Yet someone else could be dead because of her.
Reed answered one more phone call, his attention still nailed to her. It was pretty much where his attention had been after they arrived back at the sheriff’s office. He was probably checking to make sure she wasn’t falling apart.
And that would happen.
Addison was sure of it.
She just didn’t want to break down in front of Cooper, Colt and Reed. Not when they had much more important things to do than watch her shatter into a thousand little pieces. Reed, Colt and she had come way too close to dying again, and the more time the lawmen could devote to the investigation, the sooner they might be able to make an arrest and stop the danger.
It had to stop.
Especially for Emily’s sake.
“We got the DNA test done on the first baby Mellie had,” Cooper said when he finished his latest call.
Addison had no idea how long it would take to get a possible match on the baby’s father, but maybe it would pan out and give them some info about the case. Well, it would if the baby’s father was connected to the baby farms and any other illegal activity going on. Maybe it wasn’t anything nearly as sinister as that, and perhaps Mellie had gotten pregnant by her boyfriend. However, they couldn’t ask the woman about that until they found her.
Ditto for Rooney. They wouldn’t know if he’d learned anything about the gunman unless he contacted them, and since he wasn’t answering his phone, Addison had no idea how long it’d be before they heard from him.
If ever.
“There’s more,” Cooper said, his attention shifting to Addison.
Oh, no. The sheriff had that look. The one that told her he was about to deliver another dose of bad news.
“When the cops were going through Mellie’s apartment,” Cooper continued, “they found a letter that Cissy wrote to you. Did Cissy ever mention anything about writing to you?”
Addison had to shake her head. “No. If Cissy wanted to tell me something, why didn’t she just call or text me? She had my phone number.”
“I’m not sure. SAPD will fax us a copy of the letter, but it appears to be some kind of warning.”
That gave her another punch of fear she didn’t need. Addison was all too aware of the danger, but maybe there’d be clues in the letter that would help the investigation. Maybe.
“What exactly did the letter say?” she asked Cooper.
“The detective didn’t want to read it aloud to me. He was at Mellie’s apartment, and the landlord was still there. He wasn’t sure if the guy was in on Mellie’s disappearance or not and figured he’d better be safe. He said it won’t take them long to fax it. He’s headed back to his office now.”
Any length of time was too long to wait. Of course, if the letter wasn’t meant to be of any help to them, then Addison wasn’t sure her frayed nerves could deal with just another threat. There’d already been too many of those.
Reed finished his call, too, and he walked over to where she was seated next to his desk. “I made arrangements for a safe house for Emily and you. It should be ready within an hour or so, and I can take you two there.”
A safe house was exactly what Emily needed. At least, it would be better than the arrangement they had now. Rosalie and the rest of the McKinnons had generously agreed to keep the baby at the Sweetwater Ranch, but that put them all in danger. Still, a safe house wasn’t the only thing they could do to protect Emily.
“We got a problem,” Colt said before Addison could bring up her concerns about the safe house to Reed. “I just got off the phone with a criminal informant who told me that Rooney hired some muscle and a triggerman just a few days ago.”
Addison could have sworn her stomach dropped to her knees. “A criminal informant? Can the guy be trusted?”
“According to the San Antonio cops, this one can be.”
That caused Reed to curse. “Any chance hiring them was just part of Rooney’s investigation? Maybe he was actually trying to make contact with someone involved in the baby farm?”
Colt shook his head. “As far as I can tell, the thugs he hired don’t have a connection to the baby farm. But they might have a connection to the dead kidnapper at the county sheriff’s office. One of the thugs, Timmy Marcellus, matches the description of our dead guy to a tee.”
Reed repeated the name as if trying to see if he recognized it. “But our dead guy’s prints weren’t in the system.”
“And neither are Marcellus’s. He’s been evading arrest for several years now. Anyway, the county sheriff sent the criminal informant a photo of our dead guy, and the CI made a positive I.D.”
At least they now had a name for the dead kidnapper. A name they’d hoped to use to track down the person who’d hired him. But that person might be Rooney, someone she’d hired. And had trusted.
“Why would Rooney go after the gunman if he’s the one behind the attacks?” she asked.
The three lawmen exchanged glances, but it was Reed who answered, “Maybe he didn’t go after him. Maybe he wanted to make sure the guy got away.”
And if that was true, it had likely worked. After all, no one had spotted their attacker or Rooney since they’d fled the scene.
“What about the dead lawyer?” Addison continued. “Is he connected to Rooney, too?”
“I’m still working on that,” Colt said. “The lawyer, Al Crouse, was dying. Cancer. He had only a couple of months to live. So he could have agreed to a murder-suicide pact if someone was giving his family a lot of money.”
Because her head was whirling with this new information, it took Addison a moment to sort through it all. “But why would Marcellus call Crouse to come to the sheriff’s office if he suspected the lawyer might try to kill him?”
Colt just lifted his shoulder. “Perhaps Marcellus thought Crouse would help him. Or maybe Marcellus knew he was a dead man, that his boss was going to kill him in a much more painful way, so he called in Crouse to do the job.”
And by doing the job, it prevented the cops from getting information that could stop this danger.
“That’s why I need to move Emily and you to a safe house,” Reed added. “The person behind this is willing to do anything to conceal his or her identity.”
Addison believed that with all her heart, and that was why she had to do something she truly didn’t want to do.
“The kidnappers are after me,” she reminded Reed. “If I go to the safe house with Emily, they’ll try to find me. And if they do, they’ll find her, too.”
Reed was shaking his head before she even finished. “We’ll have to take lots of precautions. We’ll have to make sure these snakes don’t find the location of the safe house.”
“But what if they do?” she asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “They could find it, and Emily could be hurt.” Or worse. “I don’t want to take that risk.”
Reed huffed, stared at her. “What are you saying?”
“That I want Emily to go to the safe house with all the protection you can get for her. I’ll stay here in Sweetwater Springs. That way, the kidnappers will come after me and stay away from her.”
That got Reed cursing. “You’re talking about using yourself as bait. That’s not gonna happen.”
“You’d rather Emily be in danger?” she argued.
Reed’s cursing continued. “I want you both safe.” He opened his mouth, as if to add more, but he ended up just repeating himself in a tone filled more with frustration than anger.
A tone that Addison herself was feeling.
“I want that, too,” she said. “And I want you and all the McKinnons safe, as well. That can’t happen with me around. Anywhere I go, the danger will just follow. You said yourself this person will do anything to conceal his identity.” Addison had to clear her throat to continue
. “He won’t stop, and you know that.”
“We could do two safe houses,” Colt offered just as Reed looked ready to launch into another round of profanity. “In fact, other than Addison and you being away from Emily, it might be easier to have two.”
Reed gave Colt a look that could have withered fresh spring grass. “Whose side are you on?”
“The side of catching the dirtbag trying to get to Addison. Think it through, Reed. If we bring in a witness or some other person of interest, you and Addison are going to want to be here to listen in on the interview. Going back and forth between the safe house with Emily only increases the chances that someone could find the location.”
Colt was right, and judging from the groan Reed made, he knew Colt was right, too. Still, he apparently wasn’t ready to admit that, because he opened his mouth, closed it and then cursed again.
“You’ll be away from Emily,” Reed reminded her. “Have you thought of that, huh?”
Yes, and it sickened her to think of not being with her precious baby. Still, it sickened her more to think of the danger breathing down their necks.
“Maybe I won’t have to be away from her for long,” Addison said. “With her safe, then I can focus on finding the person who wants me dead.”
That sent Reed’s jaw muscles stirring again. Maybe because he didn’t like this idea or maybe because she said I and not we. Either way, she braced herself for more of Reed’s argument, but the whirring sound of the fax machine cut off anything else he was about to say.
Colt went to the fax machine and picked up the first page that came out. “It’s the letter Cissy wrote to Addison.” He glanced through it and handed it to her.
Addison was almost afraid of what Cissy had written, and she didn’t read it alone. Reed went to one side. Cooper, the other. Both were obviously interested in what the dead surrogate had to say. The letter was a single page and handwritten in an almost childlike scrawl.
“Addison,” she read aloud, “I can’t risk calling you. I think they’ve bugged my phone, so I’m going to see if I can get this letter to you somehow. I’m real sorry. I opened a can of worms, and now I maybe got us both in trouble. I remember you talking about your ex, saying he was a cop of some kind. You should go to him and see if he’ll help keep you and Emily safe...”
Cissy had indeed done something that’d maybe set all this in motion. But what? And who were the they who’d possibly tapped her phone?
“I can’t do anything now to make this stop,” Addison read on, “but I need your ex to do me a big favor. Have him find Violet Martin, the baby I gave up for adoption. Make sure she doesn’t get hurt. This is big. Bigger than I even thought in the beginning. I don’t have the proof, but I know he’s the one behind all these baby farms.”
Addison finished reading the letter and looked at Colt. “He?” she repeated. She looked through the letter again, hoping that Cissy had clarified who he was.
But the woman hadn’t.
However, Cissy had made several other things crystal clear. Like the danger. Not just to Emily, Reed and her, but to the other child, as well.
“Has anything come up about this baby, Violet?” she asked.
Colt shook his head. Cooper and Reed did the same. However, both Cooper and Colt hurried to their computers to start checking.
“The records at Dearborn are missing,” Reed reminded her. “But there could be an adoption record for the baby. If there is, we’ll find her.”
Reed looped his arm around her waist and got her moving in the direction of his desk. He had her sit in the chair across from his and passed her a bottle of water that he took from a small fridge behind him.
“If Cissy knew she was in danger,” Addison said to Reed, “why didn’t she just go to the cops?”
“Maybe because she didn’t trust them. How much do you know about her life before she became your surrogate? Our surrogate,” he corrected in a mumble under his breath.
There it was again. The big elephant in the room. Along with the attraction still simmering between them, it only complicated this situation even more.
“I know only what I’ve already told you,” Addison insisted. “Truth is, I didn’t want to know more about her. Yes, at the time I was beyond happy that she was able to carry Emily, but Cissy was also a reminder of what I desperately wanted to do myself, but couldn’t.”
Something Addison had risked her life to do. And that was yet something else between Reed and her.
“Now let’s talk about this safe house and Emily,” he said. She braced herself for the continued argument, but Reed only sighed. “You’re sure you want a separate safe house for Emily?”
Addison didn’t trust her voice, and she nodded. It nearly crushed her to think of leaving her baby even for a short while, but she believed with all her heart that it was necessary.
Reed gave another of those weary sighs and took out his phone to start the preparations for the second house. However, he’d barely gotten started with it when Colt spoke.
“I found something on Cissy’s baby,” Colt said.
That seemed way too fast for Addison, and she prayed he hadn’t found her because the baby had been kidnapped or harmed.
“When we were looking for Mellie’s baby, I got access to statewide adoption records,” Colt went on. “And I just now looked through those again and found Violet. It was a private adoption, and her adoptive parents moved to Florida several months ago. No phone number contact, but I can have the local police do a welfare check.”
“Please, do that.” Addison couldn’t say it fast enough. But it made her wonder—had the baby’s adoptive parents moved because they’d been aware of the possible danger?
“Anything irregular about Violet’s adoption?” Reed asked.
“Maybe. Like the adoptive mother for Mellie’s baby, this woman has a record for a white-collar crime. Nothing to especially indicate that she’d be a bad parent, but I doubt she would have been able to adopt using the conventional route.”
And that brought them right back to Dearborn again.
She hated how everything seemed to be irregular there. Her first clue should have been when Cissy was given the amino test because of a possible mix-up with the embryos. But at that point Addison hadn’t wanted to see beyond her own happiness—that she was within months of becoming a mother.
“If Mellie and Cissy were more than just birth mothers,” Reed said, “if they were intentionally impregnated so their babies could be sold, then the babies’ DNA might tell us who’s behind the illegal operation at Dearborn.”
Yes, and that meant the babies could be in danger. Maybe the kidnappers wouldn’t harm the children, but they could remove them from their families and maybe send them out of the country so they wouldn’t essentially become evidence against the monster who’d put all this into action.
But something about that didn’t make sense, either.
“There was nothing shady about my surrogacy arrangement with Cissy,” she reminded him. “I hired her, paid her and she handed over the baby that she carried for me.”
Reed nodded. “I suspect when we unravel this Dearborn mess, we’ll find other surrogacy arrangements that weren’t forced or weren’t part of the baby farms. Dearborn would need something legitimate on their books. Records that wouldn’t point to any illegal activity.”
True. And Dearborn did make some money from the surrogacy deal with Cissy.
“If the person behind this hadn’t thought Cissy had spilled something to you,” Reed went on, “then I don’t believe the kidnappers would have come after you.”
Addison had to agree with that, as well. “Maybe the kidnappers knew Cissy had written that letter to me. Cissy thought someone was listening in on her conversations, but maybe they had her apartment bugged, too.”
All thre
e voiced some kind of agreement with that. It didn’t help her stomach, which was knotted and churning, because it only verified the reason for the danger. And it certainly didn’t put an end to it.
“No,” Reed said, bringing her attention back to him. “Please tell me you’re not thinking about trying to ditch me in order to keep me out of the path of those kidnappers.”
Since that was exactly what she was thinking, Addison hiked up her chin and tried to look a lot stronger than she felt. Hard to do when everything inside her was spiraling with fear and worry.
“SAPD could take over my protection detail. You could go to the safe house with Emily. At least consider it,” she said before he could flat-out refuse.
Judging from the way Reed’s forehead bunched up, he had no intention of considering her plan, so Addison was about to play the baby card. She could remind him that Emily’s safety had to come first. Above hers. And even above Reed’s own concerns about how his fatherhood had come about. That meant Reed should be part of Emily’s protection detail. However, Addison didn’t get a chance even to start that particular argument.
Because the door flew open.
Colt, Cooper and Reed all turned in that direction, all of them drawing their guns. In the same motion, Reed hooked his left arm around her and pulled her behind him. With good reason.
It was Rooney who came through the door.
Chapter Twelve
Reed’s body geared up for a fight with the man they now considered a top suspect.
Rooney.
But Reed quickly realized that this might not be a fighting situation when he saw the blood on Rooney’s shirt. The P.I. wasn’t armed, either. His face was practically colorless, and he dropped to his knees.
“Call an ambulance,” Cooper told Colt before he and Reed went to Rooney.
However, Reed motioned for Addison to stay back. Yes, it appeared the P.I. was injured, but he didn’t want to take the chance that this might be a ruse so the kidnappers could have another go at taking her.
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