Dark Lava: Lei Crime Book 7 (Lei Crime Series) (15 page)

“
I understand. I hope, in the meantime, we can at least visit the baby. Supervised, of course,” he said, hoping to diffuse her tension. He needed this woman on his side.

“
Of course!” She smiled, clearly relieved he wasn’t going to fight her on the terms of custody. “He is stable and doing well since he got into the neonatal unit, and actually, he’s due to leave the hospital tomorrow if his vitals stay good. We’ve set up a very nice placement for him, and you can arrange visits with the foster family when you and your wife are able to come.”

His son was definitely going
into foster care.

Stevens fought to keep his voice even. “
Thank you. Please do the very best you can for him.”

“
Oh, I did.” Fujimoto handed him the clipboard. “Some background information, here, while I tell you about the placement.” She proceeded to natter on about the foster family, how many babies they’d cared for with the state, how wonderful they were. Stevens kept his attention focused on filling in the little boxes on the form. He was done with it all by the time she’d begun to wind down, and he handed it back to her.

“
Any chance we can go look at him in the nursery?”

“
Of course.” Fujimoto stood up and led the way to the elevators. “Tell me a little about your home situation. I understand you were recently married?”

“
Yes.” He didn’t know how to address the thorny issue of Anchara’s pregnancy so close to his own wedding, so he left it at that.

They got on the elevator. “
And according to your captain, you weren’t aware the baby’s mother was pregnant?”

Stevens felt a flash of heat on the back of his nec
k at her insinuating tone. He reached out and punched the Stop button. Fujimoto’s eyes got big behind her glasses, and he held his hands up in a “surrender” gesture. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her.

“
Let me just tell you the situation as best I can, now that we have a little privacy. Anchara was my wife. We probably shouldn’t have married—we had issues from before day one—but I was trying to make it work. It wasn’t enough for her. As soon as she knew she was getting her green card, she left me. She slept with me on her way out the door, literally, and must have gotten pregnant. I never saw her in person again, and even though we were in contact through e-mail, she never said a word about the baby. I paid her support every month and wished her well—there was regret between us, but nothing more. She even came to my wedding to Lei, but I didn’t see her there.” He drew a breath, pushed a hand through his hair. “Then, out of the blue, she called me, asking for help. Claimed to be ‘injured’ and unable to meet me at a restaurant I asked for. She insisted on meeting at that motel.”

“
That was when you found her, already dying?” Fujimoto frowned.

“
Yes. She was bleeding out from stab wounds. I did first aid and CPR. The paramedics took her away, and the baby was delivered by emergency cesarean. That’s why he was deprived of oxygen.” He forcefully suppressed the memory of Anchara’s pale face and thready voice, begging him to take the baby sooner.

While she was alive.

Stevens found himself trembling at the memory of the scene and steadied himself by putting a hand on the wall. “So, I understand why I’m being looked at as a suspect, but I swear to you, on a stack of Bibles, I had nothing to do with her death.”

“
So what makes you think you should be the person to raise her son?”

“
Because, however things started, he’s my son, too.”

“
Well, he could have brain damage. Disabilities. Because of the oxygen deprivation. Are you prepared to deal with that?”

“
He’s my son. It doesn’t matter what needs he has. I’ll stand by him.”

“
And your new wife? How does she feel about raising your ex’s child? One who might even be disabled?”

“
She’s just as committed as I am.” He bit the inside of his cheek, hoping that was true.

Fujimoto turned to the control panel a
nd pressed the floor number. They started moving again. “I appreciate hearing your version of events.”

They rode up to the neonatal floor in silence.

As he stood in front of the glass viewing window into the nursery, Stevens’s heart raced. He could see Fujimoto inside, talking to the nurse in front of one of the square, glass incubators. Around the open room, he could see babies in various levels of care, from tiny preemies in isolation units with spaces where hands could be inserted into gloves inside, to ones like the one his son was in, a rounded Plexiglas orb. He couldn’t see much, but his eyes fastened, as if magnetized, on the tuft of dark hair not hidden by Fujimoto’s bulk.

As if he
’d conjured a response, Fujimoto turned and gestured to him to enter.

Stevens’s hands broke out in sweat as he pressed down on the door handle. His heart pounded. Was he scared? Excited? He didn’t know. He wished suddenly and desperately that he hadn’t undertaken this alone and that Lei was by his side.

He navigated the unfamiliar setting and came to stand in front of the unit, gazing in at the tiny swaddled form.

The baby’s eyes were closed, and even though he looked as anonymous as any newborn, there was a pleasing symmetry to his round head, rosebud mouth, and delicate, shell-like ears. His hair was jet-black, thick and long, and reminded him of Anchara, which brought a stab of sorrow. He’d heard the baby was almost full term, but Anchara had been a small woman, so perhaps that explained how ridiculously little the child looked, no bigger than a football.

Blood was roaring in his ears so loudly it was hard to understand the nurse. “
You can sit and hold him,” he heard her say. “Put on this gown and gloves. He’s doing great, but we keep a sterile environment in here.”

“
Okay.” Stevens got the gown on over his clothes, put on gloves and a mask. Fujimoto put one on, too. He sat down on the rocking chair next to the unit, feeling stupid, inept, terrified—as if poised at the top of a roller coaster ride that would change his life forever.

The nurse opened the pod. Stevens felt a draft of the warmth that surrounded the baby, and the next moment she handed him the child, wrapped in a pale bl
ue blanket.

His son
’s head fit perfectly into Stevens’s palms, and the baby’s body lay easily on his forearms. There was a light, springy quality to the tiny body in his arms, as if any moment the child could arch into the air and fly. He could feel the baby warming him. Stevens stroked the tracery of an eyebrow, and as his finger brushed the baby’s cheek, the pink mouth opened, making kissing movements.

“
Rooting reflex,” the nurse said. “Touches to the face activate the baby looking for the breast.”

“
Afraid he’s going to be disappointed in me.” Stevens’s voice sounded squeaky.

“
Not necessarily. Would you like to feed him? It’s almost time. He eats every two hours.”

The baby
’s eyes opened. He arched his body, stretching, a surprisingly strong movement, and yawned. His gaze steadied, fastening on Stevens’s face. His eyes were cloudy gray, a shade somewhere between blue and brown. He yawned again and turned his head to mouth the side of Stevens’s glove-covered hand.

Stevens felt something powerful seize hold
of his heart, and he knew he’d just fallen into a love as strong as the one he had for his wife.

The nurse had been preparing a bottle, and she handed it to Stevens. She showed him how to tuck the child against his chest in the crook of his arm and to keep the bottle at an angle to minimize bubbles: “
or else he’ll get gas and be all fussy.”

Stevens fe
lt like he could gaze at the child’s face all day. The baby seemed equally smitten, staring up at Stevens as he worked the rubber nipple, jaws pumping energetically.

“
What are you going to name him?” Fujimoto asked softly.

He glanced up at her, surprised.
“I get to name him?”

She shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “
The child needs a name.”

“
I have Lei looking into what Anchara was going to name him. She deserves that we do our best to honor her wishes.” Stevens looked back down into the baby’s hypnotic face. “What color are his eyes going to be?”

The nurse answered. “
Probably brown, given his hair color—but with your blue eyes, they could be green. You won’t know for a few months.”

Stevens stayed through feeding, burping, and changing under the nurse
’s tutelage until Fujimoto began getting restless. Finally, reluctantly, he handed his son back to the nurse. “How soon will we know if he’s sustained any brain damage?”

“
There’s no easy way to tell. All his reflexes and vitals are normal at this point. It could take as long as school to show up, perhaps as a learning disability. You just have to stay positive,” the nurse said.

“
I will definitely do that.” Stevens tore his gaze away from the baby as the nurse put him back into his pod. Stevens stripped off the scrubs and threw everything in a bin, and made himself walk away. His heart lurched at the thin wail he heard from the unit.

Fujimoto patted his arm, and he realized he
’d forgotten she was even there.

“
You’ll do fine,” she said, and he heard support in her voice. He blinked hard, and as they stepped into the hallway, he turned to Fujimoto and shook her hand.

“
Thank you so much.”

“
I’m sorry how things started for this little guy, but I think they’re going to end up fine.” Fujimoto’s eyes were misty, too. “I’ll be in touch to give you the foster family’s contact information.”

“
Is it okay if I just stay here awhile?” He thought he could still hear the baby crying.

“
Of course. Perhaps you can see him again tomorrow.”

“
Definitely. Please, if you can make the time. I’ll get a hotel for tonight. I have some police business I can do here, but I want to see him every minute I can.”

“
In that case, I’ll sign a waiver that you can visit him as long as the nurse stays with you. I’ll leave it at the front desk.”

“
Thank you.” Impulsively, he bent and kissed her cheek.

Darlene Fujimoto flapped a hand and blushed. “
See you tomorrow, Lieutenant.”

He was already looking back through the window into the nursery.

Lei uploaded the dead man’s prints into AFIS and Interpol. Though they’d found no ID at the scene, the sleek hair and pricey clothing of the victim spoke of Europe to her. She and Torufu logged the evidence items in one by one, but even as she worked on building the case file, one part of her mind was on Stevens.

Going to Oahu to see his baby.

They had to clear him in Anchara’s murder quickly, or the child would go into foster care. Probably no way around it, the way things were going.

She remembered her own stints in foster care way too well; the one where she
’d slept in a bed with another little girl who wetted. Nightly humiliation, sheet-changing, and doing laundry with the foster mom yelling at them and the other little girl blaming Lei. The home where she got on a truck with the other kids every afternoon and worked on a taro farm, knee-deep in mud from when school ended to dark, for “character-building.” The one where “Uncle Joe” and “Aunt Sarah” had them pray for hours, on their knees, and fast once a week. Most of all, never belonging, minimally cared for by people who couldn’t emotionally afford to love her.

Even as she typed the scene report, the last resistance to the idea of adopting the baby evaporated. However un
prepared, she and Stevens were the baby’s family, and she wouldn’t let him stay stuck in foster while there was breath in her body to stop it.

“
Abe.” She turned to her partner. Torufu looked up from the hand-held jack on the worktable—he was dusting it down for prints. “I need to go talk to someone. Can you finish up here?”

“
Sure.” He had one of those toothpicks he liked to chew between his front teeth. “Everything okay, Mrs. Stevens?”

“
Not really.” She described the situation with the baby. “We need to get Stevens cleared on his ex’s murder as soon as possible.”

Torufu
’s expressive brown eyes were compassionate. “You know it looks bad.”

“
I know. But that shroud tells us it’s the perp who threatened us. We just need to prove it. I want to see what’s going on with the case.”

“
Go.” He flapped a hand. “I’ll say you’re out on a smoke break, if anybody asks.”

“
Right.” She snorted a laugh. “I’ll be back soon.”