Reed eased onto the stairwell but had to take hold of Addison when she tried to dart past him. She didn’t try to go toward the sounds in her office but rather to the room at the end of the hall.
The nursery, no doubt.
There wasn’t anyone moving around in there, not that Reed could hear anyway. The only movement was coming from the room on his right.
He shot Addison a warning glance for her to stay put, and he hoped this time she’d listen. Thankfully, she did. With a death grip on the umbrella, she waited and held her breath.
Reed was holding his breath, too, when he glanced around the edge of the door of her office. Like in the downstairs, things had been tossed and turned in here, too. There were two men dressed all in black, their backs to him, and they were stuffing papers and a laptop into a large satchel.
Both were armed.
“We got two minutes,” one of the men called out. “Don’t want the locals in here on this.”
Locals. As in Reed or someone else from the Sweetwater Springs Sheriff’s Office. Did the men know Addison had managed to call him? If so, they probably thought the cops were still en route. They likely wouldn’t have known that Reed would be driving right by her place at the exact moment she’d needed him.
Reed glanced back at Addison to make sure she was okay. She hadn’t stayed put for long and was now inching her way to the nursery. That maybe wasn’t a bright idea, but Reed had enough to deal with now. Besides, Addison would likely do whatever it took to protect the baby, and that meant he could focus on these morons ransacking the place.
“You think we got it all?” one of the men asked his partner.
“Can’t be sure,” he answered. “Let’s go to plan B and torch the place.”
Reed didn’t have time to curse or try to get Addison and the baby out of there. He heard a vehicle approaching. Colt, no doubt. The siren was off, but it still must have alerted one of the men, because he pivoted, his attention zooming right to Reed.
“I’m Deputy Reed Caldwell,” he identified himself.
Both men raised their guns. Not ordinary weapons but ones rigged with silencers. One of them fired, just as Reed scrambled to the side, and even though it wasn’t a normal loud blast, the bullet tore through the doorjamb.
Hell’s bells.
He hadn’t wanted to get into a gunfight with anyone but especially not without backup in place.
Another shot quickly came at him, and Reed hurried out of the way while he readied himself to return fire. He latched on to Addison and pulled her into the adjacent open doorway. It was her old bedroom, still decorated as it’d been when she was in high school.
“The bullets could hit Emily,” she said, fighting to get away from him. But she didn’t go toward the nursery. She hurried to her nightstand and took out a gun. That definitely hadn’t been there when she was in high school.
“Reed?” someone yelled. It was Colt, and it sounded as if he was already inside the house.
“Upstairs.” Even though the men had fired guns rigged with silencers, Reed figured Colt had heard the shots and knew that this situation had gone from bad to worse.
However, worse took yet another bad turn.
No more shots, but it was a sound that got Addison moving fast.
Soft cries.
Definitely the baby, especially since the cries were coming from the nursery. Reed had to put Addison in a body lock to keep her from racing out into the hall where those men could kill her with an easy shot.
“Let’s get the hell out of here now,” he heard one of the men growl.
Reed didn’t want them to escape, but he also didn’t want any more shots fired in the vicinity of the baby. He pulled Addison to the side of the bed so he’d be in a better position to protect them both, and he braced himself for the men to come running past them. If that happened, he could stop them before they got to the nursery.
Maybe.
“Watch out, Colt!” Reed shouted down. Because he figured these guys might eventually head Colt’s way if they didn’t go to the nursery. If they did indeed run for the stairs, then Reed could let go of Addison and race after them.
But no one came out of the makeshift office.
Reed still heard the scrambling around. Still heard voices. However, the men didn’t come his way or toward the stairs.
The seconds crawled by. With his heartbeat crashing in his ears. His hand tight and hard on his gun. Addison struggling to get loose. The baby’s cries.
“They’re getting away,” Colt called out.
Reed had no choice but to let go of Addison, and he hurried to the doorway so he could glance into her office.
No men.
But the window was wide-open. He hadn’t spotted a ladder when he drove up, but they’d obviously gotten out somehow.
“They’re on foot,” Colt added, “and I’m in pursuit.”
Reed raced to the office window and looked down. Not the best idea he’d ever had. The two men were there on the ground. A ladder, too. Not the standard metal one but the portable rope kind that could be carried in an equipment bag.
One of them turned and fired a shot directly at Reed. The bullet tore through the window and sent a spray of glass over the room. He felt the sting of a cut near his eyes, ignored it and took aim.
Reed fired.
His shot slammed into the nearest man’s shoulder, and even though the guy stumbled, his partner took hold of him, and they ran toward the barn. Reed got a glimpse of the black SUV parked inside, and both men barreled into the vehicle. The SUV was out of his firing range, but if the driver came back toward the road, he might get another shot at stopping them.
But then Reed saw something else.
A second rope ladder.
This one was three windows over, and it took him a moment to realize it was outside the nursery. That had barely registered when he heard the scream.
Addison.
Reed bolted out of the office, directly toward her scream, and he found her in the nursery. She was at the open window, climbing out on the rope ladder.
The crib was empty.
“They have her,” Addison sobbed. “They took Emily.”
Reed pulled her back so he could get a better look at the SUV as it sped out from the barn. The windows were heavily tinted, too dark for him to see inside. But he did spot Colt.
“Aim for the tires,” Reed shouted down to his fellow deputy.
If the baby was indeed inside the vehicle, he didn’t want to risk a stray bullet going her way.
Colt took aim. Fired. But the shot smacked off the bumper.
“Go after them!” Addison begged.
He did. He barreled down the stairs and toward the door. But he was already too late.
Reed barely managed to ready his gun before the SUV sped away.
Copyright © 2015 by Delores Fossen
ISBN-13: 9781460379813
Manhunt
Copyright © 2015 by Tyler Anne Snell
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