Saving Both Lives

Chapter 3

The next dozen weeks that passed were a roller coaster for the two detectives. The sergeant deliberately attempted to place them on low risk cases, but the partners fought back with a casual mention of a threat to claim a violation of the PDA (pregnancy discrimination act).

With the rift between her and Ana driving her family away, she was left doing most of the arrangements for the baby on her own. That is until Danny's wife, niece, and sister got wind of it, and surprised her with a baby shower. The Reagan women gathered friends and coworkers to offer their congratulations and shower the mother to be with plenty of everything both she and her child would need.

This brought Maria much closer to Linda and Erin; they had definitely become like second sisters to her ever since she and Danny were paired up.

Now more than ever her partner was determined on fulfilling his promise to never disappoint her and to always have her back. Out on the streets or at their desks in the station, he was always there at her side.

...

Danny was surprised to walk into the station one morning, and find his partner was not at her desk.

Then again, he should have expected this might happen, since her scheduled maternity leave was set to begin at the end of the week. She might have decided to start it early, or even already be in the hospital.

But according to the other officers, she hadn't called in to give notice. So Danny tried calling her himself, but it went straight to voicemail.

"Baez, it's Reagan. If it's that time, give me or the station a ring when you can."

At his lunch hour, he stopped by her apartment and found it locked and cluttered with yesterday's mail stuck in the slot. He had been to visit her before, and Maria was quite the neat freak since she had started prepping for the big event. It certainly was off that all this mess was still here.

Danny pulled out his phone and dialed Linda's number. "Hey, can you see if Baez is there? She hasn't been in all day, and I'm at her place right now and she's not answering."

"No. No, I don't see her in the system," Linda answered after a few moments. "She probably would've had me call you anyways if she did. Danny, what's going on?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out!"

He hung up and went knocking on the door across from his partner's. An older woman, around her mid fifties, stepped out and introduced herself as Laura Campbell. After confirming that she was acquainted with Baez, he explained the situation and asked if she had seen her lately.

"Oh, not since yesterday morning when she was going to church," Mrs. Campbell shook her head. "For the past three months I've been meeting her afterwards to help her get things ready for that baby, but I never heard from her. I thought maybe she'd gone into work or to see her mother..."

"She told me the father lived in this building for a while," Danny said. "You wouldn't happen to know who he was?"

"Oh, not personally," she replied. "I did see him only once, the day he moved in. 12B on the second floor."

Danny took the stairs to the next level and found the door to the apartment loose enough to break through the lock. The front room was empty, but with a faint amount of familiar white powder scattered beneath the window to the fire escape.

"Damn it!" This wasn't good.