Page 14 of The Hard Choice

“But only if she has a record.” Her picture wouldn’t be in the system if she’d never been arrested before.

“High chance she does.”

Because she just kidnapped a baby were the words Gabby didn’t add to the rest of her sentence.

“This woman has to know Melanie. I mean, she knew where to find me. That I used to…do drugs.”

“What do you remember about her?” Gabby asked.

“Not much other than she wanted Amelie.” He swore and turned his eyes to the ground muttering under his breath, “And that she was gorgeous as hell.”

A snort from Gabby told Corey she had heard his muttered words. “I meant about Melanie.”

“I don’t know.” He rolled his eyes, hating to admit more of the horrible mistakes he made while high. “I slept with a lot of women in those days. I’m better with faces than names. I don’t remember who this Melanie woman was.”

Gabby nodded, did some finger swiping on her phone, and stepped closer, showing off a photo of a woman who looked like she’d seen better days. Tousled blonde hair that probably hadn’t seen a shower in a week. Red-rimmed eyes. Hollow cheeks. Her arrest photo did not show off whatever shining qualities he obviously had seen in her to sleep with her.

But he remembered her now.

“Met her in a bar. She was a stripper. A damn good one, too. We had sex a few times, but we didn’t chat much, if you know what I mean. I don’t know much other than where she used to work.”

Which was embarrassing to admit. His daughter’s mother was a stripper. And dead. Most likely overdosed soon after leaving Amelie in his bar. Because he’d only had Amelie about two months.

“That’s a start. What bar?”

4

“Shhh. It’s okay. I promise. It’s going to be okay.”

As she cuddled the sweet baby in her arms, she wondered how much of her lie was going to bite her in the ass. Nothing was going to be okay.

She stole a baby.

Now the choice to do so was wavering. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Under pressure and everything, but a good idea.

Amelie was better off with her. A good solid citizen. No record. Good job. Decent money. Didn’t do drugs. Wonderful family. Although that last one would be hard to explain how she came to have a baby to her family. Not something she wanted to think about.

Then there was Corey. A record a mile long—or at least a half-mile. Worked at a bar. Okay, owned said bar, but whatever. She didn’t know his money situation, but if the scary-looking dudes she saw drive away that morning were any indication, he didn’t have a lot to his name. Probably owed too much money to the wrong people. Drugs. Hello, the man ate them for breakfast. A family, well, he had a brother who cared but that was it.

So yeah, Amelie was better off with her.

Except within an hour, she started to panic thinking she had made the wrong decision and went back to the bar to return her. Well, of course, she made the wrong decision. She knew it the moment she grabbed Amelie, but she found her feet moving out of the place anyway. It was confirmed like a sledgehammer ramming into her brain when she saw Corey coming out of the bar with his brother. The worry in his eyes. The way his shoulders hunched in defeat. The pain she could feel slicing all the way across the street.

Maybe Amelie wasn’t better off with her. Maybe he had changed.

Melanie hadn’t. She paid the ultimate price for it.

Maybe she shouldn’t do something so insane—and against the law.

So she did the right thing.

She followed him home, and here she stood across the street from his building, trying to find the nerve to right her terrible wrong.

She kissed Amelie on the forehead and wrapped the blanket tighter, shielding her from the blustery wind. It was cold out and she didn’t grab a damn thing as she ran out of that apartment with a baby that didn’t belong to her.

“I’m going to hell for this, Amelie. I deserve it. I wasn’t thinking. My brothers always tell me I leap before I think and it’s gonna bite me in the ass. Well, it’s taken a huge chunk out of me today.”

She let out a large breath, waited for the car to pass by, and walked across the street to an apartment building nowhere near the bar where she had nabbed a baby.

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