Делорес Фоссен – Kidnapping in Kendall County (страница 8)
“I want to go with you to question Yancy or anyone else connected to this,” she insisted.
“Yeah, I bet you do, but it’s not going to happen. No way will I put you in danger like that.”
“I’m already in danger!” she practically shouted, but the fit of temper disappeared as quickly as it’d come. “I need to find my daughter. Eli’s daughter,” she added, probably because she figured it would touch every raw nerve in his body and soften him up.
He couldn’t let it work on him.
His phone vibrated, indicating he had an incoming call, and he saw Sawyer’s name on the screen. His partner had obviously meant that part about Austin calling him back now.
Bracing himself for questions he wasn’t ready to answer, Austin took his phone, issued another “Keep watch” to Rosalie and answered the call. He didn’t put it on speaker, and that was probably the reason Rosalie scooted across the seat—so she could hear.
“Well?” Sawyer said the moment Austin answered.
“I was looking for my missing nephew,” Austin settled for saying.
“Yes, and our boss already figured that out. He’s not happy, Austin, and he wants you back from your
“I’ll be back soon.” He hoped. “For now, I just need your help. I’m en route to the Silver Creek hospital to drop off an injured P.I. who’s either a witness or a person of interest in some assorted felonies. I’ll be there in about five minutes. Can you make some calls and arrange for him to be guarded?”
Sawyer didn’t answer for several snail-crawling moments. “Sure.”
“I also need you to have someone secure two crime scenes on the farm road that runs directly east of the town of Silver Creek,” Austin added. “Both were baby farms and are owned by a dummy corporation, Real Estate Investments. There’s not much left of them, and there are possible explosives planted around the grounds.”
“I’ll get someone out there right away,” Sawyer assured him. Another pause. “You had a BOLO on a woman driving a black truck registered to your alias?”
“Yeah—”
“A deputy here in Silver Creek just phoned it in. They found her.” Sawyer paused again. “It’s not good news, Austin. The woman’s dead.”
Rosalie’s heart went to her knees. She couldn’t stop the brutal thoughts and images from going through her head. Images of Janice’s frantic escape from the baby farm and the ordeal that had led up to it.
At the time Rosalie had believed that escape was the woman’s best chance of surviving.
Obviously, she’d been wrong.
“Oh, God.” Rosalie grabbed the phone from Austin and put it on speaker. “What about the babies? Janice had two newborns with her.”
“Who is this?” Agent Ryland snapped.
Austin mumbled some profanity and made the final turn toward the hospital. “She’s Rosalie McKinnon.”
Agent Ryland repeated her name. “She was engaged to Eli.” Even though Rosalie didn’t know Agent Ryland, the man obviously knew her since it wasn’t a question.
“And she’s also Seth Calder’s stepsister,” Austin added. “I ran into her while I was undercover.” He glanced at her, as if he might add more, but then shook his head. “Now, what about the babies?”
“Both are fine. According to the deputy, Janice drove to the sheriff’s office, but she was already injured when she got there. She’d been shot.”
Rosalie’s heart just kept dropping. She was beyond thankful that the babies were okay, but it was terrifying to think of Janice being pursued by these monsters while she was trying to get the newborns to safety.
“The babies are being taken to the hospital,” Agent Ryland continued. “Just as a precaution. There’s not a scratch on them. And, of course, child protective services will be brought in. Will the woman’s killer try to come after the babies?” he came right out and asked.
Rosalie already knew the answer and dreaded hearing it.
“Possibly,” Austin said without hesitation.
“I’ll get right on it,” Ryland answered, also without hesitation, and he ended the call.
“This is all my fault,” she whispered.
Austin made a yeah, right sound. “The fault lies with the person who set up the baby farm.”
True, but if she hadn’t put Janice in a position where she had to escape, the woman might be alive. “If I’d stayed with her and the babies, this might not have happened.”
“Yes, it would have, and you’d be dead, too. Those guards wouldn’t have wanted any witnesses to get away.”
And since both Austin and she were just that—witnesses—then, yes, the men would have tried to shoot her, too. But at least if she’d been there, she might have been able to stop it and Janice might be alive.
Austin drove into the hospital parking lot and came to a stop directly in front of the E.R. doors. Sonny climbed out, not easily, and while still clutching his injured arm, he headed inside.
“Stay close to me,” Austin warned her, and as he’d done while they were on the road, he kept watch around them.
The rain had stopped, but the wind took a swipe at her. She was already shivering from the spent adrenaline, and the bitter cold only made it worse.
The moment the E.R. staff saw Sonny, they rushed forward and whisked him away to one of the examination rooms. A security guard wearing a uniform trailed along behind them.
Rosalie looked around, hoping to see the babies and whoever was guarding them, but the E.R. was empty except for a woman sitting at the intake desk.
“I’ll need to get some information from you about the patient,” the woman said.
But Austin waved her off. “Nothing much we can tell you. We just gave him a ride here.”
That wasn’t the whole truth, of course, but Austin probably didn’t want to get into any details of the investigation with someone who wasn’t law enforcement.
“I’ll check on the babies,” Austin said when Rosalie continued to look around.
He took out his phone, stepped to the far side of the room, but before he could make a call his phone rang. He groaned and showed her the name on the screen.
Now it was Rosalie’s turn to groan. Agent Ryland had likely called Seth.
“Let me talk to my sister,” Seth ordered. Even without the call being on speaker, she had no trouble hearing him.
“I’m fine,” Rosalie jumped to say to her brother when Austin handed her the phone.
“You’re not fine if you were in the middle of an undercover investigation. Have you lost your mind?”
Probably. Hard to have a sound mind with her baby kidnapped. “I don’t expect you to understand why I did what I did.”
“Oh, I understand it all right. I want to find my niece as much as you do, but I don’t want my sister dead in the process. Put Austin back on the phone,” he ordered, sounding very much like the hardheaded brother that he was.
“How the hell did she manage to get inside an undercover operation, and exactly how close did she come to dying?” Again her brother’s voice was so loud that Rosalie didn’t need the speaker function to hear him.
Austin’s gaze met hers, and she silently pleaded with him not to tell the truth. It was best if she broke the details to Seth after he calmed down. Whenever the heck that might be.
“Rosalie’s okay. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Austin said, but he shot her a glare. No doubt because he wasn’t happy about the lie or her involvement in any of this.
“From what I’m hearing, you were both at the wrong place. You do know your boss is ticked off about this?”
“Yeah, I heard,” Austin mumbled. “Can’t be helped.”
“We got a lead on the missing babies,” Rosalie volunteered since she doubted Austin wanted to continue to listen to this scolding any more than she did.
She moved closer to the phone, and in doing so, her cheek brushed against Austin’s. The slight contact stunned her, as if it’d been more than just an accidental touch, and she eased away from him.
Austin’s gaze stayed on her, and he cleared his throat. Obviously, he wasn’t any more comfortable touching her than she was touching him.
Except it hadn’t been just discomfort on her part.
Rosalie felt that trickle of heat. The kind of man-to-woman heat that she couldn’t possibly feel when it came to Austin, so she quickly shoved it aside and hoped it didn’t come back.
“Trevor Yancy’s name came up in connection with the baby farms,” Austin told Seth.
“Hell,” Seth mumbled.
And that was Rosalie’s reaction, too.