by Rita Herron
And now she and Gavin had led the kidnapper right to Janet’s door.
GAVIN HATED the look of terror in Janet Quinn’s eyes when he’d told her about the shooting. She’d heard the gunshots, had known she’d been exposed before he’d even rung the doorbell. But worse, he hated the guilt so obvious in Lindsey’s troubled eyes.
She had no reason to feel guilty. She was the victim here—she and their innocent little son. Yet how finely the lines blurred when a decent person had to shoulder the responsibility and reality of another person’s crime.
As he’d been doing with the Johnson boy.
Mrs. Johnson’s words rose to taunt him—nothing is as important as family. You don’t realize how much they mean to you until they’re gone.
More important to him than his work?
He’d lost Lindsey and his son once—could he stand to lose them again?
When they left the complex, he pulled Lindsey’s hand in his own and settled it over his thigh, needing to feel her warmth, needing to reassure himself she was safe and alive beside him. “Janet will be all right, Linds. The police will keep her safe until we figure out what’s going on.”
Lindsey sighed wearily, her foot tapping a steady beat on the floor mat. “I can’t help but feel this is my fault.”
“Don’t, Linds. You’re the victim here. Janet was involved because she worked at the clinic—she just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.” He shook his head, dislodging bitter memories of the Johnson boy. “Believe me, it happens all the time. Focus on the information she gave us. We know Cross was definitely involved and our baby survived. We’re going to find him.”
“I don’t understand why a respected physician would jeopardize his reputation by kidnapping our baby?”
“Money maybe. Or fear.” Various scenarios raced through Gavin’s mind, at least two he didn’t want to even voice to Lindsey. “Maybe the doctor had some secret in his past he didn’t want exposed.”
“You mean someone blackmailed him?”
“It’s possible.”
“But who would do such a thing?”
“I don’t know, but I’m damn well going to find out.” Dwight Johnson maybe—no, he’d discounted him after his visit. Danny Swain? Jim Faulkner or his parents? One of them could have hired someone to investigate the doctor’s past. And hadn’t he recently learned Danny Swain’s sister had once worked at the clinic? Swain had just been in Raleigh, too. Could his sister have blackmailed the doctor to help her brother?
Lindsey lapsed into silence, obviously pondering the possibilities while he phoned Simon. He didn’t waste time with preliminaries. “Have you found Cross?”
Simon hesitated. “Afraid so.”
Gavin’s pulse accelerated. “What’s wrong?”
“He finally came home, but now he’s holed up in his office and refuses to come out.”
“The police are there?”
“That local sheriff and Jernigan. It doesn’t look good, either. His wife says he keeps a gun in his desk.”
Great. He only hoped the doctor didn’t kill himself before he could come clean.
“We’ll be right there.” He started to hang up but Simon caught him first.
“Wait, man. A couple more things. That explosion at the factory. It turned out it was set off by faulty wiring in a machine.”
“So it wasn’t a diversion?”
“No. And you may want to go by Lindsey’s. Barnes said an envelope arrived for her earlier.”
“Something suspicious?”
“Maybe. He thinks you should take a look at it.”
Gavin agreed, then hung up and pressed the accelerator, spinning the car into high speed. He really wanted to talk to Cross. He had a feeling the sooner he saw the doctor, the sooner he would find his little boy.
Hopefully, the kidnapper had seen the photo on TV and they’d forced him into making a move. And maybe this letter was a note from the kidnapper telling them what he wanted in exchange for Gavin’s son.
LINDSEY’S HAND trembled as she opened the crisp white envelope. It was nothing like the one Janet had sent. This envelope had been addressed with letters cut from a magazine, the letters glued on in a haphazard manner. Gavin’s normally unflappable face paled as he stared at the message.
Gavin and Agent Barnes hovered nearby, watching intently. Soft white tissue paper crinkled as she unfolded it. A tiny lock of her baby’s hair had been placed inside, taped to a small computer printed note—If you want to see your baby again, you’d better cooperate. Call off the feds. Wait for further instructions.
Lindsey reached out to touch the baby soft hair but Barnes caught her hand.
“We’ll have the note and hair analyzed,” Barnes said in a no-nonsense voice that grated on Lindsey’s nerves.
She stabbed a finger at the agent. “You have to go, Mr. Barnes. You have to leave now.”
Gavin and Barnes exchanged worried looks, obviously deciding she was an irrational female.
“I’m not irrational. I’m doing the same thing any mother would do to protect her child. This is my baby, damn it! How can everyone act so calm
Gavin reached for her. “Lindsey—”
Barnes waved a calming hand, but stepped out of touching distance. “Miss Payne, calm down, please.”
“She’s right,” Gavin agreed.
Barnes frowned. “McCord, you know procedure, statistics—”
“I don’t give a damn about procedure or statistics.” Gavin exhaled, then lowered his voice, his tone still lethal. “You’ll need to make it look like you left,” Gavin said. “In case someone’s watching.”
Lindsey spun to face him. “No, they might know, he has to really leave, go back to Raleigh!”
Gavin stroked Lindsey’s arms, gently forcing her to meet his gaze. “Linds, listen. We’ll make it look good, I promise. But we need all the help we can get right now—”
“But what if they know and they do something to our baby? Do you want to be responsible for him being hurt?”
The air in Gavin’s lungs constricted painfully. The guilt overwhelming. Could he take that chance?
Lindsey fisted her hands by her side, the fear palpable. Seconds passed, each one tormenting as they waited. When she spoke, though, her voice held regret. “I’m sorry, Mac, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I know you’re only trying to help.”
“We’ll find him. I promise.” He wrapped her into his arms, whispering soothing words, letting her fiery courage and warmth seep into him. He prayed he was right, that he wasn’t making another bad judgment call as he had with Johnson’s son.
“I’m sorry…you’ve been so good, Gavin, you came—”
“I came because I want to find our son.” He gently lifted her face with his hands and she studied the tightness of his throat muscles as he swallowed. Her eyes ached from the blinding tears fighting to escape. His were luminous and dark, worried, frightened. Sad. “I love him, too, Linds. Trust me? Please.”
His husky heartfelt plea hacked away her last argument. She finally nodded, composing herself. Even if he didn’t love her, he loved their baby. Maybe he’d want to keep in touch once they found him. “Okay, what do we do? Wait until we receive their demands?”
Gavin released her, obviously reigning in his emotions as he turned into the efficient die-hard detective. “You stay here and wait for a message. Barnes will monitor every call so he’ll know when the kidnapper phones with his demands.”
Barnes headed to the door. “I’ll set up an undercover team, a cable crew or something in the neighborhood that won’t draw suspicion.”
Gavin pulled Lindsey into the crook of his arm. “I hate to leave you here alone, Linds. But I need to see Cross.”
“I’ll be fine, Mac.”
“Do you want to call a friend to come sit with you?”
Lindsey considered the idea. Normally she wouldn’t hesitate to call JoAnn. “No, I don’t want to put anyone else in danger.”
/> He nodded. “Stay inside and keep the doors locked. If someone calls, remember Barnes will be close by. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
Lindsey nodded, surprised when Gavin lowered his mouth and kissed her. Not a chaste, quick kiss, but a kiss full of hunger and need and hope. She ached for more, but he pulled away and rushed out the door.
Adrenaline surging through Lindsey, she paced the room, anxious for the phone to ring, the kitchen clock ticking like a time bomb in her mind. Finally she would find out what the kidnapper wanted in exchange for her son. Then she’d have her baby back safe and sound, at home where he belonged.
Only then she’d face another problem—once she had her baby back in her arms, would Mac walk out of their lives for good?
GAVIN COULD still taste the luscious sweetness of Lindsey’s kiss as he drove to Cross’s house. Lindsey’s passion had stoked the embers of his hunger for her. But more than the physical need for her, the memory of her tough perseverance through this ordeal would haunt him forever. If she hadn’t insisted their son was alive, hadn’t fought against all the conspiring elements, he would have never known he had a son, much less had the chance to hold him.
His cell phone rang, and Simon’s voice reverberated on the other end. “Cross is still holed up in his office. We haven’t made any headway. He won’t talk to his wife, the cops, no one. Even worse—he asked his wife to call their priest.”
“Damn.” He hung up, veered onto the shoulder of the road, pulled his siren from the floor and whipped it on top of the car. A minivan full of children waved at the blue light as he passed. A tow-headed little boy, four or five years old. His gut clenched. One day he might take his own son for a ride in the squad car. Would Cory like that? Or would he be afraid of all the bad guys he dealt with?
His tires squealed as he turned off the parkway and launched down a side road. Not bothering to brake for the stop sign, he peeled into the ritzy neighborhood and parked sideways on a neighbor’s lawn, amongst a dozen other cars. Gore and violence drew curious onlookers like a drought drew fire. As soon as he jumped from his car, a gunshot splintered the air.
The officers surrounding the house drew their weapons, aimed, prepared to fire. He tore through the curious spectators, ignoring a reporter who shoved a microphone at him when he yielded his badge for the on-duty officer to approve his entry. Simon approached, his lean face bleak. “The shot came from inside his office.”
Gavin muttered a curse. “Get me in there, Durango. I have to talk to him before it’s too late.”
TICK TOCK. Tick tock. The clock’s noisy insistence on counting away the minutes could be used as a slow form of torture in police interrogations, Lindsey decided thirty minutes later when she’d worn a path in her kitchen floor with her pacing. She had to gain control. Stay calm.
She’d make herself some tea. Hot chamo tea with lemon and honey. She’d turn on the radio. Distract herself before she went completely out of her mind. But first, she picked up the phone to call her mother.
“Yes, Mom, they showed the picture on TV. I wish you could have seen it.”
“Describe him to me, sweetheart. I’ll close my eyes and see him in my mind.”
Lindsey traced a finger over the baby picture, describing her son’s face in detail.
“He sounds like quite a little man.”
“He looks like Gavin, Mom.”
Her mother spoke softly, “Then he’s a tough one. He’s going to survive.”
Lindsey smiled, her love for her mother growing with her own sense of motherhood. “Mom, I’d better go in case another call comes in. But I’ll keep you posted.”
“All right, honey, I’ve got everyone here praying for you. And I’m keeping these old wrinkled fingers crossed.”
Lindsey laughed, nearly choking with emotion. “I love you, Mom.”
Still jittery after she hung up, she filled the teakettle with water and set it on the stove, then flipped the radio to a slow rock station. A news report cut into the latest hit from Jewel.
“This late breaking news: Renowned OB-GYN Dr. William Cross, who has delivered thousands of babies in Maple Hollow over the last twenty years, has been holed up in his home office threatening suicide for the last hour. We just received a report saying a gunshot was heard from the inside of the house.”
Lindsey’s breath exploded from her chest. She sank onto the kitchen chair, shaking. What if it was too late? What if Mac didn’t get to talk to the doctor?
No, she couldn’t think like that.
“Pamela Underwood, reporting live from Cross’s home, says that police are now trying to get into Dr. Cross’s office to see if he is still alive. We’ll return to our regular programming, but will keep you updated on the latest developments.”
Lindsey sat in shock, weighing the implications.
The teakettle whistled.
Someone pounded on the door.
She nearly jumped out of her skin.
Finally, she took a deep breath and raced to the door, wondering if Gavin had returned or if it might be Agent Barnes. She unlocked the door, keeping the chain intact. “Who’s there?”
The door suddenly exploded, the latch dangling, wood splintering. A huge bearded man with tattoos on his arms and a feral gleam in his gray eyes bolted inside the room and jerked her by the arm. Lindsey tried to scream but her voice died in her throat when the beefy man waved a shiny switchblade in her face.
Chapter Sixteen
With Dr. Cross’s wife’s permission, Gavin broke down the doctor’s office door, then scrambled across the polished mahogany floor to find Cross slumped in a pool of blood over his cherry desk. Ironic that the only thing stained on the near-perfect surface was a piece of paper folded into a perfect square. Probably a suicide note. Ironic, too, that behind him scads of family pictures, baby photos and awards boasting of the man’s exemplary career lined the gleaming, dark-paneled walls.
Gavin checked his pulse and found it weak and thready. The bullet had been a clean shot through his chest. Damn, he might not make it to the hospital. He pulled out a handkerchief, secured the man’s gun, then waved the paramedics in, hoping Cross would live long enough to tell them who had Lindsey’s baby. Praying the note held the answers, he carefully lifted it by one corner and flipped it open. Cross had scrawled two pitiful words on the bloody page, “I’m sorry.”
Damn.
Cross’s wife burst into hysterics. Other officers rushed in to secure the crime scene and EMTs immediately set to work, checking Cross’s vitals, applying pressure, hauling him onto the gurney. Minutes later, Cross groaned and opened his eyes.
Gavin shouldered his way into the man’s vision, leaving Simon to handle the officers who’d arrived on the scene first and were acting territorial.
“All right, Cross, this is it. Level with me.”
Cross’s eyes drifted shut, then slowly opened again. He struggled but finally found his voice. Weak as it was, Gavin had to kneel to hear him.
“You were right. Miss Payne’s baby is alive. I…I lied.”
“I know, we talked to Janet Quinn. Where’s Lindsey’s son?”
A tear rolled down the side of the man’s weathered face into the gray hair at his temples. His wife stood crying softly by his side. “A few weeks before Lindsey was due, this man called, he threatened me.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know. He never gave me a name, just phoned me at the office. Said he had all kinds of information on Miss Payne, claimed she was unstable, had a drug problem, was unfit to be a mother.”
“You’d been treating her. You knew that wasn’t true.”
“They had more.” Remorse and sorrow filled the doctor’s voice when he gazed at his wife. “They had stuff on me, things they’d made up, all lies. Files saying I’d mistreated patients, had caused two babies’ deaths the year before. They would have ruined my career.”
“If the stories were lies, you could have proven it in court,” Gavin said in a hard voice.
Cross’s eyes fluttered as he tried to cope with the pain, his breathing raspy. “They had pictures of me with other women, my patients…but they weren’t real—”
“Oh, William,” his wife murmured. “I would never have believed anything bad of you.”
A steady stream of tears tracked his cheeks now. “The scandal would have ruined us, ruined our lives, all we’ve worked for.” Cross’s gaze flickered to the family por on the wall. “Our own children, they would have had to deal with gossip, with lies about their father….”
Cross broke into a tortured cough. His wife lay her head on his arm and cried. Time was slipping away. He could see it in the pallor of Cross’s skin and the way his breathing had turned shallow. The EMTs called in his condition, preparing to transport him.
“Who threatened you? Who kidnapped Lindsey’s baby?”
“A man…he and his wife…lost their son…”
Cross coughed again, then his eyes fluttered shut, his body convulsed and his sentence trailed off as he slipped into a coma.
LINDSEY STARED at the sharp blade of the knife as it jutted toward her face. Although her insides quivered with fear, she tried her best to sound calm. “Who…who are you? What do you want?”
The man’s thick neck pulsed as a growl erupted from his deep voice. “I want you to call that cop boyfriend of yours off my butt.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Listen, Sugar, and listen good.” He pushed his face in hers, so close she could see the pores in his ruddy skin, could smell the strong scent of sweat and beer. “I did my time. I don’t need no two-bit cop hulking after me now I got released. You understand?”
Lindsey nodded, wincing at the tight grip he kept on her arm. “I…who do I tell him—”
His dark beady eyes silenced her. “Danny Swain.” He growled, then released her so hard she staggered backwards and hit the edge of the sofa table, sending pictures crashing to the floor.
Gavin burst through the door, his face a mask of barely controlled rage as his gaze found Lindsey. “Touch her again and you die, Swain.”