A long silence stretched out and it took everything Lila had not to push. She had to be patient. She couldn’t overwhelm Carrie or she might lose. This had to be her choice.

Her head came up, her eyes lit with will for the first time since Lila had met her. “My husband hit me. He was angry that you talked to the sheriff. Apparently Armie has been asking questions around town, and he even got in touch with Bobby’s ex-wife. Bobby started drinking last night and that’s when he punched me. And two years ago he kicked me in the stomach and I lost our first baby. My baby. It was my baby, and this one is my baby, too, and I cannot lose it.”

Then again, some women found an iron will of strength when they realized they were going to be mothers.

“I always wondered about that,” Mabel said quietly. “I remember your first miscarriage. Doc didn’t ask, and I thought we should. He told me we had to keep our noses out of other people’s business. He was old school, but I think in this case he was wrong.”

He’d had a duty and he’d failed. She was not going to. It didn’t matter that it might not work, that she was putting herself in a position she’d been in before. There was right and there was wrong, and her own fear had no place here. “Let me get you to that shelter.”

Tears dripping from her eyes, Carrie nodded.

chapter twelve

“He’s already lawyered up,” Roxie said, her voice coming over his cell phone. “His brother found a lawyer from New Orleans who’s willing to work with them since Quaid turned them down.”

Armie sighed, but Roxie’s news hadn’t been unexpected. “He can’t post bail tonight. We’ve got at least until tomorrow morning.”

He stared down from the balcony. Bourbon Street was well warmed up for the night. He knew he should have picked a quieter hotel, but Lila had never been to New Orleans and he wanted to show it off to her.

They’d left Carrie at the nondescript house at the edge of the city that served as the women’s shelter for this part of Orleans Parish. It was a large home in a nice neighborhood. If a person wasn’t aware of what the home served as, he or she might think it was simply an upper-middle-class home where they took security seriously. It was peaceful, and damn he hoped it stayed that way.

He’d managed to talk Lila into staying in town for dinner. They’d checked into one of the nicer hotels in the Quarter, had dinner, and walked the streets, her hand in his. Still, he was worried about her.