Mother's Milk (15 page)

‘Please take that thing off.' She pointed to his shoulder holster.

‘Afraid the kid might get ideas?' he quipped, while unbuckling his sidearm.

‘Now is not good for jokes,' she said rubbing a hand over Max's back and trying to calm him.

‘What's going on?' he asked, taking Max in his muscular arms.

‘I don't know, but I am about to find out.' And her beeper sounded for a third time. ‘All right, already.' She dialed the Croton extension. ‘This is Dr. Conyors, someone trying to reach me?'

‘Yes, Doctor. It was me.' A woman's voice spilled hurriedly over the line. ‘We've had a security breach involving one of your patients.'

Barrett's first thought was Jimmy Martin, but the woman on the other end went on, ‘Jerod Blank got violently ill and was taken to the hospital. Apparently he'd faked the whole thing, because he somehow managed to run away. We have the local authorities looking for him and they need to speak with you for information about the patient.'

‘You have got to be kidding. How did this happen?' This was too bizarre. Jerod was intelligent and certainly resourceful, but with his heroin addiction and schizophrenia he was not the type to mastermind an escape from Croton.

The guard went on with the details. The more she said, the less sense it made. ‘I saw one in his chart this morning,' Barrett grumbled. ‘Why would he have a second one?'

‘The on-call doctor said there wasn't one in the chart, and it had to be done within twenty-four hours of admission.'

‘This is a huge screw-up,' Barrett said, wondering where Jerod could have gone. She didn't even want to consider the horrible press this could generate. The local community was still enraged by a recent incident when an inmate had escaped and killed his ex-wife.

‘I'm sorry, Dr. Conyors, but you don't have to use that tone with me. I'm just doing my job.'

‘OK, so who needs to talk to me, just give me the name and number.'

She fished paper and pen from her shoulder bag, and wrote down the info for the Croton police sergeant. Not stopping she dialed, and got through. ‘I'm Jerod Blank's admitting psychiatrist at Croton, I was told you needed to speak to me.' She quickly gave him the overview – ‘No, he's not violent' – choosing to ignore yesterday's incident with the gun. ‘The only one he's ever harmed has been himself. He does need to be found as he's the only witness in a case that could possibly turn into a double homicide … Yes, it's very possible that he did not act alone … No, I have no idea as to who might have arranged this.'

As she hung up, her cell went off.

Hobbs, who having two children of his own was no stranger to babies looked up from the couch where he had managed to calm Max, who nestled on his chest, his tiny body held fast in hairy arms. ‘Not good,' he commented.

‘Tell me something I don't know,' she said, and picked up her cell. Her gut turned at the sound of Janice Fleet's tightly clipped words.

‘I'm sorry to call you so late at home, Barrett,' her boss began, ‘but we were never able to complete our business yesterday and I needed to be certain that you were fully prepared for tomorrow's conference.'

What is she talking about?
And then she remembered the meeting with the two commissioners … and Hugh, and their talk of some kind of interagency emergency something or other that would involve way too much manpower from her agency. ‘Yes, of course. I haven't checked in with my office this afternoon. I'm sure my secretary has all the details.'

‘Barrett,' Janice warned, ‘it starts at eight in the DFYS downtown building. It's important. I need you there the whole day, and you have to represent the department with some workable solutions. I know you have other priorities, but those come second. Am I understood?'

‘Of course,' Barrett said, seeing no way out. ‘I'll be there.'

‘Please see that you are. Good night.'

Holding the cell, Barrett let out a strangled scream. First Hugh and then this … almost like the two of them had planned it.

Hobbs, now playing peek-a-boo with Max, who seemed entranced by the big detective, said, ‘I spoke with the crime-scene team, and their computer guy. Someone was on your computer last night, but the only password used was yours.'

‘It wasn't me.'

‘I know, but according to our resident geek it's not that hard to get, from going into the hard drive and looking for frequently repeated code. After that he kind of lost me. But we know that whoever went into your office knows something about computers and has more than a few IQ points.'

‘Did he say what they were looking for, or what files they went into?'

‘Your patient records.'

‘Great! The single most confidential thing there is! Whose records were breached?'

‘Didn't say, but they're probably the most recent in your history. Also, there were traces of talc on the keyboard, so it's likely they used gloves. What we need to do is have you boot up. So I thought we'd check out your office first and then shoot over to interview Ashley Kane's roommate?'

‘It's a plan,' she said, also remembering there had been mention of dinner and that the whole outing reeked of a date, albeit a twisted cop–shrink kind of one. ‘Let me check something first.' She punched into her phone's history screen and compared the numbers for Hugh and Janice – they were different.

‘You still up for this?' Hobbs asked.

‘I guess,' she said, realizing that more than anything she needed a friendly voice and someone who wouldn't ask her to do things she didn't want to do, or criticize her, or bring up topics that made her flesh crawl. ‘You sure you don't mind me bringing Max?'

‘Naah, the little monster kind of grows on you; I always thought it would be fun to have a boy, not that I'd ever let my girls know.'

‘You're good with kids,' she noted, seeing how easy he was with Max. She knew he had two daughters and an ex, but seeing him in her condo, holding Max …
What are you thinking? He's dating someone. That ship sailed, and don't you dare bring it up. You hurt him once, Barrett.

‘Love kids, probably why I stayed with Margaret long past the time we should have split. This joint-custody thing blows.'

She fixed the straps on the navy BabyBjörn sling over her shoulders and the buckle around her middle. ‘For the first few weeks I was petrified, he was so tiny,' she admitted. ‘I kept thinking I'd hurt him.'

‘They're sturdier than they look,' he said, and then, keying into something in her expression, ‘What's wrong?'

‘What's not? My boss is looking for ways to can my ass, I've got a doc at work I don't trust as far as I can throw him, Jimmy Martin is coming up for his six-month review and I think they want me to testify … Someone broke into my office, my patient just ran away from Croton, and a couple days ago I found two dead teenagers … Not a good week. And you're sure this isn't some kind of child abuse, dragging him along like this?'

‘Naah, however, should you strap the kid in Kevlar and use him as a shield …'

‘Not funny,' she said taking the now sleepy Max and arranging him in the sling.

‘Yeah, it kind of was, considering the way you dragged that social worker into that crack house yesterday.'

‘Thanks for reminding me. I've a bad feeling that I've not heard the end of that. Here, do you mind taking this?' she asked, handing him the soft-sided bag she used for baby supplies.

‘It hasn't been all bad,' he commented. ‘You did call me.'

‘True,' she said, ‘that's one for the plus column,' and then quickly added, ‘I've missed you, Ed.'

‘Ditto, just don't do it again.'

B
arrett raced up the broad steps of the conference center two blocks from City Hall Plaza. She was half an hour late, and wondered if that would be another shot of ammo Janice would lob her way. This was the last place she wanted to be. Her thoughts still on the scary interview she and Hobbs had had last night with a terrified Taylor Osborn. The eighteen-year-old had painted a picture of rampant drug abuse inside the dormitory, only instead of soft drugs like pot and alcohol, the drug of choice had become heroin. Sadly, the girl had given them little concrete, but Hobbs thought he'd be able to get the narcotics squad to try tracing the source of the dope from the dorm to its point of origin, although as he reminded her, ‘Those kind of investigations can take months … even a year or more.' But the thing tearing her up was Jerod. She feared the worst, and the more she thought about his escape, the more it seemed someone had broken him out, someone who did not have his best interest at heart. One thing Hobbs had said last night was also digging away at her: ‘Why does this Jerod kid get to you so much?' It was the kind of insightful question she'd expect from Hobbs or Houssman, and she knew that there was something about Jerod that had her pushing above and beyond where she'd normally go for a patient – especially one of hers with a long criminal history. There was something about him and it went beyond her belief that underneath it all he was a good person. Something about him that she couldn't yet get her finger on.

Inside, the soaring lobby hummed with hundreds of voices as people clustered in groups, drinking coffee and orange juice while balancing blue-paper plates of bagels and mini-Danish. She recognized a few faces, higher-level managers, the commissioner of corrections, police administrators, the chief juvenile judge … She saw that this was meant to be a big deal, or at least appear that way.

Across the ceiling a blue-and-gold banner had been hung, clarifying that she was at the N
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. Along one side of the massive entryway were cloth-covered tables that matched the banners, with coffee urns, pitchers of OJ, and tiered trays of pastries and bagels. To her right was a long bank of tables with a second banner –
Registration
. Relieved that nothing had yet started she found her name on the sign-in sheets for last names beginning with the letter ‘C' and put her initials next to it. A woman seated across, looked at the sheet and rapidly wrote Barrett's name in black magic-marker on a peel-off tag that now proclaimed
Hi, my name is Barrett Conyors, MD
– and handed it to her. ‘Here's your packet,' and she handed her a thick blue folder, the same color as the tablecloths, with her name on a sticker in the upper right corner.

With the tag stuck to the lapel of her navy blazer, she was about to head for the buffet, having raced from the house without having had a bite to eat, when a bell chimed three times.

Undeterred by the signal, she snagged a cup of coffee and a poppy-seed bagel with cream cheese. Balancing her bag and light breakfast, she turned and followed the flow of attendees into the auditorium. A sign overhead informed her no food or drink allowed inside but as no one else seemed to care, she followed suit.

Inside she immediately spotted Hugh's well-groomed head in the front row. He was looking around expectantly – hopefully, not for her. And not wanting to take that chance she headed toward the back, and spotted the TV cameras.
Great
, she thought, realizing that this was going to be televised on the government's cable channel. She also ran a mental calculation on what this shindig must be costing. There had to be over five hundred state employees in attendance, most of them toward the higher end of the pay spectrum. The day would run the taxpayers a quarter million bucks – hopefully something would come from it.

Her eyes landed on a couple empty seats in the last row. She turned to her right, nearly spilling her coffee on a short woman with white hair, ‘Excuse me,' and made a beeline, just squeezing through to one as a tall man in black jeans and blazer grabbed the other. Relieved to be far from the cameras, she sank back into the chair, coffee and bagel still intact, and quickly glanced at her neighbor. He smiled back, and she found herself staring at one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen … possibly the best-looking man ever.

He smiled over perfect teeth, and extended his hand. ‘I'm Chase Strand – DFYS.'

‘Barrett Conyors,' she said, balancing her bagel on her lap and hoping she wasn't about to drop her coffee, or otherwise embarrass herself.
God, he has gorgeous eyes – almost gold.
They reminded her of a painting she'd seen of a dark-haired Persian boy that hung at the Met.

‘Quite the turnout,' he commented. ‘Of course, my supervisor made it clear that attendance was not optional.'

‘Yes,' she said, reaching for the distraction of the blue binder that she'd wedged into the outer pocket of her bag, ‘there's a lot of that going around.' She flipped it open and felt him watching her. She looked back, wondering what had gotten his attention, and thinking that he could easily have been on the cover of a magazine.

‘
Dr.
Conyors?' he asked.

‘Yes, how did you know?'

He pointed at her lapel. ‘Your nametag. What kind of doctor?'

‘Psychiatrist,' she said, wondering at his interest, while sneaking a peak at his nametag, which showed him to be a counselor. She also noted the absence of hair on the expanse of throat and chest that showed through the open two top buttons of his dark-green shirt. ‘I work in forensics,' she added, wondering if this handsome young man would even know what that was.

‘Really, that's interesting. So the “not guilty by reason of mental insanity” people?'

‘Exactly, and quite a bit more,' she said, taking a sip of coffee and noting how dry her mouth had become. ‘And you're with the Department of Family and Youth Services.'