Excerpt of Feels Like Home by Maggie Shayne

When he first opened the door to her knock, he thought the woman standing there was a crack whore. And then he realized she was his wife.

Ex-wife.

For a second he could only stand there staring at her. A bag of bones with stringy once-blond hair and drug-dulled eyes that used to sparkle like sapphires. Yeah, she was his ex. And a crack whore. The one didn't preclude the other, though if anyone had told him that five years ago, he'd have pounded him into taco filler.

"Hi, Jim," she said, face expressionless. She didn't bother brushing the rapidly melting snowflakes from her hair or her shoulders. "It's been a long time."

Four years. Four long years. And now she was back and all he could feel was panic. "What do you want?" Not Tyler, he thought silently. Please, God, not that. Not that she would have a leg to stand on even if she had come for their son. She'd signed him away to save her own skin. After nearly killing him, she hadn't had much choice in the matter. "Not even going to invite me in? Say it's good to see me? Ask how I've been?"

"I don't particularly give a damn how you've been." But he wasn't sure how much longer her stick-figure legs were going to hold her, and it was chilly in the hallway. She was so skinny she was shivering. So he stepped aside, waved an arm and prayed Ty would remain blissfully sound asleep in his room. The boy needed a mother, was desperate for a mother. And Jim was working hard to find him one. Just not this one.

Angela came inside, and he closed the door and locked it. Looking around the apartment, she nodded slightly. "Nice place. Way nicer than our old one was."

He shrugged. "I had to find a ground-floor unit. It's easier on Ty."

She nodded, trailing her fingers over the gleaming hardwood finish of a coffee table before sitting down on the couch. He almost winced at her sitting on the furniture, long experience with addicts making him immediately think of them as dirty, possibly contagious. And she was an addict. There was no question. He hadn't seen her in four years, but he'd seen her name countless times.

A second glance told him she wasn't filthy. She'd bathed and her clothes had been recently laundered. He thought she might have even run a comb through her hair. Not the usual behavior of the street grunge he dealt with on a daily basis.

"What are you doing here, Ang?" He took a seat in a chair across from her, hoping she'd get straight to the point. He just wanted her out of there.

She lowered her head. "I need a favor."

"Figures." He shook his head in disgust. "Are you even going to ask how he is?"

Her brows drew together and she seemed momentarily angry — the first hint of emotion he'd seen in those zoned-out eyes of hers. But she bit back whatever she'd been about to say and replaced it with, "How is he?"

"He's wonderful. But he's still suffering. Still in the leg braces. Has physical therapy twice a week and hates it. One more surgery to go, though. Just one more."

She nodded slowly. Didn't ask any questions. Why he felt compelled to fill her in, he couldn't guess, but he kept on talking.

"We've been through six nannies so far. But they move on, you know. Get boyfriends, lives, less demanding jobs. He's a lot. I'm taking every bit of time off I can get without being fired. Not that I mind. I love being with him."

She drew a breath and studied her hands. Was he boring her with this?

"He's sleeping. But if you want, you can look in on him."

"No." She said it a little too quickly. "That's not why I came." He turned his head so she wouldn't see the hatred in his eyes, focused instead on the photograph of Ty that hung on the wall near his room. His twinkling eyes and deep dimples and baby teeth eased the rage in Jim's heart. And yet he couldn't help but wonder how Angela could not want to see her own child.

Didn't matter. He was glad. Ty didn't need this pile of human refuse in his life. "Right," he reminded himself. "You're here because you need a favor."

She drew a breath, lifted her head. "That's right."

He lifted his brows and studied her. "Hell, Ang, you look like what you really need is a month in rehab. What the hell has happened to you?"

She averted her face. "You're using." He didn't make it a question. It had been her damned drug addiction that had almost killed their son. She'd been wasted on coke when she'd fallen down two flights of stairs, taking their newborn son with her. If he'd only been more aware, been paying more attention....

"I'm clean. Have been for four weeks straight."

He looked at her eyes and knew better.

"Really. I mean it. I'm changing my life, Jim. I met a guy — a man, a decent man. He's helping me. He...he loves me."

So did I once, he thought. "He wants to marry me."

"Congratulations."

She drew a breath. "But it might not happen. There are... problems. Legal problems."

He lifted his head slowly. Something about the tone of her voice set off alarm bells in his head. "Who is this guy?"

"Vincent Stefano."

He shot to his feet the minute she said the name, stunned.

"What the hell is this, Angela?"

"He's a decent man, Jim."

"He's a porn king, Ang."

"But that's not illegal."

"No, not until it involves kids."

"He didn't do what you think he did. Those photos were planted in his office, Jim. He was set up."

"Right." He paced away from her. Working on an anonymous tip, he and his partner had executed a search warrant on Skinny Vinnie's office and found an envelope full of photos that made him want to puke. Kids. Young kids. "He's a piece of dirt, and he's going away for a long time. So don't make any wedding plans just yet." He closed his eyes and swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. "God, how could you be with a sleazebag like him?"

"I love him, Jim!"

"Then you're as sick as he is." He started toward the door.

"You don't understand," she cried, getting up and hurrying behind him. "He's...he's not what you think. He's being framed. And the only thing they have on him now is your testimony."

"Is that what he told you?" He speared her with his eyes.

"He's a liar, Ang. I'm not the only cop who saw those photos. And even if I was and I agreed to change my testimony...that is what you're asking for here, isn't it?"

She couldn't hold his eyes, so she lowered hers as she nodded. "Even if I did, there would still be the small matter of those photos locked up safe and sound in the evidence room. Your slimy boyfriend's going down, Ang."

She blinked slowly. "I don't understand. Vinnie said —"

"Just understand this — I wouldn't change my testimony if your goddamn life depended on it. You got that? Because these are kids. Kids, Ang. Kids come way higher on my list of priorities than my drug-addicted ex-wife's love life. Deal with it."

"Damn you, why can't you just listen?"

He went to the door, opened it wide. "Get the hell out."

"I have a chance to be happy, Jim. Don't take it away from me."

"Yeah, it's all about you," he said, holding the door. "I'm testifying against this puke because I can't stand the thought of you being happy with someone else. You keep believing that."

She leaned toward him, pressed her hands to the front of his shirt. "Don't you care about me anymore? Even a little bit?"

He closed his hands around her wrists to remove them from his chest. "Care about you? You got high as a kite and took my baby son down two flights of stairs, Angela. Twenty-four stairs pounded his body. Twenty-four. You broke his little legs in seven places, twisted up his spine, split his head open, and he's still suffering from it. Every time I take Tyler in for physical therapy and listen to him cry in pain and beg me not to make him go through it, I hate you more. That's what I feel for you. Now get out. And if you come within a mile of my son again, I'll find a way to put you behind bars. Maybe they'll put you in the same facility with your boyfriend. It's where you both belong."

She'd backed away from him as he'd pummeled her with his words. When he finished, she lowered her head and moved slowly to the door. "You never loved me. Not really. Not the way he does."

"You think so? Tell me something, Ang, when did you meet this slimeball?"

She frowned. "A few months ago."

"Before or after I arrested him?"

"A-after. But it's not —"

"And where did you meet him? Did he drive his Porsche to one of the gutters where you sleep, one of the dives where you drink, one of the filthy crack houses where you get your kicks? Did he walk up to you in his designer suit and ask for a date?"

She shook her head. "He...he...it's none of your business."

"Was he a john, Ang?"

Her eyes widened. "I know you've been selling it on the streets. I'm a cop, you think I don't know? So he picked you up. You, out of every whore out there. The ex-wife of the cop who busted him. You think that's some kind of coincidence?"

She blinked, tears springing into her eyes. "He...he..."

"He's using you to get to me. And it's not gonna work. You wanna get clean, you do it yourself. Get into rehab. Stand on your own two feet and take control of your life for a change. But don't see this guy as some fairy-tale prince to your Cinderella. He's trouble, Ang."

Her tears were flowing now. "You're wrong!" she shouted. "You're wrong and I hate you. I hate you for this!"

She surged through the door, ran down the hall to the exit, getting to it just as the doors opened and his partner stepped through in a whoosh of snow and wintry wind.

Colby Benton sent a puzzled look toward the woman as he stomped his feet and brushed at his sleeves. She ignored him, pushed by him and out into the snowy Chicago night. The doors closed and Colby gave his balding red head a shake, brows raised as he met Jim's eyes.

"Tell me that wasn't a date with one of your mommy candidates," he said. "And if it was, I hope it was a blind date."

"Didn't you recognize her, C.B.? That was Ang."

Colby's brows went up even farther. "Crap."

"Yeah, that sums it up pretty well." Jim sighed, still staring at the exit doors though she was long gone. There was only the steady, swirling patterns made by the snow and shifting wind in the glow of the outdoor lights. And beyond that, darkness. Finally he shook himself. "Come on in. I have to go make sure she didn't wake poor Tyler with all her bull."

Jim turned and walked into his apartment with Colby on his heels. He didn't have to tell his longtime friend to close and lock the door behind him. They were cops, they did some things automatically.

Jim stood for a long moment in Tyler's bedroom. It wasn't dark. He always left a night-light on for his son — a little blue cartoon hound-dog lit by a Christmas-tree lightbulb. The same blue dog and numerous blue paw prints decorated the bedspread, the sheets and the pillowcase. A strip of wallpaper border halfway up the wall sported the same character. There was even a blue "thinking chair" in the corner.

And in the midst of it all, snuggled deep in the covers, lay Tyler. Hair too thick and a little too long and looking like a mixture of honey and amber. Eyes usually sparkling with mischief and intelligence, and so big you could fall right into them, but closed now as he slept. A smile so bright it could light an auditorium. He lay with his lashes resting on his chubby cheeks, hugging a stuffed blue dog. Still sound asleep.

"He okay?" Colby whispered.

Jim turned, saw his friend in the doorway and nodded. "Never even knew she was here," he said. He walked softly out of the bedroom, pulled the door closed but not all the way. Colby handed him one of the beers he'd taken from the fridge, and the two headed for the sofa and sat.

"That's probably a blessing," Colby said. "He doesn't even remember her, does he?"

"No. He only knows his birth mother had to go far, far away and can't ever be a mom."

Colby nodded slowly, sipped his beer as he got comfortable. "Any progress in finding him a new one?" He asked it with a slight smile, as if he still wasn't convinced Jim was serious about his ongoing project.

"I've crossed the first ten candidates off the list. Have to find some new prospects before I can move on."

Colby blinked. "You're kidding, right? I mean, you're really...auditioning women for this?"

"Dating. As far the women know, anyway. Hell, it's not exactly honest, but I need to find out what they're about before I make any kind of decision here. I need a woman who can love him the way I do. That's a tall order to fill. She's got to be willing to put him first in her life, ahead of everything else. Family, career, friends —"