Or to learn what Addison might have done.
If she had indeed participated in an illegal adoption, then someone might have wanted to cover it up. The problem was she might not even have known she’d done anything illegal. That meant Addison would need to be questioned thoroughly to make sure everything was aboveboard.
The door to the examining room opened, and a nurse stuck her head in. “You’ll be able to go soon. Just waiting on the paperwork from the doctor.”
Soon couldn’t come soon enough for Reed. He needed to put some space between Addison and him, but that wouldn’t happen until he started to get some answers to all those questions he had.
“Why’d you decide to go ahead and adopt a baby?” Reed asked, figuring it was a simple enough question and a good way to go back to the beginning. “Being a single parent couldn’t have been an easy decision for you.”
Something flashed through Addison’s eyes. Maybe because this wasn’t exactly a safe subject for them. After all, it’d been at the root of their breakup.
“I’m thirty-four and decided not to wait any longer for the right fertility treatment,” she finally answered. “Or wait for Mr. Right, for that matter. Haven’t had much luck in that department.”
She paused just long enough for him to understand he was in the Mr. Wrong category, but Reed hadn’t needed the pause to get that.
“You know how much I’ve always wanted to be a mom,” she added a moment later.
He did, and that said it all. Addison had wanted it and had gone for it. But maybe in going for it, she had cut the wrong kinds of corners.
“If you hired Rooney, you must have suspected something wasn’t right,” Reed tossed out there.
She got that look in her eyes again, as if this was the last thing on earth she wanted to discuss. Tough. They were discussing it.
“Not suspected. But I was worried,” she explained, “because of all the things I was hearing.”
Yeah, he got that, too. The black-market baby rings had been all over the news. Pregnant women had been kidnapped and their babies sold. In some cases, the birth mothers had been murdered, but others had escaped. Maybe Addison had wanted to make sure one of those escapees wasn’t Emily’s real birth mother. If so, that birth mother could step in and take Emily from her long after the adoption had been finalized.
“Could this be related to something...well, personal?” he asked. “Like maybe a boyfriend or ex who wants to get back at you?”
She shook her head, seemingly relieved, and looked away. “You’re the only ex I have who hates me.”
Reed opened his mouth to say he didn’t hate her. That he only hated the demands she’d put on him to become a father.
However, it was best not to go there.
“But, no. There’s no recent ex. No recent anything since Emily,” Addison said.
Maybe, but Reed kept pressing. “What about your job? Are you still working as an accountant?”
Another nod. “But I’m not working on anything that’d cause kidnappers to come after Emily and me. I’m sure,” she added before he could challenge that.
“I’ll need a list of all your recent clients anyway,” Reed continued. Addison dealt with people’s bank accounts and such, and it was possible someone hadn’t wanted her to uncover some illegal activity.
“I’ll give you whatever you need to find those men,” she said, her voice shaky again. Actually, she was shaky, too. The room wasn’t cold, but he figured she was about to deal with an adrenaline crash.
A sob tore from her mouth, and she leaned her head against him. Reed would have had to be a coldhearted jerk to push her away. But he made things a lot worse by putting his arm around her and pulling her against him.
“I’m scared,” Addison whispered.
She had reason to be scared, but Reed didn’t voice that. Nor did he ease her away though the shaking started to ease up a little.
He settled for saying, “I don’t think these guys were amateurs. They could have killed you the moment they broke into your house. They didn’t. Instead they wanted to know what you’d learned and who you’d told. Maybe about the adoption, maybe about something else. I think that’s why they took your files, laptop and cell phone.”
“Oh, God.” Addison got to her feet so fast that she startled the baby. “Last night I called Jewell at the county jail.” She frantically shook her head. “I just wanted to tell her about Emily.”
Of course. Jewell. Yet another source of bad blood between them.
Jewell McKinnon and Addison were friends despite their age difference, and Jewell was his boss’s estranged mother. Estranged in a very bad way because twenty-three years ago, Jewell had abandoned her sons and husband and left town under a cloud of suspicion that she’d murdered her lover. Well, the suspicion had caught up with her, and now Jewell was in jail waiting on her upcoming murder trial.
A trial that would put Addison and Reed at odds yet again since Addison believed Jewell was 100 percent innocent. He thought the woman was as guilty as sin. Plus, Reed wasn’t exactly fond of Jewell abandoning people he cared about—like Jewell’s sons.
“Call the county jail,” she insisted. “Make sure these men don’t go after Jewell.”
“The jail’s secure,” Reed reminded her, and he tried to make her sit back down. “If those men show up there, they’ll be caught.”
Of course, Reed doubted they’d get that lucky or the men would be that stupid. It was ironic, but right now Jewell was safer than the rest of them.
“I also called my attorney, Dominic Harrelson,” Addison quickly added. “You think they’d go after him?”
Reed couldn’t rule that out so he made a quick call to the sheriff, Cooper McKinnon, and asked him to have someone check on the attorney. “Who else did you contact?” he pressed when he’d finished the call.
“No one. I’ve been spending all my time with Emily. I haven’t had much time for anything else.”
For the investigation, that was a good thing. Fewer contacts meant fewer people might be in danger.
Of course, Reed had no idea how many people were involved in this.
The door opened again, and Reed automatically moved away from Addison so he could stand in front of her. However, it wasn’t the kidnappers or the nurse. But rather Colt. And Reed hadn’t moved fast enough away from Addison, because Colt had seen the close contact between them.
Colt frowned, added something that Reed didn’t need to catch to understand. His fellow deputy certainly knew the emotional wringer Reed had been through with Addison and the divorce. Reed was right there with Colt in the disapproval department, and he made a note to keep his hands off Addison.
Reed soon realized, though, it wasn’t just the close-contact stuff that’d put the look on Colt’s face. Colt and he had been deputies together for over six years, and that was plenty enough time for Reed to know something was wrong.
“Before the CSI team could get out there and have a look around, someone torched Addison’s house,” Colt explained. He’d said it practically under his breath, but Addison must have heard it, because she gasped and clutched the baby even closer to her.
“They burned down my aunt’s house?” she asked. And even though Reed had told himself that there’d be no more close contact, he took hold of Addison again because she looked ready to sink to the floor.
“They did cleanup, too, of the blood in the yard,” Colt added. “Still, they might have left something behind.”
Addison was mumbling, shaking her head.
And crying.
Yes, the tears came, too, but Reed tried to focus on what this turn of events meant. The men were pros, definitely. Someone with lots of money and with a whopper of a motive. But what?
Everything that Addison had said and done in the past couple of da
ys could be critical to finding out what they wanted.
And how to stop them.
“I have to get out of here,” Addison insisted.
Colt and Reed exchanged glances. “She needs to give us a statement about what happened,” Colt reminded him.
Reed hadn’t forgotten that, but he also didn’t think Addison was in any shape to do it right now. Except he rethought that when he looked at her. She was still pale. Still well past the shaky stage, but she met him eye to eye.
“What can I do to stop them?” she asked.
That was a good question, but it wasn’t the foremost one in Reed’s mind. “We’ll be the ones doing the stopping. You need to be in protective custody.”
She blinked. “Yours?”
Reed went through the options. There weren’t that many.
Either Addison would have to be with him or she’d have to stay with one of Jewell’s sons—sons who disliked Addison because of her friendship with their murdering, abandoning mother. With the trial bearing down on them, that would breach all sorts of legal issues because Addison would no doubt be called as a character witness for Jewell.
“I’ll stay with you for now,” Reed said. But he’d remedy that soon even if he had to call in the Rangers or the marshals.
“Take her statement, Reed,” Colt added over his shoulder as he left.
He intended to do just that, but something wasn’t right here. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. That something wasn’t right feeling only got worse when Addison dodged his gaze again.
“Who was involved in the adoption?” he asked Addison, and that was when Reed noticed she’d gone pale again.
Hell.
“You did cut corners,” he spat out.
She swallowed hard. “Not like you’re thinking. I went through a private agency called Dearborn, but they don’t only do adoptions.” She paused, gathered her breath. “They have surrogates.”
“Surrogates,” he repeated. Reed gave that a moment to sink in.
It didn’t sink in well.
Oh, man.
“I hired a surrogate to carry her,” she said. Addison’s gaze came to his. “Emily is our baby.”
Chapter Four
The only thing Addison could do now was wait for the fallout. And there would be fallout. She was certain of it. She’d just delivered a bombshell to Reed. One that was going to make him hate her even more than he already did.
If that was possible.
Reed’s gaze rifled from her. To Emily. And back again.
“Oh, man,” he said, and Reed just kept repeating it while he got up and went to the other side of the stall. As far away from Addison as he could get.
“I’m sorry,” Addison said.
That covered a multitude of things but not Emily herself. Addison wasn’t sorry at all that she had her precious little girl, but she’d made mistakes to get the baby.
Well, one big mistake anyway.
Reed groaned, put his hands on the sides of his head and turned away from her. For several long moments he stood there, repeating that “Oh, man” before he swung back around to face her.
“It’s true,” Reed said. Not a question exactly, but Addison nodded. “How? Why?” he asked.
His questions no doubt covered a multitude of things, too, so Addison started from the beginning. Well, the beginning after the end of their marriage, that is. The past year had been eventful to say the least.
“Six weeks after we separated, I got the divorce papers your lawyer sent. Even though I’d known they were coming, I was still shaken up.” A massive understatement, but it wasn’t something Reed would want to hear now.
Maybe not ever.
He’d washed his hands of their marriage and wasn’t the sort to take treks down memory lane.
“As you know, I’d already had two miscarriages and three failed in vitro procedures, and there was only one of our embryos left in storage,” she continued. “I figured I stood a better chance of having it work with a surrogate than me trying again.”
His jaw muscles seemed to freeze. Not his eyes, though. He glared at her. “And you didn’t think you should include me in a decision like that?”
“Of course I did, but I knew you’d say no. And at that point, I knew I couldn’t live with a no. I wanted a baby, and I was desperate and willing to do whatever it took to make that happen.”
Even if what she’d done was wrong.
“My doctor told me I couldn’t have any more eggs harvested for at least a year. Maybe not ever because I’d had a bad reaction to the fertility drugs.” A reaction that’d almost killed her. “I figured one fertilized embryo was a long shot, but it was the only shot I had. So I hired a surrogate, Cissy Blanco, to carry Emily for me.”
Reed cursed, groaned again. He opened his mouth, closed it and with his back against the wall, sank down onto the floor.
“I didn’t tell you, because I knew how you felt about becoming a father,” Addison added.
“You knew it, and yet you went through with this.” His voice was raw and clipped, each one of his words punching into her like fists.
“I never expected you to be a father to the baby,” she went on.
“But I fathered her!” he practically shouted. It was so loud that it startled Emily, and she started to whimper.
Addison pulled the baby closer to her and rocked her, hoping it would help, but it was possible that Emily was picking up on the tension in the room. There was certainly plenty enough of it to pick up on.
The door flew open again, and just like that, Reed was back in lawman mode. He pulled his gun and got to his feet. But it was just the nurse again. This time there was plenty of concern in her eyes.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. “I heard someone shouting.”
“Everything’s fine,” Addison lied.
A burst of air left Reed’s mouth. A laugh, but definitely not from humor. “My ex-wife and I were just having a little talk,” he grumbled.
The nurse gave Addison a long look, no doubt silently asking if it was okay for her to leave, and Addison finally nodded. There was no need for an audience for the argument that Reed and she were about to continue having.
Once the nurse had left, Reed walked closer, staring down at Emily. Every muscle in his body was tight, the pulse in his throat throbbing.
“Are you going to ask if she’s really yours?” Addison tossed out there.
The staring went on for several more long moments. “No.”
Maybe he could see the resemblance. Emily had his dark brown hair, and even though Emily’s eyes were closed now, they were the same shade of deep blue as Reed’s. There were times, like now, when Emily had that same intensity in her expression as Reed.
“I went to the storage facility with the nurse to pick up our embryo, and I was with the surrogate when it was implanted. If I’d thought I could harvest more eggs,” Addison continued, “I wouldn’t have used our embryo.”
She would have used donor sperm with newly harvested eggs so that Reed wouldn’t have been included in this process. Of course, her intentions meant nothing to him now. He’d just learned he was something he’d never truly wanted to be.
A father.
Nothing she could say to him would soothe that. Still, she tried.
“I didn’t intend to tell you,” she went on. “I knew all along this was my baby, not yours. I don’t expect or want anything from you.”
That sent a flash of anger through his eyes, but that anger faded when he looked at Emily. He reached down, brushed his finger over Emily’s cheek and turned away. “She looks like my mother.”
Addison wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Reed hadn’t talked much about his folks, and she’d never met them. However, from wha
t Addison had gathered, Reed had been physically abused by his alcoholic father and left alone after cancer finished off his mother. He would have ended up in foster care if it hadn’t been for Roy McKinnon. Roy had taken him in when Reed was fourteen and raised him as his own, but by then the damage had been done, and Reed had wanted nothing to do with parenthood.
Damage that Addison had always thought she could undo and convince him that he would indeed make a wonderful father.
She’d failed big-time.
“Go ahead,” Addison insisted. “Yell at me. Tell me how wrong I was to do this to you.”
She braced herself for him to carry through on her offer, and maybe he strongly considered doing just that, but he glanced down at his badge. The thing that’d always anchored him.
“You hired a surrogate,” Reed said. The emotion was still in his voice, but at least he wasn’t yelling. “From this Dearborn Agency. I don’t remember them coming up in the baby farm investigations, but it’s possible they did.”
That sent another chill through her even though it was something Addison had to consider. Those kidnappers had come after her for a reason, and the reason might have something to do with Dearborn or even the surrogate herself.
“I need to contact Cissy Blanco, the surrogate,” Addison said. “To see if she knows anything about this.”
“I’ll contact her.” Reed didn’t leave any room for argument, either. He was taking charge of getting to the bottom of this. “Is it possible the surrogate developed a strong attachment to the baby and she didn’t want to give Emily up?”
Addison was about to jump to say no, but then she remembered something. “I don’t think she developed an attachment, but about midway through the pregnancy, something about Cissy changed. She was moody. Maybe even scared.”
“Scared? About what?”
“There was a question about some mix-up with embryos, and the doctor at Dearborn gave Cissy an amnio test to make sure the baby she was carrying was ours. It was. But I think having the test was the start of her being upset.”
Reining in Justice Page 3
