Page 5 of Ultimate Justice

Noah shifted onto his side, his forehead creasing like he was having a bad dream. A lock of blond hair fell across his forehead, and the urge to reach out and brush it away welled up inside her, along with an emotion she hadn’t felt in years.

Longing. The kind she’d thought permanently dead and buried.

Aiden would have been nearly the same age as Noah. He’d also had blond hair.

Gently, she set the trash bin back on the floor. When she looked up, Noah’s lids flickered open.

His green eyes lit when he caught sight of her. “Marlie!”

“Shh.” She put a finger to her lips, glancing over her shoulder. What she ought to be doing was working, not spending time with the boy. But from the moment she’d glimpsed him in the emergency room two days ago, she’d been drawn to him in ways she couldn’t explain. “Did you sleep better last night?” she asked, knowing the last two nights had been difficult for him.

“A little.” He nodded. “It’s noisy here, and everyone keeps coming in and waking me up.”

“They do that to make sure you’re okay.” This time, she gave in to the urge and leaned over to brush the errant lock of hair from his face.

“Can you stay and talk with me some more?” The look of hope on his face made her more aware of what had been missing in her life since her world had crashed and burned—love. And someone to care for.

She hadn’t thought about it until she’d begun talking with Noah every night, something that went against her mantra to fly under the radar. To remain invisible and be left alone. That’s what she wanted. Wasn’t it?

Again, she glanced over her shoulder. “For a little while. Then I have to get back to work.”

“When can I leave?” His brow wrinkled. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Thankfully, that was true, but there was more going on behind the scenes he wasn’t aware of. Latisha Torres—Tish—Marlie’s best friend and one of North Metro’s top administrators, had mentioned there was another problem.

“But I don’t want to go back to Sheila and Mike’s.” Noah punched the mattress. “I hate them.”

“You won’t. I promise.” That was about the only thing she could promise.

Noah told her his mother had died a year ago, and he didn’t even know who his biological father was. With no other relatives to take him in, he was in the foster care system until he ran away. Since then, his foster parents had been arrested for running a drug den.

Noah had no place to go. He was completely alone in the world. Like her. No, not like her. She did have family. Her parents lived in Long Island, as did her sister and brothers with their children. Marlie hadn’t seen any of them in years. Being around them, watching them with their kids, would have been like jabbing the knife into her heart again and again and again.

“They’re trying to find a new family for you to live with.” Doing her best to put a positive slant on his terrible predicament, she gave him a forced smile.

He crossed his arms, his eyes filling with tears. Valiantly, he blinked them away. “Can you stay and talk more? Please?” The look of hopefulness on his face now mingled with desperation, making her heart squeeze.

The clock on the wall read six p.m. She’d been on shift for only two hours, and there were still plenty of rooms to clean. Garbage cans to empty. Floors to mop. At thirty-two, this wasn’t the employment she’d expected, but the anonymity suited her.

“Sure.” She sat in a chair next to the bed, and this time, the smile she gave him was genuine. “For a little while.” And because Tish had also said Noah wouldn’t talk to anyone else, not even North Metro’s child counselor. Not that she could blame him. She’d run into Dr. Michael Strobie around the hospital a few times. If she were Noah’s age, she wouldn’t want to talk to Strobie, either. Just because someone had a psychology degree didn’t make them a good shrink. Especially where children were concerned. That took a specialized degree.

“The cops wanna talk to me.” Noah’s lips twisted into a cute frown. “I don’t wanna talk to them.”

“They just want to find out who’s responsible for what happened to you.” And hopefully lock them up for the rest of their lives. Anyone who would mistreat a child… Marlie squeezed her eyes shut, desperately trying not to let the anger show on her face. Noah had enough to deal with as it was. “Why don’t you want to talk to them?” Them being the FBI, most likely. Anything involving missing children was the FBI’s domain. They even had specialized teams to find abducted and missing children. Sometimes too late. “Are you afraid of what they might ask you?”

The boy had been on the street for months now. Who knew what laws he might have broken to find food and shelter. He might have reasons for being afraid of the police. A typical sentiment of runaways. “Did you have to steal food while you were on the street?” she asked.

Long seconds went by before Noah nodded. “Can’t I just talk to you instead? I don’t want to talk to Dr. Lurch, either.”

Marlie grinned. Noah had nicknamed the hospital counselor after Lurch in The Addams Family. “Did you know game five of the World Series is on tonight? You said you loved playing baseball.”

“I love baseball.” He plucked at the slightly too-small pajamas someone had procured for him. Little baseballs, mitts, and bats adorned the sleeves. “I wish Caleb had gotten out with me. We played ball together.”

“Caleb is your friend, the other boy there with you, right?” Wherever there was. Apparently, Noah had been taken somewhere else before he’d wound up locked in that basement. He nodded. “Then I think you should tell the police everything you remember. It might help them find Caleb.” The idea that another boy was being held against his will, possibly drugged, left her with an uneasy, unsettled feeling, but there was nothing she could do about it. Aside from listening, there was nothing she could do for Noah, either.

In a day or so, arrangements would be made for him to go to another foster family, and she would never see him again. Considering she hadn’t wanted to be around children—any children—why never seeing Noah again bothered her so much was a mystery.

Voices came from the hallway, quickly growing louder.