Delores Fossen - Reining in Justice

He glanced down at the screen, and when he pulled back his shoulders, Addison got up so she could see what’d caused that reaction.

Unknown caller.

“It could be just a telemarketer or wrong number,” Reed reminded her.

Maybe, but after the hellish morning they’d had, Addison doubted it. Reed hit the answer button and put the call on speaker.

“Don’t bother to trace this, cowboy,” the caller said. “I’m using a burner cell.” It wasn’t a normal voice but had been disguised with a scrambler.

One of the kidnappers, no doubt.

“You need to tell your ex that this isn’t over,” the caller continued.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Reed demanded.

“Addison knows what we want. The names of everyone she told.”

“Told what?” Addison said, rushing closer to get to the phone.

“ You know. If you want to see what’ll happen to you, then look at the surprise we left for you at your house.”

“What surprise?” Reed and she asked together.

“You’ll see,” the voice taunted. “You’re a dead woman, Addison, and this time that cowboy won’t be able to save you.”

Chapter Five

There was so much going on in Reed’s head that he thought he might explode. How the devil had things gotten this crazy in such a short time?

He was a father.

Him!

Reed bit back another groan and tried to force himself to think. Not about Emily. Or Addison. Hard not to think about them, though, when the two were right in front of him, seated at his desk at the sheriff’s office. Every time he looked at the baby’s face, he was reminded that Addison had gone behind his back and done the very thing he hadn’t wanted her to do. Still, his ex’s betrayal had to go on the back burner for now.

Because of the threat.

“You’re a dead woman, Addison, and this time that cowboy won’t be able to save you . ”

That in itself was bad enough, but there was the kidnapper’s other comment about the surprise at Addison’s house. Or rather what was left of her place. According to Colt, who was on the scene, the place had indeed been burned to the ground.

“I can’t get a good look at the rubble yet,” Colt said from the other end of the line. “The fire department’s still hosing it down.”

Both Colt and Reed cursed. For a good reason. The water was necessary to make sure the fire didn’t spread, but it would also likely destroy any evidence. Of course, there might not be any evidence to find.

The surprise could just be an empty threat. A ploy to put the fear of God into Addison. If so, it was working.

“Anything?” Addison asked the moment Reed ended the call with Colt. As she had been doing once they arrived at the sheriff’s office, she was nibbling on her bottom lip. Clearly panicked by all this.

Not Emily, though.

Now that she’d finished her bottle, the baby was sleeping in Addison’s arms. Even though Reed had said he wouldn’t focus on the little girl now, it was hard to ignore the tiny bundle that was causing such an avalanche of emotions inside him.

She was his daughter.

They’d done the DNA test, just in case her paternity came up, but Reed was certain what the test results would be.

“Nothing yet,” Reed answered. “But if there’s anything to find in the house, Colt will find it.”

He hoped. They had enough unanswered questions without adding this so-called threat to the list.

Cooper and the other deputy, Pete Nichols, were on their phones trying to track down that black SUV so Reed figured he’d better push aside the emotional avalanche and get to work on other things.

Like finding a safe place for Addison and Emily.

He seriously doubted she wanted to spend the rest of the day at the sheriff’s office. Or with him for that matter. But Reed couldn’t let her out of his sight until he knew both Emily and she would be safe.

“Why is this happening?” Addison asked on a rise of breath.

That was one of the big questions on Reed’s mind, too. So he sank down in the chair across from her to see if they could come up with something, anything that would help him catch the people responsible for this.

Of course, first he had to figure out what this was.

“I don’t believe the kidnappers actually wanted the baby,” Reed said, testing a theory that he’d been tossing around in his head with all the other jumbled thoughts. Maybe if he talked it out with her, it’d make more sense. “I believe they only took her to get you to cooperate with them. Think about it. They handed her to me, but they were going to take you.”

Addison’s eyes widened. “You’re right. It’s me they’re after.”

The kidnappers probably hadn’t wanted to have to take care of a newborn. That’s why they’d intended to make such a fast trade of Addison for the baby. Now that their plan had failed, they probably wouldn’t hesitate to use the baby to get Addison again.

But Reed didn’t intend to let them do that.

“Cooper ran a check on the baby farm investigation, and the Dearborn Agency didn’t come up,” Reed continued. “But there were some surrogates in the baby farms that have been found and interviewed. Ones who’d been hired by less than sterling prospective parents. In some cases the surrogates had been kidnapped, or at least pretended to be kidnapped, and the babies held for ransom from the couples who’d hired them.”

“You honestly think some of the surrogates were in on a scheme like that?” Addison asked.

“Possibly. Did Cissy try to get any extra money from you?”

Addison quickly shook her head. “No.” Then she paused. “But she knew I’d used most of my savings to pay for the surrogacy. And I didn’t inherit my aunt’s house until the week after Emily was born.”

That was right. Reed remembered it’d been held up in probate court for nearly a year because Addison’s aunt hadn’t left a will. Addison had eventually been given the house after it was determined that she was her aunt’s only legitimate heir, but neither anyone at Dearborn nor Cissy would have known for certain Addison was getting the place.

“Besides, if milking more money from me was the motive, then why wait seven weeks after the probate court’s ruling?” Addison asked. “Why not just kidnap Emily then and demand a ransom?”

Those were the reasons Reed had dismissed that particular part of the theory, too. But it brought him back to the surrogate angle itself.

“Even though Dearborn didn’t come up in the investigation, they could have been involved with the baby farms. They’d probably do anything to make sure the surrogate doesn’t say a word to you about the baby farm operation.”

Addison gave a quick nod. “We have to find out who owns the Dearborn Agency.”

“I’m working on that,” Cooper said, sliding his hand over the phone receiver. “So far, it’s like digging through a very big haystack.”

Oh, man. That wasn’t good at all. People with nothing to hide generally put their names on businesses they owned.

Cooper opened his mouth to add something to that, but he stopped, his gaze going to the glass door. Reed whirled in that direction to see what’d gotten the sheriff’s attention, and he immediately spotted the two men making their way from the parking lot.

Not the kidnappers, but Reed didn’t recognize them, so he slid his hand over his gun.

The man in the lead was tall and thin with dark hair. He was wearing a bright blue suit that was fitted close enough to his body that Reed didn’t think he was carrying concealed. However, he could have a weapon in the briefcase gripped in his hand.

The other man was a different story. Early forties. Bulky around the middle, and he was wearing a coat over his suit jacket. Plenty of places for him to hide a weapon.