The Baby's Guardian (11 page)

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t have Danny followed.

Danny didn’t wait for Shaw’s approval. He hurried out ahead of them and rushed down the hall. Shaw made
a call to dispatch to request that a tail be placed on the possible suspect. Maybe, just maybe, Danny would go to the person responsible for all of this.

Shaw caught Sabrina’s arm so he could lead her back into the corridor where Lieutenant Rico was waiting. The lieutenant was holding some papers that had been stapled together.

“These are Burney Monroe’s phone records,” Rico announced. “We’d already started to run them before Danny Monroe came in.” The lieutenant wasn’t smiling, but it was close.

Sabrina glanced at the records, then back to the lieutenant. “Please tell me those records put Burney on the fourth floor of the hospital when I was being held hostage.”

“Not quite. He probably used a prepaid cell when he was there. He had one in his pocket when he was killed, but it was brand-new. My guess is he threw the old one away just in case he was caught. These records are from his regular cell phone, the one he has an account for.”

So, no giant smoking gun.

“But there is a call from Burney to Gavin Cunningham,” Rico explained. “He made it three days before the hostages were taken. And the call lasted nearly an hour.”

“Interesting,” Shaw mumbled.

“Yeah, but not as interesting as these.” Rico pointed to the three calls that had been highlighted. They were all the same number.

“Who did Burney call three times?” Shaw wanted to know.

The lieutenant smiled. “One of the richest men in the
city, and the very person Gavin Cunningham claims is his father. Wilson Rouse.”

Shaw gave that some thought and then handed Rico back the phone records. It wasn’t proof of Rouse’s guilt, or Gavin’s for that matter, but maybe this could finally bring things to a head.

If Shaw bent the truth a little.

And for Sabrina and his baby’s safety, he would bend the truth. He would do whatever it took.

“Use this to get a court order for a sample of Rouse’s DNA,” he instructed Lieutenant Rico. “I want it compared to Gavin’s, just in case that connection turns out to be relevant to this investigation. And then I want you to do one more thing.”

Shaw paused, gathered his thoughts and fine-tuned how this could work.

“I want it leaked that we’ve found some DNA from the missing baby whose mother was murdered,” Shaw continued. “Say that we got the DNA from the baby’s pacifier that we found near the crime scene, and we’ve been able to extract enough to do a DNA comparison so we can identify the birth father.”

“Comparison to whom?” Rico wanted to know.

“To Wilson Rouse, Gavin Cunningham, Danny Monroe, his brother and Officer Keith Newell. Leak it that whichever one is the father, he’ll be arrested for capital murder and about a dozen other charges.”

Rico nodded, then paused. “You do know how to stir up a hornet’s nest, Captain.”

Yeah. Now, Shaw only hoped he and Sabrina weren’t the ones who got stung.

Sabrina followed Shaw through the maze of corridors that, according to the signs, led to the parking garage.

She was actually thankful to be on their way out of headquarters because it’d taken nearly three hours for Shaw to tie up some details about the shooting and the hostage investigation before they could finally leave. There’d been one call after another. Several reports to be read. Questions that couldn’t wait for answers.

Shaw had taken all those calls, read the reports and listened to the updates while they were in the flop room, again. It hadn’t been easy for her to sit there and wait. Waiting only gave her too much time to think about the danger.

“You think Rouse will fight the DNA court order?” she asked as they walked.

“Of course. He won’t want his good name linked to any of this, but the more he fights, the more it’s linked. I’m hoping that will spur him to confess what took place in those three conversations he had with a dead gunman.”

She hugged her spare clothes and the plastic bag of toiletries to her chest. “Could he have hired Burney
Monroe to steal the missing baby’s DNA sample and delete the file?”

“Maybe.” Shaw shook his head. “Rouse would certainly have had a lot to lose if this dead woman, Misty Martinez, had named him as her baby’s father.”

“Because it would confirm his extramarital affair?”

“There’s that. But let’s just say she wasn’t exactly in his circle of friends. She was a cocktail waitress at a seedy bar downtown. From all accounts, she was beautiful but with some questionable habits. She also became a criminal informant after she was arrested for drug possession.”

This wasn’t painting a very pretty picture of the dead woman, but she still didn’t deserve to be murdered. “When did you learn all this?”

He lifted his shoulder. “I had the report on her brought to me last night.”

Which meant he hadn’t gotten much sleep. Those naps he’d mentioned earlier had no doubt been very short with lots of work in between. Maybe when they got to this so-called safer place, she could prod him into resting the same way he’d been doing to her.

“This dead woman, Misty Martinez, was a police informant,” Sabrina commented. “Did she also have a connection to Officer Newell?”

Shaw paused at the door that led to the parking garage and glanced around, probably to make sure no one was close enough to hear them. Sabrina checked, too. But she didn’t see anyone within earshot.

“It’s possible there’s a connection,” Shaw explained in a whisper. “She had some information about a hostage
case that got botched last year. Newell was partly responsible for that botch.”

The wild ideas started to fly through her head. “So, maybe Newell blamed her in some way and then killed her.” But then she shook her head. “That really isn’t much of a motive for murder and stealing a child.”

“Unless Newell fathered the woman’s baby. He wouldn’t have a sterling reputation to tarnish like Rouse, but it wouldn’t make him look good in the department’s eyes if he was sleeping with a criminal informant.”

True. But then, it probably wouldn’t look good to Gavin’s high-end law partners, either. Of course, that left Sabrina wondering where was the baby now?

Shaw opened the door, and they went into the parking garage. He stopped by the dispatcher who was in a small cubbyhole office attached to the back of the main building, and retrieved an envelope. When he opened it and looked inside, she saw a key.

“It’s for the place where we’ll be staying,” Shaw whispered to her. He put it inside his pocket.

He also got the keys for an unmarked car. Probably because he didn’t want to use his own vehicle to drive to the new location. It was yet another security precaution that she hoped would pay off.

Shaw put his hand on the small of her back, and as quickly as she could move, he got them away from the dispatch office and into the open parking lot. He hurried toward a black four-door sedan that was in the center row, amid dozens of cars. Some were cruisers, some designated for SWAT and other special units, and there were other unmarked vehicles, as well.

He unlocked the car with the keypad, and threw open
the door. Sabrina leaned down to get inside when she heard the sound.

A blast tore through the air.

It took her a moment to figure out what the sound was. It was so loud that it was like an explosion. But it wasn’t.

Someone had fired a shot.

Shaw shoved her onto the passenger seat, and she dropped the clothes and toiletries onto the ground. In the same motion he drew his gun from his shoulder holster. His gaze rifled all around them. So did Sabrina’s. But she couldn’t see who’d fired that shot.

“Get in the car,” Sabrina insisted. She was partly covered, but Shaw was literally out in the open.

He stayed put, still looking around, but he did crouch lower next to the seat where Sabrina had hunkered down.

“Captain Tolbert, did you fire that shot?” someone called out.

Sabrina peeked over the dash and saw the dispatcher peering out from the covered area. He, too, had his weapon drawn and ready.

“No,” Shaw answered. “It wasn’t me. Get a visual on the shooter.”

The response had no sooner left his mouth when there was another blast. Sabrina hadn’t seen where the first bullet had landed, but she saw this one because it tore into the top of the car door just inches above Shaw’s head.

She grabbed him to pull him inside with her, but he shoved aside her attempt and dropped even lower to the ground. It still wasn’t low enough.

He was a sitting duck.

The gunman fired again, and the bullet shattered the glass in the passenger-side door. Sabrina automatically shielded her eyes, but the safety glass stayed intact. However, another shot sent a chunk of that webbed glass dropping right onto Shaw.

“The shots are coming from the top of one of the buildings,” Shaw shouted to the dispatcher. Oh, mercy.

There were a lot of buildings around them. Headquarters was right in the middle of downtown, and there were tall office buildings and hotels on all four sides. They were surrounded, and the shooter could be up on top of one of them, ready to deliver the fatal blow.

But who was shooting?

She tried to imagine the person behind the trigger. Gavin? Rouse? Newell? Or maybe this was just another hired killer. Someone whose job it was to make sure she and Shaw didn’t get out of this parking lot alive.

The next shot blasted through the car and took out the back window. The bullet that followed gashed through the roof. Even though the sun hadn’t fully risen, she could still see the light spearing through that slashed metal. It was a vivid reminder of just how little protection the car actually was.

Sabrina got onto the floor space between the dash and the seat. There wasn’t much room, but she squeezed in somehow, and she put her hands over her belly in case those shots made it to her.

She was turned so she could still see Shaw, and she watched as he lifted his gun and fired a shot of his own. The blast was even louder, because he was so close, and
she pressed her hands even harder over the baby to try to shelter her from the noise.

“He’s up there,” Shaw called out, pointing toward the building directly behind the car. He scrambled to the other side of the door, away from the gunman.

Good. At least Shaw was semi-protected now, and they knew where this monster was. That meant he could be stopped.

Well, hopefully.

Even though Sabrina couldn’t see the building’s exit, certainly other officers had responded by now. Maybe even someone with a rifle who would have the firing range to shoot the guy.

Shaw handed her the car keys through the broken window glass. “Without getting up, turn on the engine, put the car in gear and start driving forward. Only tap the accelerator with your hand to get it moving.”

Sabrina shook her head. “No.”

“Yes!” Shaw insisted, shouting over the next round of shots. “It doesn’t matter if you can’t see where you’re going. When the car rolls forward and gets to the headquarters building, someone will tell you what to do. They’ll pull you out and get you to safety.”

That wasn’t why she was shaking her head. “And you’ll be out here in the open.”

“Not for long. I’ll run and get in front of one of the other cars.”

And while he was doing that, he could be shot.

“Think of the baby,” he reminded her.

It was a dirty way to get her to cooperate. But it was also an effective one. Sabrina desperately wanted to do
something, anything, to keep Shaw safe, but she couldn’t do that at the baby’s expense.

Their child had to come first.

She could see Shaw through the crack in the open door. Well, she could see part of him, anyway. That was more than enough for her to see his resolute expression. He wouldn’t back down on this.

“Do it,” he ordered, his voice booming over the shout of the nonstop barrage of shots. Those shots were literally tearing the car apart.

When the shots made it to the dash, so close to her head, she knew she couldn’t wait any longer.

“Stay safe,” she told Shaw.

Sabrina reached up, shoved the key into the ignition and started the car. Somehow she managed to put it into drive. There was no need for her to touch the accelerator as Shaw had suggested because the car started to inch forward.

She caught just a glimpse of Shaw before he left the cover of the passenger door and started to run.

Oh, God.

The shots were nonstop. One loud blast after the other. It took her a moment to realize some of the shots were coming from headquarters. Someone was returning fire.

Sabrina couldn’t tell if Shaw made it to the cover of another vehicle. She couldn’t tell anything, other than that the car was indeed moving, and the gunman was continuing to shoot. She put her head against the seat, squeezing herself into as tight a ball as possible so if there was an impact, the baby wouldn’t be hurt.

“Turn the steering wheel to the left,” someone
shouted. She recognized the voice. It was Lieutenant Rico, who’d talked to them earlier.

Sabrina did as he instructed.

“Turn it slightly to the right now,” Rico added. Like Shaw, he had to shout over the sound of the gunfire. “You’re almost here.”

She waited for the impact of the car bumping into the building. But there wasn’t one. Instead, she felt the car turn to the left, toward the covered area where the dispatcher’s office was. And she soon realized why. There were two officers who had hold of her bumper and were guiding the vehicle. The moment the vehicle came to a stop, one of them pulled her from the car and hurried her inside.

There were at least a half dozen cops waiting there, and they didn’t allow her to stay close to the door so she could see what was going on. A uniformed cop took her by the arm and put her in an interrogation room about twenty feet away.

“What’s happening out there?” she asked him.

But he only shook his head and headed back to the door. “Stay put,” he warned.

She did, because she didn’t know what else to do. And she prayed while she heard the shots continue. God knew how close those shots were coming to Shaw. Maybe he’d even been hit, but that was too painful to even consider.

Sabrina counted off the seconds, hoping that each count would end the attack. Finally, the shots stopped. She could hear the shouts of officers barking out orders.

What she didn’t hear was Shaw.

There was the sound of the dispatch office door opening, and Sabrina peered around the corner, hoping this was someone with good news.

It was Shaw.

And he had blood on his face and the front of his shirt.

Nothing could have held her back at that point. She hurried toward him, catching him in her arms. “You’re hurt.”

“Not much. Just nicks from the broken glass.” He used his arm to wipe away some of the blood and sweat, and he pulled her closer to him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Sabrina lied.

She didn’t have any physical injuries, but it would take her a lifetime or two to forget those images of the bullets coming at them, and Shaw scrambling for his life across the parking lot. “What happened to the shooter?”

He brushed a kiss on her forehead and pulled back so he could look into her eyes. “He might be dead or at least injured. We think one of the sharpshooters from the SWAT was able to take him out because he stopped firing.”

That sent her heart pounding again. “You
think?
You mean he could be getting away?” No. This couldn’t continue. It had to stop.

“Shh,” he whispered and pulled her to him again. “We have a team making their way to the top of the building. It shouldn’t be long before we know for sure.”

“And if he’s not dead?” But Sabrina wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

Especially when she heard another shot.

This one wasn’t a thick blast as the others had been, but it still sounded close. “What’s happening?” she asked.

Shaw shook his head. “My men will give me an update as soon as they safely can. Don’t worry. If the gunman tries to escape, we already have officers assembled at the base of the building. He won’t get away. If we can take him alive, even better. Because we might finally learn who’s responsible for these attacks.”

Sabrina clung to that hope. She also clung to Shaw. It was probably stupid to hand him her heart and well-being this way, but she couldn’t stop herself. He’d just saved her life again. A real hero. And she was falling hard and fast for this particular hero.

His cell buzzed, and Shaw jerked it from his pocket. But it obviously wasn’t a call he expected because he cursed under his breath.

“Newell,” he greeted, but the greeting was more like a growl. He pressed the speaker phone button. “You picked an odd time to call.”

“It’s important. I want to know why you’re having me followed.”

“Now isn’t a good time to talk.”

“Why am I being followed?” Newell pressed.

Shaw took a deep breath. “Because you’re under investigation.”

Now, Newell cursed. “Because of those poker earnings I had deposited into my account.”

“Among other things. Look, someone just fired a couple of dozen shots at Sabrina and me, and I don’t have time for this conversation.”