Twisted and Tied (Marshals 4)

“What?” I asked anxiously.

“Where’s your breast pump?” Catherine inquired, knowing exactly what the issue was without having to be told.

“How’d you know?” I asked her.

“Because she was holding her breast, Miroslav.”

“I love it when you use my whole name.”

“Oh, I know,” she scoffed, getting the pump for Janet while I turned on the TV as they messed with the electric contraption that would also make the trip.

“Miro, honey,” Janet said, chuckling, which was nice to hear, “instead of trying to drown out the pump, why don’t you go put the suitcases in the car.”

I did as I was told.

Once they were done, I packed the breast pump in the trunk as well, and then I asked Janet if there were things of her mother’s she wanted to take from the house.

“You’re gonna laugh,” she said softly.

Both Catherine and I turned to look at her.

“All the stuff my mom left me is still in storage in Chicago.”

“In that place we all shared?” I asked.

She nodded.

“No shit?” Catherine exhaled sharply, smiling brightly. “How fortuitous.”

I snorted as we all heard a car pull up beside the row house. After walking out the front door, the three of us stood on the stoop and looked at the car. I saw Aruna first, smiling like a crazy woman, waving from the front seat, and then Ian emerged from the driver’s side before opening the back door and getting out a car seat. He came around the trunk of the car and up onto the stoop as Aruna stepped out on the sidewalk.

Janet burst into tears as Ian passed Cody to her. He was very pink, with wisps of red hair, and he had Janet’s cute little button nose. There was a moment of yawning, then squirming before he settled again and made bubbles on his lips.

“Oh, he’s beautiful,” Catherine gushed.

“He’s pink,” I said.

“He’s perfect,” Aruna sighed as she joined us.

“He’s got some serious lungs,” Ian remarked, eyes big for a second.

Aruna chuckled, patting his face for a moment before moving around me to reach Janet.

“You guys,” she whimpered, back to crying.

“What took you so long?” I asked Ian. “You go there, you kick down the door, you grab the kid—what the hell?”

“Oh no,” Aruna corrected me. “We went to the police station first.”

I looked at Ian.

“What?”

I crossed my arms, waiting.

“New job had me thinking,” he said, reaching up to brush my hair out of my eyes. “That going in by the book, doing things with a handshake instead of a fist—I mean, that’s the way to do it, right?”

“It is.”

“Oh, you should have seen him,” Aruna sighed like she was smitten with him, sliding one arm around Ian’s back, one hand on his abdomen. “He was so calm.”

“Were you calm?” Catherine asked as Janet rocked the baby.

“No,” Aruna admitted, “but I kept my mouth shut while Ian talked to the desk sergeant and then the police captain, and showed them the approved restraining order and explained the situation. Then when we got to the house, he knocked, and when Ned came to the door, he showed him the order and asked him to give Cody to him.”

“And?” Catherine prodded.

“And when he said they couldn’t come in, one of the policemen stepped in front of Ned, served him the restraining order, and told him that they were there to take the child into protective custody, and to step aside or they would make him.”

“But Ned has as much right to the baby as Janet does, then,” I said, glancing at her.

“Yes,” Aruna answered. “Except that he had Janet placed on a seventy-two-hour psych hold that was bullshit, and he’s going to have to explain that to try to reverse the restraining order, as well as during the divorce.”

“Divorce?” I asked.

“Oh hell yeah,” Janet said, starting to cry again.

“So we all packed up?” Ian wanted to know, trying to change the subject, crying having always been hard on him. He’d watched his mother cry herself a river after his father left, and then go silent and dead inside. He had an aversion to it that, somehow, did not include me. When I did it, it brought out every protective instinct he had. Fortunate for me it worked like that.

Janet nodded quickly before passing me Cody and launching herself at Ian. He rocked her with as much gentleness as she had her child.

We caravanned back to the airport, and after we checked the bags, paying a mint because they were way overweight, we got out the stroller and car seat for inspection, let them wand the baby and Janet, and then Janet and Cody together checked Catherine over because she kept beeping, finally figuring out it was probably her diamond tennis bracelet—even with all that, the girls made it through before Ian and me with our guns.

“Holy crap.” Janet was amazed, finally smiling, feeling truly safe and untouchable on the other side of the security checkpoint. “I thought they were going to strip-search you guys.”