Stealing Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

story about a baby."
"Then her husband is a mental case, too. He says there was a baby this morning, and now it's gone."
"Maybe the baby was adopted," the doctor went on.
"They put it up for adoption? This morning?" April frowned.
"No, the woman here adopted the baby." The doctor was getting annoyed, as if April were really thick.
"Why do you say that?" Baum asked.
Dr. Kane pointedly consulted her watch, showing the two cops that she'd given them enough of her time. "She doesn't appear to have a postpartum body."
"Did you give her a pelvic exam?" April asked.
"For head injuries?"
April glanced at Baum. "What's a postpartum body?" she asked.
"There are changes that occur in a woman's body after childbirth." The doctor gave April an amused look.
April flushed. "What are they?"
Dr. Kane slapped her clipboard against her hip impatiently. "The breasts become engorged with milk. The skin on the belly is loose. The belly itself is soft, enlarged. Not all of the excess weight would have come off yet—a lot of things." She glanced at Baum. He was writing it all down. Probably didn't know a thing about women. But apparently, neither did she.
"And Mrs. Popescu?" April asked.
"No engorged breasts, no soft, distended belly. She either didn't have a baby, or she sure got her figure back fast." Clearly the doc didn't think that was possible. "Her body looks like yours," she added.
April was a little over five five, well-proportioned and willowy. She had an oval face with rosebud lips and lovely almond eyes, a slender neck but not the hollows and protruding bones of a truly skinny person. She also had clearly discernible breasts, though not really ample ones by American standards. Her hair came down to the bottom of her earlobes. When she was away from her boss, Lieutenant Iriarte, she hooked her hair back around her ears so her lucky jade earrings would show. Mike Sanchez kept telling her she was more beautiful than Miss America, and the thought of an Asian Miss America always made her smile.
At the moment, though, she wasn't amused. She didn't see how Dr. Kane could tell anything by her body, since it was covered by loose, nubby-weave slacks, a thin sweater, a silk scarf, and a cropped whis-key-colored jacket. Except maybe, if she was looking really hard, she could tell that April was carrying a 9mm at her waist.
"Maybe she'll come to soon and you can get something out of her," Dr. Kane said as she walked away. April would not have liked to be one of her patients.
"I'll handle this," she told Baum. Then she opened the treatment room door.
Heather Popescu was lying on a rolling hospital bed, covered up with a sheet so that only the shoulders of her blue-flowered hospital gown showed. The sides of the bed had been put up so she wouldn't fall off, but she wasn't going anywhere. One eye was covered with a cold pack. Her lip was split and already puffed. Her extremely long, inky hair spilled off the pillow. April was startled, then recovered fast. The unconscious woman, Heather Rose Popescu, was Chinese.
No wonder Iriarte had ordered her here immediately. Iriarte hated her. He'd never voluntarily give her a big case. He'd sent her here because the victim was Chinese, and it would look better to have a high-profile Chinese detective on it. April flashed to the husband standing out in the waiting room. A belligerent Caucasian. Oh man, was she in trouble. She didn't like this one bit. Skinny Dragon would think this was a warning just for her. She was going to shake her finger at April over this. "See what happens," she'd scream. "Mixed marriage, woman beaten to a pulp. That's what you can expect when you marry laowai"— shit-faced foreigner.
Oh, man. Suddenly April wished Mike, her mother's nightmare, were here with her now. He could take this case in hand. Woody Baum was too inexperienced to be of any help, particularly with the husband. If Popescu beat his wife, he wasn't going to like having April as his interviewer. April needed the expert