Delores Fossen - Reining in Justice

Whatever this was.

If the P.I. had done something wrong, then Addison would make sure he paid, and paid hard. But for now, she had to battle herself. The tears came again. The fear, too. It felt as if it were choking the life right out of her.

“Focus,” Reed insisted. Probably because he sensed that she was about to lose it. “Did this P.I. find out anything suspicious about the adoption?”

It took her a moment to get her mouth working. “I don’t think so. He was supposed to email me a report this morning.”

Reed cursed. “Those men were going through papers in your office. And they took your laptop. They were clearly looking for something.”

Oh, God. Had it been the P.I.’s report they were after?

If so, Addison wasn’t even sure she’d received it yet. She had planned to check her email after she’d had coffee if Emily hadn’t wakened yet. However, she hadn’t gotten the chance to do that, because the kidnappers had shown up.

“What exactly was the P.I. looking for?” Reed asked.

Again, she had to fight through the panic so she could answer. Where the heck was that SUV?

“I just asked Rooney to do background checks on the lawyers and the woman who gave birth to Emily,” she answered.

And maybe Rooney had found something. But what? What could he have found that would have sent a team of kidnappers after her baby?

“You’re bleeding,” Reed let her know. And he grabbed a handful of tissues from a box between the seats and pressed it against her head.

She didn’t feel the blood. Didn’t feel any pain at all and was about to push the tissues away when Reed rounded the next curve.

There . Just ahead.

The SUV.

Not driving away from them.

It had stopped right in the middle of the road.

Reed cursed, slammed on his brakes, and tried to push her down onto the seat. Addison batted him away because there was no chance she would stay out of this. Not after what she saw in front of them.

There was a man dressed all in black holding Emily.

At least she was pretty sure it was her baby. Addison couldn’t see any part of the baby’s face, but she recognized the blanket. It was the pink one that’d been in Emily’s crib.

“Wait!” Reed shouted when Addison bolted from the truck.

She didn’t listen. Addison hurried out and faced the man head-on. He had a gun in his right hand, the baby cradled in his left arm, but he didn’t take aim at her.

Addison soon realized why.

There were two other gunmen inside the SUV, and both of them had weapons trained on Reed and her. One of them was slumped forward, bleeding, but that might not affect his aim.

Reed got out and pointed his gun at the driver.

“Give me the baby,” Addison insisted.

Even though she still had hold of her gun, she also didn’t aim it at the men. She didn’t want to give them any reason to start shooting again.

Addison glanced around to make sure another vehicle wasn’t coming. This wasn’t a busy road, but that didn’t mean the deputy, Colt, or someone else couldn’t come around the corner and crash into them. It was early, and there was still some slick moisture on the road surface. Not the best place for an impromptu meeting, but at least she had her baby in front of her.

“We’ll trade the kid for you,” the man said, tipping his head to Addison. He was big. Well over six feet tall and had bulky shoulders. It was the same man she’d seen on her porch before she was hit.

“No,” Reed answered. “Hand her the baby and drop your weapon. You, too,” he added to the others. “I want those guns on the ground now.”

Reed sounded like the cowboy cop that he was. A man with a badge and in charge. However, she hadn’t expected the kidnappers just to do as he’d ordered.

And they didn’t.

The man holding Emily stared at Addison. “You want to save her? Then get in the SUV with us now.”

Addison wanted to do just that if it would get Emily safely out of there. But she had just enough sanity left to know this was almost certainly a trick. If she got into the vehicle, there was nothing to stop them from killing Reed and driving away with both Emily and her.

Still, she’d be with her baby.

“Don’t,” Reed warned her when Addison took a step toward the man.

“It’s the only way,” the man insisted. “We have to know what you learned and who you told.”

That stopped Addison in her tracks, and she shook her head. “I didn’t learn anything.”

“Time’s up,” the driver said, ignoring her denial. He pointed his gun right at her. “We need to get out of here now.”

She braced herself for an attack. But it didn’t happen. The man holding Emily charged forward, and he thrust the baby toward Reed. Addison got a glimpse of what was inside the blanket then.

Emily!

The relief was instant. Thank God. And her baby appeared to be unharmed. She was awake and flailing her arms around as if she was about to start crying.

“Take her!” Addison shouted to Reed.

Reed did. He moved fast, and he scooped the baby from the man’s arms. In the same motion, the gunman reached out for Addison, and he probably would have managed to latch on to her arm if the sound hadn’t distracted him. The kidnapper glanced up when the vehicle came around the corner.

It was Colt.

The deputy had obviously taken the turn too fast and was in a full skid. His dark blue truck flew past them just as Reed got the baby inside his own vehicle.

Addison ran there, too, racing toward Emily. However, she’d barely made it a step when Colt’s truck crashed right into the side of the SUV. The air was suddenly filled with the sounds of metal scraping against metal.

The gunman shouted something but got out of the way in time. He was just a blur of motion from the corner of Addison’s eye, and she didn’t wait to see where he’d land or what would happen next.

She hurried as fast as she could back toward Reed’s truck, jumped inside and scooped the baby up into her arms.

Emily didn’t cry. The baby only looked up at Addison as if trying to figure out what was going on.

“Get down!” Reed yelled.

This time, Addison did exactly as he said. She dropped to the floor, sheltering Emily’s body with hers.

She heard the squeal of the tires on the asphalt.

Followed by a shot.

Addison looked up in time to see the bashed-in SUV coming right toward them. Obviously the crash hadn’t disabled the engine.

There was no time for Reed to get his truck out of the way. He could only brace himself for a collision, and Addison tried to do the same. The SUV was damaged, banged up on the side where Colt’s truck had hit it, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t have a hard enough impact to hurt the baby.

Reed managed to get off a shot to try to stop the driver, but the bullet skipped off the roof of the SUV just as it darted around his truck.

And the kidnappers sped away.

Chapter Three

Reed finished his call with the sheriff and watched as the medic put the bandage on Addison’s head. She didn’t even react. She had her attention solely on the baby cradled in her arms. The little girl seemed to be sleeping peacefully now, but Emily still occasionally sucked the bottle that the nurse had made for her.

The medic had cleaned away the blood from Addison’s forehead, but there was a dark blue bruise already forming. The same color as her troubled eyes.

“Any sign of the kidnappers?” Addison asked the moment Reed put his phone away. She was still ash pale except for that bruise, and along with the relief of being safe at the hospital, he could also see the fear etched on her face.

Reed had to shake his head. “Not yet. But everyone’s out looking for them. Plus, there’s a CSI team headed out to your place. They might find some prints or DNA to tell us who they were.”