Wake the Dawn Read Online Free

so haywire with his judgment that even his dog, equally trained, was picking up on it? Maybe Bo was reacting to his rage. He lowered his voice. “What is it, boy? What have you found?”
    The black tail quivered, black eyes drilled into his.
    Something white or once white lay within the dog’s protection. It wasn’t big enough to be a person. But this dog was one of the best sniffers in the business. Other departments often borrowed the two of them in emergencies.
    “Easy, Bo, let me see. I’m okay now.” Ben eased forward, keeping his movements firm and slow. A blanket?
    A bundle wrapped in a blanket. A bundle of what? Bait in a booby trap? He stood up quickly, looked around. If anyone else was in the area, Bo would know, hear, or smell. Ben knelt beside the bundle.
    A baby.
    Bo had just found a baby. Was it still alive?
    Bo wagged his tail and whimpered again. “Good boy. Good job, good boy.” When he reached out with his hand to touch the bundle, Bo licked his fingers. “Good boy, I’ll take it from here.”
    “Ben, where are you? Are you all right? Ben! Respond!” Definitely Jenny.
    He touched the baby’s face. Still warm. He laid his hand on the chest. Still breathing. He thumbed his handheld and barked, “It’s clear. I’ll file the report later.”
    “Good. Chief says get back here, pronto. We need you.”
    No matter what you’re doing, someone wants you to be doing something else. He was getting pretty tired of it. “Jenny? Where’s Ada?”
    “Had to go home. Hurry in, Ben.”
    He scooped the baby up and rose to his feet. “Come on, Bo, let’s get out of here.”
    With Bo leading, Ben clutched the baby to his chest and staggered back toward the road. If the baby was bait in a trap, he was toast; he couldn’t keep his sidearm ready and carry the baby and keep his balance. Bog-wise, Bo bounded from firm spot to firm spot and was soon out of sight. Ben was just as bog-wise but not nearly as agile. He stumbled, splashed through puddles, hit a grass clump wrong and his foot slid down into mire. He stepped out into the open and a gust slammed him backward.
    The rain struck in an instant downpour. No polite starting sprinkle, no lightning.
    He didn’t dare stop to check the baby he carried; the wind knifed through his wet shirt, reminding him how soaked the bundle was. At last he reached solid roadbed and scrambled up onto it. Bo barked off to the right, and there waited his truck a hundred yards away.
    He grabbed an emergency blanket out of the box in the backseat and let the wind slam the back door closed while he wrestled one-handed with the driver’s door. He held it open with his back while he snapped the blanket open and laid the baby on it. These goofy space-age blankets. Aluminum foil made out of plastic, for pete’s sake; didn’t deserve the name blanket . But apparently they worked, because every emergency kit had one, so thank God for space-age technology. He wrapped the baby up and belted it into the passenger seat.
    The wind slapped the door against his hip and the backs of his legs. “In, Bo.”
    The dog leaped to the driver’s seat and down to the floor to sit facing the passenger seat. Ben climbed in and the wind instantly slammed the door closed for him. It was getting just plain nasty out there.
    For the first time since he’d scooped up the baby, he allowed himself to pause a moment and close his eyes. God, help this baby.
    The irony of him now praying to the God he swore to ignore was lost in long-ago habits that came thundering back. He keyed his radio with one hand and rammed the key into the ignition with the other.
    “Jenny?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Call Esther and tell her a baby’s en route. A tiny one. Alive but unresponsive.” He roared off in the wrong direction, grabbed the hand brake, and did a perfectly executed moonshiner’s turn—180 at forty miles an hour. He felt momentarily smug; it’d been years since he did that, and he still had the