Megan was watching her phone. “Sure you do. With Halsey? You know the remix at least.”
“On what planet do I know the words to anything that’s not sung by middle-aged mechanics on the classic-rock station?”
“So… Nirvana?”
Toni gritted her teeth. “Nirvana is not classic rock!”
“According to my son it is.” Megan muttered, “The little punk.”
She checked her phone when Toni started relaxing the death grip on her hand. “Okay, so that contraction lasted just over a minute. We’re gonna keep walking and see how long it takes for the next one, okay?”
Katherine texted her back, letting Megan know that she and Baxter were home and ready if Toni needed anything.
Toni blinked away tears. “Megan, I can’t do this.”
“Yeah, you can.” She quickly wiped away Toni’s tears with the sleeve of her shirt. “You can. You’re the toughest woman I know.”
“Don’t let Henry see me crying, okay?” Her face was pleading. “He gets upset when I cry, and he’s already worried.”
“I’ll get you some tissues, okay?” She ran to the table and grabbed a paper napkin, then hurried back. “Try to relax. Try to focus on the baby, okay? What do you feel from the baby?”
“She’s been so annoyed the past few days.” Toni dabbed the damp from her eyes and started walking again. “Now she just feels pissed.”
They walked up and down the path through the oaks, watching the sun filter through the trees as it set. Toni held Megan’s hand, walking steadily as her body prepared itself for the work ahead. Megan felt the burgeoning energy around Toni, expanding and contracting in waves. She pushed her energy under Toni’s belly just to lessen the load.
“Oh, that feels fucking great.” Toni laughed. “That’s what I needed the past month. Just to have you follow me around and lift my belly for me.”
“Damn, why didn’t we think of that hack before now?”
They kept walking, timing another contraction as they walked back toward the house.
“Six minutes now. Still about a minute,” Megan said.
Toni stared at the wooded patch. “Nothing is ever gonna be the same.”
“Nope.” Megan glanced to the side. “It’ll be better. And worse. And everything between. That’s life.”
“I was thinking about when we first met.” Toni shook her head. “I had no idea how much I needed you and Katherine. I thought my life was fine and dandy.”
“It was fine. You were successful, had a great family. You had already bought this place, right?”
Toni was shaking her head. “I would never have made it through this whole baby thing without you guys. I’d have panicked. Probably ended up messing things up with Henry because I was scared.”
“You? Scared?”
Toni let out a laugh that was halfway crazed and halfway exhausted. “I’m so fucking scared, Megan.”
“Hey.” She paused and looked her friend right in the eye. “You’re going to do great. Remember every mother who came before you. All over the world. All through history. All the mothers at the hospital you’re going to. The doctor moms and the nurse moms. Your body made an entirely new human being, and now you’re going to bring it into the world. How fucking amazing is that?”
“Yeah.” She stood up straighter. “I’m like… Superwoman or something.”
“Hell yeah.” Megan walked with her, checking her watch again when another contraction hit. “Hey, Toni?”
“Yeah?” Her voice was tight, but she was still walking.
Megan tried to distract her. “You were going to say something about that weird case with Katherine’s students before.”
“Yeah!” She took a deep breath. “Remember that professor? The one who was having the affair with the man who attacked Katherine?”
“Yeah. She’s the one giving the college headaches because she’s trying to clean her record right now.”
“Yeah, but doesn’t Angela Calvo remind you of that chick? Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something about her that reminded me of that professor.”
Megan stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh my God.”
“Not just me, right?”
Their body types were similar, but Megan’s memory of Alice Kraft might have been fuzzy. “She had red hair.”
“Yeah. Of course, people dye their hair, so who knows if that was natural?”
Megan got her phone out. “You’re still six minutes apart, so you’ve got time, okay?”
“Cool.” Toni stood up as straight as she could and arched her back. “You calling Katherine?”
“I want to see if she has any pictures of Alice Kraft from the college website.”
“Wasn’t she in the paper?”
“Maybe.”
Toni got her phone out and started to look. “I’ll search her name. Katherine said she’s working in Silicon Valley now.”
Nico and Henry walked up the path as both Toni and Megan were on their phones.
“Yeah,” Megan said to Katherine. “Toni’s the one who thought of the connection. She said there’s something similar about the women.”
“I’d have to look at Alice Kraft’s picture,” Katherine said. “I haven’t seen her in some time, but if they are similar, that could be why I had the feeling we’d met before.”
“Right! I remember you saying that.”
“What are you doing?” Henry asked.
Toni was taking deep breaths and stretching as she looked at her phone. “We’re trying to find pictures of Alice Kraft, that professor who was fired from the university from our first case together.”
“Now?” Henry said. “You’re in labor and you’re doing that now?”
“It’s a good distraction. Here!” She waved Megan over. “Holy shit, there’s definitely a resemblance. I am not imagining that.”
Megan looked at the picture of Alice Kraft from the Coastal Gazette a few years before. Though the woman in the picture was wearing sunglasses, there was an unmistakable resemblance around the jaw and the mouth to Angela Calvo, the owner of Fairfield Family Wines and her ex-husband’s current paramour.
“Katherine, I’m sending you this link.” She hung up the phone and searched for the article. “Nico, look at this.” She waved him over and shoved the phone in his face just as Toni gripped her hand again.
“Okay, this one was faster,” the laboring woman said.
Megan glanced at the clock on her phone. “Yeah, that was five minutes between contractions. You’re speeding up.”
“I think they look kind of the same, but I can’t be sure,” Nico said. “Henry, what do you—?”
“My girlfriend is having a baby, dude. I do not care!” Henry was done with the distractions. “Toni, no more hunting criminals for a little while, okay? Put your phone away; you’re having a baby.”
“It could take a while though.” Nevertheless, she handed him her phone and took his hand. “Can you make sure we bring the charger? Is that in the bag you packed?”