JOSH

by Delores Fossen

  She nodded, and he caught another whiff of her sweet breath when she murmured an agreement. “I think the ‘I’m sorrys’ are just getting started, though.”

  He wasn’t stupid. Not about this anyway. He figured that applied to many things. The attraction. Her pigheaded views of how to run an investigation. Her views, period. Jaycee and he always seemed to be butting heads, and he was making it worse with this stupid ache he had for her.

  Though he hadn’t gone through with the kiss, Jaycee must have sensed what he’d been thinking of doing.

  “Yeah.” She pressed her lips together a moment, and even though the simple gesture wasn’t meant to tease, it made his body tighten again.

  And beg.

  “It’s all right,” she added. “I know this attraction doesn’t mean anything.”

  It didn’t.

  Well, nothing other than he was playing with fire and losing focus. Something that always seemed to happen when he was around Jaycee.

  He quickly got that focus back. Josh fired off a text to Grayson to let him know they were about to come in the interview room. Just in case Grayson had any objection. But his cousin only gave a weary nod. Grayson clearly wasn’t making any headway with Bryson.

  Hoping this wasn’t as big a mistake as he figured it was, Josh stayed ahead of Jaycee when they went into the room, but Bryson looked right past Josh. The man barely gave him a glance and then turned to stare at Jaycee.

  “I need your help,” Bryson said to her, and he slipped his hand inside his jacket, causing both Grayson and Josh to reach for their guns.

  Bryson’s hand froze for a moment. “It’s just a picture,” he explained. But Josh and Grayson kept their hands on their guns until Bryson did indeed pull a photograph from his pocket. He held it up for them to see.

  “Do you recognize her?” Bryson asked, his attention back on Jaycee. “Was she one of the women being held captive with you at the baby farm?”

  Now, that was a question Josh hadn’t seen coming. He looked at the photo.

  Grayson and Jaycee did, too.

  It was a glammed-up shot of a woman in her early thirties, with dark auburn hair that tumbled onto her shoulders. She was wearing a flimsy negligee and a come-hither expression. It was the kind of photo that a woman gave to her lover.

  “I don’t think she was there,” Jaycee said. “Who is she?”

  “Sierra DeSilva,” Valerie supplied. “My sister.”

  “She’s missing?” Grayson asked.

  Valerie lifted her shoulder, and her forehead bunched up. “She could be. Sierra isn’t the most responsible person. She often disappears for months at a time. Usually when she has a rich boyfriend who’ll cater to her whims.” She made a sound of disgust. “And after she’s run through all his money, she comes to me looking for more. But this time, she hasn’t come back.”

  Josh intended to do a background check on this Sierra, but first he wanted more information. “Sierra’s pregnant?”

  “Yes,” Bryson and Valerie said in unison. “She should be just about ready to deliver,” Bryson added. “And it’s my child she’s carrying.”

  “You can’t be sure of that,” Valerie mumbled.

  “I can be,” Bryson fired back. That wasn’t an affectionate look he was giving Valerie. Or even a civil one. Odd since this woman was his attorney. “I had Sierra take an amnio, and the test proved the child was mine.”

  “If she didn’t have the results faked.” Valerie huffed. “You were only with her for a few months. You don’t know how manipulative Sierra can be.”

  Bryson’s face reddened, but he didn’t challenge that. So maybe Sierra was running some kind of scam and this had nothing to do with the illegal adoptions or baby farms.

  Jaycee had another look at the photo. “I remember the faces of the dozen or so women I saw come and go while I was there. But Sierra’s face isn’t familiar. What makes you think she was one of the captives?”

  “This.” Bryson reached into his pocket again, but this time he took out a piece of paper. He put it on the table next to the photo. “It’s a ransom demand.”

  That got Josh’s complete attention. To the best of his knowledge, there’d been no demands for any of the other pregnant captives.

  None of them touched the letter, but Grayson, Jaycee and Josh leaned closer to have a better look. It was a typed single page, and it had Bryson’s name at the top.

  “‘If you want to see your newborn baby,’” Josh read aloud, “‘it’ll cost you two hundred grand. Will be in touch tonight with the drop-off details. Don’t go to the cops or the deal’s off.’”

  “I found it on my car windshield yesterday morning,” Bryson explained, “but no one’s contacted me yet.”

  Maybe because the operation had been busted the day before when Jaycee and the others had gotten out.

  “Is it possible that Sierra was one of the women in the house?” Josh asked Jaycee.

  She continued to study the picture. “Maybe. If so, she changed her hair color. All three women in the house were brunettes.” Jaycee drew in a weary breath. “But honestly, I didn’t get a good look at their faces. The only times that I was in the house were for my weekly checkups, and they didn’t let me talk to the other women.”

  Valerie stood, shoving back the chair so fast that it made a shrill scraping noise on the floor. “I can’t sit here and pretend that Sierra’s a victim. Because she’d never be a victim.”

  Clearly, Valerie didn’t have a high opinion of her sister. Josh needed to run that check on both women ASAP, because something about this didn’t feel right.

  “You think Sierra’s behind the ransom demand?” Grayson asked.

  “I do,” Valerie said at the same moment Bryson said, “I’m not so sure.”

  “Bryson’s not sure because he wants that to be his child,” Valerie snapped. “Because he wants an heir.” She pointed at Bryson. “Tell them what Sierra pulled when you broke things off with her. Tell them,” she repeated when he didn’t answer right away.

  Bryson twisted the button on his shirt cuff before he answered. “Sierra and I used to, well, record ourselves when we had sex. She said it was a turn-on. Anyway, after I broke things off with her, she threatened to release the sex tapes if I didn’t pay her fifty thousand dollars.”

  This woman sounded like a real winner. “You paid her?” Josh asked.

  “No. I hired someone to break into her place and steal the recordings.” His expression turned into a cold glare. “And I’m not apologizing for it, either. My reputation would have been ruined if she’d released them.”

  “Bryson’s married,” Valerie supplied. “In name only, but he’s married to Elise Wells.”

  Josh had known the name before he’d ever read Bryson’s bio. Bryson’s estranged wife wasn’t just rich, Elise had powerful friends. Politicians and community business leaders. And yeah, she wouldn’t have wanted her husband’s sex tapes leaked.

  “Any chance your wife had anything to do with the ransom demand?” Grayson wanted to know. “It could be her way of getting back at you.”

  “Elise isn’t involved in this,” Bryson said without hesitation.

  “But maybe Sierra is,” Valerie said the moment Bryson finished. She looked Grayson right in the eyes. “It’s possible Sierra’s the one who was in charge of that baby farm.”

  Jaycee and Josh exchanged glances. “Any proof of that?” Josh pressed.

  “Only her past behavior. I figure Sierra was plenty angry when she didn’t get the blackmail money from Bryson. That’s about the time she drained the rest of her trust fund, and I think she did it to set up this operation.”

  Josh looked at Bryson to see what he thought of this, but the man certainly didn’t deny it.

  “Find Sierra and the baby,” Bryson said, s
tanding. “If she’s guilty, put her in jail, but the child is mine.”

  Grayson stepped in front of the man before he could leave. “If you get another ransom demand, I want to know about it.”

  Bryson stared at him, the muscles stirring in his jaw, and he finally nodded. “Just don’t do anything to endanger that baby.”

  Bryson left both the photo and the ransom demand on the table and walked out. Valerie started after him, but then stopped right in front of Jaycee.

  “If Sierra contacts you for any reason, don’t believe a word she says.” And with that not-so-sisterly warning, Valerie left, too.

  “I’ll bag the ransom letter,” Grayson said the moment she was gone. “Doubt we’ll get anything from it, though, since it was in Bryson’s pocket.”

  Josh agreed, but it was still something that should be done. Grayson left to get the evidence bag, but Jaycee and he stayed put, staring at the photo.

  “This baby seems awfully important to Bryson,” she commented.

  Yeah, and Bryson hadn’t talked about his love for the child, so maybe something else was going on. Josh fired off a text to his cousin, FBI agent Kade Ryland, and asked him to do some digging into Bryson’s background and marriage.

  “So Bryson could be a suspect,” Jaycee concluded. “What exactly was there about him in the laptop recovered from the baby farm?”

  “No mention of a ransom demand or a connection to a possible captive, that’s for sure. It appeared to be some kind of payment to Bryson.”

  “Payment to him?” she questioned.

  “Or it could be a falsified payment to make him look guilty. Grayson didn’t want to bring it up yet until we know exactly what it is. We didn’t want to give Bryson time to come up with some kind of explanation before we spring it on him. If he lies, then we’ll have cause to arrest him.”

  She made a sound to indicate she was giving that some thought. “Any way to match it to money deposited into his account?”

  “Accounts,” Josh corrected. “The man has dozens of them. We got the court order to look at them, but it’s going to take a while to go through all of them.”

  And that was time that Josh didn’t want to spend with Jaycee standing around the sheriff’s office. Yes, they had three lawmen in the place, but he preferred her at the ranch where someone couldn’t just come walking in the door.

  Like those three guards who’d escaped.

  Josh motioned for her to follow him down the hall and toward the back exit where he’d parked. “I need to apologize,” he said, keeping his voice low so they wouldn’t be overheard.

  She didn’t ask the reason for the latest apology, which meant she knew he was talking about that near kiss. Jaycee only nodded. “Our bodies are having a hard time remembering we’re enemies.”

  Not good. One of them should be sane about this. And besides, they weren’t enemies. He was just having a hard time forgiving her.

  The baby was helping with that.

  Hard to be angry at the woman carrying his child.

  “Call me if you find out anything,” Josh told Grayson, and Jaycee and he headed out.

  As he’d done on the trip in, Josh checked the parking lot and Main Street to see if there was anyone or anything suspicious, but it looked like a normal weekday in Silver Creek. Still, he hurried to get Jaycee into the truck, and then drove away. However, he’d gone less than a half mile when his phone rang.

  It was Grayson. And that meant something big had probably come up for him to call so soon. Even though it could be something neither of them wanted to hear, he decided to put the call on speaker.

  “I just talked to Nate,” Grayson said the moment Josh answered.

  “That’s Grayson’s brother,” Josh explained to Jaycee. “Nate’s a lieutenant with the San Antonio P.D.”

  “Yeah. And he had some info on Bryson,” Grayson continued. “Get this—talk around town is that Bryson needs an heir to collect the rest of his family fortune, and his wife is infertile.”

  “Well, that explains why Bryson wanted the baby.” Josh shook his head. “But it doesn’t explain his relationship with Sierra. Certainly, someone with his bank accounts could have found someone more reliable to give birth to his child.”

  “You’d think,” Grayson agreed. “Nate’s checking into the possibility that Bryson hired Sierra as a surrogate. Maybe one connected to the black-market baby operation.”

  “And that’s why Bryson’s name would have been in the laptop,” Jaycee concluded. “However, it doesn’t explain why someone at the baby farm would be paying Bryson.”

  Josh was about to agree, but something caught his attention. A dark blue van. He’d noticed it and four other vehicles trickling by on Main Street when he’d pulled out of the parking lot.

  Now it was two cars behind him.

  “Is something wrong?” Jaycee said, obviously noticing his glances in the rearview mirror. She turned in the seat to look, too.

  “It’s probably nothing.” Josh took the turn toward the ranch. The car immediately behind him went straight, but the van turned.

  So maybe it was really something.

  “I need you to run a license plate.” And Josh relayed the numbers to Grayson.

  Waited.

  He tried to give Jaycee a reassuring look, but was certain he failed. After everything she’d been through, he doubted a mere look was going to reassure her of anything anyway. Her breathing had already kicked up, and the pulse was jumping on her throat.

  “Where are you?” Grayson said several moments later.

  “Just outside of town, about ten miles from the ranch. Why?”

  “I’m sending someone your way now, and I’ll alert everyone at the ranch.” Grayson’s words were rushed together. “Because the license plate is fake.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Fake,” Jaycee repeated under her breath.

  Not just switched plates, but ones that someone had created with bogus numbers so the cops couldn’t identify who owned the vehicle. She doubted it was a coincidence that a van with fake plates would just happen to be heading toward the Ryland ranch at the same time as Josh and her.

  “Slide down lower in the seat,” Josh instructed.

  She did, but Jaycee also opened the glove compartment and took out the Colt revolver. Beside her, Josh drew his weapon, too. That didn’t help steady her nerves, but Jaycee knew it was necessary.

  “I can’t turn around,” he told her. “The road’s too narrow.”

  Yes, and he’d have to slow down to even attempt it. Right now, the van was keeping a safe distance behind them, and maybe it’d stay like that all the way to the ranch.

  Jaycee lifted her head just enough to look in the side mirror so she could try to see who was in the van. The windows were heavily tinted, but she waited until the sunlight speared through some clouds. She could only see shadows, but that was enough.

  “There are two people in the front seat,” she said. Of course, there could be others in the back.

  Sweet heaven.

  Were these the guards who’d escaped?

  If so, they’d likely come either to kidnap her and take her back to a baby farm or kill her because they didn’t want her using any info she might have learned about them. Either way, she’d put Josh right in the middle of this.

  And he might not be ready for it.

  Josh was suffering from PTSD. She was sure of that. But Jaycee had no idea how that would affect them if they came under a full attack with someone actually shooting at them at close range. Heck, she had no idea how it would affect her. She wasn’t the agent she used to be, and the baby had to come first. She had to protect her child, and that meant protecting herself.

  “The turn’s just ahead,” Josh pointed out. “We’re about five miles f
rom the ranch now.”

  Five miles might as well be a million if the people in that van were out to attack them. Still, with each passing second, they got closer to the ranch where there would be backup. Plus, Grayson had someone on the way coming from the opposite direction. Both measures might be needed.

  Without warning, the van sped up, the tires squealing on the asphalt. And it would have crashed right into them if Josh hadn’t sped up, too. Josh cursed and corrected the steering wheel to keep them in their lane.

  The van sped up again.

  Josh couldn’t go any farther to the right because there was a deep ditch filled with water from the spring rains. The tires would just bog up and make them sitting ducks. The only option they had was to continue ahead and hope they made it to the ranch before things went from bad to worse.

  “Stay down,” Josh reminded her.

  Just as the van moved into the oncoming lane.

  Jaycee dropped down even farther, but she shifted the gun into position so she could shoot if necessary.

  Her heart slammed against her ribs when the van was dead even with them. The side window had a dark tint. Too dark for her to see inside. She braced herself for the passenger to lower the window so he could shoot into the truck.

  But he didn’t.

  The van sped ahead of them, as if it was just passing them, and then it moved back into the right lane.

  Jaycee blew out the breath that she’d been holding and glanced at Josh. He had a fierce grip on both the steering wheel and his gun, and his attention was still pinned to the van.

  “Call Grayson,” Josh instructed, giving her his phone.

  “Are you two all right?” Grayson asked the moment he answered.

  “So far.” She put the call on speaker.

  The van remained at a steady speed ahead of them, and even though it was menacing because of those bogus plates, this could turn out to be nothing. Maybe someone with criminal intentions that didn’t involve them or just some kind of mix-up with the plates at the DMV.

  And Jaycee desperately wanted to believe that.

  “Mason’s on the way from town,” Grayson continued. “Dade’s on the way from the ranch. Both should be there soon.”