Chain of Custody

by Carol Ericson

  “It has to be this way, Nash. You saw Lanier’s warning—no police. And if he compromised some coolheaded accountant, how many others does he have on the inside? I’m sure his close work with law enforcement in Phoenix has netted him a few very good friends in that department.”

  He held up his hands. “You can stop. You already convinced me.”

  “You’re just giving yourself an out in case things go south.” She huffed out a breath. “You never needed any convincing.”

  He grabbed her around the waist and kissed her hard on the mouth. “But things aren’t going south, are they? We’re Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, and we’re gonna make sure justice is served.”

  * * *

  EMILY CLAPPED HER hand on her bouncing knee. She could hardly keep still on the almost two-hour drive to Phoenix. They’d missed rush hour, but some freeway construction had made traffic slow.

  She stretched out her fingers, which had become cramped wrapped around her phone while she watched the red dot. What if the people who had Wyatt had already moved him to a different car seat, and this pinpoint location was for an empty car seat sitting on a trash heap?

  Licking her lips, she glanced at Nash, silent and thoughtful behind the wheel and behind his disguise of beard and baseball cap. Was he regretting his decision to go rogue already? She’d been impressed by his thoroughness. When the man went rogue, he went all out.

  In addition to his disguise, he’d swapped his truck for a rental in case Lanier’s people knew his vehicle. He’d insisted she cover her red hair, so she found a dark wig and did him one better and added a pair of clear glasses.

  Sensing her regard, he twisted his head to the side. “You printed out those enlargements of the room where you live chatted with Wyatt, right?”

  She jerked her thumb toward the back seat. “I have them in a folder.”

  He asked, “How close are we now?”

  Glancing at her phone, she said, “About twenty minutes straight through the city to the west. It’s in the desert, not Phoenix proper. Where are we going to hole up before we make our move?”

  “Depends on how close we can get to this location without raising suspicions. If it’s in some small town on the outskirts of Phoenix, we’ll be strangers. Strangers stick out in small towns. Trust me.”

  After another ten minutes of driving, Emily got her bearings. “The location isn’t in a residential community, but it has to be some kind of house and not a warehouse because it definitely has a window.”

  “Unless—” Nash grabbed her hand “—we’re just tracking an empty car seat.”

  She threaded her fingers through his. “You don’t think that notion has been gnawing at me?”

  “We need to drive by the GPS location now, before the sun goes down, and make some kind of assessment. We can’t go in blindly at night if we’re not even sure Wyatt is with the car seat.”

  “I agree.” She tapped the phone. “We’re there in two more exits.”

  They left the center of Phoenix to where the buildings grew sparser and the desert began to take control again. Emily instructed Nash to turn off where a few fast-food restaurants and chain stores hugged the freeway.

  She cleared her throat. “So, not completely isolated. We’re not going to cause a commotion with our presence.”

  Nobody who had seen her or Nash before would recognize them in these disguises, and they’d stashed Wyatt’s car seat in the trunk to distance themselves from anything baby related. This could work.

  She continued to give Nash directions that took them past a few scattered houses, a trailer park and a rodeo rink. She glanced at Nash from the corner of her eye. “Don’t get any ideas.”

  He snorted, but his mouth stayed firm. He was as worried as she was, and her little joke couldn’t snap the tension that held them in its grip.

  Emily rapped her knuckle on the window. “Up ahead, the next turn.”

  Hunching over the steering wheel, Nash said, “Looks like some warehouses, but there could be offices in the front with windows.”

  “Should we look now, even though it’s not as dark as you’d like?”

  He nodded. “There are a few cars driving around, probably coming and going from work. One more car isn’t going to make a difference. Just keep me going in the right direction.”

  They turned right into a large lot dotted with warehouses, and Emily’s stomach knotted. People worked here. How could they keep a baby tucked away in a warehouse without drawing attention to themselves?

  She swallowed. “It has to be this warehouse on the right, Nash, but it looks nothing like what I saw out that window during the video chat.”

  Nash drove slowly past the warehouse and around the corner. When they reached the back of a gray metal structure, Nash pointed to a sliding door raised a few feet, leaving a gap.

  Emily hugged herself. “There’s no way they would leave that open if they had a kidnapped baby.”

  As Nash slowed the car, she grabbed the door handle. “I have to see. I have to see now.”

  “If he’s in there, Emily, you’ll give us away.” But he’d slowed down the car anyway, and she didn’t wait for him to stop.

  She jumped out and did a little jog to keep from falling. She crept up to the warehouse door and dropped to her knees, tilting her head to listen. Nash’s idling car was the only sound she heard.

  She crawled toward the opening and ducked her head into the space. The high windows cast a gray light over the concrete floor of the warehouse, which contained a desk, a few chairs, a filing cabinet...and an empty car seat.

  Chapter Twenty

  Nash had kept the engine of the car running in case someone came after Emily, but she hadn’t moved since she’d crouched in front of that opening to peer into the warehouse.

  As he watched her, his heart hammering in his chest, she dropped to the ground, flattening her body against the greasy asphalt.

  An animal wailed somewhere, its plaintive cry echoing in the night. It took Nash a few seconds to realize that sound was emanating from Emily.

  With the car still idling, he jumped out and launched himself at Emily, who was screaming and kicking her legs against the ground. He scooped her up from behind and cradled her against his chest as he collapsed against the side of the building.

  He tried to soothe her by stroking her back. “It’s all right. We’ll find him. We’ll get him back. We’ll bring him home. We’ll make him ours.”

  He didn’t even know what he was saying. The words tumbled from his lips—all his hopes and dreams stripped bare.

  She peeled away from him and pointed at the opening with tears streaming down her face. “It’s there, Nash. The car seat—the empty car seat with the GPS we’ve been following. The GPS we’ve been pinning all our hopes on.”

  “Shh, shh.” He rocked her back and forth in his arms as if she were Wyatt. “As long as we’re here, let’s take a look around. Crawl inside and I’ll turn off the car.”

  She followed his suggestion robotically, rolling beneath the door.

  Nash jumped up and ran to turn off the engine. Then he slithered into the opening to join Emily. His gut rolled when he saw the car seat in the corner.

  He dropped down next to her where she sat on the floor, her legs curled beneath her. Draping his arm around her shoulders, he pulled her close. “Let’s look at the positives. He was here. They brought him here and then transferred him to another location.”

  “Another location that could be anywhere.” She bunched his shirt in her hand. “We have to go back, Nash. You have to go back to work and prep that file for deletion.”

  “Hold on. I’m not ready to admit defeat just yet.” He lifted his eyes and scanned the room. “Let’s search this building.”

  Immediately, her head popped up, and she peered into the four corners of the warehouse. “Do you see a
ny security cameras?”

  Patting her back, he said, “That’s my girl. Get back in the zone.”

  He pushed off the floor and examined the four corners of the room. “The cameras aren’t in any obvious places, and I can’t see a space like this having hidden cameras. It’s just a storage area.”

  Emily had crawled toward Wyatt’s car seat and buried her face in it.

  A few seconds later, just when he thought he’d have to search this warehouse by himself, she withdrew her head from the car seat and sprang to her feet. “You look through those boxes in the corner, and I’ll search the desk.”

  He released a breath. He needed Emily’s help, had been counting on it. “Right, Chief.”

  He strode to the boxes piled in the corner and looked in each one. Most were empty except for a few bits of popcorn packing material. He sniffed inside, but no particular odor hit him over the head.

  He kicked the empty boxes he’d checked across the room. “You find anything?”

  “Office materials, some invoices that have this address on them.”

  “Invoices for what?” Nash dived into the next stack of boxes. Address labels. He should check those address labels.

  “Parts, mostly. Numbered parts for I don’t know what.”

  Nash turned a box over and checked the label. It listed an address in Buckeye, a small town farther west along the 10 freeway—definitely not Lanier’s glitzy Phoenix office building or ritzy home in Scottsdale. Why would he have shipments going to Buckeye?

  Emily called across the open space, her voice taking on a slight echo. “Something was written on a pad of paper and left an impression on the sheet below.”

  “Shade it over with a pen.” Nash grabbed the next box and read the same Buckeye address. That address appeared on the next box and the next.

  “I got it!” Emily shouted. “It’s an address, an address in...”

  Nash said it with her. “Buckeye.”

  * * *

  “THAT ADDRESS HAS to have some significance, right? Lanier’s not going to keep a kidnapped baby at his house or his office.” Emily had been chattering nonstop on the hour drive to Buckeye, asking the same questions over and over, coming up with the same justifications.

  Nash brushed his knuckles down her arm. “I think we’re on the right track. Wyatt may not be at this location, either, but we’re on his trail.”

  She jerked her head up and down. “We surveil the place first to make sure it’s not a dead end like the warehouse. If Wyatt’s there, we plan our infiltration and carry it out tonight.”

  “That’ll work, and if Wyatt’s not there—” he put a finger to her pouting lips “—we glean as much information as we can from that location, as we did from the warehouse. If there are people there, we get the information out of them—one way or another.”

  “I like the sound of that, Doc.”

  He managed to grin, despite his stiff face muscles. If they had to hop from place to place in some kind of demented scavenger hunt, he’d have to peel Emily off the floor.

  “If you blink, you’ll miss Buckeye.” She scooted forward in the passenger seat, her phone cupped in her hand. “It’s the next exit.”

  Again, a few stores and restaurants marked the entrance to Buckeye. Signs greeted them for a resort and golf course, an aquatics center, a historical museum and the Gillespie Dam Bridge. They drove past a big-box store and most of the main part of town before it led to the desert landscape.

  Nash pulled to the side of the road. “How much farther?”

  Glancing at the map on her phone, she said, “Just about five minutes.”

  “What do you see out there?” He tapped the windshield.

  She sucked in her bottom lip and squinted at the wavy desert floor. “Not much.”

  “Exactly. We can’t drive up to not much and not expect to be noticed.”

  “We have to readjust our plan.” She dipped her chin to her chest and let out a sigh. “We go in at night just like we planned, but we’ll have to assume Wyatt is there—whether he is or not.”

  He wedged a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head up. “We can do it. If someone is there without Wyatt, they’ll never hear us. We’ll turn around and sneak back out.”

  “Then what?” She sniffed but held her unshed tears in check.

  “We’ll formulate a plan B—we just don’t know what that is yet.” He pinched her chin. “You on board?”

  “I’m on board with you, Nash.” She grabbed his hand and kissed his knuckles. “I couldn’t do any of this without you. Wouldn’t want to. Whatever happens with Wyatt, wherever he winds up—whether that’s with you or Jaycee’s mother or, God forbid, some other father hiding in the woodwork—you’re...my person.”

  “You mean that?” He laced his fingers with hers. “I’m not just Wyatt’s guardian to you?”

  He held his breath as she blinked at him. There. He’d put it out there—probably not the best time to do so, but he had to know.

  Slowly, she brought their clasped hands to her chest and pressed them against her rapidly beating heart. “Is that what you thought? I know I used you to get close to Wyatt at the beginning and I even understand why you might not trust me after that, but you and Wyatt are not some kind of package deal to me.”

  He lifted one shoulder. “If I don’t adopt Wyatt, there’s no reason for you to come around.”

  “There’s every reason—if you’ll have me, and I don’t know why you would. I’m a failed cop, a hothead, a liar and a kidnapper.”

  He kissed her hard on the mouth to stop the litany of her faults. He whispered against her lips, “I know all of that, and I still want you. What does that say about me?”

  “It says, I must be your person, too.” She curled a hand around his neck. “Did you have to know all of that before we went in to rescue Wyatt?”

  “Maybe, but it wouldn’t have made a difference to my resolve to find that baby and keep him safe—whether that’s with me or someone else.” He kissed her again. “Let’s pass the time until nightfall by getting something to eat and packing the gear we’ll need to hike through the desert. We have just a few hours until darkness descends out here and those people in the house or mobile home or tent will never see us coming.”

  * * *

  THEY SAT IN a fast-food chain for almost an hour and a half, eating their chicken and drinking refills on their soda. Nobody paid any attention to them.

  When they finished, they drove to some bathrooms at the head of a hiking trail, grabbed some bags from the trunk of the car and changed into all-black attire.

  Emily removed her fake glasses so they wouldn’t reflect any light and give them away under the cover of darkness. She pulled a black cap over her brunette wig, and Nash swapped out his baseball cap for a black beanie.

  They each strapped a weapon around their waist, and Nash slipped his knife in the leg holster, which had worked so well in taking down Gustavo.

  Emily packed their backpacks with extra guns, smoke bombs, tear gas, burglary tools, GPS devices, small cameras and mics and whatever else she had from her PI stash. “If someone’s monitoring the security cameras out here, they might think we’re getting ready to take over a small country with this stuff.”

  Nash cracked a smile. “We have to be ready for anything. We have no idea what we’re walking into.”

  Like their other foray into the desert and the makeshift trailer park, Nash parked the car a half a mile out from where they needed to be. They could see lights in the distance, and he said to Emily, “At least there’s more than one house out there.”

  “Luck is on our side.” She rubbed her hands together. “I feel it.”

  “At least the moon is on our side.” He pointed skyward at the waxing crescent sliver hanging above them. It kept the night dark.

  Emily held Nash’s hand a
nd touched her lips to his ear. “At least there’s actually a road out here.”

  “Memorize the location and then shut off your phone. I have a penlight we can use that shuts off quickly—and doesn’t ring or buzz.”

  She studied the display, the blue light highlighting her face, and then shut down her cell and pocketed it. “Got it.”

  Nash’s nostrils twitched. The residents on the outskirts of Buckeye owned property and horses. He tapped Emily’s arm. “I hope Lanier doesn’t have horses. They’ll sense our presence way before any human could.”

  She tugged on the strap of his backpack. “That’s it.”

  He gazed across the road at a small house occupying a large lot with one other property behind it, like a mother-in-law quarters. The windows of the house stared out at them blankly, dark and silent, but a soft glow emanated from the small structure behind the main house.

  “If they’re here, I’m glad they’re in the smaller house—easier to storm.”

  “Don’t forget there might be a baby in there.” She poked him in the back. “Easy on the storming.”

  They kept moving past the house and then circled around the side to close in on the cottage with the lights burning.

  Nash stuck out a hand and Emily plowed into it, tripping to a stop. He pointed to his eye first and then a pinpoint of light moving up and down outside the front door of the occupied house. “Someone’s smoking a cigarette out front.”

  “The guard?” Emily’s breath came out in noisy, short spurts.

  They crouched and moved in closer, ducking behind a fence that ringed the front property. Someone had parked a black Jag at a skewed angle in front of the smaller house, and Nash could make out figures moving behind the curtains on the window.

  In a low voice, he asked, “Does that look like the window from the video chat?”

  “It does. That’s it.” Emily pulled her gun from the holster around her waist. “He’s in there, Nash. I can feel it.”