Delores Fossen - Nate

“I’m trying to hurry,” the medic assured her.

She knew from his name tag that he was Tommy Watters, and while she hated being rude to him, she couldn’t stop herself. She had to do something. Anything.

Like Nate and his four brothers were doing.

Just a few yards away from her, Nate was on the phone, his tone and motions frantic, while he talked with the helicopter pilot, who was trying to narrow down the search zone.

“No,” Nate instructed. “Don’t do a direct fly over the Lost Appaloosa. I already have someone en route, and if the kidnappers are there, I don’t want to alert them. I want you to focus on the roads that lead to the interstate.”

Nate had a map spread out on the desk, and every line on the desk phone was blinking. Next door, Deputy Melissa Garza was barking out orders to a citizens’ patrol group that was apparently being formed to assist in the hunt for the kidnappers and the babies. The dispatcher was helping her.

Grayson, Dade and Mason were all out searching various parts of Silver Creek, interviewing witnesses and running down leads on the other black vans that had been spotted. The other deputy, Luis Lopez, was at the day care in case the kidnappers returned.

Darcy was the only one not doing anything to save Noah and Kimmie.

“I can’t just sit here.” The panic was starting to whirl around inside her, and despite the AC spilling over her, sweat popped out on her face. She would scream if she couldn’t get out of there and find Noah.

Darcy pushed aside the medic and would have run out of the room if Nate hadn’t caught her shoulder.

He got right in her face, and his glare told her this wasn’t going to be a pep talk. “You have to keep yourself together. Because I don’t have time to babysit you. Got that?”

She flinched. That stung worse than the fresh stitches. But Darcy still shook her head. “Noah is my life.” Which, of course, went without saying. Kimmie was no doubt Nate’s life, too.

Nate nodded, and eased up on the bruising grip he had on her shoulder. The breath he blew out was long and weary. He looked up at the medic as he put Darcy back in the chair. “Finish the stitches now, ” he ordered.

Actual fear went through the medic’s eyes, and he clipped off the thread. “It’ll hold for now, but she should see a doctor because she might have a concussion.”

Before the last word left the medic’s mouth, Darcy was out of the chair. “Let’s go,” she insisted.

Thank God, Nate didn’t argue with her. “We’re headed to the Lost Appaloosa, Mel,” he shouted to Deputy Garza, and in the same motion Nate grabbed a set of keys from a hook on the wall.

Finally! They were getting out there and doing something. She hoped it was the right something.

“You have to keep yourself together,” Nate repeated. But this time, there was no razor edge to his tone. No glare. Just speed. He practically ran down the hall. “My brother Kade should arrive at the Lost Appaloosa in about ten minutes, and then we’ll have answers.”

“Answers if the babies are really there,” Darcy corrected.

Nate spared her a glance, threw open the back door and hurried into the parking lot. “Marlene probably risked her life to write those initials. They mean something, and if it turns out to be the Lost Appaloosa, then Kade will know how to approach the situation.”

“Because he’s FBI,” she said more to herself than Nate.

Darcy prayed Nate’s FBI brother truly knew what he was doing. It gave her some comfort to know that Kade would likely be willing to risk his life to save his niece. And maybe Noah, too.

Nate jumped into a dark blue SUV, started the engine and barely waited long enough for Darcy to get inside before he tore out of the parking lot.

“I need to know if you’re okay,” he said, tipping his head to her new stitches.

“Don’t worry about me,” Darcy said. “Focus on the kids.”

“I can’t have you keeling over or anything.” The muscles in his jaw stirred. Maybe because he didn’t like that he had to be concerned about her in any way.

“I’m fine,” she assured him, and even though it was a lie, it was the end of the discussion as far as Darcy was concerned. “How far is the Lost Appaloosa?”

“Thirty miles. It’s within the San Antonio city limits, but there’s not much else out there.” His phone buzzed, and he shoved it between his shoulder and ear when he answered it.

She listened but couldn’t tell anything from Nate’s monosyllabic responses. He certainly wasn’t whooping for joy because the babies had possibly been found.

Darcy leaned over to check the odometer so she would know when they were close to that thirty miles, and her hair accidently brushed against Nate’s arm. He glanced at it, at her, and Darcy quickly pulled away.

“Thirty miles,” she repeated, focusing on the drive and not on the driver. Nate put his attention back on the call.

That was too many miles between her and her baby, and the panic surged through her again. Nate was already going as fast as he could, but at this speed and because of the narrow country roads, it would take them at least twenty, maybe twenty-five, minutes to get there.

An eternity.

Nate cursed, causing her attention to snap back to him. She waited, breath held, until he slapped the phone shut. “Grayson just found another empty black van on a dirt road near the creek. Only one set of footprints was around the vehicle.”

So, not a call from Kade. Just news of another decoy van. Or else the team of kidnappers had split up. Did that mean they’d split up the children and Marlene, as well? Darcy hoped not.

“Shouldn’t you have heard from Kade by now?” she asked.

He scrubbed his hand over his face. “My brother will call when he can.”

Nate looked at her again, and his eyes were now a dangerous stormy-gray. “The person behind this has a big motive and a lot of money,” he tossed out there. He was all cop again. Here was the lieutenant she’d butted heads with in the past. And the present.

“You mean Wesley Dent,” she supplied.

Darcy didn’t even try to put on her lawyer face. Her head was pounding. Her breath, ragged. And her heart was beating so hard, she was afraid her ribs might crack. She didn’t have the energy for her usual power-attorney facade.

“Wesley Dent,” Nate verified, making her client’s name sound like profanity. “He’s a gold digger, and I believe he murdered his wife.”

Darcy shook her head and continued to keep watch in case she spotted another black van. She also glanced at the odometer, remembering to keep her hair away from Nate’s arm. Twenty-five miles to go.

“I won’t deny the gold-digging part,” she admitted, “but I’m not sure he killed his wife.”

Though it did look bad for Dent.

A starving artist, Dent had married Sandra Frasier, who wasn’t just a multimillionaire heiress but was twenty-five years his senior. And apparently she often resorted to public humiliation when it came to her boy-toy husband, who was still two years shy of his thirtieth birthday. Just days before what would have been their first wedding anniversary, Sandra had humiliated Dent in public at Dent’s art show.

A day after that, she had received a lethal dose of insulin.

“Sandra was diabetic,” Darcy continued, though she really didn’t want to have this conversation. Twenty-four miles to go. “So, it’s possible this was a suicide. Her husband even said she wrote about suicide in her diary.” But her death certainly hadn’t been accidental because the amount of insulin was quadruple what she would have normally taken.

“There was no suicide note,” Nate challenged. “No sign of this so-called diary, either.”