I lugged the baby carrier to the passenger side of the car and set it down. The black sky that arched over the electric lights of the city had bleached gray. Dawn was only a couple minutes away.

In the glove compartment I found it, the Bluebonnet Women’s Club directory, just where Elizabeth had told me to keep it. “You’ll be driving to book club or craft group or a fund raiser meeting and you’ll need to check an address,” she’d said, “or you’ll be out and you’ll want to meet up with people, and you’ll be glad it’s there. I’m never at home when I need mine.”

But I didn’t flip through it by the dome light. I had my back to Grace for only a second before I seized the book and got out of the car. I didn’t even want to blink for fear something might attack us. I hauled her back into the station, all the way to the courtesy phone, and only then did I flip through the book for the home number I needed. I knew I would wake Alondra, but I dialed anyway.

As it rang, my nerves winched tighter and tighter. And when the call hit voice mail, I dialed again. And again. The fourth time, a woman answered, snapping, “What?”

“Alondra?”

“Hold on.”

And then Alondra was on the phone, listening as I gasped out words that didn’t make any sense, “Michael” and “murder” and “police station.”

The only question she asked was, “Which one?”

I hung up the phone, exhaustion flooding me instead of relief. Alondra would take care of Michael, and I’d take care of my baby. Normally Grace could go longer than two hours, but she was already chewing on her fist.

Returning to Officer Navarro, I asked, “Is there a place, I mean, someplace private, I could nurse?”

Right on cue, Grace made a gurgle that ended in a complaint.

The officer smiled. “Sure. We’ve got a community room that nobody’s using right now. Come on through.”

She buzzed the door open, and I hefted Grace’s carrier and walked in, listening hard, but I didn’t hear Michael’s voice anywhere. When Officer Navarro met me in the hallway, I asked point-blank, “Are they going to question me? Or at least tell me what’s going on?”

Her friendliness faded a little, as if she suspected that I’d used Grace to try to get some information, but then another cry, sharper, came from the carrier to bolster my story. “I really can’t say.” Officer Navarro reached out a finger to stroke Grace’s hand. “I mean, I don’t know. Let me show you to the community room, you can get this little one fed, and I’ll follow up with Detective Clark.”