The Deputy's Baby

by Tyler Anne Snell

  * * *

  CASSIE LET HIS words sink in.

  He was right.

  She hadn’t mentioned keeping her or anyone else alive.

  No, Calvin had wanted Henry, and Henry alone.

  Cassie rubbed her stomach as she watched Hawk and Henry readying their weapons. They were talking quickly, quietly. Tackling what-ifs and bottom lines, she was sure.

  She felt useless sitting there but wasn’t about to argue. She might have spent the last twenty minutes or so being heroic and ready for action, but the truth was, she was exhausted. Adrenaline surge after adrenaline surge and being soaked from head to toe, she couldn’t ignore the fact that she was seven months’ pregnant. She couldn’t keep up the pace of running for her life. It wasn’t good for her or the baby.

  “Henry,” she called out when it appeared to be go-time. Even in the low light Cassie marveled at how attractive he was. Built for strength, molded by conviction. Sharp angles, soft lips. A storm of a different nature swirling in his eyes. The same eyes that held all of her attention in his gaze. “Be careful. Both of you.”

  Hawk dipped his head in acceptance of the order. Henry didn’t. Instead he issued his own back at her.

  “Shoot anyone who comes through this door that isn’t us.”

  And then they took his small light and shut the door behind them.

  Cassie blew out a long, low breath, trying to steady her nerves. She grabbed her gun and prayed she wouldn’t have to use it again. Last time had been enough to last the rest of her days.

  The rain hadn’t lessened its onslaught against the roof above. It made it impossible to hear what was going on in the other room.

  Maybe nothing would happen.

  Maybe Henry was overreacting or trying his best to be cautious.

  A warmth in her chest started to expand as she thought of the man taking her hand earlier.

  He was doing his hardest to keep her and their child safe.

  Did that mean he wanted to be in their life?

  Or was he just doing his job as an officer of the law?

  Like she was going through déjà vu, a sound in the other room cut off all current lines of thought.

  However, this time Cassie could place it.

  Someone had shattered glass.

  Cassie pulled her gun up. She might be cold, tired and worried, but she wasn’t about to let anyone harm her or her child.

  * * *

  THE DARKNESS BETWEEN Henry and Hawk was still thick, but two flashlights were eating up the space on the other side of the bar behind them. Heavy shoes crunched over the broken glass that had once taken up the top half of the front door. Now the feet squeaked along the middle of the room as two perpetrators surveyed the space around them.

  Henry might not have been the king of stealth, but neither were the people behind them. After their lights could be seen moving to the kitchen door and the hallway, they had no problem talking to one another.

  Loudly.

  “Don’t look like anyone’s here,” a deep voice grumbled.

  “Yeah, they would have come out by now,” another answered. Also male. Henry recognized neither. “Baldy would have already been in our faces if he was here, that’s for sure.”

  “So what you wanna do?”

  There was a pause as the other must have been thinking.

  Henry couldn’t see the bar owner next to him but knew he was ready to start the fight as soon as the signal was given.

  “Well, I’m not about to go tell Paula we didn’t search the whole place. She’s already pissed enough with the bullet in her arm.”

  The other man agreed with a “Humph.”

  Henry reached out and touched Hawk’s elbow. He didn’t wait for a response. Taking a beer glass from behind him, Henry started to slowly stand, readying to throw it as far away from them as possible. It would be the distraction that would get them the upper hand.

  Henry arced back, still hidden in the dark while the men’s flashlights kept on the hallway ahead of them, and felt his muscles tighten as he focused on mentally picturing the spot in the corner he wanted to hit.

  Then, just like that, the bar’s overhead lights cut on.

  The pumped-up alternate rock from the stereo, some sports game on the overhead TV and the building whirl of the AC unit were all background noise as two armed men stood staring at Henry and his beer glass.

  “Well, this is awkward,” Henry stated.

  Henry followed through with his plan and threw the glass hard. Both men danced away from it, but only one took a shot while doing it. The bullet embedded somewhere over the pool tables to the left of the bar. The beer glass shattered and the second man readied to shoot his own gun.

  Hawk was faster.

  He shot the second man in the leg while Henry made sure the first didn’t get any more ideas. Much like Cassie had done with the woman, named Paula according to the men a few feet from him, Henry clipped the first man.

  He yelled out in pain and dropped his weapon.

  “Drop yours or I’ll shoot again,” Hawk ordered.

  The man was slower than his friend to fall, but he did lower his gun long enough to slump to the floor, cussing.

  “Push the guns away,” Henry yelled. “Both of them.”

  The order did the trick.

  Both men kicked and slid their guns away, the first man whimpering as he did so. The second kept to cussing.

  Henry and Hawk worked quickly. They substituted plastic zip ties from behind the counter for cuffs. Soon both men were restrained.

  “Nice job, Baldy,” Henry joked. Hawk snorted. “Now let’s see if we can’t get hold of someone at the department.”

  The man shot in the leg spit to the side, earning a scowl from Hawk. Then he bit off some laughter.

  Henry didn’t like what he had to say.

  Not one bit.

  “Pretty sure they ain’t coming,” he said too calmly. Too confidently. “They got their own problems right now.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The power had been out for fifteen minutes.

  In that time the Riker County Sheriff’s Department waited. With their communications already dicey and the power gone, they were ready for an attack.

  It never came.

  At least, not where expected.

  Henry touched the bandage the ER nurse had put over the knife wound in his shoulder. It didn’t hurt. Then he felt his nose. Swollen, bruised, but not broken. It hurt, but nothing could compare to what he was currently feeling.

  He wasn’t angry.

  He was furious.

  He wasn’t the only one.

  Suzy threw her fist into the side of the vending machine Henry had positioned himself next to. It made a loud bang but didn’t draw anyone’s attention but his. Everyone else was busy bustling around. The backup generators had kicked on in the hospital, but because the rest of the town had been dark, there had been an influx of new patients. Some car accidents, a few self-defense incidents when a couple of geniuses got the idea to try to loot some local stores, and then some patients already in-house who’d had trouble before the backup generators could take over.

  Billy had been one of the latter. He’d been in surgery after a complication had arisen around lunch. It had almost cost him his life, but the doctor had been fast on her feet.

  But that still wasn’t why Suzy was so mad.

  “They never wanted us,” she said, rage spilling out. She ran her hands through her hair and then down her face. “My God, we were so worried about them hitting us and then they went after our families.”

  It wasn’t new information to Henry. After they’d gotten a call through to the department, one of the deputies had told him everything. Said how those who hadn’t lost their cell signals because of the downed power had started to
get calls from the outside world. One where their families were being attacked.

  Four hours had gone by since then. In that time they’d found out that Caleb’s house had been broken into and his wife had been attacked. The man had tried to get her to his car, but their dog had attacked, giving her time to run and hide. She had gotten stitches but was safely upstairs now.

  Others who had been targeted but managed to escape or fight back had been Suzy’s mother, Dante Mills’s niece, Detective Ansler’s brother and Captain Jones’s father. All attackers had been since identified as men and women who Caleb, Dante, Ansler and Jones had directly affected by way of arrest, prison sentence or either a family member being arrested or sentenced.

  “An eye for an eye,” Alyssa’s attacker had said while trying to put her in his car.

  However, even though that had been the end of the attacks, the main reason everyone was on edge had to do with Matt’s fiancée, Maggie.

  Even though Goliath had been killed, she’d still been targeted and taken from her home. Her young son had been with her. She’d fought tooth and nail to free him before the man had managed to put her in the trunk and drive off.

  Currently the boy was in the room across the hall with a broken arm, Suzy’s mother keeping him company.

  Maggie had simply disappeared.

  “What’s the plan now?” he asked, trying to focus her anger.

  “Local FBI have integrated into this madness and are helping to look for the people behind this, Maggie’s attacker included. The local chief of police is covering the department while the rest of us are trying to get a hold on the situation. Once I go check on Billy and Mara, I’m heading back out there to meet up with Matt. We brought out our reserve deputies to help Ansler try to chase down the people we know are already tied up in this.”

  The stress Suzy carried wasn’t just in her shoulders, it was everywhere. “I’m sheriff for less than two days and the department has been crippled, our families have been targeted and the entire town is put out of commission.” She held up her hand to stop his attempt to comfort her. Which he was ready to do, since it was his fault that this had happened. He’d already told her everything he’d learned since the hotel room, namely that Calvin had most likely orchestrated the blackout and Paula had been sent to keep him out of harm’s way.

  Even though that in itself was confusing. If Calvin had recruited a group of angry people looking for revenge on the department, then why would they try to target Henry?

  It was one of many questions they’d all had.

  But there was no time to sit back and wonder.

  “What’s happened has happened,” Suzy continued. “Now we need to focus on making sure we get Maggie back and bring our perps in. And make sure if another strike happens, we’re ready.” She pulled something out of her pocket.

  Henry was surprised to see it was a key.

  “You seem to be an extra-shiny target, which now includes Cassie. If Calvin wants to use Carpenter as his own personal chessboard, then I’m done playing. It’s time to take a few pieces off the board altogether.”

  * * *

  THE RAIN BARRELED on throughout the night. It only started to taper off once they had driven over the town line, through the city of Kipsy and finally into Bates Hill.

  “It’s the smallest town in the county,” Cassie reported. Her voice came out tired, worried.

  Henry knew both feelings well. The old him wouldn’t have left Carpenter at all. Not when one of their own was hunting the man who had taken his loved one. Not when they might be subjected to another attack.

  Then Cassie would let out a soft sigh or rub her stomach and Henry would remember that there was a new him. One who had a woman and unborn child to protect. It was the least he could do, since now, because of him, the off-her-rocker woman, Paula, had seen them together.

  The men who Henry and Hawk had taken at the bar had only reiterated two facts before shutting their mouths entirely.

  One, that Paula had been shot.

  Two, that a pregnant lady named Cassie had been the one who shot her.

  Once backup had arrived, Henry had gone through the hotel with them before being taken to the hospital. Mike the manager had indeed put up a fight but was still alive, albeit in need of medical care. Jason, the nervous man who had come in with Paula, had still been unconscious in the suite and Goliath had been just as dead as ever.

  Paula and the cuffs were gone. The few guests staying at the hotel hadn’t seen her or anyone else come or go from the second floor when the lights came back on.

  It was the only reason Henry had agreed to, once again, trying to sit out and hide. Though, this time, he hoped it would actually work. He’d kept his eyes on their surroundings, looking for a tail. He still didn’t know how Paula and her lackeys had found them so quickly at the hotel.

  Unless they’d gone through his cell phone. It had been new and almost no information had been in it, but, still, maybe Calvin had looked at the recent calls and connected it to the hotel. Then Paula had staked him out? And Goliath had, too?

  Henry ground his teeth at the thought.

  What madness had he brought with him to Riker County?

  “Bates Hill might be small, but it’s really come a long way in the last decade or so,” Kristen piped up from the back seat. When Henry had told Cassie the plan, she’d refused to go anywhere without her sister, especially since Michael had seen them together.

  Kristen had driven to the hospital and as soon as she’d gotten into his car, Cassie had told her everything. This was the first time she’d spoken since Kipsy. “A certain, handsome-as-all-get-out resident millionaire has been helping make it into a great place. More and more people have made appointments with me to try to move out here. I even thought about it once or twice myself.”

  “Which had nothing to do with that certain, handsome-as-all-get-out resident millionaire who was single then, I’m sure.” Cassie might have been tired, but she didn’t let that dull her sense of humor. Or, maybe, she was trying to distract her sister.

  Kristen snorted. “Hey, I’d like you to find me one woman in the entire zip code who wouldn’t have changed addresses to get to James Callahan,” she challenged.

  Henry glanced over at Cassie. He didn’t like being reminded that he didn’t know many things about her, romantic life included. For all he knew, she could have been seeing someone.

  Henry ground his teeth again at the thought of her being with another man.

  He actively kept from gripping the steering wheel tighter.

  “You got me there. James is a catch,” Cassie admitted. “But I can also show you the only woman in the zip code who exists according to James.”

  There was a huff from the back seat.

  Cassie smiled. She caught his eye and took pity on his utter lack of knowledge when it came to the personal intricacies of Riker County.

  “That one woman is none other than our fearless leader.”

  “Suzy?”

  Cassie nodded. “Her job is probably the only reason some crazed James fanatic hasn’t tried to get in between the couple. Not that I think anyone could do that to start with.” Her smile faded. Shadows covered her. The mood in the car shifted just like that. “It’s his cabin we’re going to. One that they’ve kept private. James even bought the land under his sister’s boyfriend’s name to keep people from prying. Unless they’re local and friends with James and his family, I can’t imagine anyone would even know it’s there. I didn’t until tonight.”

  Henry hoped that was true.

  They drove in silence, following Kristen’s GPS until it directed them to a dirt road on the very tip of the town. Rolling fields transitioned to thick woods of tall oaks and pines. The girls were just as alert as Henry felt maneuvering his car over the rough road. Both were leaning against their windows while he tried to survey the
ir surroundings, looking for possible alternate escape routes or places where someone could hide a vehicle. He saw neither.

  Two minutes or so into the drive, the road curved and the trees opened up. A small, true wooden cabin was nestled in a tight but clean clearing. No lights were on and no cars were parked in the small graveled parking area tucked next to the structure.

  Henry left the car running and headlights on as he took the key Suzy had given him and went through the house. The cabin was less quaint on the inside but still cozy. It was also empty of any threats. The perfect place to let Cassie get some rest. Judging by the bags beneath her eyes and the slow gait she used between the passenger’s side of the car and the living room, she truly needed it.

  And apparently a hot bath.

  “I’ve been rained on, twice, hidden in hotel bathrooms and back rooms of bars, not to mention walked through the aftermath of a shotgun blast.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “If I don’t get at least five minutes of sitting in a hot bath, I will probably throw a tantrum.” She jutted her hip out and narrowed her eyes at Henry and Kristen. “Anything you need to do in there, you do it now.”

  In unison Kristen and Henry responded.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The older Gates scurried off, brandishing her toothbrush while Henry put the bags she’d packed before going to the hospital in the bedroom.

  Cassie sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. “Do you think Maggie is okay?”

  The question didn’t catch Henry off guard. He’d been waiting for it since they’d gotten the news. “I think she was taken for a reason.” He straightened so he was opposite her. She looked up at him through her long eyelashes, worried and scared. It sent a shock through him at how close they were to each other.

  And how much he wanted to be closer.

  “Sometimes being taken for a reason rather than as an impulsive act can be a good thing.”

  “It might mean she’s alive then,” Cassie suggested. Henry nodded. “But if it’s revenge these people are after, then the purpose she was taken for can’t be good.” Her shoulders sagged and her voice broke.