Jingle Bones Read online

  “She’s okay,” I said aloud, as if to reassure myself. “Jitty, she’s okay.”

  Still wearing the black guise of Rosemary, Jitty leaned against the wall. “See why I had to wake you up? The doorbell rang several times, but you just hid under your pillow.”

  I had a vague recollection of the doorbell, but I didn’t have time to argue. I picked up the phone and called the Sunflower County Sheriff’s office. While the baby wasn’t bleeding, someone surely was and the pool of blood on the front porch told me the baby delivery person was badly injured. I wondered if the mother of the infant was bleeding out.

  When the dispatcher said she’d call Coleman and send him to Dahlia House, I called Doc Sawyer and then Tinkie. Until help arrived, I bundled the infant in a blanket I warmed by the oven and pulled her into my arms and held her close. The small sounds of fretfulness stopped, and the baby was instantly asleep.

  “She likes you,” Jitty said, as if it were a miracle.

  “I saved her from freezing. Why shouldn’t she like me?”

  “That maternal instinct is kickin’ in.” Jitty tugged at her black mini-dress. “Time for a wardrobe change and company is at the door.” In a little sprinkle of black confetti that disappeared before it hit the ground, she was gone.

  Before I could turn around, I heard Coleman Peters, the sheriff of Sunflower County and a man I had unresolved feelings for, call to me from the front door. “Sarah Booth, what’s all the blood at the door? Are you okay?”

  “In the kitchen,” I answered.

  He strode toward me, his footsteps loud on the hardwood floor. When he pushed the swinging door into the kitchen, he stopped dead in his tracks. “Where’d you get a baby?”

  The tone of the question was wrong. “As if I couldn’t have one myself? There’s nothing wrong with my reproductive organs.”

  “Hard to do without having sex, and that hasn’t happened for a while,” he said drolly. “I know. I’m keeping score, as best I can.”

  I wanted to smack him, but I was holding the infant. “She was left on the front porch. Someone took off in a dark pickup, like maybe a 1990 model Ford, single cab, long wheel base.” I’d come to know my pickups because I’d been shopping for a used truck. A 1990 model was a little too used, but I liked the design.

  “Someone just abandoned her?”

  “I’d tell you in sign language but I’m holding the baby.” I was aggravated and didn’t try to hide it.

  “I didn’t realize just holding an infant could send a body into hormonal fluctuation but you’re sounding might testy, Sarah Booth.”

  “Indeed she is.” Tinkie pushed through the swinging door and stopped beside Coleman. Instead of saying anything else, she merely held out her arms to the infant. Without her saying a word, I clearly heard, “Give her to me.”

  “How do you know it’s a her?” I asked.

  “The blanket is pink. Don’t you know anything about babies?” Tinkie advanced and I put the baby in her arms.

  “Is she okay?” Coleman asked. “There was a lot of blood on the porch.”

  “She’s fine, and Doc Sawyer is on the way. But someone is seriously hurt. We need to find the person in the truck before she dies.” Who else would leave a newborn but the mother?

  “Good point. I’ll call the sheriff’s office and put out an APB on the truck.” He kept staring at the baby as if he’d never seen one before. She was exceptionally pretty, with a mop of red hair. Her eye color was undetermined, but her pale complexion hinted that she would likely be a fair-eyed lass.

  “Who would leave a baby at your door?” Tinkie asked.

  “Is that some slur against my maternal abilities?”

  Tinkie’s laughter was like a delicate chime. “You are so sensitive! Of course not, but Dahlia House isn’t exactly on the beaten path. Why would a person drive all the way down your long driveway to leave a baby on the front porch? There are plenty of houses closer to the road.”

  She made a certain kind of logic. “Maybe they didn’t want to be seen.”

  “Or maybe, this baby was left here especially for you,” Coleman said. “Sarah Booth, you haven’t been buying babies on the black market, have you?”

  “Have plenty of fun at my expense,” I said, pretending to still be aggravated. “What we need to focus on is finding the bleeding person. What if the mother is really hurt?”

  All humor was gone from Coleman’s voice as he put an arm around me. “We’ll find the mother, Sarah Booth. Now I’ll call child services and we’ll get this young lady into a foster home until—”

  “No!” Tinkie and I said together.

  “You can’t do that.” Tinkie had instinctively turned to shield the baby. “Sarah Booth and I will take care of her until we find the mother. It shouldn’t take long. She simply can’t go into the system.”

  Coleman frowned. “I can’t just let you take her. I have to turn her over to child services.”

  “If you do that, it could take months for the mother to get her back. These first few days are so important for the bonding process,” I said. I didn’t have a lot of experience, but I’d read articles. And I could lay a line of bullshit when necessary. “Failure to bond can be a very serious psychological issue. It could damage her permanently.”

  “That’s right.” Tinkie followed my lead perfectly. “If a child develops an attachment disorder it can ruin her life. Sociopaths and psychopaths start with attachment disorders. This baby needs love, security, the chance to bond.”

  “And you and Sarah Booth can give her that?” Coleman sounded more than a little skeptical.

  I looked at Tinkie and the way she held the baby cuddled to her chest. She’d always wanted a child. Fate had decreed she’d never have one. “Tinkie and Oscar would be the best home,” I said. “She’ll have everything a baby needs to thrive. And it’s just until we find the mother.”

  “What if the mother doesn’t want her?” Coleman asked, and deep in his blue eyes I saw real concern. “What if she dumped the kid and took off? Or what if she wants the baby back but has issues of her own? Tinkie, you know you’ll have to give her up. I don’t think this is a smart move.”

  Tinkie inhaled slowly. “I know it’s emotionally dangerous, but I promise you, Coleman, I won’t fight the natural mother. That wouldn’t be right. I just want to give the little girl a good start.”

  The debate halted as Doc Sawyer, a “retired” general practitioner who still ran the emergency room at the county hospital, entered the kitchen.

  “Well, well,” he said, eyeing the baby and all of us standing around in the kitchen. “Looks like the stork came by and left a bundle of joy. Where’s the mother? Why am I here?”

  “Long story,” I said, “Tinkie will fill you in.”

  As Doc picked up the baby, I followed Coleman to the front door.

  “I don’t like this. There are a million ways this could go south and Tinkie is going to be crushed. She’s only held the baby for ten minutes and she’s already attached.” He opened his forensic kit to begin working the blood at the front door. “If this turns bad, Tinkie is going to be hurt.”

  He spoke with wisdom, but there were also dangers to the child. “The mother can’t be far away. The baby hasn’t even been properly cleaned. And you know as well as I do that once that baby is in the system, it could be devastating to the child.”

  “I don’t disagree. Child services does the best job they can, but they have no budget and they have more cases than they can work.”

  “This fostering is temporary. I promise. Just for a day or two?”

  He nodded. “You’ve got forty-eight hours. After that, I’ll have to follow the law.”

  “Thanks, Coleman. Now let me throw on some jeans and a jacket. Dawn will be here soon and I need to get to work on finding the woman who had that baby.”

  “There’s a lot of blood here, Sarah Booth. I’m no expert on childbirth, but this doesn’t look right to me, even if she had it right here on you
r front porch.”

  He was right about that.

  “That baby could have frozen to death out here. How’d you know to look out the door at three in the morning?” Coleman took blood samples and photographs as he talked.

  “The person who left her rang the doorbell. Repeatedly. She waited in the driveway until I went out on the porch and picked the baby up. She made sure the infant was safe before she left.” And she had been bleeding heavily. It tore at my heart. “I think whoever left the baby was trying hard to make sure she was taken care of.”

  Coleman pushed his hat back on his head as he stood up. “The more I hear, the less I like it. It sounds like the person was desperate.”

  “And the question to ask is ‘Why?’ Why didn’t they just wait for me to help them once I’d taken the baby inside?”

  “Because they have something to hide.” Coleman’s frown said a lot. If it was the mother who’d left the baby and who was bleeding so profusely, she was in serious trouble. A woman who abandoned her child—but made sure it was safe—and then ran away had to be in a world of hurt.

  “You think she’s a criminal?” I somehow couldn’t put the mother of that beautiful child in the category of felon.

  “I don’t know, but she’s running from something or someone. The bigger question is why you, Sarah Booth? Why Dahlia House? You weren’t picked at random. The baby was brought here, specifically, to you.”

  “Because the mother wants someone to find her. That’s what I do. I find people and things.”

  “And you’re damn good at it.” He gathered his evidence and came to stand only inches from me. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “Thanks, Coleman.” He’d helped me more than he knew. I hurried back inside before my feet froze to the porch.

  About the Author

  CAROLYN HAINES is the author of the Sarah Booth Delaney mysteries. She is the recipient of both the Harper Lee Distinguished Writing Award and the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence. Born and raised in Mississippi, she now lives in Semmes, Alabama, on a farm with more dogs, cats, and horses than she can possibly keep track of. You can sign up for email updates here.

  Also by Carolyn Haines

  Sarah Booth Delaney Mysteries

  Bone to Be Wild

  Booty Bones

  Smarty Bones

  Bonefire of the Vanities

  Bones of a Feather

  Bone Appétit

  Greedy Bones

  Wishbones

  Ham Bones

  Bones to Pick

  Hallowed Bones

  Crossed Bones

  Splintered Bones

  Buried Bones

  Them Bones

  Novels

  Revenant

  Fever Moon

  Penumbra

  Judas Burning

  Touched

  Summer of the Redeemers

  Summer of Fear

  Nonfiction

  My Mother’s Witness: The Peggy Morgan Story

  As R. B. Chesterton

  The Darkling

  The Seeker

  Thank you for buying this

  St. Martin’s Press ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Jingle Bones

  Teaser: Rock-a-Bye Bones

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  About the Author

  Also by Carolyn Haines

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  JINGLE BONES. Copyright © 2015 by Carolyn Haines. All rights reserved. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Cover design by Kerri Resnick

  Cover illustration © paulista / Shutterstock

  e-ISBN 9781250089069

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].

  First Edition: October 2015