Kidnapping in Kendall County (4 page)

“I’ll get someone out there right away,” Sawyer assured him. Another pause. “You had a BOLO on a woman driving a black truck registered to your alias?”

“Yeah—”

“A deputy here in Silver Creek just phoned it in. They found her.” Sawyer paused again. “It’s not good news, Austin. The woman’s dead.”

Chapter Five

Rosalie’s heart went to her knees. She couldn’t stop the brutal thoughts and images from going through her head. Images of Janice’s frantic escape from the baby farm and the ordeal that had led up to it.

At the time Rosalie had believed that escape was the woman’s best chance of surviving.

Obviously, she’d been wrong.

“Oh, God.” Rosalie grabbed the phone from Austin and put it on speaker. “What about the babies? Janice had two newborns with her.”

“Who is this?” Agent Ryland snapped.

Austin mumbled some profanity and made the final turn toward the hospital. “She’s Rosalie McKinnon.”

Agent Ryland repeated her name. “She was engaged to Eli.” Even though Rosalie didn’t know Agent Ryland, the man obviously knew her since it wasn’t a question.

“And she’s also Seth Calder’s stepsister,” Austin added. “I ran into her while I was undercover.” He glanced at her, as if he might add more, but then shook his head. “Now, what about the babies?”

“Both are fine. According to the deputy, Janice drove to the sheriff’s office, but she was already injured when she got there. She’d been shot.”

Rosalie’s heart just kept dropping. She was beyond thankful that the babies were okay, but it was terrifying to think of Janice being pursued by these monsters while she was trying to get the newborns to safety.

“The babies are being taken to the hospital,” Agent Ryland continued. “Just as a precaution. There’s not a scratch on them. And, of course, child protective services will be brought in. Will the woman’s killer try to come after the babies?” he came right out and asked.

Rosalie already knew the answer and dreaded hearing it.

“Possibly,” Austin said without hesitation.

“I’ll get right on it,” Ryland answered, also without hesitation, and he ended the call.

“This is all my fault,” she whispered.

Austin made a yeah, right sound. “The fault lies with the person who set up the baby farm.”

True, but if she hadn’t put Janice in a position where she had to escape, the woman might be alive. “If I’d stayed with her and the babies, this might not have happened.”

“Yes, it would have, and you’d be dead, too. Those guards wouldn’t have wanted any witnesses to get away.”

And since both Austin and she were just that—witnesses—then, yes, the men would have tried to shoot her, too. But at least if she’d been there, she might have been able to stop it and Janice might be alive.

Austin drove into the hospital parking lot and came to a stop directly in front of the E.R. doors. Sonny climbed out, not easily, and while still clutching his injured arm, he headed inside.

“Stay close to me,” Austin warned her, and as he’d done while they were on the road, he kept watch around them.

The rain had stopped, but the wind took a swipe at her. She was already shivering from the spent adrenaline, and the bitter cold only made it worse.

The moment the E.R. staff saw Sonny, they rushed forward and whisked him away to one of the examination rooms. A security guard wearing a uniform trailed along behind them.

Rosalie looked around, hoping to see the babies and whoever was guarding them, but the E.R. was empty except for a woman sitting at the intake desk.

“I’ll need to get some information from you about the patient,” the woman said.

But Austin waved her off. “Nothing much we can tell you. We just gave him a ride here.”

That wasn’t the whole truth, of course, but Austin probably didn’t want to get into any details of the investigation with someone who wasn’t law enforcement.

“I’ll check on the babies,” Austin said when Rosalie continued to look around.

He took out his phone, stepped to the far side of the room, but before he could make a call his phone rang. He groaned and showed her the name on the screen.

Seth.

Now it was Rosalie’s turn to groan. Agent Ryland had likely called Seth.

“Let me talk to my sister,” Seth ordered. Even without the call being on speaker, she had no trouble hearing him.

“I’m fine,” Rosalie jumped to say to her brother when Austin handed her the phone.

“You’re not fine if you were in the middle of an undercover investigation. Have you lost your mind?”

Probably. Hard to have a sound mind with her baby kidnapped. “I don’t expect you to understand why I did what I did.”

“Oh, I understand it all right. I want to find my niece as much as you do, but I don’t want my sister dead in the process. Put Austin back on the phone,” he ordered, sounding very much like the hardheaded brother that he was.

“How the hell did she manage to get inside an undercover operation, and exactly how close did she come to dying?” Again her brother’s voice was so loud that Rosalie didn’t need the speaker function to hear him.

Austin’s gaze met hers, and she silently pleaded with him not to tell the truth. It was best if she broke the details to Seth after he calmed down. Whenever the heck that might be.

“Rosalie’s okay. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Austin said, but he shot her a glare. No doubt because he wasn’t happy about the lie or her involvement in any of this.

“From what I’m hearing, you were both at the wrong place. You do know your boss is ticked off about this?”

“Yeah, I heard,” Austin mumbled. “Can’t be helped.”

“We got a lead on the missing babies,” Rosalie volunteered since she doubted Austin wanted to continue to listen to this scolding any more than she did.

She moved closer to the phone, and in doing so, her cheek brushed against Austin’s. The slight contact stunned her, as if it’d been more than just an accidental touch, and she eased away from him.

Austin’s gaze stayed on her, and he cleared his throat. Obviously, he wasn’t any more comfortable touching her than she was touching him.

Except it hadn’t been just discomfort on her part.

Rosalie felt that trickle of heat. The kind of man-to-woman heat that she couldn’t possibly feel when it came to Austin, so she quickly shoved it aside and hoped it didn’t come back.

“Trevor Yancy’s name came up in connection with the baby farms,” Austin told Seth.

“Hell,” Seth mumbled.

And that was Rosalie’s reaction, too.

Well, it was after she managed to force that
trickle
to take a hike. It was easier to do now that Yancy was in the forefront of her thoughts.

Yancy and his hired gun could be the people responsible for the attack that had left Eli dead, and she wanted the man to have no further connection to her and her family. However, Yancy might have the ultimate connection if he’d been the one to kidnap Sadie.

“I’ll deal with Yancy,” Austin continued. “And I’ll drive Rosalie home as soon as someone arrives to take over for me here at the hospital.”

“Don’t take her home yet.” Seth cursed, groaned, cursed again. “I’m tied up with a case here in El Paso, so I’m asking you to do me a favor. Protect her. Make sure these goons don’t come after her. And, Rosalie, don’t you dare say you can take care of yourself.”

Since that’s exactly what she’d been about to say, Rosalie just stayed quiet and aimed her own glare at the phone. She loved Seth, and he’d been more of a real brother to her than her own three blood-kin ones had been, but she couldn’t stop looking for her precious baby.

No amount of warnings from anyone, including Seth or Austin, would stop her.

“Sawyer said these goons killed a woman,” Seth went on, talking to Austin now. “And if so, they could come after Rosalie.”

That made her feel a little light-headed. She’d considered that, of course, but what she hadn’t realized was that if Austin took her to her family’s ranch, that she could put all of them in danger, too. Her pregnant sister, Rayanne, was there. Her father, as well, along with her oldest brother’s wife and toddler son. She didn’t want them caught up in the middle of this dangerous situation.

“I’ll get Rosalie to a safe house,” Austin assured him, and before either one could give her a say in the matter, they ended the call.

She had to make Austin understand that she wasn’t going into hiding. “I don’t want to go to a safe house. I want to find Sadie.”

But she was talking to the air because Austin’s attention was no longer on her. It was on the lanky dark-haired man who came through the E.R. doors. Rosalie immediately spotted the silver badge clipped to his belt and figured he was carrying a weapon beneath his buckskin coat.

“Agent Duran?” he said, heading their way. “I’m Deputy Gage Ryland. I’m here to guard the man you brought in.”

“Ryland,” Austin repeated. “You’re Sawyer’s cousin?”

The deputy nodded, the corner of his mouth lifting a little. “Around here, just about every Ryland has got a badge.” The half smile quickly faded. “Tell me about this guy I’ll be guarding.”

Austin showed the deputy the photo that Sawyer had sent him on his phone. “His name is Sonny Buckland, a P.I. I found him near a baby farm that I’m investigating.”

His mouth tightened. “You think he killed the woman with the babies?”

“No.” But then Austin huffed and shrugged. “He was with us when that particular shooting happened, but I can’t rule out that he’s not part of it in some way. In fact, he could have been the one to give the order to have her shot.”

The deputy nodded. “Then, I won’t let him out of my sight. We need to catch the SOB who put a bullet in the woman and endangered those babies.”

Rosalie couldn’t agree more. “How are the babies? Where are they?”

He tipped his head toward a hall off the E.R. “We brought them in through a side entrance. Two other deputies are with them and will escort them to Child Protective Services when the social workers arrive.”

That made her breathe a little easier, but her heart was still slamming against her chest.

“My brother’s the sheriff,” Deputy Ryland continued, “and he’s on his way to what’s left of the baby farm sites. We’ll have a CSI team out there, and the FBI’s been called in.”

With all that, they might find something.

Correction: they
had
to find something.

“What exactly happened to Janice? How did she die?” she asked. Part of Rosalie didn’t want to know the details, especially since she felt responsible, but the other part of her had to know.

“She was shot,” the deputy explained. “It appears the bullet went in through the back window of the truck she was driving, and it struck her in the side of the neck. It’s a miracle she managed to get away from her attacker. A miracle, too, that the babies weren’t hurt.”

Just hearing that spelled out caused her knees to buckle, and if Austin hadn’t caught her, Rosalie was afraid she would have fallen. It wasn’t just
these
babies who caused her reaction. Though they were the immediate concern. But if the monster behind this had put these two babies at such horrible risk, then her daughter was in the same danger.

Mercy, it hurt too much to think about that. And she’d tried to keep the bad thought aside. Impossible to do that now that she’d dealt with those guards face-to-face. Rosalie knew what they were capable of and how far they’d go to keep their operation under wraps.

Deputy Ryland must have noticed the alarm on her face and probably in every inch of her body because he grumbled something about checking on Sonny, and he stepped away, no doubt so Austin could tend to her.

“Come on,” Austin said, taking her by the arm. “I’ll get you to that safe house.”

Rosalie wanted to stay put, to learn as much as she could from whatever else Sonny might tell them. However, even she couldn’t deny that she was shaken to the core and needed a few hours to regroup.

After that, she’d have to get away from Austin.

Protect her,
Seth had told him, and it didn’t matter about the bad blood between Austin and her. She figured Austin had no plans to let her out of his sight.

Well, temporarily, anyway.

He’d likely put her in some other agent’s protective custody so that he could get on with finding his nephew and putting an end to the baby farms. He’d want to exclude her while doing that.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

“How far is this safe house?” she asked.

“Not far. But we’ll have to drive around first to make sure we aren’t being followed. And it’s not a place we want to use for long. It’s best if I make arrangements for another place outside the county.”

That would put her even farther away from the baby farm. From Janice’s killers, too. But it wasn’t a trade-off Rosalie wanted since she needed to find answers about Sadie, and sadly, those killers might have those answers. Once they were at this interim safe house, she would somehow have to convince Austin to stay in the area.

That wouldn’t be an easy task.

Austin paused when they reached the E.R. doors and looked out. There were no other vehicles near his truck, just the same ones that had been in the parking lot when they’d arrived. Still, he hurried, and the moment he had her inside, he drove away.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No.” Rosalie didn’t even try to lie, especially since she was still shaking.

He made a soft sound of agreement. “I’m sorry. I know the shooting must bring back memories of Eli.”

“Everything brings back those memories,” she mumbled.

“Yes.” And that’s all he said for several moments. “I know saying I’m sorry won’t help, but I am sorry.”

Rosalie heard the words. Every one of them. But she couldn’t respond. She’d been raised to be polite. To not do anything intentionally to hurt a person’s feelings, but there was no way she could let him off the hook.

Eli was dead.

And Austin was partly to blame.

There were probably a lot of details of the investigation she didn’t know, but Seth had given her the big picture. Austin and Eli had been undercover investigating an illegal weapons ring, and when a hired gun of the operation had tried to flee, Austin had gone after him.

And in doing so, Austin had essentially blown their covers.

As a result, Eli had been gunned down a few seconds later by a second hired thug, who then disappeared along with his partner whom Eli had been chasing. All of this had happened just weeks before Eli and she had planned to walk down the aisle. Rosalie hadn’t even had a chance to tell Eli that he was going to be a father since she’d learned the news herself only that morning.