Now she pulled up cautiously in front of one of the mammoth homes. It sat well back from the cliff, but if Mother Nature had her way, the house might eventually become an abandoned ruin as well. The lawsuits over this construction folly were ongoing and vicious. All that was needed was for some vagrant to either burn the place down or get in some accident where he was injured or killed.
Her cell phone buzzed. She picked it up and glanced down at its face as she was opening her door. Clausen. Her unofficial partner at the moment. Grimacing, knowing what she would hear, she answered cautiously, “Hey, there.”
“Savannah, what the goddamn hell? Don’t you dare go into that building alone! You shouldn’t be there.”
She found herself irked beyond measure. They all treated her like she was porcelain these days. “Then get your ass down here, Fred,” she snapped.
“I’m on my way. Don’t go in there!”
“I’ll wait,” she said, punching the off button on her phone.
Over the past six months she’d changed from the quiet newbie on the force to the impatient, growling pregnant woman with no sense of humor. Well, too damn bad. Yes, pregnancy had transformed her, and yes, everyone in the department wanted to baby and coddle her, and yes, there was a part of her that appreciated it, but damn it all . . . she could still make her own choices. Being knocked up hadn’t addled her brain.
Much.
She grimaced as she stepped outside, feeling the cold drops fall on her head. She quickly pulled up the hood of her jacket before the precipitation could flatten her hair to her scalp. The reasons for agreeing to become her sister’s surrogate were actually getting a little harder to remember. Kristina had begged, begged, begged her to help her have a baby, as she and her husband, Hale, were unable to conceive. Savannah had reluctantly agreed, even going so far as to volunteer to be a surrogate. In actual fact it was a gestational pregnancy: the embryo created by Kristina’s egg and Hale’s sperm had been implanted into Savannah’s womb. She was merely the vessel to give them their heart’s desire, except . . . recently she’d wondered if her sister was really feeling the same all-consuming need to be a mother. She’d been so gung ho, almost desperate, in the beginning, but as her due date approached, Savannah had sensed a weakening in Kristina’s ardor to join the ranks of motherhood. Troubling, especially when Hale St. Cloud’s enthusiasm had always been a little hard for Savannah to read. But then Hale was part Bancroft, as in Bancroft Bluff, and he was involved in the family real estate business with his grandfather, Declan Bancroft, an irascible entrepreneur who’d begun Bancroft Development decades before. Though Savvy had met Declan only a handful of times, it was clear he was a real piece of work, and she figured that Hale was probably cut from the same cloth.
But their baby boy was on his way, and they both were going to have to step up and soon. Savannah kept telling herself that once the baby was here, their maternal and paternal instincts would kick in. They all, herself included, were just feeling the predelivery jitters.
Expelling her breath, she looked toward the largest house in this cul-de-sac cluster. The Donatellas’. Right on the cliff’s edge and being eroded underneath. She knew it well, as it had been the scene of a double homicide earlier in the year, which was still under investigation. The case had languished for months with no new information.
Savannah walked a few steps closer to the behemoth of a house, her eyes taking in the red tile roof and the wrought-iron filigree of the Spanish Colonial. It was too dangerous to enter, but she wasn’t in need of going inside, as it wasn’t the one with the reported vagrants. That house was coming up on her right—a Northwest contemporary—and, though it was still standing on firm ground, given enough time, it looked to be in definite peril of crashing down to the beach far below. She could smell smoke in the damp air. The nut bag inside had built himself or herself a fire.
She hoped to God it was in one of the fireplaces.
Waiting impatiently for Clausen, she let her gaze fall to her own wide stomach, which was already straining her jacket’s buttons. Man, she was going to be glad to be herself again. This “looking like a beached whale” thing was highly overrated, no matter what anyone said.
Five minutes later Clausen pulled into the drive in a department-issued black Jeep with TILLAMOOK COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT slashed across it in italicized, bold yellow letters. Someone had dubbed the officers bumblebees, which was maybe better than pigs, but the jury was still out on that.
Clausen, midfifties, with short gray hair and a roundish body, which he was constantly trying to keep from becoming full-on fat, stalked up to her hatless, water coalescing in his hair. “Stay out here,” he ordered.
“Bite me,” she returned.
“Jesus, Dunbar. Pregnancy has made you unreasonable.”
“Cranky, yes, but I’m the voice of reason.”
He shot her a look that could have meant anything and then headed to the front door and turned the knob. “Locked,” he said.
“Must be a way in.”
“Stay here. I’ll go around the back.”
She bit back what she wanted to say about that and let him commandeer the investigation as he was her senior and felt he was just plain better than she was, anyway. Tamping down her annoyance, she stepped onto the porch and kept her eyes on the front door, flanked by two shuttered windows. The owners of this house had all but abandoned it, as had most of those who owned property here, and she could see the first signs of neglect: blistering paint on the siding, a yard where dandelions and crabgrass were edging out the lawn, a weathered welcome sign that listed to one side.
Her cell phone blooped, meaning someone had sent her a text, and she glanced down at her pocket, debating about checking it.
Suddenly the front lock clicked loudly, and the door swung inward. Savannah placed her hand on the butt of her gun, which was sticking up from her hip holster. A man came staggering through, his eyes wild, his breathing rapid. He stopped short upon seeing Savannah. His hair was chin length, matted and separated, and his beard was an uneven mess of brown and gray. If he’d changed his clothes in this decade, she would have been surprised. His denim jeans were more brown than blue, and his shirt was also brown, though she suspected it hadn’t started out that color. She hoped to hell it was from dirt.
“Ohhh . . .” he said, his eyes traveling down to her girth. He staggered forward, and she stepped back, her hand yanking out the gun.
“Don’t move,” she ordered fiercely, but his hands reached out and his palms spread over her belly, even while she held up her gun.
“A baby,” he said, his mouth showing a gap-toothed smile.
Her barrel was pointed at his chin, but he didn’t seem to notice. She hesitated, her heart pounding, and then Clausen shot through the door behind him, saw he was right in front of her, grabbed the guy by his collar, and yanked him backward, hard.
“Police! Get down on the ground!” he ordered. His own gun had jumped into his hand.