Kidnapping in Kendall County (15 page)

Two adults, both wearing dark clothes and ski masks.

And one of the masked adults was holding up a baby.

“Sadie,” Rosalie said on a rise of breath, and she threw open the door.

Chapter Seventeen

Rosalie didn’t even manage to get her foot out the door before Austin latched on to her shoulder and hauled her back into the car.

“I have to get to Sadie,” she blurted out.

She heard the panic in her own voice. Felt it in every inch of her body, but she couldn’t make herself stop. Everything inside her was screaming for her to get to her baby.

“You can’t help Sadie if you’re dead.” Austin dragged her even closer to him and got right in her face. “Don’t give them a reason to pull their triggers, not with the baby between them and you.”

Sweet heaven.

She hadn’t even considered that, but she did now. The threat of her own death didn’t frighten her, but she couldn’t bear the thought of doing anything to hurt Sadie. And if she stepped out there, those men might indeed try to shoot her because they thought she was some kind of loose end that needed to be tied up permanently.

Rosalie’s gaze snapped back to the SUV ahead of them. The interior light went out, and she could no longer see the men or the baby. That didn’t help with the panic and the nerves. At least if she could see Sadie, she would know that her little girl was all right.

Well, as all right as a baby could be while being held by kidnappers.

“Give her to me,” Rosalie sobbed, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. These monsters were using her precious baby as a bargaining chip. They didn’t care that it was tearing her apart.

“Oh, you’ll get her all right,” one of the kidnappers said. “Just have Agent Duran drive closer and put the evidence in the covered plastic bin by our SUV. The sooner he does that, the sooner you’ll get the kid.”

And with that, he ended the call.

Rosalie couldn’t think—her mind was a whirl of emotions and thoughts. She was about to ask Austin what they should do, but before she could say a word, he took the phone and texted Seth to give him their location and told her brother to approach on foot. Probably so the sound of his car engine wouldn’t be detected. On foot though Seth might not get there soon enough to help them rescue Sadie, and he would be out in the open, possibly an easy target.

“We have to stall them,” Austin said, easing the car close to the SUV. Not quickly. He inched along at a snail’s pace. “We have to give Colt, Cooper and Seth time to get into place.”

It made sense, but it also meant it would take even longer before she could get to her baby.

Austin kept driving, the car bobbing along on the uneven surface of the road, and he came to a stop a good ten yards from the SUV and a green plastic bin. He waited, glancing at the phone. Probably waiting to see if the kidnapper would order him to go even closer.

But no call came in.

“Stay put,” Austin warned her, and he held eye contact with her again. Even in the dim light, she could see the warning he was giving her—
Don’t go out there.

Rosalie nodded.

“And keep watch all around us,” Austin added. He put the car in Park, turned off the engine and the headlights. “I don’t want anyone sneaking up on us.”

She nodded again, and Rosalie lowered the window just a fraction so that she’d hopefully be able to hear anyone approaching their car.

Austin kept his gun in his right hand, and he stepped from the car, volleying his attention all around them, especially at the SUV where they were holding Sadie. He opened the back door and took out the first of the three laptops. Not quickly, either. He took his time getting a grip and moving it out of the vehicle and into the bin on the side of the gravel road.

His phone buzzed again. “It’s the kidnapper,” she relayed to Austin and hit the call button to put it on speaker.

“Hurry up for Pete’s sake,” the man snarled. “We don’t have all night. You got two minutes to get that stuff out of the car, or we’re driving off with the kid.”

“No!” Rosalie practically shouted.

The kidnapper hung up but not before she saw something else in the interior of the SUV. The illumination from his phone was just enough that she could make out someone else in the backseat.

“There are three of them,” she whispered to Austin.

Mercy, that didn’t help with the panic. She was an okay shot, but the extra person meant that Austin and she were outgunned. Rosalie prayed that her brothers made it there soon. Maybe their sheer presence would be enough to get the kidnapper to surrender.

She could hope, anyway.

Austin picked up the pace of moving the equipment while Rosalie kept her attention nailed to the kidnapper’s SUV. Not that there was anything to see. But those seconds were ticking by. She wasn’t sure if the man had been bluffing when he said they’d drive away, but it was a risk she couldn’t take.

With the window down and the back door open, it didn’t take long for the bitter cold to seep inside their own vehicle. The sleet was cutting like razors through the lights of the high beams, and the howling winter wind slapped at the tree branches, creating too much noise for her to hear much of anything.

The moment Austin finished moving the last of the laptops, his phone buzzed again, and when she answered it, Rosalie did hear the kidnapper’s scrambled voice.

“It’s too late,” the voice said. That was it. The only warning she got before she heard the roar of the SUV’s engine. The driver spun the car around, the tires digging into the soft ground on the side of the road.

What the heck was he doing?

But Rosalie soon got an answer to that when the driver hit the accelerator.

“No!” Rosalie shouted.

If the kidnappers even heard her, it didn’t do any good.

Because the SUV sped away.

* * *

A
USTIN
’
S
HEART
SLAMMED
against his chest. No. This couldn’t be happening. Not when they were this close to getting Sadie from the kidnappers.

“Hurry!” Rosalie called out to him.

He did exactly that. Austin jumped back behind the wheel of the car and took off in pursuit.

Right now, every second was precious. He had no idea how long this particular ranch trail was, but he couldn’t let the kidnappers make it out to a main road. If that happened, well, he couldn’t go there.

“Why are they leaving?” Rosalie asked in between repeating for him to hurry.

“Maybe something spooked them.” Like Seth, Cooper or Colt though Austin hadn’t seen any signs of them. Austin pushed the accelerator hard. Going much faster than he should on the narrow, icy path. Still, it wasn’t as if he had a lot of options here. He had to follow that SUV.

“Put on your seat belt,” Austin warned Rosalie, “and stay down.”

She did the first but not the second. Probably because she couldn’t stop herself from watching the road ahead. She was also whispering a prayer.

They certainly needed a prayer or two.

Things were already bad, and there were plenty of things that could get even worse tonight. At least they were all alive. For now.

He had to maneuver the car through some tight curves on the uneven surface, and the trees and shrubs were so close to the path that they scraped like fingernails against the side of the car. The unnerving sound sure didn’t help steady his breathing or heartbeat.

“If they’re leaving the files and laptops behind,” Rosalie said, “then maybe they didn’t really want them in the first place.”

Austin had already come to that conclusion. Not that he’d ever thought this was about the evidence. But he went back to his original idea. That maybe all of this had been staged to convince them that Yancy was behind this.

Or maybe Yancy believed by making himself look guilty that it would in turn make him appear innocent. A weird reverse psychology and exactly the sort of thing that Yancy would do to play with their heads.

Either way, this could have been a ruse to throw Rosalie and him off track. However, that didn’t answer the question about the baby.

“You’re sure it was Sadie in the SUV?” he asked while he fought the steering wheel to stay on the road.

“I’m sure.” She didn’t hesitate, either.

That was enough verification for Austin. He never discounted gut feelings, even when a gut feeling could be leading them right smack dab into the middle of danger.

He took another sharp curve and immediately had to hit the brakes. The SUV was there, parked, not on the road this time but about twenty yards away in the center of a small clearing. The headlights were off, ditto for the interior light, and it was hard to tell if anyone was inside.

Austin hoped like the devil that they hadn’t ditched the vehicle and used another trail to get out. If so, it’d be darn hard to find them since he wouldn’t even have a description of a secondary vehicle.

“Don’t get out,” Austin reminded Rosalie, and this time she stayed put. Both of them stared at the SUV, waiting, while keeping watch around them. “Maybe the kidnapper will call soon.”

But soon didn’t happen.

The seconds dragged on, giving Rosalie and him plenty of time to think of all the bad things that could happen in the next couple of minutes.

“If they’ve already left, we need to know,” Rosalie finally said.

Yeah. And the longer they waited, the farther away the kidnappers could get. If they were indeed fleeing, that is. If not, well, that was a chance Austin was about to have to take.

“Wait here, and I mean it,” he repeated, taking his phone from her and shoving it into his pocket. Then he gave her a quick kiss. “There’s a burner cell in the glove compartment. Use it to call Seth if anything goes wrong.”

She took hold of his arm when he reached for the door. “Was that a goodbye kiss?”

“I hope not.”

“Well, it felt like one.” Her breath broke, and Rosalie leaned toward him and returned the kiss. “Swear to me that it won’t be a goodbye.”

Even though time definitely wasn’t on their side right now, he took a moment to make eye contact with her. “I promise,” Austin said.

At best, it was wishful thinking.

At worse, an out-and-out lie because it was a promise he had no control over keeping. Once he stepped out there, he was essentially a sitting duck with at least three hired guns in the area.

Still, he stepped out. And Austin kept his gun ready. It was impossible to stay behind cover, but he used the trees, skirting around them to make his way to the SUV. Eventually, though, he would have to step out into that clearing and hope that Seth and the others would soon arrive for backup.

“Are you there?” Austin called out to whoever might be in that SUV.

No answer.

He glanced back at the car to make sure Rosalie was staying put. She was, thank God. And he hurried even closer to the SUV and ducked behind a scraggly mesquite. Not much cover, but if the kidnappers had wanted to shoot him, they’d already had ample opportunity.

“I left the files and laptops on the road,” Austin went on while he inched closer.

The windows on the SUV were heavily tinted, and there wasn’t even a moon for him to see shadows inside. However, if Rosalie was right, there were three of them. Plus, the baby. And the baby meant despite his having his gun ready, that the last thing he’d be doing was firing shots.

Maybe the kidnappers were on the same page.

Austin pulled in a long breath and stepped out from the tree. He didn’t charge forward. Best not to look as if he were on the attack. However, he was still a good five yards from the SUV when he heard something he didn’t want to hear.

Movement near the car.

He shifted in that direction, hoping that he didn’t see Rosalie hurrying toward him.

But he saw something much worse.

She was out of the car all right, and someone was behind her.

That someone had a gun pointed at Rosalie’s head.

Chapter Eighteen

Rosalie heard the sound behind her a split second too late. She felt someone hook an arm around her neck. Before she could even react or shout out a warning to Austin, the person snapped her back and pressed a gun to her temple.

“Move and you die,” he growled in a whisper right against her ear.

And there was no mistaking that it was a
he.
The person wasn’t using a voice scrambler, and the hard muscles of his chest pressed against her back.

“Rosalie!” Austin called out, and while using the trees for cover again, he started to race toward her.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the man said, taking aim at Austin and then cursing him when he apparently didn’t have a clean shot. “Could be bad for her health.”

Without the scrambler, Rosalie had no trouble recognizing the voice.

It was Sonny.

All of the events of the past eleven months started to whirl through Rosalie’s head. Was this the monster responsible for taking her daughter, or was Sonny just a hired thug? She desperately wanted to know the answers, but more than that, she wanted Austin and her baby safe.

“The cops were watching you,” she said to Sonny. “You were in your hotel room.”

“Was,”
he corrected. “I slipped out the back.”

Not good. The other cops in Sweetwater Springs didn’t know he was here.

With his gun aimed, Austin ducked behind a tree about ten yards away. “Let her go,” he ordered.

“Can’t do that. She’s coming with me for now.” Even though she couldn’t see Sonny, she felt him move slightly, maybe glancing around. “I might let her go as soon as I have the situation with her brother contained.”

Oh, God. Seth. They weren’t going after him, too. She prayed Seth would be able to stay safe.

“What does her brother have to do with this?” Austin asked.

“I figure he’s nearby. Or he soon will be. Too soon for me to get out of here with both him and you on my tail. Rosalie can help with that.”

Sonny was taking her hostage. To use her as a human shield so he could try to stop or even kill Seth and Austin.

It was well below freezing, and her teeth started to chatter. She was shaking, her breath seemingly frozen in her lungs. Still, she had to focus on what had to be done here. And what had to be done was getting her hands on Sadie.

“Where’s my baby?” Rosalie asked.

“She’s nearby, too. You’ll get to see her soon enough. All you have to do is cooperate and come with me. I’ll take you both somewhere so you can live out a long, happy life.”

She desperately wanted to believe him, but it was hard to believe a man with a gun at her head.

Austin leaned out, shook his head. “You have no intentions of letting either Rosalie or me walk away from this.”

Sonny lifted his shoulder. Definitely not a denial. But then, Sonny probably figured that Austin and she knew way too much to let them go. They didn’t. Well, other than knowing that Sonny was almost certainly part of the baby farms.

“Did you shoot yourself so you’d look innocent?” Austin asked. Rosalie realized he’d moved closer.

“No, one of my employees accidentally did that when we were trying to clear out of the second baby farm. But I thought it was a nice touch. It got me in the back of your truck that night, didn’t it?”

Yes, it had, and on that entire drive to the hospital they’d been riding with a coldhearted monster.

“Why did you take my baby?” she asked, not in a whisper, either. She was hoping for the sound of her voice to cover any sounds that Austin might make. Also, it might give her brother a warning that something was wrong.

Again, Sonny looked around. “When I was working for Yancy, his wife asked me to help with an adoption. She wanted a kid, and I’d heard about an operation that dealt in black market babies. I decided to start one of my own. Two of them, in fact. But thanks to you two, I had to blow up one of the places.”

So, Sonny was the one who’d set up the baby farms. Or at least the two near Silver Creek.

“Yancy wanted Rosalie’s baby?” Austin asked. Again, he’d moved.

“No, that idiot had no idea what was going on. I targeted Rosalie’s baby so if things went wrong, then Yancy would be the patsy, and the proof of it would be that he was the one who had the kid.”

Rosalie had to clamp her teeth over her bottom lip to stop herself from screaming. “But you tried to kill Yancy at the hospital.”

“Another nice touch, huh? Wasn’t really trying to kill him, but after that, it put Yancy at the top of your list of suspects, didn’t it?”

It had, and Austin’s and her distrust and hatred for Yancy had made it even easier to suspect him. Of course, Sonny had been a suspect, too. For all the good it’d done them. Here they were with Sonny calling the shots.

For now.

Maybe Austin or even Seth could soon do something about that. Maybe she could, as well. If she managed to drop down, then perhaps that would give Austin a clean shot. Of course, if she failed, both of them could die.

“And you continued the ruse of setting up Yancy by having us bring his files and computers,” Rosalie concluded. She wanted to learn all she could in case they needed it to put this monster behind bars. Of course, for that to happen, they needed to get that gun out of his hands.

“Yep,” Sonny readily admitted. “I used Yancy’s computer to set up the baby farms. There are hidden files on them. Nothing that Yancy would have found, but I figured the FBI wouldn’t have any trouble. Also figured you’d bring me fake computers. No way would the FBI let something like that out of their hands.”

Sonny was right about that, too. So, that meant this was all designed to lure Austin and her out so they could be killed. And now, she might get Seth killed, too, unless Austin could get close enough and at the right angle to stop Sonny.

“Who has my baby?” she asked Sonny.

“She’s safe and with one of my employees. Don’t worry. She’s been well taken care of all these months.”

Rosalie felt Sonny’s muscles go stiff.

“Agent Duran, you need to stay put,” he growled, “or Rosalie dies before seeing her kid. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

The thought of seeing her baby even for a few moments caused her heart to soar. But the feeling didn’t last long. Rosalie didn’t want Sonny to kill her in front of Sadie. Her baby was too young to know what was going on, but still the nightmare might stay with her for the rest of her life.

“Did someone adopt Sadie?” she asked, and Rosalie prayed that she could live with the answer. “Did Yancy’s ex-wife get her?”

“No.” Sonny looked around again. “After Yancy’s marriage went south, I decided to sell the kid to another buyer, but that deal fell through. Then, things heated up with the baby farm investigation, and I figured it best if I kept the kid in case something went wrong. And it did.”

“There’s no reason to hold on to her now,” Rosalie insisted, though she knew nothing that she said to him would do any good. He’d committed so many criminal acts that she figured his heart was untouchable.

“Yeah, there is. As long as I have her, your badge-carrying family will back off.”

Sweet heaven. He planned to keep using Sadie. Not that she’d expected anything less, but it turned her blood to ice to hear it spelled out.

“Where’s Yancy?” Austin called out. He seemed close. Maybe close enough to do something.

“In hiding.” Sonny chuckled, clearly amused about that. “All the evidence will point to him looking very guilty, and he’s trying to cover his butt. He’ll surface soon enough, I’m sure, and the FBI can arrest him.”

Yes, with evidence that Sonny had faked. She wanted Yancy behind bars, but not like this.

“What about Vickie?” Rosalie asked. “Was it really her in the photo, and does she have my baby?”

“Nope to both. I was telling the truth when I said she was innocent in all of this. The photo was just to get you looking in her direction and to muddy the waters. She’s great in the sack but not very bright. I wouldn’t have trusted her to be a real part of this. Look how she ran when just a little thing went wrong.”

That little thing involved Austin’s nephew.

That created a new surge of rage inside her. Sonny was playing a dangerous game with innocent lives. Without thinking, she drew back her elbow and rammed it into Sonny’s stomach. In the same motion, she dropped to the ground, hoping that Austin had a shot.

Cursing, Austin leaned out and fired.

But so did Sonny.

The shots blasted through the air.

* * *

A
USTIN
DUCKED
BEHIND
the tree, barely dodging Sonny’s shot, but Austin’s own shot missed, too.

He cursed.

This was exactly what Austin had been trying to prevent. Rosalie being caught in the middle of gunfire. Worse, Sonny dropped down, too, trying to grab hold of Rosalie again, and in doing so it took out any chance that Austin had of a second shot.

Austin raced toward them, trying to position himself between Rosalie and Sonny, but it was already too late for that. Sonny managed to keep hold of her, and he slung her between them.

Using her as a human shield.

Since Sonny didn’t have complete control of his gun, Austin went after the man’s hand so that he couldn’t aim it at Rosalie. That cost him big-time because Sonny punched him, hard. So hard that Austin could have sworn something in his head exploded, and for a few crucial seconds, it robbed him of his breath.

That didn’t stop Austin.

He went after Sonny again, and this time managed to land a punch of his own.

Rosalie twisted and squirmed, trying to get out of the fray, but Austin couldn’t help her because he had his hands full with Sonny.

“Back away from him!” someone shouted.

Austin got just a glimpse of a muscle-bound man hurrying from the SUV. Great. One of Sonny’s hired guns, no doubt. He didn’t need this, and Austin slammed his gun against Sonny’s head so he could put an end to this before the goon made it to them.

The bash to the head caused Sonny to fall back. But the man didn’t stay down. He reached out, latched on to Rosalie’s hair and pulled her back in front of him. He put his gun to her head again.

Hell. That wasn’t the way Austin had wanted this to play out.

Austin scrambled behind one of the trees so that Sonny wouldn’t gun him down. He couldn’t save Rosalie if Sonny killed him.

“Let’s try this one more time,” Sonny snarled. “Move and she dies real fast.”

Sonny’s breath was ragged, and his face was bleeding. Austin figured he looked about the same. Thankfully, the only bright spot in all of this was that Rosalie didn’t seem to be hurt.

Austin needed to do something fast to keep it that way.

“I was trying to do her a favor by letting her see the kid,” Sonny added, glancing around him again.

“I doubt that,” Austin argued. “You’re not the do-a-favor type. I’m guessing you want Rosalie alive so you can draw Seth out. I’m also guessing that you’re afraid Seth won’t let this go once Rosalie disappears.”

Sonny smiled. “Can’t leave a bulldog like Calder out there. While I’m at it, those other three brothers of hers will have to go, as well. Yancy’ll get the death penalty for all of their deaths. Yours, too.”

Rosalie made a sound, anger mixed with fear, and Austin shook his head, a warning for her not to throw another elbow. This time, Sonny might just pull the trigger.

“You had a chance to kill us the night we picked you up in my truck,” Austin reminded him.

“That would’ve been too soon. Had to figure out first what you two knew and if you’d told anyone anything that could lead back to me. Had to keep you close. And now that I’ve figured it out, you both know way too much to keep drawing breath.”

“We didn’t have a confirmation of who owned the baby farms,” Austin insisted. “Not until tonight.”

“Yeah, but you would have figured it out soon enough. Agent Calder’s not the only bulldog in these woods. You would have kept coming until you got to the truth, and that truth would have put me behind bars.”

If Austin had his way, it would do more than that. Sonny would get the death penalty because Austin knew for a fact that some of the birth mothers had been murdered at the baby farm.

“You okay, boss?” the thug asked, coming even closer.

“Yeah.” Sonny spit out a mouthful of blood. “Stay close but check on Hutchins. He should have been here by now.”

Austin didn’t know the man. The name hadn’t come up in the investigation, but he guessed this was another hired gun.

One who’d been sent to find Seth.

Maybe Seth, Cooper and Colt would be able to evade this Hutchins and the second goon. Austin needed that to happen because he intended to do whatever it took to get Rosalie out of this.

And he saw his chance when the hired gun walked away to go after Seth.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Sonny said, probably because he knew that Austin was about to do something. “I have another
helper
in the SUV. This one has some long-range shooting skills, and since I’m not too concerned now about keeping Rosalie alive much longer, my man will pull the trigger.”

Austin made a split-second glance behind him, but as before he couldn’t see inside the SUV. With all the scheming that Sonny had done, though, it wouldn’t surprise him if several hired guns were in there.

There was a sound to his left, maybe footsteps. Maybe Seth. However, before Austin could even look in that direction, he heard another sound.

The SUV door opening.

Hell. He didn’t need another guy with a gun getting in on this. But it wasn’t a man. It was a gray-haired woman, and she was clutching what appeared to be a baby in a blanket.

“You said the baby wouldn’t be in danger!” the woman shouted. With that, she turned and ran straight for the woods.

A man jumped out from the SUV. The rifleman, no doubt, and he volleyed glances between his boss and the woman.

“Go after her!” Sonny shouted. “And when you find her, kill her and bring me the kid.”