LITMIR.BIZ

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baby smiles at me all the time. And at Rick.”

      “That’s not surprising,” Sherry commented. “A stone would smile at Rick.” Her eyes shifted toward C.J. The FBI special agent was the next one due and had plied both her and Joanna with questions about what giving birth actually felt like. “So, are you getting excited?”

      C.J. had gone from excited to nervous to feeling twinges of encroaching panic. With the big event less than a month away, she was now banking down any and all thoughts regarding the pending experience. It was easier getting through the day that way.

      “I’m trying not to think about it.” She took a long sip of her mint chocolate-chip shake and let the coolness slide down her throat before continuing. “I’m not much on anticipating pain.”

      Or dealing with the fear that had descended over her, she added silently. For probably the first time in her life, she found herself afraid of the unknown. Afraid of what she did know about the unknown. Afraid of what came after, as well. Because, despite the support of her family and friends, she was afraid of screwing up.

      Joanna waved away the comment. “That’s just a small part of it,” she assured C.J. “It’s true what they say, you know. You do forget.”

      C.J. curled her lip cynically. “Probably because it hurts so much, you black out.”

      Lori looked at her in surprise. “I’ve never heard you sound so negative before.” She studied her for a second. “Anything wrong?”

      C.J. sighed, pushing her straw into a glob of ice cream. “Just feeling sorry for myself, I guess.” She saw the others were waiting for a more detailed “My partner’s out in the field, tracking down a serial killer.”

      Sherry was the first to break the silence. “Serialkiller envy.” Exchanging looks with the others, she laughed incredulously. “Boy, that’s definitely not my thing.” And then she became serious. “You’re a mom-to-be, C.J. You’re supposed to be agonizing over what shade of blue or pink to paint the nursery, not about wanting to go chasing after the bad guys with a gun strapped to the inside of your maternity bra.”

      They didn’t understand, C.J. thought. Though she gave the appearance of being flamboyant and quick to act, deep down, she felt a strong commitment to her work. She defined herself by it. There was this overwhelming need within her to put “the bad guys,” as Sherry called them, away.

      “Speaking of nursery,” Joanna, ever the peacemaker, interjected, “have you decided to finally let us give you baby presents?”

      It was a sore point with everyone, C.J. sensed. Even her brothers were commenting on it. Warrick’s crack this afternoon had made it unanimous. She shook her head, a curiously shy smile creeping along her lips. “There’s no need to give me presents.”

      “Yes, there is,” Sherry insisted. She waved her hand around the table, taking them all in. “It’s part of the bonding process.”

      Sherry thought back to when they had all initially gotten together. She knew as far as she went, talking with the women had gone a long way toward helping her remain calm about the challenges that were ahead of her. She had her parents, whom she loved dearly, but there was something infinitely comforting about being able to turn to women who were in the exact same rocky boat as she was and be able to talk out the fears that plagued her.

      “We’re all in this together, so to speak,” Sherry pointed out. “C’mon, C.J., why won’t you let us give you anything?”

      “After,” C.J. told them. “Once he or she is here.”

      This time it was Joanna’s turn to shake her head. “I can’t believe that you’re the only one of the four of us who had an amniocentesis done and you didn’t ask the doctor to tell you what you were having.”

      She had her reasons. “I always liked opening up my gifts at the end of the day, not the beginning.”

      C.J. didn’t add that she was afraid if she knew the sex of the baby, she’d start thinking of it as a real person. This way, if something unforeseeable did happened and she lost the baby, she could still mentally divorce herself from it somehow.

      Just the way she had from Tom.

      All her protests to Warrick and her family notwithstanding, when Tom told her that he thought it was best if they just stopped seeing each other, she’d felt cruelly disappointed. She’d honestly thought that for once, she’d found someone she could count on. Someone who felt as strongly about her as she did about him.

      That was what happened when you expected too much, she told herself. You wound up with too little. Or, in this case, with almost nothing at all.

      But she was determined that no one would suspect how she really felt. It didn’t go with the image of herself she wanted to project.

      Wanting to change the direction of the conversation, she looked at Joanna. “So, your turn. How are things going with you?”

      Joanna’s eyes glowed. She pushed aside her almost depleted dish of dessert, wiping off the area in front of her. “I thought you’d never ask.”

      Digging deeply into her purse, she pulled out a small white album that was almost bursting at the seams. It was crammed full of brand-new photographs of her brand-new baby.

      Sherry laughed as she dug into her own purse. “I’ll meet your stack—” she plunked down her own album “—and raise you five pictures.” “You’re on,” Joanna declared.

      Lori exchanged looks with C.J. “I think we’re about to get babied to death.”

      “Bring them on,” C.J. encouraged. “I can’t think of a sweeter way to go.”

      * * *

      Last night had been nice break, but it felt good to get back to work, C.J. thought as she sat, reading over the folder that Warrick had left with her yesterday. She was reviewing it for the umpteenth time.

      The office was empty, except for her. There were times she welcomed the quiet.

      She enjoyed getting together with the other women. That in itself was a constant source of surprise to her. Apart from her mother, she’d been raised in a world of men. With three older brothers and one younger one, C.J. found that she had a difficult time relating to other women.

      But Lori, Sherry and Joanna were different. Maybe because, for different reasons, they had all found themselves approaching motherhood while in a single status. Facing the biggest event in their lives without a life partner beside them had given them all something in common.

      Something in common.

      What did these thirteen women have in common? she wondered, staring down at the photographs spread out on her desk. Beyond the obvious, of course. If you looked quickly, and myopically, they almost looked like photographs of the same person.

      Of her, she thought grimly. Because she bore the same eerily similar physical features as the dead women. She was a blue-eyed blonde within the age range that the Sleeping Beauty Killer gravitated toward.

      There but for the grace of God…

      C.J. shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She didn’t know if it was the thought or the unnerving twinges she kept feeling that was getting to her.

      What had made the Sleeping Beauty Killer snuff out these women’s lives, executing them politely but firmly? Why them? Why not green-eyed redheads or brown-eyed brunettes?

      There had to be a reason. Something.

      One by one she held up the photographs of the young women, taken while they were still alive, and examined them closely. Did they represent some kind of fantasy woman to the killer? Someone in his life who had been unattainable to him? Who perhaps had spurned him?

      Or was there some kind of other reason behind his choice?

      She just didn’t know, and not knowing frustrated her to the

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