Bone Driven Read online

  Hailey Edwards writes about questionable applications of otherwise perfectly good magic, the transformative power of love, the family you choose for yourself, and blowing stuff up. Not necessarily all at once. That could get messy. She lives in Alabama with her husband, their daughter, and a herd of dachshunds.

  Visit her website at www.haileyedwards.net

  By Hailey Edwards

  The Foundling Series

  Bayou Born

  Bone Driven

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Piatkus

  978-0-3494-1708-0

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Hailey Edwards 2018

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  PIATKUS

  Little, Brown Book Group

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DZ

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Bone Driven

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  By Hailey Edwards

  COPYRIGHT

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For Aunt Barbara, who showed me

  life is better with a book in my hand

  (and romance on the pages).

  She taught me how to love a child with my

  whole heart and what it means to be family. I

  wouldn’t be the person I am today without her

  guidance and support. I love you, Bob!

  CHAPTER ONE

  The first notes in my favorite country song plucked the air as sweat rolled from my hairline into my eyes. I wiped my damp face on the long sleeve of my shirt then squinted at the sixteen-penny nail I had pinched between two fingers. Picturing Geoffrey Timmons’ smug face as I swung the hammer in a punishing downstroke was cathartic after spending half the week down at the station playing star witness in the internal affairs investigation guaranteed to dethrone the current chief of police. But he was one small nail in a box of hundreds, and I had more dire concerns on my mind. Fresh worries pressed into my thoughts with every strike until the wood splintered beneath each brutal impact.

  Demons were real. Bang. I was one of them. Bang. I was amongst the worst of them. Bang.

  And those very real demons had trashed the farmhouse I shared with my dad, who was in no shape to be out in this heat working on repairs while we waited for approval on our insurance claim. That left me, my phone, and a Bluetooth speaker to get the job done.

  A bleating car horn alerted me to the fact I had company coming, and I cursed under my breath.

  Vultures were circling again thanks to the recording of Timmons’ threats leaking to the press – not helped by Jane Doe checking herself out of Madison Memorial against medical advice in order to avoid more abuse from the media, at least according to the statement Kapoor made on the hospital steps. Add to that my refusal to make a statement on either incident, and I was once again a hot topic around town. Frustration guided my aim through four more swings before car doors slammed and crunching footsteps approached.

  “What did that sheet of plywood ever do to you, Bou-Bou?”

  A grin split my cheeks as I turned and spotted Rixton heading my way with a squirming pink bundle in his arms. “How’s my favorite person on the planet?”

  Annette Marjoram Rixton was the cutest baby I had ever seen, and that wasn’t just because she was scheduled to officially become my goddaughter in three more weeks, on her one-month birthday.

  “I’m good.” He winked at me. “Thanks for asking.”

  I gave him a flat stare, my best cop face, but since he had taught me the look, he only laughed. “Does your wife know you’ve absconded with her child?”

  “Nettie is our child,” he corrected me. “I can’t abscond with my own child.”

  “We both know that’s not true.” Sadly, abductions happened all the time, and a parent or another relative was most often the perpetrator. “How long do you have before Sherry calls this in and an Amber Alert gets issued?”

  “Sherry trusts me, unlike some people I won’t name.” He coughed into his fist. “Luce Boudreau.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Tell your godmother to set phasers on stun.” Rixton booped his daughter’s nose. “We aren’t out being nefarious. We went on a diaper run so Mommy could nap, didn’t we?”

  “That was very sweet of you,” I had to admit.

  “I learned from the best. Look what Sherry got me.” Whipping out his phone, he angled it toward me. The screen showed her curled on the couch under a short, thin blanket she probably borrowed from her daughter. “She bought a video camera that clips on the crib so I can check in on Nettie while I’m at work. Turns out it’s also handy as a mommy cam. I’ll get an alert when she starts moving around, and that’s my cue to skedaddle.”

  Surveillance truly was the gift that kept on giving. Poor Sherry. She really ought to know better by now.

  “Come on in.” I set down my tools and waved him toward the front door. “Get that baby doll out of this heat.”

  “Baby doll, huh?” He chuckled. “Nettie must be the drink and wet variety.”

  Nettie was little bitty and oh-so-breakable, exactly like the porcelain dolls Granny Boudreau had collected over her life. We had boxes full of them in the attic, which my goddaughter was welcome to when she got older.

  I held the newly installed screen door open for Rixton with the toe of my ratty sneaker.

  “Auntie Bou-Bou has the best manners,” he crooned to Nettie. “See how she held the door for a gentleman?”

  Since Rixton was holding the baby I was about to vow to protect as my own, I cut him some slack instead of smashing his face in for calling me Bou-Bou. The more I reacted, the deeper the nickname would root into his personal lexicon, and soon there wouldn’t be enough upper body strength in the world to yank it from his vocabulary. Starting today, my new policy would be ignoring him. He hated that. Rixton would rather be shot in the foot than have his antics dismissed. Personally? I could use the target practice.

  Plastic sheeting taped over all the doorways and windows gave the kitchen the appearance of a crime scene still under investigation, but it was the only cool room in the house. I held back the thick curtain while Rixton stepped inside my chilly sanctuary.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” I palmed a bottle of icy water from the cooler acting as my temporary fridge and gulped half of it down before coming up for air. “I’ve got water, water, and water.”

  Everything else had spoiled thanks to the aforementioned demons who had turned the farmhouse into a block of Swiss cheese. The
second floor was fully restored, but downstairs was so holey, it wasn’t worth turning the central air on yet. Only the kitchen and guest bathroom gave me respite from the blistering heat thanks to the portable window unit whirring on cement blocks stacked in the gap where the back door used to be.

  “Hmm.” He appeared to give the non-existent selection genuine consideration. “How about… water?”

  Huffing out a laugh, I passed him a cold bottle, careful to avoid a single drop of condensation splashing Nettie’s perfect face.

  “She’s not actually made of porcelain, Luce. You won’t break her.” He gentled his tone as he set his drink on the counter. “Don’t you think it’s time you held your goddaughter?”

  “No.” I jumped back on reflex, waving my arms to ward him off, and tripped over the cooler. I landed in a seated position on the lid with my back pressed against the wall. “I’m good with looking. Really. I don’t have to hold her.”

  Holding Nettie meant enduring more prolonged contact with another person than I had allowed in… ever.

  “You haven’t changed your mind about participating in the christening, have you?” His brows knitted together. “There’s no one Sherry and I trust more than you, but you’ll still be Nettie’s auntie with or without the ceremony.”

  I clamped my fingers on the lid and held on for dear life. “I haven’t changed my mind but —”

  Understanding dawned in his expression, and he glanced at my shirt sleeves as though he could see the rose gold metal of the rukav banding my arms under the fabric. I watched him realize that while I might love his daughter, I would never be the auntie who let her curl in my lap while I read her bedtime stories on nights she slept over or cuddled her after a bad dream. I was touch-averse. Always had been. Physical manifestations of emotion required effort on my part. They weren’t natural, fluid responses to stimuli for me; they were calculated reactions for all that they were genuine expressions of what I felt for those I loved.

  For one fraction of a second, I read his doubt that I was up to the task, and a pang arrowed through my chest straight for my pounding heart.

  “I didn’t think about…” Rixton cleared his throat. “Are you sure you can handle…?”

  “I’m sure. I can do this. Let me hold her.” Oxygen deprivation blurred my vision as he knelt in front of me and murmured instructions on how to support her head and neck, and then she was in my arms, her weight so slight I might have been cradling a blanket instead of a small person. “What if I drop —?”

  “Look at me.” His calm order sliced through my panic. “She’s a baby, not a ticking time bomb. Unless you count the explosive diarrhea.” He patted my knee to avoid an accidental brush with the metal beneath my skin. “You got this.”

  Nettie blinked up at me through clear, blue eyes the color of faded denim. She blew slobber bubbles that popped on her chin with each breath while clenching one tiny hand in the air like she was grasping for golden dust motes. The smell of her skin, fresh powder and innocence, twisted something in my chest until I had to glance away to dry the promise of tears from my eyes.

  “Remember to breathe.” Rixton grinned as he snapped a quick picture on his cell. “You’re doing great.”

  A breathless quality entered my voice. “I’m holding a baby.”

  “Like a pro.”

  A dull headache blossomed in my temples, the persistent throbbing a reminder of the car accident that had rattled my brain like rocks in a soda can, but I ignored the discomfort. “Look at her fingernails, the wrinkles on her palms.” I marveled at each flexing toe and every curl of black hair, each detail I took for granted in adults rendered in flawless miniature. “How is this even possible?”

  “Well, it’s like this.” Rixton sat back on his heels. “Mommies have lady gardens and daddies have —”

  A groan slipped past my lips. “Please stop.”

  “— magic seeds. When the soil in the lady garden is at its most fertile, the daddy plants his —”

  “Rixton.” I twisted to one side, shielding Nettie with my body. “Your daughter can hear you.”

  “She won’t remember a thing,” he promised. “Besides, I have to practice that speech for when she’s old enough for me to explain how I will double tap any gardener I catch aiming his tool at her —” he whirled a hand in the air “— flower bed.”

  A knock on the door did what my threat had failed to do and shut him up.

  “Come in,” I called out. No way was I tempting fate and actually walking with a baby in my arms. “We’re in the kitchen.”

  Rixton took over host duty and pulled aside the plastic curtain to admit a tall man with angular features arranged in a polite expression that sat wrong on his face, like polite wasn’t his default, and he wasn’t sure how it ought to look on him. His build reminded me of an Olympic swimmer, all lean muscle and long legs.

  He wore gray slacks, shoes that cost more than the new hardwood floor he walked on, and a white button-down shirt rolled up over his forearms. His thick, black hair had been trimmed in an undercut and slicked back, and his soulful brown eyes drank in every detail of the room before settling on me with a tangible weight that made my bones creak. He smiled first at me and then at the baby in my arms. I couldn’t pinpoint why, but the flash of his straight, white teeth in her direction set my heart pumping and propelled me to my feet.

  “Luce Boudreau?” His silky voice caressed each syllable of my name with the hint of a foreign accent I couldn’t place. “I’m Adam Wu. I work for All South Insurance. I’m here to discuss the claim you filed.”

  Hairs lifted down my arms in a prickling wave. “Rixton? Would you mind taking Nettie?”

  “No problem.” He read the tension bowing my shoulders in a protective curve around his daughter and positioned himself between Wu and me. “Is this guy legit? Or is he a well-fed vulture in a nice suit?” Keeping his back to my guest, he lowered his voice to keep our conversation private. “Say the word, and I’ll toss him out on his can.”

  Wu shook his head once in silent warning behind Rixton.

  “I got this,” I assured him and then cut my eyes to Wu. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to walk my partner to his car.” I shepherded Rixton and Nettie through the sheeting, paranoid he might trip and drop her, then out onto the front porch in record time. “Tell Sherry I’ll stop by tomorrow for a visit.”

  “Okay. I’ll keep my phone on me.” His gaze slid past my shoulder into the house. “Call if you need me.”

  “I will.” I waited while he strapped Nettie into her car seat then waved him off, watching for the moment he turned onto the main road before returning to my guest in the kitchen. “All South Insurance went out of business about five years ago. We’re with Mississippi Fidelity now.” I leaned a hip against the counter, toying with the water bottle Rixton had left untouched. “Who are you really?” I decided against playing hostess for Wu and tossed the drink back in the cooler. “Is your name really Adam Wu?”

  “Adam Wu is one of my aliases.” His wry smile drew my attention to the unusual curve of his mouth and his slightly larger upper lip, like the bee who stung the top couldn’t be bothered to give him a matching set. “Special Agent Kapoor prefers it to my others these days.”

  “Ah.” Curiosity trumped my annoyance for a heartbeat. “This is one of those visits.”

  “Where is your coterie?” The man studied me as though I were an exotic animal he hadn’t expected to encounter in rural Mississippi. “Why aren’t they here? Protecting you? Helping you?”

  Wu hadn’t earned the answers to those questions even if I’d had them. “Why are you here?”

  “You have three weeks left with the Canton Police Department.” Wu inclined his head, a birdlike gesture of curiosity. “Are you ready to put in your notice next Monday?”

  “Counting down the days, huh?” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Are you here to help me draft my resignation?”

  “If that’s what it takes.” He cast his gaze ar
ound the room once more. “Not all charun embrace our philosophies. Some require —” our gazes locked “— encouragement.”