Kidnapping in Kendall County (7 page)

A crying baby.

Chapter Eight

“You don’t have time to ditch me,” Rosalie repeated. “We have to get to Vickie and stop her and that baby from being hurt.”

She’d been saying variations of that same thing during the entire half-hour drive from the safe house to Vickie’s house. Austin figured she was right, but still he couldn’t risk taking Rosalie into yet another dangerous situation.

That’s why he’d called for backup from the San Antonio cops.

Once Austin arrived at Vickie’s place, he could hand Rosalie off to the officers and then find out what the heck was going on. Maybe it wasn’t too late to help Vickie and get her and the baby out of harm’s way.

Of course,
They’re coming to kill us
wasn’t the kind of thing someone said unless the person was already in harm’s way. If he couldn’t get to her in time, maybe SAPD could.

Austin pushed the accelerator as hard as it was safe to do, speeding toward Vickie’s house on the outskirts of San Antonio. He also kept watch around them in case the gunmen were using this as some kind of ruse to draw Rosalie and him out into the open again. Rosalie kept watch, as well, her gaze firing all around them while she kept a white-knuckle grip on the armrest.

“The baby could be Sadie,” she mumbled.

Yeah, she’d been repeating a version of that, too, since Vickie’s call.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” he said, doing some repeating of his own. There were likely dozens of babies connected to this operation, and the odds were slim that it was Rosalie’s daughter.

“Hope is all I have.”

Her voice was small and shaky. Barely a whisper. However, Austin heard every drop of the raw emotion in it, and he knew it was going to be a bear to keep her out of this situation. He understood her need to see if this was Sadie, but at the moment he had an even greater need to keep her safe. Then, he could rescue Vickie and the crying baby.

His phone buzzed, and without taking his attention off the road, Austin answered it.

“I’m Detective Hernandez, SAPD,” the man said. “We’re at Vickie Cravens’s house now, but she’s not here.”

Rosalie made a sharp sound of concern, mimicking the way that Austin felt. “She could be hiding inside.” Austin hoped. Hiding and unharmed.

“We looked,” the detective explained. “Her back door was wide-open so I went in and checked every room. She’s not here.”

Austin hated he had to ask his next question. “Any sign of foul play?” And he held his breath, waiting for the answer.

“Not really, but her purse and car are here, and there’s a can of baby formula opened on the kitchen counter. Looks like she left in a hurry.”

Or was taken in a hurry. Austin wasn’t sure where Vickie had been when she’d made that frantic call to him. It was possible she’d been somewhere else and heading to her house and that’s why she’d told him to go there. If she’d seen any signs that it wasn’t safe to go inside, she could have escaped. Or maybe the escape had happened after the danger was right on her. Either way, he refused to believe, yet, that the worst had happened.

“Maybe she has two vehicles,” Austin suggested. “And she could have used the second one to get away.”

“She only has one car registered to her,” Detective Hernandez explained. “The houses out here are pretty far apart, but we’ll canvass the area and talk to her neighbors. She might be with one of them or may have borrowed a car.”

Maybe. But as determined as these baby farm guards were, Austin had to admit to himself that they would have already gone after her no matter where she’d tried to flee.

If Vickie had told the truth, that is.

After everything that Rosalie and he had been through in the past twenty-four hours, Austin wasn’t about to trust anyone completely. However, he had to do whatever it took to get the baby to safety.

“I’ll be there in about five minutes,” Austin told the detective.

“Vickie could have gotten away,” Rosalie concluded when Austin ended the call. “She seemed to have had some kind of warning, a long enough one to call you.”

Yeah. She’d said they were coming to kill her, not that they were already there. Since they’d had enough bad news, Austin decided to hold on to that as a positive sign. Even if Vickie had had only a couple of minutes’ head start, it might have been enough for her to escape and hide from her would-be attackers.

But where the heck was she now?

Following the instructions on his GPS, Austin took the final turn toward Vickie’s house. Technically, it was inside the city limits, but it was still fairly rural with the thick trees and narrow road leading to the pastoral-sounding neighborhood of Eden Waters.

He was about to repeat his warning to Rosalie that she couldn’t be part of this. The warning died on his lips, however, when he saw the auburn-haired woman. She was partly concealed behind a winter-bare oak tree, and she had something clutched in her arms.

“Vickie,” Rosalie and he said in unison.

Austin hit his brakes, pulling his truck to the side of the road, and drew his gun. He also had to catch hold of Rosalie’s arm to keep her from bolting.

“She looks terrified,” Rosalie insisted.

“And looks can be deceiving,” Austin insisted right back. “Plus, this could be some kind of a trap.”

But if it was, then it was a darn good one. The woman’s gaze met his, and even from the twenty-yard or so distance that separated them, Austin was pretty sure he could see the fear in her eyes.

“We have to protect that baby.” Rosalie shook off his grip, and she would have no doubt bolted again if Austin hadn’t stopped her.

“Wait here,” he ordered, and he made sure that’s exactly what it was.
An order.
Austin handed Rosalie his phone. “Call Detective Hernandez and tell him where we are. I want him here now so he can guard you.”

Of course, Austin would still have to keep an eye on Rosalie to make sure she stayed put and that the guards didn’t use this opportunity to sneak up on them.

“There’s a gun in the glove compartment,” he added and gave Rosalie one last glare of warning before he opened his truck door. “I’m Agent Duran,” he called out to the woman.

As with the fear he’d seen earlier, he thought maybe now there was some relief. Still clutching the bundle in her arms, she started running toward them. “I’m Vickie Cravens.”

“Get down,” Austin told Rosalie.

He didn’t look back to make sure she did it. He kept his attention nailed to the woman and the area around her. Vickie was doing the same, her gaze darting all around as she made her way to him.

“We have to get out of here,” Vickie insisted. “I got a call, and they’re on the way.”

“Who’s on the way?” Austin demanded, and he moved in front of her to block her from getting into the truck.

Vickie’s breath was gusting, and she frantically shook her head. “No time to explain now.”

Austin would have argued that, but the sound stopped him cold. The baby cried, squirming beneath the blanket, and he knew that he couldn’t just stand there and wait for something else bad to happen.

He cursed the fact that Rosalie was in the truck. Cursed also because he had put her right back in the middle of possible danger. He hoped it didn’t turn out to be the same kind of mistake he’d made with Eli.

Austin checked as best he could to make sure Vickie wasn’t armed, and he helped her onto the seat between Rosalie and him. Thankfully, Rosalie had taken the .38 out of the glove compartment, but Austin prayed neither of them had to use a weapon, especially not in such close quarters.

He spotted the cop car coming up behind them. Hernandez, no doubt. “Call him,” Austin said to Rosalie. “Tell him to follow us.”

Though her hands were still shaking, Rosalie managed to do that.

“We can’t go to SAPD,” Vickie quickly said, fumbling to put on her seat belt. “I’m not sure I can trust them. I’m not sure I can trust
you,
” she added, volleying glances at both Rosalie and him.

“Then why’d you return my call and ask for help?” Austin pressed.

Vickie choked back a hoarse sob. “Because someone said I could trust you. A friend.”

“Sonny?” Rosalie asked. She leaned closer to Vickie, obviously trying to get a look at the baby in the blanket.

“No. Not Sonny. Someone who works as a criminal informant.” Vickie didn’t hesitate, either. “Why, does Sonny have something to do with this?”

The question was right for someone who was innocent. Her seemingly surprised reaction, too, but again, Austin knew this sort of thing could be faked.

Still, it was best to get answers someplace safer.

He drove off, heading toward Sweetwater Springs. Rosalie wasn’t going to like the fact he was taking her back home, but one of her brothers was the sheriff there, and Austin wanted some help that didn’t involve the FBI.

“I need to know if the baby is my daughter,” Rosalie said.

“No.” Again, Vickie didn’t hesitate, but she did look puzzled by the question. “It’s a boy. Why? Did someone take your baby?”

She nodded, swallowed hard. “Do you know anything about a missing baby girl? She’d be eleven months old.” Rosalie took hold of the woman’s arm, turning her so that Vickie was facing her. “Do you know where my daughter is?”

“No. I’m sorry. I didn’t see any records, not for your baby or anyone else. I just got a few emails and phone calls. Mostly from the fake adoption agency and then a few from the couple who was supposed to adopt this baby.”

That was a start. Records weren’t the only thing that could help Rosalie and him. Once they had the name of the person responsible, then they could force him or her to talk.

Of course, Vickie could be that person.

And it could be his nephew she had in her arms.

Austin couldn’t see much of the child because of the way Vickie had him clutched against her, but he could see the baby’s wispy brown hair. Maybe the color of his nephew’s hair. He just didn’t know.

Heck, he didn’t even know if this baby was four months old, the right age for his sister’s missing son.

“Why do you have this child?” Austin demanded.

Vickie gave another hoarse sob. “I didn’t know the operation was illegal. I swear, I didn’t. I just needed a job, and I’d done work as a nanny. That’s why I wasn’t suspicious when this nanny agency contacted me out of the blue and asked if I’d take a temporary position to care for a newborn.”

“I want the name of the agency and the person who contacted you,” Austin insisted.

“It’s fake. I figured that out when I got suspicious and tried to call them, but the number wasn’t working. Neither was the email they’d used to contact me. I was only supposed to keep the baby for a couple of days, until his adoptive parents picked him up, but the days turned to weeks. Someone from the agency kept calling, saying it wouldn’t be much longer.”

So, something had obviously gone wrong. But if this baby was connected to the pair of now-destroyed baby farms, then why hadn’t the person in charge come and taken the child? A healthy baby boy would have fetched a good price for a black market adoption.

“I still want the name of the agency. The adoptive parents’ names, too,” Austin continued. Though those were probably fake, as well, if the agency had been. “You’ll also give me a detailed statement of everything that went on from the moment this agency contacted you.”

Vickie nodded, moaned softly. At least Austin thought she’d moaned, but he realized Rosalie had made that sound. She was staring down at the baby, but he could see the pain all over her face. This wasn’t her child. Her baby was still out there somewhere, and it was shattering her heart.

Just as it was doing to Austin’s own sister.

“I called Sonny,” Vickie went on before Austin could ask more about the baby in her arms. “I told him something suspicious was going on. He said he’d check things out for me.”

“Is that why he was at the baby farm?” Rosalie asked.

Vickie’s eyes widened. “A baby farm? God, how many babies were taken?”

“We’re not sure,” Austin answered. It was the truth, but he also didn’t want to give Vickie too many details. Even if she was innocent, she might warn Sonny. Or she might even be connected to Yancy. “When did you call Sonny?”

“Last night.”

If that was true, then Sonny had found the place darn fast. Either that meant Sonny had gotten lucky or he’d known where to look. The uneasy glance Rosalie gave him let Austin know that she’d come to the same conclusion. Soon, very soon, he needed to question Sonny again because the man hadn’t been the one to bring up Vickie’s name back at the hospital.

Yancy had.

Maybe Sonny hadn’t wanted to implicate Vickie in this, and that could have been the very reason Yancy had told Austin about the woman. Either way, Sonny might be able to give them answers.

“How old is that baby?” Austin asked. It was hard to do with his thoughts scattered in a dozen different directions, but he tried to keep watch around them. Tried to keep his emotions in check, too.

“Four months. I’ve had him with me since he was just a couple of days old.”

The age was right, after all. Austin had to force himself to release the breath he was holding. He also had to tamp down the hope he felt rising in his chest.

Rosalie reached over and eased back the side of the blanket. “Does he have any kind of birthmark?” The baby was wearing a blue one-piece suit so it was hard to see much of him.

Vickie nodded. “It’s red. The shape of a strawberry.”

Hell.

Because he had no choice, Austin hit the brakes and pulled off onto the shoulder. He reached for the baby, to see if the birthmark was in the right spot, but his hand felt rough and tight. Too rough to be touching a baby.

Thankfully, Rosalie did it for him.

The little boy had fallen asleep, but Rosalie gently opened the snaps and pushed the fabric away from his left leg.

It was there.

In the exact spot where his sister had said it would be.

“He’s my nephew,” Austin heard himself say, though he wasn’t sure how he managed to speak. There was a huge lump in his throat now, and the muscles in his chest were too tight for him to breathe.

“I can drive,” Rosalie suggested.