Sawyer (3 page)

Chapter Four

“No!” Cassidy blurted out. Nothing could have stopped her from running to Sawyer.

And toward the person lying on the ground.

Sawyer stooped down, touched his fingers to the person’s neck and shook his head. “Dead.”

Her heart was practically beating out of her chest by the time she made it there, and she tried to brace herself for the worst. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure she could handle the worst.

Sawyer took hold of her to stop her from going closer, but she still got a good look at the person lying on the ground.

Not Bennie.

The victim was a woman with jaggedly chopped hair, black with streaks of blue. Cassidy had no idea who she was, but she had no trouble seeing the bullet wound on the side of her head.

Despite the gruesome scene, the relief was instant and overwhelming. It robbed her of what little breath she had left. But the relief was also short lived. It wasn’t Bennie. But where was he?

“Bennie?” she yelled.

No answer. Nothing.

Cassidy would have bolted again to go look for him, but Sawyer stopped her. “Who is she?” He tipped his head to the woman on the ground.

“I don’t know.” Again, she tried to leave, and Sawyer stopped her.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he insisted. “The kidnappers have already killed one woman. You want to make it two?”

“I want to find my brother,” she insisted right back.

“We’ll do that. Come on. This is a crime scene now, and it needs to be processed. That’s our best bet at finding Bennie.”

Maybe. But everything inside her was screaming for her to run and find her brother. Even if she knew it wasn’t the logical thing to do.

“Something obviously went wrong here,” Sawyer said as he led her away from the body. “But the kidnappers will contact you again. They’ll keep Bennie alive because they want to get that ransom.”

That made it through the panic and the haze in her head. Yes, the kidnappers wanted the money. She had to believe that, hold on to it. Because it was the only way to keep herself sane.

Sawyer and she approached Sheriff Grayson Ryland, and he handed Sawyer a set of keys. “Use my truck and get her to the hospital so she can be checked out. I already have an ambulance and CSI team on the way.”

“The woman’s dead,” Sawyer told him.

The sheriff looked as if he wanted to curse, and he made another call. This time to the medical examiner.

“Please let me know if the men come back with Bennie,” she said to the sheriff.

He nodded, continued his call, and Sawyer got her moving toward a silver pickup parked just up the road. Not a slow pace, either. They were practically jogging, and he kept watch, his gaze firing all around.

Cassidy doubted the kidnappers would kill her. But she rethought that. She’d broken their rules by not returning with the photo in time.

Was that the reason they’d killed the woman?

The emotion was already high, boiling through her, and that caused her to gasp. “Did the kidnappers kill her to punish me?” she managed to ask.

Sawyer didn’t answer because he obviously didn’t know. He stuffed her into the truck, got behind the wheel and drove out of there fast.

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” she told him. “I’m okay. Or at least I will be when we find Bennie.”

“It’s standard practice to be checked out. After all, you were kidnapped.”

Yes, and she was rattled, but there wasn’t a scratch on her. She knew after seeing that video that Bennie wouldn’t be able to say the same thing. Those men had clearly hurt him.

“Don’t try to make sense of this,” Sawyer warned her after glancing at her face. “Let’s just get an ID on the body and go from there.”

It didn’t seem nearly enough, not with Bennie’s life at stake. Still, she knew Sawyer was right. They couldn’t go blindly running in the woods looking for him.

“But what does that woman have to do with the kidnapping and my brother?” she asked.

“Maybe she was one of the kidnappers.”

Cassidy was about to disagree, but the truth was, she had no idea if anyone else was involved. “I only saw the two men with cartoon masks.”

He spared her another glance before his eyes went back to the road. “And you’re sure they were both men?”

Was she? Well, she had been until Sawyer had asked that question. “Only one of them spoke, and it was definitely a man. But even if the other one was a woman, why would he have killed her?”

“Maybe because he didn’t want to split the ransom money with her. It happens all the time. Despite the cliché, there’s not much honor among thieves.”

He was right, and the kidnapper could now be a killer. A killer who had her brother.

Even though it wasn’t cold, she was soaking wet, and Cassidy began to shiver. Sawyer noticed, turned on the heat, and he sped up the wipers, too. It didn’t help much. The rain was coming down even harder now, and the wipers couldn’t keep up with the downpour.

“This is destroying the crime scene, isn’t it?” Cassidy asked.

He lifted his shoulder, kept his gaze pinned to the road. “Grayson’s a good sheriff. If there’s anything to find, he’ll find it.”

She thought about that a moment, trying to piece together this puzzle. “They held Bennie and me in your grandfather’s bar. Why? Why would they believe you and I have a connection?”

Another lift of his shoulder, but that wasn’t a casual response she saw in his eyes. No way. He was troubled by all of this—especially about the baby that she’d photographed in his arms.

Why would the kidnappers have wanted that?

She was about to ask him, but his phone buzzed, and she saw Grayson’s name on the screen. Cassidy held her breath, waiting and praying again that this wasn’t bad news about her brother.

“The dead woman had a wallet in her pants pocket,” she heard Grayson say. Since the call wasn’t on speaker, she scooted closer to Sawyer so she could listen to every word. “According to her driver’s license, her name is April Warrick.”

Cassidy repeated it, hoping it would spark some kind of recognition. It didn’t.

“I’m having someone run a background on her now,” the sheriff added.

“Good, we’re almost at the hospital. After Cassidy sees the doctor, I can help get all of this sorted out. What about the baby?” Sawyer asked. “Any calls about her? Is she okay?”

“She’s still with Mason at the E.R.—where you told him to take her. He says the baby’s fine, that he’s just waiting on the paperwork.”

That was something at least. Cassidy hated the thought of an innocent baby being put in the middle of this mess.

“I told Mason to have the doctors do blood and DNA tests on the baby,” Sawyer added.

Grayson stayed quiet a moment. “You want the DNA compared to yours?”

“Yeah.” Sawyer paused, too. “And if I’m not a match, then I’ll run it through the system to see if we can find out who is.”

She wasn’t sure what to hope for. At least if the child were Sawyer’s, then she would have him to protect her.

“Any sign of Bennie?” Cassidy asked. She moved even closer to Sawyer, until they were shoulder to shoulder. He noticed, glanced down at the contact between them and scowled. But Cassidy stayed put.

“Nothing yet,” Grayson answered, and with that, Sawyer did hang up. Another glance at her had Cassidy moving back to her side of the seat.

“You still haven’t forgiven me,” she mumbled. No surprise there. Sawyer wasn’t ever likely to forgive her.

“What do you think?” he mumbled back.

His voice was a growl, and it should have unnerved her. Along with that steely glare he was giving her. But sadly, even now, her reaction to Sawyer was a different kind of unnerving.

The images of them naked in bed flashed through her mind. Memorable images. But with bad timing. Then and now. She had been his one-night stand.

His decision, not hers.

She’d known him for months before that one-nighter. Months of lusting after him. And when Cassidy had finally run into him at a party, they’d left together to go back to his place for that one glorious night.

“I was attracted to you,” she reminded him. Still was. “That’s why I slept with you, not so I could get information about the investigation you were conducting on my brother.”

“Right,” he grumbled. “But it was a nice perk that you got that information.”

Cassidy swallowed hard. “Only by accident, because I overheard your phone conversation with your boss.”

“Worked in your favor, didn’t it.” Not a question. He spoke it as gospel.

And it was something she couldn’t argue with.

She had alerted her brother about the investigation into his possible involvement with money laundering. Not intentionally but only because she’d questioned Bennie about it. She hadn’t wanted to believe he was involved in something so awful. However, Sawyer was certain that Bennie had used that info to cover his tracks so he couldn’t be arrested.

Maybe he had.

But when she’d slept with Sawyer, she certainly hadn’t known that was going to happen. An investigation had been the last thing on her mind.

Sawyer pulled into the parking lot of the hospital, and he made more of those glances around before he got out and ushered her inside and to the E.R. The first sound she heard was a baby crying, and they followed that sound to an examining room, where she spotted a dark-haired man holding the baby.

Cassidy actually dropped back a step. This guy had a deputy’s badge clipped to his belt, but with his desperado stubble and hard eyes, he looked more outlaw than lawman.

“Hope you have better luck with her than I have,” the man said over the baby’s cries. “She won’t hush. Won’t take her bottle, either.” And he eased the baby into Sawyer’s arms.

Despite everything that had just happened, Sawyer looked amused. Well, for a split second he did.

“Your wife’s due any day now,” Sawyer said to the man. “Better get used to it.”

The deputy grumbled something Cassidy didn’t catch and put the baby’s bottle on the table next to Sawyer.

“This is Mason, my cousin,” Sawyer told her. “And this is Cassidy O’Neal.”

Mason made a sound deep in his throat that she figured was disapproval. It was possible Sawyer had spilled all about their brief affair, and even if he hadn’t, she was sure her reputation preceded her. Most people thought she was a spoiled heiress. She was rich but worked plenty hard to manage the real estate investment business that her late parents had left her and her brother.

With his attention on the baby, Sawyer dropped into the chair and studied the baby’s face. No doubt trying to decide if she was his. At least the baby stopped crying, and she looked up at Sawyer, examining him with the same intensity with which he was examining her.

“She’s what...about a week or two old?” Sawyer asked no one in particular. “Any reports of a missing newborn?”

Mason shook his head. “None in this area. There was a newborn boy taken in San Antonio, but that was a custody dispute.” He checked the time. “I’ll see what’s keeping Dr. Michelson. He said he’ll examine Cassidy, but if she’s hurt, you’re to take her over to one of the E.R. docs right away,” he added.

“I’m not hurt,” she insisted.

“Then I’ll let the doc know that,” Mason answered. “Right now, he’s dealing with Social Services. They’re supposed to come and get the baby.”

Sawyer’s head whipped up, as if he might challenge that, but he didn’t. Cassidy thought she might challenge it, too. She’d been in the Social Services system briefly when her parents died, but she had been sixteen. And could fend for herself. Plus, a huge inheritance had helped pave the way to her emancipation, but it cut her to the core to realize this baby could be handed over to strangers while the truth was sorted out.

And speaking of sorting, Sawyer looked to be doing just that. He took out his phone and scrolled through the numbers. Since that wasn’t easy to do with the baby in his arms, Cassidy took the child, easing her into the crook of her arm. It didn’t exactly feel natural since she didn’t have much experience with babies, but it didn’t feel wrong, either.

Not the best time for her biological clock to start ticking.

Sawyer clicked on one of the numbers, waited. “Laurie,” he said when the woman obviously answered.

Cassidy felt an emotion of a different kind. A punch of jealousy, and she would have laughed at herself for feeling it, but laughter at this point would no doubt make Sawyer think she was insane. Maybe she was, for still feeling attracted to a man who clearly hated her.

“Yeah, I’d like to catch up, too,” he added a moment later, “but maybe some other time.” Sawyer paused, his forehead bunching up. “Uh, did you recently have a baby?”

Unlike in the truck, Cassidy couldn’t hear what the woman said, but judging from Sawyer’s reaction it wasn’t good. “Sorry to have bothered you,” he added a moment later and ended the call.

“Well?” Cassidy asked when he didn’t say anything to her.

However, all she got from Sawyer was another shoulder lift. “It’s not Laurie’s baby.”

Which meant it wasn’t Sawyer’s.

“Then, who is she?” Cassidy looked down at the baby. So precious and little. She touched her finger to the baby’s hand, and the little girl grabbed on to it. “And why hasn’t someone reported her missing?”

“I don’t know, but if she were mine,” he said under his breath, “I’d definitely be missing her.”

She had to do a mental double take at that. Sawyer was the ultimate bad boy, the reason she’d been attracted to him in the first place. But this was a side of him that she’d never seen, and he suddenly looked uncomfortable that he’d let her get a glimpse of it.

“Is there anyone else that you could have gotten pregnant?” she came out and asked.

“Other than Laurie or you,” he said, stating the obvious. “There’s one other woman. I barely knew her. It was a hookup-at-a-party kind of thing. I’m not sure how to get in touch with her.”

“With your FBI resources, you should—” But she stopped. Rethought that. “You don’t remember her name.”

Sawyer scrubbed his hand over his face. “No. But I doubt she remembers mine, either. And if you think I’m proud of that, I’m not.”

He stood, as if ready to take the baby from her, but then they heard footsteps. Clearly, they were both still on edge because Sawyer stepped protectively in front of her and the baby. But it wasn’t a threat.