Delores Fossen - Kidnapping in Kendall County

Not a second too soon.

Behind them, the building burst into a fireball.

Obviously, someone had put a hefty amount of accelerant inside, and it’d worked. It wouldn’t take long for anything left inside to be destroyed.

Hell.

These goons were trying to cover their tracks, and in doing so they might have erased the very information that he needed to find his nephew.

“Call 911,” he told Rosalie, tossing her his phone. Austin kept watch around them to make sure they weren’t about to be ambushed. The narrow road was lined with trees on both sides, and that meant plenty of places for the shooters to hide. “Tell them we need the fire department and the locals out here. I want this entire area sealed off.”

Austin wasn’t sure how she managed it because her hands were shaking so hard, but Rosalie made the call. Maybe, just maybe, there might be something left to recover.

“I have to find out if Janice made it to someplace safe,” Rosalie said the moment she finished the 911 call. “Oh, God,” she added in a mumble. “What if the local county cops are in on this?”

“Don’t borrow trouble,” Austin reminded her.

He took his phone, scrolled through the numbers, located the number of his partner at the FBI, and gave the cell back to Rosalie. “Text him. Tell him to BOLO Janice Aiken and that she’s driving a black truck registered to my undercover alias, John Mercer.” Austin rattled off the license plate. “I want him to call me the minute he finds her.”

“BOLO,” she repeated while she wrote the text. “Be on the lookout.”

She’d obviously picked up some cop jargon from Eli or maybe her stepbrother Seth. Austin figured Seth wasn’t going to like Rosalie’s rogue investigation, and Rosalie wasn’t going to like it when Austin called her stepbrother so that Seth could force her to back off. Since she wouldn’t listen to him, he had no choice about doing that.

“These baby thieves know you’ve betrayed them,” Rosalie said after she finished the text.

Yeah, they did. The note proved that.

You’re a dead man, John Mercer.

And while the idiots behind the baby farms probably didn’t know his real identity, it wouldn’t be long before they figured out he was FBI. After all, they had countless images of him from those surveillance cameras.

Of Rosalie, too.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” he insisted. Obviously, he was repeating himself, but Austin hoped she realized just how much danger she was in.

“You came,” she pointed out.

Austin tossed her a scowl. The only thing he knew about Rosalie was what Eli had told him. That she was the quiet, shy type who was downright squeamish about his job as a federal agent.

Well, she’d clearly changed a lot.

This was no quiet, shy woman next to him. Or maybe Rosalie had just managed to put her squeamishness aside so she could find her daughter. Still, that wouldn’t happen if she got herself killed.

“What do we do now?” she asked. “What if there’s no evidence to recover from that building or the baby farm?”

Austin slowed as he approached the junction that would take him back to a main road. “I continue the investigation, and you go home.”

She huffed and would have no doubt argued with him about that if the movement hadn’t grabbed their attention.

Austin was almost at a full stop at the intersection when someone darted out in front of the truck. He automatically pushed Rosalie down onto the seat, and in the same motion, he took aim at the man.

“Don’t shoot!” the man yelled. He had his hands in the air but almost immediately dropped one to his arm. Thanks to the headlights, Austin could see blood on the sleeve of his jacket. “They tried to kill me.”

Austin had a fast debate with himself. He could just drive off and call for someone to come and get the guy. After all, despite that injury, this man could be part of this baby farm operation.

And that’s why Austin lost that mental debate.

Because if he was indeed part of the operation, then that meant he had answers, and Austin wouldn’t get those answers if he allowed him to disappear. Or die.

“Stay down,” Austin warned Rosalie.

Did she listen?

No, of course not.

She lifted her head, and Austin nudged her right back down before he lowered his window.

“I need help,” the man insisted, walking toward the truck.

“Don’t come any closer,” Austin warned him, and he took aim at him. “Who are you?”

“Sonny Buckland. I’m a P.I. from Austin.”

“Send another text to Sawyer Ryland, my partner at the FBI,” Austin told Rosalie. “Have him run this guy’s name and ask him to hurry.” While she did that, Austin pinned his attention to the man. “Open the sides of your jacket so I can see if you’re armed.”

“I’m not,” he insisted, and he winced when he pulled back the side with the blood. “They took my gun when they found me snooping around the place.”

“They?”

“Three armed guards. Big guys. The only reason I managed to escape is because they got a call from someone who told them to get out fast. I ran. That’s when one of them shot me.”

That meshed with what Austin figured had happened. The person monitoring the cameras at the baby farm had likely made the call to let the guards at this place know there’d been a breach in security.

“How do you know I don’t work for those guards?” Austin came right out and asked.

“If you did, you would have already killed me.”

True. But that didn’t mean Austin would blindly trust this guy. The guards could have left him behind with orders to finish off anyone who got near the place.

Sonny clamped his hand over his injured arm and fired nervy glances all around them. “Stating the obvious here, but it’s not safe to hang around. We need to get out of here.”

Austin nodded. “You’re not going anywhere with us until you convince me you’re not working for the baby snatchers.”

“I’m not working for them!” Sonny practically yelled. Then, he groaned, a mixture of pain and frustration. “A client hired me to find his missing pregnant friend. I followed some leads that I got from a criminal informant, and it led me to this place.”

Rosalie made a soft sound of agreement, and even though Sonny’s story meshed with hers about getting the info from a CI, Austin shot them both scowls for inserting themselves into a dangerous investigation. Yeah, he’d done the same thing. And not with authorization, either. But he was a trained agent. Neither of them was.

Of course, Sonny could still be a threat.

“Did you learn who was behind this operation?” Rosalie asked the man. “Did you find any records or anything that could help us locate some missing babies?”

Sonny huffed and made more of those uneasy glances around. He looked on the verge of trying again to press Austin to get him out of there, but maybe he realized the fastest way for that to happen was to give them any info he had.

“I did learn something,” Sonny said. Then, paused. “I think a piece of scum named Trevor Yancy is responsible for at least some of the baby kidnappings.”

Rosalie sucked in her breath, and her hand went to her mouth. Austin tried to rein in any response, but just like that, his thoughts jerked him back to a bad place, a bad time.

Eli’s murder.

Rosalie was no doubt doing the same thing. Because the man Eli and he had been investigating for gunrunning and a whole host of crimes was none other than Trevor Yancy.

“You know Yancy,” Sonny said. Not a question, either.

Obviously Austin hadn’t done a good job of hiding his reaction. No surprise there. Austin was responsible for the way that investigation had turned out, and it had turned out in the worst possible way.