Of course, I don't. Do I, handsome?" She didn't even look up at me when she answered.
When I returned ten minutes later, CJ was sitting on the reception desk involved in a rousing game of peekaboo where three of the receptionists would hide behind the counter and take turns popping up to surprised squeals.
"Sorry, ladies." I picked up CJ, planted a kiss on his chubby cheek, and strapped him into his stroller. "I have to get this little guy to daycare."
I was greeted with disappointed teeth sucking and choruses of, "You come back and visit anytime you want, cutie pie."
The daycare was clearly createdas an afterthought and utilized abandoned office space, but it was spacious, clean, and the staff seemed happy. I signed CJ in and handed him off to an attendant feeling an unexpected lurch in my stomach. It had just been the two of us, and now I was handing him off to strangers.
"Okay, is there anything else I should know?" Cindy, the daycare director, asked.
I blinked and realized that I had been staring at CJ without speaking.
“He’s teething. There’s some stuff in his bag. He’s really picky about what he eats. He likes airplane rides. He’ll only nap in the stroller. Uh…maybe I should take him home and try again tomorrow.”
"CJ is gonna be fine." She put a comforting hand on my bicep that only succeeded in making me feel tenser. "I know it's a little strange leaving your baby for the first time, but I promise you he's in great hands. We'll take excellent care of him, and you can visit whenever you want."
I swallowed what felt like a lump in my throat and nodded, still frozen in place. Cindy put her hand on my shoulder, gave me a nod, and I turned to walk toward the elevator.
“Cole!” Cindy called.
I turned to her, slightly alarmed.
"You can leave the stroller," she said with a laugh. "Sorry, habit," I mumbled. I wasn't even aware that I was still pushing it.
“He’s gonna love it here. You’ll see.”
I nodded again and walked to the elevator feeling weirdly empty. CJ had been my entire world for three weeks, and it felt strange to leave him again.
"All right, Papa Bear?"Dev Phadkar, one of the firm's best investigators, walked to my cubicle and sat on my desk. "You rang?"
“Yeah, are you busy right now?” I looked around the mostly deserted office.
“Mate, I’m always busy, but whatcha got?” He leaned forward as I pulled the thick yellow envelope out of my backpack and placed it on the desk.
"I got my birth mother's accident and coroner's report, and I don't know if it's wishful thinking or I'm just sleep-deprived, but something's off." I slid the files out of the envelope and handed it to him. He flipped through files quietly for a few minutes. I rolled my chair back a few feet to avoid accidentally catching a glimpse of Crystal's autopsy photos again.
“Well, this is definitely suspicious.”
Damn.I was hoping Dev would tell me I was crazy and that everything looked fine. “What do you mean?”
"I think you know what I mean, or you wouldn't have called me up here."
"The bruises," I muttered, not looking at him and pinching the bridge of my nose in frustration, a tic I picked up from my dad.
"The bruises," he agreed. "And this." He slapped down one of the photos from the interior of the car. For a split second, I thought it was one of Crystal's body and had to stop myself from flinching. Instead, I was looking at a photo of a large dark stain on the passenger seat, but it wasn't dark enough to be blood. "Remember that old joke about car accidents?" He paused for effect. "‘First you say it, then you do it.' Somebody was in this seat at the time of the collision. The seat belt and forehead bruises are consistent with injuries sustained by a passenger, but there's no blood on the dashboard.”
“Maybe it didn’t bleed?” I supplied.
"Possibly, but unlikely." He slid the photo closer to me. "What else do you see?"
I looked at the photo again. Fuck. How the hell did I miss that? There was a large scrap of white fabric hanging out of the center console of the steering wheel. It was a fucking airbag. I sat back in my chair.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “You see some pretty nasty injuries from airbags deployed at high speeds. Broken noses, burns to the face and chest, abrasions… Your mother just has a broken wrist—she most likely tried to put her hands out to brace herself—and smacked her forehead on the dash. The seat belt did its job and prevented her from going fully airborne.”
I nodded again.
“Lipstick.”
