Harlequin Romantic Suspense January 2021 Read online

  “I was beginning to think that maybe you weren’t coming back,” she told him.

  If she hadn’t known better, January would have said that the other social worker was flirting with the detective.

  “Hello, Susan,” January said, nodding at the other woman.

  Any thoughts of a continued flirtation seemed to instantly vanish as Susan drew back her shoulders. “January, I heard you were supposed to be on vacation.”

  “Rumors of my vacation are greatly exaggerated,” January quipped, and then smiled a little wearily. “It actually starts tomorrow. Sid called and said you caught a difficult case.”

  Susan rolled her eyes as she glanced back at the little girl who wasn’t facing them. She seemed preoccupied with something on the back wall. “You can say that again. I can’t get the kid to talk to me or even acknowledge me.”

  January thought of what she would have done. “You’ve tried to talk to her about something simple?” she asked the other social worker.

  Susan grew slightly irritated. “I’m not a newbie. Of course I did.”

  “And?” January pressed. She wanted any input that Susan could provide.

  Susan raised and lowered her wide shoulders in a helpless manner. “And nothing. It’s like I’m not even there.” She blew out an exasperated breath. “If I wanted to be ignored, I would have stayed married to Geoff,” she said, frustrated. And then she looked at the detective. She obviously didn’t want him thinking that she was involved with anyone. “Geoff’s my ex-husband.”

  “I kind of gathered that.” Sean noticed that the woman who had been so ready to do acrobatics to get them out of the stalled elevator wasn’t saying anything. She seemed to be observing the little girl he had brought back with him. The little girl was wandering around the other end of the room, completely oblivious to them.

  “When I found her, she was all but curled up in a ball,” he told January. “Like she was trying to pull into herself. It was almost as if she was trying to become invisible.”

  January nodded her head. “That’s kind of theme and variation on the concept some kids have that if they close their eyes and don’t see you, you can’t see them.” She continued to thoughtfully regard the nameless little girl.

  Then she turned toward the two other adults in the room. “And she’s made no attempt to say anything to either of you?”

  “Not a word,” Susan answered. And then the woman laughed to herself. “You’d think that would be rather refreshing after some of the kids we have to deal with, you know? But the silent treatment gets old really fast, too.”

  January was only half listening to Susan. Her eyes on the little girl, January approached her slowly. The child still had her back to her when January started talking in a low, nonthreatening tone.

  “Hi, my name’s January. Like the month,” she said, since so many children had commented on her name, saying it was funny or odd. “It’s kind of silly, I know, but my mom was hoping for a boy and she didn’t have any names ready for a girl. She just looked at the calendar and picked that one.”

  The entire time she was talking to the child, the little girl was making no response. She didn’t even turn around to acknowledge the fact that she was being spoken to.

  January thought that was a little odd—and possibly telling.

  “See?” Susan said, irritated as she gestured toward the girl’s back. “She’s rude.”

  “Or scared,” Sean countered.

  But January was beginning to suspect that there was a third alternative to this scenario. Turning toward them, she said as much. “Or deaf.”

  Susan’s head jerked up. It was clear by the expression on her face that that possibility had never occurred to her.

  “You think she’s deaf?” Sean asked, surprised. That thought hadn’t occurred to him, either.

  “Very possibly,” January answered, cautiously approaching the little girl who still had her back to them. “If she’s deaf, that would explain why she didn’t look toward the door when we walked in. She was looking away at the time—and didn’t hear it.”

  Coming up behind the girl now, January lightly tapped her on the shoulder. The little girl almost jumped out of her skin as she whirled around to look at who had come up behind her, her braided brown hair flying.

  There was a look of utter surprise on her face. It was apparent that she hadn’t realized that there were two more people in the room now than there had been a moment ago. It was also obvious to January that the little girl had not connected with Susan in any fashion, but she looked very happy to see Sean.

  The little girl quickly crossed the floor to get to him and then shyly wrapped her arms around his waist, or what she could reach of it.

  “If you ask me, I’d say that you made a real connection with your potential witness,” January told him.

  Sean appeared to be surprised by the social worker’s conclusion. “I thought she was just responding to the fact that I carried her in here.”

  “There’s that, yes, but in her limited little world, you also represent her only friend right now,” January pointed out.

  Watching Sean, she saw him smiling at the little girl. It wasn’t a patronizing smile, or one that was being forced out of some sense of obligation. January liked to think that she could tell the difference and she noticed that his eyes were smiling at the child.

  “Not only that,” January added. “But she senses that you’re a good man.”

  Susan turned her thousand-watt smile on Sean, as well. “Yeah, me too,” she said, adding her voice to the tally.

  January frowned. She didn’t have time for whatever this was devolving into. Nor did she have the patience for it, not when there was a genuine, real problem before them. She made a snap decision.

  “Susan, I’ve got this,” January said, glancing at her watch. “It’s getting late. Why don’t you go home? It’s way past the end of your day.”

  The suggestion was met with instant relief. “You don’t mind?” the other woman asked, barely able to contain her eagerness.

  “No, of course not. I wouldn’t have said it if I did.” January waved the other woman toward the door. “Go home.” And as the other women began to leave, she called after her. “And Susan?”

  The younger woman stopped in her tracks and turned around. “Yes?”

  “You might want to think about a change in careers,” January suggested.

  Susan frowned, briefly torn and confused. But that quickly faded. Coming to, she lost no time in leaving the room.

  As Susan closed the door behind her, January saw Sean looking at her quizzically. She could almost read the question in his eyes.

  “I told her to go home because she wasn’t being any help and I got the sense that she was growing more and more frustrated with the whole situation. Not to mention the fact that she didn’t seem to realize that this little doll was deaf. That was rather sad,” she told him.

  “I didn’t realize it, either,” the detective pointed out.

  “Yes, but you thought she was traumatized, and you did have a lot of other things going on at the same time, like a triple murder. It’s not your job to be in tune with a scared little girl who can’t hear you speaking to her. It is, however, part of Susan’s job, as it is part of all our jobs in social services.”

  The sight of the little girl curled up on his lap warmed her heart. It told her that despite the detective’s tough-guy act, there was a warm human being beneath that exterior facade.

  “So now what do we do?” Sean asked, looking at January above the little girl’s head. “How do we go about communicating with her?”

  She gazed down compassionately. “Well, hopefully, someone taught her how to sign.”

  “You mean talking with her hands?” Sean asked, admittedly out of his depth here.

  January smiled at the detective,
nodding in response to his question. “Exactly.”

  The little girl looked as if she was falling asleep on his lap. He had never given having children a second thought—until just now. “Isn’t she a little young to know how to do that?”

  “The younger they are, the easier a time they have learning something. The school of thought is that foreign languages should be taught to children when they’re very young. Signing is just another form of a foreign language,” she told him. “Hopefully, her parents or parent was smart enough to get her into some sort of program as soon as they realized that she was unable to hear anything or anyone.”

  “Maybe she’s not deaf,” he said, thinking the matter over. “Maybe she’s just blocking everything out because she was so traumatized and she doesn’t want to deal with anything.”

  Rather than answer the detective, January took several steps back. “Annie” had her face buried against Sean’s chest. It was turned away from her. Taking in a deep breath, January let loose with an ear-splitting whistle.

  There was no reaction on the little girl’s part.

  January looked up at the detective. “She’s deaf, all right,” she told him.

  Sean, in turn, looked down at the child he was holding. There was a sadness in his eyes. “I guess she is,” he agreed, then forced himself to move on. “I take it that you know how to sign?”

  January smiled at him. “Yes, I do. Luckily, I made learning that as part of my training. There are more hearing-impaired, or partially hearing-impaired children, in the social services system than you might think. Working within this system also brings one to the inevitable conclusion that there are parents out there who should have never become parents.”

  She shivered as she thought the matter over. “Sometimes they take out their frustrations on their children in ways that are absolutely horrifying. Thank heaven that I have a family that not only keeps me grounded, but also makes me mindful that there is a brighter, more optimistic side to life. I sometimes cling to that, especially when I’m dealing with children who have been abandoned.”

  He raised his eyes to January’s. “So you do know how to communicate with her?”

  She smiled at the detective. “If she knows signing, I do.”

  “And if she doesn’t?” Sean pressed.

  She was up for that, too, if she had to be. “Then I’ll find an alternate way to communicate with her.”

  “But wait a minute.” Sean suddenly remembered something. “Didn’t that other social worker say you were going on vacation tomorrow?”

  “No,” January corrected him, “she thought I was already on vacation. It technically wasn’t supposed to start until tomorrow.”

  “Okay, so it starts tomorrow,” he said, going along with her explanation. “If that’s the case, how can you help? You’re not going to be around to work with her.” Sean nodded at the sleeping girl.

  January had already considered that. Being exposed to the child had convinced her that she couldn’t just abandon her.

  “Regarding my vacation, there’s no requirement as to where I can take it,” she informed him. “Which means I can choose to take it in my house if that’s how things play themselves out.”

  He stared at her, surprised. “So is that what you’re planning to do?”

  January looked down at the sleeping child, a smile playing on her lips. “I think so.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The little girl stirred on the detective’s lap. One moment she appeared to be sleeping peacefully, the next, her eyes flew open. She looked surprised, as if she didn’t know where she was and was desperately trying to figure it out.

  As she scrambled up into a sitting position, her large light-brown eyes darted back and forth, moving from Sean to January and then back again. Her agitation escalated by the second.

  “Can you communicate with her, let her know she’s safe?” Sean asked, doing his best to try to calm the little girl down by rocking back and forth in a soothing, comforting motion.

  “I can certainly try,” January answered.

  Okay, here goes nothing, she thought as she tapped the little girl on the shoulder to get her attention. Huge fearful eyes looked up at January.

  January smiled at her, then brought her fingers and thumb together and tapped them to her lips several times. Then extended the sign to include Sean.

  To her relief, the little girl seemed to understand. She bobbed her head up and down as a small smile blossomed on her lips.

  “What just happened here?” Sean asked. He didn’t like being kept in the dark and this was a world he knew nothing about.

  January’s triumphant smile was nothing short of dazzling as she turned toward the detective. “I think we’ve just had a breakthrough, Detective.” She smiled warmly at the little girl. “She does know how to sign.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “Did you just communicate with her?” When it had become clear that the little girl was deaf, he had thought that getting through to her would be really difficult. She represented a whole new, mysterious world to him. Now, judging by the smile on the small face, there was hope.

  “Yes I did. I asked her if she wanted to eat and she said yes,” January informed him happily. “Well, she nodded yes. But it’s practically the same thing.”

  “But she can understand you?” Sean asked, wanting to be perfectly clear on this. His eyes never left January’s face. If she was lying for some reason, maybe to bolster her own self-image, he would know.

  The social worker’s green eyes crinkled. “It would appear that she does,” she answered. She was so genuinely happy about the matter, she was positively glowing.

  As far as Sean was concerned, they had just dipped their toes in the water. Now the real work began. He had a whole list of things he wanted to know. “Can you find out her name?” he asked eagerly.

  She wanted to tell him to take things slowly, but she sensed that he wouldn’t take well to that. He would probably think she was trying to tell him his job. So, instead, she decided to make a suggestion.

  “Why don’t we get her something to eat and then, once she has something in her stomach, we can try to get some information from her—like her name.” January watched the detective’s face to see if what she was proposing irritated him.

  Sean could barely harness his impatience, but he also knew that she was right. “Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll get her something to eat.” He began to leave but he heard January call out after him.

  “Detective?”

  Sean stopped just short of the doorway and turned around. “Yes?”

  “Don’t take the elevator. If the vending machines are on another floor, you need to be able to come back. So make sure you use the stairs,” January suggested.

  The detective nodded his head. “Point taken,” he acknowledged.

  But as he started to leave the interrogation room for a second time, the little girl at the center of this drama broke away from January. Dashing up to him, the child wrapped her arms around his leg.

  “Looks like someone doesn’t want you to go,” January commented, her mouth curving in an amused smile. “I tell you what. Tell me where the vending machines are located and I’ll go get her something to eat.”

  Sean slowly returned to the table, careful not to cause the little girl to tumble backward. “That wouldn’t be very gallant of me, sending you,” he told January before taking out his cell phone.

  She thought that was rather an odd thing for him to say. She had to admit that the detective and the little girl made quite a picture together.

  “I didn’t realize being gallant was in play here,” January told him.

  “Being gallant is always in play,” he remarked. Reaching the party he was calling, his focus shifted. “Hey, Martinez.” Detective Eric Martinez was the man he occasionally partnered with since his old partner had left the
Homicide Division. “I didn’t think you’d still be here.”

  “Actually, I’m not,” Eric answered. “I’m just on my way out.”

  “Well, this won’t take long. I need you to get a sandwich and a soda from the vending machine and bring it to the second-floor interview room. No, it’s not for me,” Sean assured him when Eric made a comment about being his errand boy. “It’s for a potential witness to those warehouse murders I caught today. And don’t forget the soda,” he told Martinez, thinking the little girl had to be thirsty.

  She smiled at him, as if she somehow knew what he was doing. “Oh, and see if you can find some cookies, too. Any kind of cookies,” Sean said in response to the question the other detective asked.

  Terminating the call, Sean put his phone back in his pocket. “Okay, that’s taken care of. Food’s on its way.” He looked down at the little girl and repeated what he had just said, moving his lips very slowly. Then he felt foolish. “She probably doesn’t read lips, does she?” he asked January.

  “She might,” the social worker answered. “But right now, we have no way of knowing one way or another. Like I said, after she eats, maybe we can find answers to some of the rest of the questions that come up.”

  Just then, the little girl pulled the bottom of Sean’s jacket. When he looked at her, the little girl hooked both of her pointer fingers together in an X, then switched their positions.

  Sean looked at her hands in confusion, then raised his eyes to January’s face. “Is she trying to tell me something?”

  “I think so,” she answered the detective. January couldn’t help grinning broadly. “She just called you her friend.”

  “Is that what that means?” he asked, nodding at the little girl’s hands.

  January inclined her head. The child had obviously connected with the detective. This would make things easier in the long run, she hoped. “Yes.”

  And then, to her surprise, she watched as Sean did his best to mimic what the girl had signed to him.