Page 53 of The Broken Places

It was Tommy’s number.

“Hello.”

“It’s a boy. Nine pounds even. All ten fingers and ten toes, and he looks like his mother, thank God.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

“Oh my gosh. A boy. Congratulations. How’s Sam?” A tear spilled out of her eye and tracked down her cheek, and she brushed it away, embarrassed, as though he could see her.

“She’s amazing. They both are.”

“What’s his name?”

“Beau Thomas.”

“Beau. Oh, I love it. I can’t wait to meet him.”

“We should be home tomorrow afternoon. No complications, so they’re booting us out. Come over anytime.”

“Okay. I will. How about this weekend? Tommy, hug Sam for me and kiss that baby. Hold him tight.” She pulled in a small sniffle.

“I will. Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m just happy for you. And for him. He’s got the best parents.”

“Thanks, partner. See you this weekend.”

“Bye, Tommy.”

She hung up and sat clutching her phone, a tidal wave rising inside. Her phone beeped with a text coming through, and when she looked down at it, she saw a photo of a tired but beaming Sam, a grinning Tommy, and a swaddled infant cradled in his mother’s arms. Another one came through right after, a close-up of Beau.

Brand new. Perfect in every way.

The wave of emotion crashed over her, and she dropped her phone, bringing her hands to her face as a sob broke from her mouth.

It’d been solongsince she’d cried, and now this was the second time in less than two weeks. But she couldn’t control it, was helpless against the onslaught of torment that battered her now. Seeing that precious, helpless newborn baby boy after listening to the stories of desolate adults was like a fist squeezing her heart. People didn’t naturally end up the way the prostitutes and junkies and mentally ill had ended up. They’d been twisted, most of them from the time they were no bigger than the baby in the photo being cherished by his parents.

Cherish. Cherish Joy.Howdareher mother give Cherish a name like that and then allow her to be victimized so hideously? And now, after Lennon had looked at little Beau, she wondered—what if Cherish’s mother had suffered the same fate as Cherish? What if she’d also been a victim and had known no other way? As the cycle started, it continued. It was the most disgusting irony. Fury mixed with the heartache, and she was glad. Because it made her feel more powerful, like the fire within her might burn something down if she knew where or what or whom to torch. If she knew where to direct the inferno.

But of course, she didn’t know, and that was the problem.What now?It was the question Jamal Whitaker had asked, and she understood why. If there was only one Cherish, or even only a hundred, the question would be easier to answer. But there were too many Cherishes to count. Maybe there was nothing to be done now.

She looked at the photo of Beau again, her gaze moving over his peaceful features. She had this instinct to hide him away from the harsh world. But of course, his parents were there for that. She had to remind herself that the precious new baby had loving parents who would be his soft place to land. His protectors. An exhale gusted from her mouth. And she couldn’t help thinking about all theother babies who might have been born tonight into very different situations.

“Stop,” she commanded herself. Because, really, what good was that? There was literally nothing she could do to help those nameless children.

But she also refused to pretend they didn’t exist.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Ambrose sat down on the side of the bed, running his hands through his hair and then to his shoulders as he tried to loosen the kinks in his neck. He was still shaken by what he’d seen when he’d walked into the apartment where Brandy had overdosed. It hadn’t even been the overdose—he’d seen several of those in his lifetime—as much as the sight of that little girl crying over her mother’s corpse. How long had she been on her own? And how many times would she revisit those traumatizing days in her nightmares?

He had learned to compartmentalize over the years, a necessary skill when it came to the work he did. If he took the entire world on his shoulders, he’d be rendered useless. And that wouldn’t benefit anyone, least of all him.

He stood, walked to the minifridge in his room, and grabbed a bottle of water. Then he removed the case files from his briefcase, laying the photographs of the victims and the crime scenes across the bed.

He gazed over the jumble of files and photos and reports, all of it too close together to even see clearly. With a frustrated breath, he reached for his briefcase again and took out the roll of tape he’d tossed inside, in case he needed to see the papers he’d stolen more clearly.

Ambrose moved the desk aside, and then, one by one, he taped each piece of evidence to the wall, including the online articles he’d printedout before he’d even arrived in San Francisco. He’d heard walls like this calledconspiracy boardsorcrazy wallsormurder maps. Investigators gave them all sorts of names, and some even used strings to connect one thing to another. But whatever you called them, they worked. And sometimes you spotted something you would never have spotted because everything you had was directly in front of you at the same time.

It wouldn’t necessarily happen immediately after he stood back and studied it, the way he was doing now. But the point was to imprint it on his mind and allow his brain to make connections, if it could find any. And sometimes, something would just niggle at him for reasons he couldn’t articulate. And he’d come to count on the fact that 99.9 percent of the time, there was something there, whether he could explain how his brain had made the connection or not. The mind was a pretty miraculous thing.

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