1st Case - James Patterson Page 0,89

trouble from the get-go. A druggie, a smoker, a drinker, and I’m afraid to think how she makes her living. Plus, just her luck, she’s carrying twins.

“Handle her till I get there. You can do that, Tracy Anne.” And, yes, there’s a very impatient tone to my voice. But Tracy Anne’s great. Tracy Anne can handle her just fine.

“I will, I will,” she says. “But there’s something else …”

“Okay, what?”

“A newborn baby has gone missing.”

I ask the question that every shocked person asks: “Are you kidding me?”

Tracy Anne doesn’t even bother to say no. Instead she says, “The hospital is going crazy. The cops. Detectives. They’re all over the place. They say this has never happened here before. I mean … I’ve heard once or twice somebody got the wrong baby to take home. And I know that—”

“Listen, don’t you go crazy, too, Tracy Anne. Just cooperate, do your job, and—”

“Lucy, what are we gonna do?”

Then, with my head aching, sweat dropping from me like rain, my stomach churning, I say something absolutely stupid.

“What are we gonna do, Tracy Anne? We’re gonna help them find the baby.”

SHOCKINGLY, THE DOG SEEMS to know that this is an emergency. He runs with me at an unusually un-The-Duke-like pace. Once inside our little building, he takes the stairs to our third-floor apartment two steps at a time. I’ll show him who’s boss. I take the steps three at a time. When we hit the third-floor landing it’s a close call as to which of us is sweatier and smellier.

Willie sleeps in our one tiny bedroom. The living room with the foldout sofa is mine. This is particularly convenient today because there is a large selection of my clothes on both my unfolded foldout and the steamer trunk that doubles as a toy box and a coffee table.

I now begin trying to do three things at once. One, I start to get dressed. No time for a shower. A wet washcloth under my arms, a few swipes of deodorant, and a generous helping of Johnson’s Baby Powder will compensate. Two, I try to find information about the missing baby on my laptop. Nothing. Where are you, Twitter, when I need you? Three, I keep yelling toward the bedroom, “Willie, wake up!”

Within a few seconds I’m slipping into a pair of slightly stained jeans and a less-than-glamorous turquoise V-neck T-shirt, also slightly stained. Both are victims of the Chinese beef and broccoli, which The Duke is noisily eating right now.

I try searching an all-news website.

Great. I guess.

Missing baby NYC and missing baby hospital news info bring me one news brief that “an underage patient at Gramatan University Hospital (GUH) has been reported missing.”

Underage? The freaking baby is one day old. That’s PR for you.

I head back into Willie’s room. He is snoring like a 300-pound drunk. I’m surprised he doesn’t wake the neighbors, and I’ve got to wonder how somebody that little can make a noise so loud.

“Willie, get up. Come on. You’ve gotta get down to Sabryna’s. Right! Now!” Well, that sure didn’t work.

I stand in the little bedroom, and then I waste a few seconds just staring at my fine-looking son, asleep on Bart Simpson sheets. I tousle his hair. No reaction. I tousle it somewhat harder. One eye opens. Then a mouth.

“You’ve got a really huge stain on that T-shirt, Mom.”

“I know,” I say. “I haven’t had time to do laundry. And the stain is not huge. It’s medium.”

Willie now has both eyes closed again. He’s gone back to sleep. I move into very-loud-but-still-not-yelling volume.

“You’re going down to Sabryna’s in your underwear if you don’t get up right this minute. I repeat: Right. This. Minute.”

Sabryna and her thirteen-year-old son, Devan, are our downstairs neighbors. She is originally from Jamaica, and her voice still has the beautiful island lilt to it. That lilt, which Sabryna can turn on and off like a faucet, also adds a note of authenticity to the small Caribbean grocery store she runs on the ground floor. The store is a jumble of goods: baskets of plantains and bunches of callaloo greens, as well as Pringles, Skittles, cigarettes, and New York Lottery tickets.

Sabryna’s store is open from five in the morning until seven at night. She works hard, and she works alone, except for some reluctant help from Devan. Sabryna, who is hands down my best friend, also is my go-to babysitter when I’m called out suddenly.

A buzz, a beep, a phone text from Tracy Anne: R u on