Wild Stallion

by Delores Fossen

  It wasn’t.

  It was his cell.

  He hated the interruption, but since this could be a critical call from Steven or the sheriff, he reached up to the desk and answered the phone.

  The caller ID flashed Captain Shaw Tolbert.

  Jackson knew the name. Tolbert was a bigwig in the San Antonio Police Department, and that meant the captain might have news about the gunmen and the investigation.

  Jackson took the call while he helped Bailey up from the floor. He sandwiched the phone between his ear and shoulder so he could talk while he fixed his clothes.

  “Captain Tolbert,” Jackson greeted. Judging from Bailey’s suddenly alert expression, this was a conversation she wanted to hear, so Jackson put it on speaker. “What can I do for you?” But Jackson was hoping it was the other way around, and that the captain would help end this danger breathing down their backs.

  “I got a call from your estate manager and he told me about the latest attack. Or the ruse, if that’s what it turns out to be. We’re looking into the matter. And we’re looking for Robin Russo because she’s still a suspect in the disappearance of Bailey Hodges’s baby.”

  Jackson and Bailey exchanged glances. While it was a glance on her part, since she was putting her panties back on, Jackson did more than glance. Then he forced his attention back to the phone call. “And what about Shannon Wright?”

  “Also a suspect. Both women were in the hospital the day of the hostage crisis, and both have some critical time gaps that they can’t or won’t account for. I also understand Robin accused Shannon of having an affair with one of the gunmen.” The captain groaned softly. “We thought this case was over four months ago, when SAPD killed the gunmen who took the hostages. But things have happened. There have been other attacks.”

  “So I’ve heard. And witnessed firsthand. Twice, someone has come after Bailey while she’s been at my estate. What I want to know is, is Shannon or Robin responsible for that?”

  “We’re not sure. Either or both could be innocent. We have no proof that Shannon and the gunman, Danny Monroe, were involved romantically or otherwise. We had her followed after the hostage incident ended, and she never met with Danny. There were no calls to him either, according to her cell phone records.”

  “So why would Robin accuse Shannon of something like that?” Jackson asked.

  “Maybe to throw suspicion off herself,” the captain suggested. “There are things going on. We’ve gotten wind of another possible hostage situation.”

  “Oh, God.” Bailey pressed her fingers to her mouth, but it didn’t suppress the sound of her words.

  “Is that Miss Hodges?” Captain Tolbert asked.

  “Yes.” Her voice was shaky now, and Jackson knew why. She didn’t want anyone else to go through the nightmare that she’d experienced.

  “We’re working with another hostage, a woman we’re calling hostage number four, so that the media doesn’t plaster her identity all over the press,” the captain continued. “She has some memory loss, but we’re hoping we can unleash those memories so she can tell us more about what happened in the hospital four months ago. Anything you can tell us?”

  Bailey shook her head and inched closer to the phone. “No. I had just had a C-section when the gunmen came into the ward. I didn’t know anything about it until after the fact. Until after my baby had been taken.”

  The captain stayed quiet a moment. “Someone’s trying to kill this other hostage, too,” he revealed. “That’s why it’s important that we get to the bottom of Shannon’s or Robin’s possible involvement.”

  “Both of them are liars,” Jackson volunteered, “so I seriously doubt you’ll get the truth from them.”

  “You’re probably right, but I want to reinterrogate both women. I’m hoping your sheriff can locate Robin since we know she was just out at your place. But do you have any idea where Shannon is?”

  “None,” Jackson answered. “She came to the estate with some bogus papers and claimed she was my adopted son’s biological mother. She’s not. Bailey is.”

  Bailey expected the captain to jump right on that, but he calmly said, “I see. Well, that’s resolved. And the baby is safe?”

  Not really. But Jackson would remedy that.

  “Someone sent a man out to kidnap him and probably kill Jackson and me as well,” Bailey blurted out.

  “Yes, Sheriff Gentry gave me an update on that. The guy’s name was Melvin Cross, a hired gun. He was a big badass years back, but his love of the bottle put him off his game. He’s been off our radar for nearly a decade.”

  So that meant someone could have hired him cheap. It also meant this drunken SOB could have harmed Caden by accident rather than design. Not that he needed it, but it gave Jackson even more reason to go after the person who was behind all of this.

  “Talk to me about these threatening letters you’ve received,” the captain said to Jackson.

  Those. It was yet something else on his too-full plate. “I got another one yesterday morning. Someone left it outside my downtown office, but it was left in an area where there were no security cameras.”

  “Yeah, that’s what the detective handling it told me. You think that threat is connected to everything else that’s going on?”

  “I have no idea.” And he didn’t. “But it can’t be a coincidence.”

  “Well, we’re looking into it,” the captain explained, “because it might be connected. It’s true, none of your security cameras were aimed in that area, but we’re trying to tap into the ATM camera of the bank just up the street. We might get lucky.”

  Yes, but even if they identified the person who’d left it, Jackson couldn’t see how it would be part of the attempts to kill him and kidnap Caden. A threatening letter was benign compared to those other attempts.

  “What happens now?” Bailey asked the captain.

  “We keep working with hostage number four, and we help her regain her memory. And get her to trust us. Things aren’t going so well in that department,” Captain Tolbert added in a mumble. “In the meantime, I’ll keep pressing Shannon and Robin, because I damn sure don’t want another hostage incident.”

  No. Neither did Jackson.

  “You should interrogate my business manager, Evan Young,” Jackson suggested. “He also tried to fake the DNA evidence for Bailey’s son. I doubt he had anything to do with the original hostage incident, but he might have learned something from Shannon after the fact.”

  “Thanks for the tip. I’ll get him in here today, right after I talk with Ryan Cassaine.”

  “Ryan Cassaine?” Bailey and Jackson repeated at the same moment.

  “Yeah. I just had him brought into headquarters for questioning,” the captain confirmed.

  Jackson was having some doubts about the adoption attorney’s innocence, but it surprised him to hear that the SAPD captain was having doubts as well.

  “Why did you bring in Ryan?” Jackson asked. “Is it because he cut some corners when he handled the adoption?”

  “No, but I will ask him about that. Right now, I want to speak to him about his relationship with Shannon. I’ve just learned that they’re involved romantically.”

  Jackson cursed. “Yeah. He brought her to the estate when she told that lie about being Caden’s birth mother.”

  “Well, that doesn’t surprise me, but what I did find surprising was that, according to a couple of witnesses, the relationship isn’t a new one.”

  “What do you mean?” Bailey asked.

  “According to my detectives, Ryan and Shannon have been seeing each other for a while now—even before the hostage incident at the maternity hospital. Now, I need to find out just how deep the adoption attorney is into this.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bailey tried to pretend that everything was normal.

  In some ways, it was easy to do. After all, she was spending time with her baby. She was literally holding Caden in her arms and reading to him. She’d dreamed about
moments like this, and now she had them.

  But for how long?

  She tried to push aside that troubling question, and continued to read the Christmas book aloud. He was too young to understand the story itself, but he slapped at the colorful pages and babbled when he saw something that caught his attention.

  From the other side of the nursery, Jackson smiled at the baby’s antics, but the smile was too brief, because he immediately jumped back into his phone call. Bailey had lost count of how many calls there had been, but Jackson had been working hard to get updates on the case. No easy feat, considering the investigation was now splintered between Sheriff Gentry’s office, SAPD and, apparently, another set of detectives who were trying to track down and protect the other hostage with the memory issues.

  Jackson had been filling Bailey in as he ended each of the outgoing and incoming calls, but the bottom line was that no one had found Shannon or Robin, and both Evan and Ryan were still insisting they were innocent.

  They were back to square one.

  Except that she now had her son.

  Despite the danger, it was hard to be pessimistic. Soon, her son would get to experience his very first Christmas, and even the investigation couldn’t put a damper on that.

  However, she couldn’t say the same for Jackson.

  Each call seemed to frustrate him even more than the last, and it couldn’t help when every time he glanced in her direction, he saw her with Caden. It had to be tearing him apart to know that he might lose the baby he loved. And there were no doubts in her mind that Jackson loved Caden with all his heart.

  “Still no sign of Shannon or Robin,” Jackson relayed when he ended the call with Sheriff Gentry. “SAPD questioned Ryan and Evan, but they didn’t have any evidence to hold either of them.”

  Yes, he was frustrated, and it was just as apparent in his tone as it was in his expression. Bailey decided to do something about it.

  She put the book aside, stood, and with Caden in her arms, she went to Jackson. “Come on. Let’s go to the foyer and see the Christmas tree.”

  He shrugged as if he might refuse, but then Caden reached out for him. Bailey let her son go into Jackson’s waiting arms.

  “You’re right,” Jackson said, giving Caden a kiss on the cheek. “He should see the Christmas tree. And tonight, after he’s asleep, I can take his presents out of my office closet. There are about a dozen of them crammed in there.”

  She was betting it was more than that. It was clear Jackson had been planning this holiday for a long time.

  “After he’s in bed we can talk,” Jackson added, as they headed down the stairs.

  Uh-oh. Bailey knew what that talk was about—custody of Caden. Maybe they would even discuss the fact that they’d had sex—and what that meant.

  If anything.

  Bailey’s body was still humming from the experience, but she had to accept that once was all she might get with Jackson. When the investigation, the danger and the custody were all resolved, he would almost certainly remain in Caden’s life, but not necessarily hers.

  And if so, that would break her heart.

  “See the lights?” Jackson said to Caden.

  “Ooo,” Caden babbled, pointing to the tree. There were indeed lights to see. Hundreds of them, and they glittered and twinkled from top to bottom, the sparkles dancing off the glass ornaments and tinsel. Someone had obviously finished the decorating and cleaned up the lights she’d broken.

  It was perfect now.

  Jackson and she had met by this tree, and that alone made it special, but the magical look in her son’s eyes made this a moment Bailey would never forget. One glance at Jackson, and she realized he felt the same. But with a twist. He was no doubt wondering if this would be the one and only Christmas he would have with Caden.

  Bailey wanted to start the discussion regarding custody. Maybe they should just have it here and now, but then Caden babbled more of those precious sounds and waggled his fingers at the tree. Jackson took him closer for a better look.

  Jackson’s phone rang—again. The irritation flashed through his eyes, but because he had no choice, he handed Caden back to Bailey, took out the phone, glanced at the screen and then answered it.

  “The police are looking for you, Shannon,” he greeted the caller.

  Shannon? So she’d turned up after all, just in time to spoil this moment with Caden and his first Christmas tree.

  “You should go to SAPD,” Jackson added. “They want to talk to you.” He clicked the speakerphone button and held out the cell so that Bailey would be able to hear.

  “I know, and when I was on the way to the police station, someone tried to run me off the road. I swear, someone’s trying to kill me.”

  “Trust me, you’re not the only one,” Jackson mumbled in frustration. Unfortunately, Bailey felt the same. She wasn’t just frustrated. She was weary from the attacks and the danger. She only wanted a little bit of normalcy.

  “I want to come to the estate so we can talk,” Shannon insisted.

  Bailey shook her head, praying that Jackson would refuse, but it was obvious he didn’t intend to grant Shannon’s request. “We can talk now, on the phone,” Jackson let the woman know, “but I’m not letting you come here. Not a chance.”

  Good. Bailey didn’t want any of their suspects near the estate.

  “I’m sorry I lied about your son being mine,” Shannon continued, her voice weepy. “I was desperate, you see. I owe a lot of people money.”

  “So you conspired with Ryan to extort that money from me?” Jackson asked point-blank.

  “No. Ryan had no part in this, I swear.”

  “And coming from you, that means a lot,” Jackson said sarcastically. “Ryan is your lover, so I figure he’ll do anything you ask.”

  “You’re wrong. He’s an honest man. The only mistake he made was getting involved with me.”

  Shannon sounded as if she was telling the truth, but the woman had told so many lies that Bailey wasn’t about to believe her now.

  “You’re not denying that Ryan’s your lover?” Jackson asked, pressing her.

  “No, but I doubt he’d want me to confess that to anyone, especially you. He’s trying to distance himself from me. And he should. I’m bad news. I can’t seem to keep myself away from the wrong people.”

  Bailey couldn’t agree more. The woman was indeed bad news. But had she really orchestrated a baby snatching and an illegal adoption?

  “Talk to me about your involvement with the hostage gunman, Danny Monroe,” Jackson continued.

  Bailey thought she heard Shannon gasp. “Who told you I was involved with him?”

  “Robin,” he readily admitted.

  Bailey wished she could see Shannon’s face, because the woman’s silence was causing Bailey to be even more suspicious of her.

  “Robin,” Shannon snarled. “You know why she’s doing this, right?” But she didn’t wait for an answer. “She wants to make me look guilty.”

  “Did you have an affair with Danny Monroe?” Jackson demanded.

  “No. It was Robin who was having the affair. Not me.”

  Bailey huffed. She wanted to lock Robin and Shannon in a room and make them argue it out until they finally told the truth.

  “Robin had the affair?” Jackson repeated. He was obviously skeptical.

  “Yes. But I know you don’t believe it. That’s okay. Just stop Robin. When she’s stopped, her lies will stop, too.” And with that, Shannon hung up.

  “I need to give Shannon’s number to the SAPD,” Jackson said immediately. He scrolled through his list of recent calls. There were so many of them. And he located Captain Shaw Tolbert. He pressed redial.

  “Mr. Malone.” The captain answered on the first ring.

  “Shannon Wright just phoned me, and here’s where you can reach her.” Jackson read off the numbers. “She also admitted to having an affair with Ryan Cassaine.”

  “Thanks—I’ll get someone right on that.”
He paused. “I’m glad you called. I needed to speak to you anyway. There’s been a development in the case.”

  Bailey slowly drew in a breath and tried not to jump to any bad conclusions. Unfortunately, the captain’s tone made that impossible. He didn’t sound as if he had good news to relay.

  “Remember I told you we were trying to use the security cameras up the street from your office to determine who had left that threatening letter?”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Jackson said cautiously. “Did you find anything?”

  “We got some images. The tech enhanced them and cleaned them up, and a few minutes ago, he managed to ID the person responsible.” The captain paused again. “It was one of our suspects, Robin Russo.”

  JACKSON CHECKED HIS MESSAGES again to see if he had an update about Robin and her whereabouts. He didn’t. And that made his temper boil to the point of exploding.

  Robin better have a damn good excuse for leaving that letter, but what excuse could there be? None.

  Unless this was some kind of sick game. Pretend she was the one in trouble. Lie like crazy. And then leave him threatening letters. Hell, he could probably add baby-snatching to her list of wrongdoing.

  No matter which way he looked at it, Robin Russo couldn’t be trusted and could be dangerous.

  And that’s the reason Jackson had his laptop on the table next to him. He was using a split screen so he could easily check all the security cameras. Steven and his men were doing the same, and all of them had set their monitors to show any detection of motion. Any movement outside should register and alert them all.

  Hopefully, their vigilance and the new security measures would pay off.

  The grounds were lit up with both the Christmas decorations and the security lights. There was a light, misty rain falling, and it made the lights glitter even more. Everything looked festive. But the heavy illumination was also another precaution. Even if someone managed to get past the motion detectors, it wouldn’t be long before someone saw them.

  Jackson put away his phone and glanced first at Caden, who was sleeping in his crib, then at Bailey. She was sleeping, too. Finally. She was curled up on the comfy sofa in the nursery, but the blanket Jackson had draped over her earlier was now halfway to the floor, proving that her sleep was restless at best.