LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      GERRY DACRE realised that she’d actually heard the noise a couple of times before noticing it. Sitting on her bed to comb wet black hair off her face, she remembered that the same funny little bleat had teased her ears just before she showered, and again as she came back down the hall.

      Frowning, she got to her feet and walked across to the window, pushing open the curtains. Although it was after seven the street-lamps were still struggling against a reluctant New Zealand dawn; peering through their wan light, she made out a parcel on the wet grass just inside the Cape Honeysuckle hedge.

      The cry came again, and to her horror she saw movement in the parcel—a weak fluttering against the sombre green wall of the hedge.

      ‘Kittens!’ she exploded, long legs carrying her swiftly towards the front door.

      Or a puppy. It didn’t sound like kittens. How dared anyone abandon animals in her garden—anywhere! Anger tightened her soft mouth, blazed from her dark blue-green eyes as she ran across the verandah and down the wooden steps, across the sodden lawn to the parcel.

      It wasn’t kittens. Or a puppy. Wailing feebly from a shabby tartan rug was a baby. Little fists and arms had struggled free, and the crumpled face was marked with cold. Chilling moisture clung to its skin, to the knitted bonnet, to the tiny, aimlessly groping hands. So heartbreakingly frail, it had to be newborn.

      ‘Oh, my God!’ Gerry said, scooping up the baby, box and all, as it gave another weak wail. ‘Don’t do that, darling,’ she soothed. ‘Come on, let’s get you inside.’

      Carefully she carried it indoors, kicked the door closed behind her, and headed into the kitchen, at this time of day the warmest room in the old kauri villa. She set the box on the table and raced into the laundry to grab a towel and her best cashmere jersey from the hot water cupboard.

      ‘I’ll ring the police when I’ve got you warm,’ she promised the baby, lifting it out and carrying it across to the bench. The baby let out another high-pitched wail.

      Crooning meaningless words, Gerry stripped the clothes from the squirming body. It was, she discovered, a girl—and judging by the umbilical cord no older than a couple of days, if that.

      ‘I’m going to have to find you some sort of nappy,’ she said, cuddling the chilly baby against her breasts as she cocooned it first in cashmere and then the warm towel. ‘I wonder how long you’ve been out there, poppet? Too long on a bitter winter morning. I hope your mother gave you some food before she abandoned you. No, don’t cry, sweetheart, don’t cry…’

      But the baby did cry, face going alarmingly scarlet and her chest swelling as she shrieked her outrage.

      Rocking and hushing, Gerry tried to lend the warmth of her body to the fragile infant and wondered whether she should bathe her, or whether that might make her colder. She pressed her cheek against the little head, relieved to find that it seemed marginally warmer.

      The front door clicked open and the second member of the household demanded shrilly, ‘What’s on earth’s going on?’

      Two pairs of feet made their way down the hall, the busy clattering of Cara’s high heels counterpointed by a long stride, barely audible on the mellow kauri boards.

      It’s not my business if she spends the night with a man—she’s twenty, Gerry thought, propping the baby against her shoulder and patting the narrow back. The movement silenced the baby for a second, but almost immediately she began to cry again, a pathetic shriek that cut Cara’s voice off with the speed of a sword through cheese.

      She appeared in the doorway, red hair smoothed back from her face, huge eyes goggling. ‘Gerry, what have you done?’ she gasped.

      ‘It’s a baby,’ Gerry said, deadpan, expertly supporting the miniature head with its soft dark fuzz of hair. ‘Someone dumped her on the front lawn.’

      ‘Have you rung the police?’ Not Cara. The voice

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