Nightstruck - Jenna Black Page 0,2

looked around, hoping to spot someone else running to the rescue, but there was no one in sight. It was all up to me.

I tied Bob’s leash to a lamppost, making three knots in the leather and praying it would hold. He barely seemed aware of my presence, his entire attention focused on the baby and his overwhelming desire to attack it.

“What is the matter with you?” I asked him, wishing he could actually answer. I’d been creeped out the moment I stepped into the alley. I could tell myself I’d watched too many horror movies and it was all in my mind, but that didn’t explain how Bob was acting.

“Bob, stay,” I ordered him firmly, but the moment I stepped away, he was straining against his leash, unconcerned with the fact that he was strangling himself in the process. I shook my head at him and hoped the knots in the leash would hold.

The baby’s cries were growing weaker, to the point where Bob’s snarls almost drowned them out. I began walking toward the church, trying to act sure and confident, as if I could somehow convince myself to shake off the weirdness. I still couldn’t pick out the baby’s shape in the pool of darkness, but there was a sense of movement, as if maybe the baby was kicking its arms and legs in its desperate attempt to get help.

How could anyone leave a baby out in the cold? I knew churches were popular spots for abandoning unwanted babies, but anyone with half a brain would know that this particular church was closed for the night. Which made me think whoever had left the baby had intended for it to die. Thanks to my dad’s job, I was more aware than most of how much evil there is in the world, and how cruel human beings can be. And how important it is for ordinary people—like me—to show compassion and responsibility.

Even knowing all that, I found my feet reluctant to move me forward. Maybe, if I just called 9-1-1, they’d get here in time to save the poor kid without me having to get any closer.

And if an innocent baby died because I was too chickenshit to help it, how would I ever live with myself? How could I ever look my dad—who’d risked his life countless times as a police officer—in the face? I was already something of a family disappointment, and I couldn’t bear to make it worse.

Calling 9-1-1 seemed like a good idea anyway, so I got out my phone and made the call as I continued to force myself forward. Behind me, Bob was still barking and snarling, but the baby’s cries had faded to weak-sounding whimpers.

“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

I had reached the edge of the pool of shadow, and I could finally make out the baby’s shape, though it was still hard to see. It seemed to be wrapped in a black blanket, as if whoever had left it there had put extra effort into making sure no one would find it and rescue it.

“My name is Becket Walker,” I said, hoping the dispatcher would be extra attentive to a call coming from the commissioner’s daughter. “I’ve found an abandoned baby.”

I squatted in the darkness beside the bundled baby, who was no longer even whimpering. The blanket was tucked so firmly around it that all I could see was a baby-shaped lump. A fold of the blanket was draped over its face. I stammered out the address to the dispatcher, then decided the only sensible, humane thing to do was to pick up the baby and share what body heat I could. The dispatcher was asking me questions and trying to give me instructions, but I wasn’t listening.

“Hold on a moment,” I said. I put the phone down on the church steps, then gently picked up the black-wrapped bundle with both hands.

I almost dropped it, because it didn’t feel like I expected it to. The body within the blanket felt strangely loose and pliable. My stomach turned over, the sense of wrongness once again coming back full force.

The 9-1-1 dispatcher was still talking to me, but I had no attention to spare. Something within me rebelled at the feeling of that body in my arms, but I fought my revulsion. Maybe the baby had some kind of birth defect and that was why it had been abandoned. That didn’t make it any less worth saving.

I cradled the baby against my body with one