The Baby Pursuit

by Laurie Paige

  Dev gave her the closest thing to an impatient glare that she’d ever gotten from him.

  “I think we’ll be suspicious of anyone who stops and goes to the ice chest.” He paused. “Go home, Beauty. You’re a complication we don’t need.”

  His tone was meant to be kind, but his words still rankled. Worse, he was right. What did she have to contribute to the arrest but another person for Dev to worry about? That was the real reason he was sending her away.

  She nodded. “Okay. I can take a hint. My services aren’t wanted.” She touched his hand. “I couldn’t bear it if you were hurt.”

  A ripple of emotion passed over his face. He took a breath and let it out slowly. “I’m wearing a bulletproof vest.”

  She knew her words had touched him deeply in some way, but she didn’t know how. There was no time to ask.

  He stepped back. “I have to leave. Will you go back to the ranch and stay there?”

  She nodded, worry eating at her. “Promise me you’ll be careful. No unnecessary heroics and all that.” She tried for a light tone and failed.

  “I’ll do my job.”

  “Come hell or high water,” she added softly, leaning her head out the window. “Promise me, Dev. This one thing is all I’m asking of you.”

  The silence shifted and swirled between them. She needed this from him, she realized. This one acknowledgment from him of her feelings for him…and his for her. She waited, her eyes on his handsome, rugged face.

  The moment stretched.

  The tension crackled like static electricity, caught between their two bodies, between her needs and his denials, her love and his armor of distrust for that emotion.

  “All right,” she said at last. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have…”

  The words froze in her throat and she couldn’t say them. She shook her head helplessly and fought the tears that wanted to fall and flood and wail out of her.

  “I promise.”

  He spoke so softly she almost didn’t hear him. The release of tension inside her was painful. A tear spilled down each cheek. She quickly brushed them away and hoped he didn’t see. Dev was not one to give in to weakness. She shouldn’t, either.

  “Thank you.” Settling behind the wheel, she started the engine and left the parking lot without a backward glance.

  Dev pushed thoughts of Vanessa out of his head ruthlessly. He had a job to do. It was time to get on with it. The kidnappers might be watching at this moment and detect the undercover men moving into place.

  He stopped at a fast-food restaurant and changed into black jeans in the men’s room. A black shirt covered the bulletproof vest. He slipped his gun into its holster and pulled a denim jacket on to conceal the weapon. He checked his spare gun, which was strapped to his right leg. With black running shoes, he was ready for action.

  After grabbing a burger, fries and soda, he headed for the outskirts of town where the abandoned service station was located. It was an area of rundown warehouses, seedy hotels and seedier bars. He circled a block, then parked on the street, a few cars back and on the opposite corner from the station, and ate his meal.

  At five before eight, Ryan Fortune drove his pickup onto the broken pavement and stopped beside the abandoned building. He glanced at two old cars parked at the back fence, looked around, then removed the bags of money from the cab of the truck. He carried them to the rusty ice chest and looked carefully inside. No notes or instructions that he could see.

  A chill slid up his neck. He wondered if the kidnappers were watching him at this moment. Did they have his grandson? He surveyed the area. Not a soul in sight.

  Picking up the bags, he headed for the truck. He wasn’t leaving fifty million dollars without knowing where his grandson was and without knowing the boy was all right.

  His cell phone rang as he turned. The sound jolted him like a bolt from a cattle prod.

  “Yes?” he said, flipping it open. He heard only static noise, then the startled cry of a baby. “Bryan?” he said. “Is that my grandson?”

  “Yes,” a voice answered. “He’ll be brought to the motel on the interstate at the Leather Bucket exit. A room will be registered in your name. Arrive alone and with the money thirty minutes from now. And don’t call your FBI friend or the sheriff. We’re watching you.”

  Dev cursed. He’d heard every word from the mike he’d put in Ryan’s vehicle. There were also transmitters in the bags and in the band around a stack of bills.

  Wyatt’s voice came over the frequency they were using on this operation. “Freedom One, Freedom Two here.”

  Dev picked up the unit. “Go ahead.”

  “I have a man on his way to the motel. Do you want the rest of us to move in?”

  “Yes, but not close. Let’s see if your man on the scene can get us a make on the vehicle the perps are using. Set up a relay to keep him in sight when he leaves. He might lead us to his lair and the other foxes. We’ll take him there.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Dev put on a billed cap, pulling it low over his forehead. He headed south when he hit the interstate. At the Leather Bucket exit, he took the off-ramp and drove past the motel, a single-story building probably built in the fifties.

  Only two cars there. He wished they’d had more business. It was easier to mingle in a crowd. Moving on, he noted the four country lanes leading off the road that became Main Street when it entered Leather Bucket a couple of miles farther west.

  Turning around, he checked for a mile in the other direction. Two roads connected to the main one on that side. One of them went under the interstate and wound its way through the ranches east of the interstate. He checked a map of the area. There were radio towers out that way…the same ones in the photo with the Fortune grandson?

  He got back on the interstate, drove to the next exit, crossed over and came back to the Leather Bucket ramp, exited and made another loop.

  Wyatt came on the radio and advised that the undercover detective was checking into the motel at that moment. The cop was driving a black, crew-cab pickup. An older couple, driving a van, were the only other guests so far. No one had checked in under Ryan Fortune’s name.

  Dev had a sinking feeling. Something wasn’t right.

  Vanessa went to her father’s study and plopped onto the plush recliner. After thirty seconds, she went to the desk and sat in the leather chair. Where Dev had sat.

  She curled into the chair, her cheek against the high leather back. She inhaled deeply and thought she could detect Dev’s clean, masculine scent on the chair.

  Pressing closer, she felt a prick as her earring poked the tender spot behind her ear. She straightened and removed it. That’s when she realized the left one was missing.

  She looked around the chair, then the office. She went to her room and searched thoroughly. The earrings were a set of tiny pearls surrounded by emerald leaves. They had been a gift from her father for her sixteenth birthday. Sophia had been jealous until he had given her a whole set of emeralds for their wedding anniversary.

  Not finding the missing one in her room or Dev’s, Vanessa tried to think where else she had been. A scene came to mind. “Ah,” she muttered.

  She drove the half mile to the ranch office. There, she bent down beside the desk, as she had to retrieve the notepad for Cruz. And there it was, on the floor. She put it on again, making sure the fastener was secure.

  The old-fashioned clock that Ruben kept on the windowsill filled the room with its busy ticking. Eight o’clock. Her father would be delivering the money now. She wanted to cross her fingers, spit over her shoulder three times and repeat all the other charms she’d believed in as a child.

  She sat in the desk chair and idly straightened all the catalogs into two neat piles. She stacked the letters and memos in the In basket, then aligned the notepad evenly with the edge of the desk calendar. Picking up a pencil, she filled in the loops in the numbers.

  Tiring of that, she pulled the notepad toward her. The light hit i
t at an angle. There were indentations in the paper where someone had written a message. Recalling the times she and Vicky had left secret messages for each other, she rubbed the pencil lightly over the embossed message. An address showed up. RR1023. End. White, green shutters.

  The address rang a bell. She knew that place. Or thought she did. She and Victoria had gone to a white house with green shutters at the end of the ranch road many times.

  An old woman had lived there. Their mom had bought brightly colored paper flowers from the woman for the ranch harvest fiesta for years. But the old woman had died long ago. No one lived in the house anymore.

  The notepad wouldn’t have lain behind the desk all this time. Rosita managed the office as well as the house when it came to cleanliness and order. She would have found it long ago. Besides, the paper was new, not old and turning brown at the edges. And who would have had cause to write down that address?

  Cruz was looking for a ranch, but the handwriting wasn’t his. A chill swept over her. Someone who needed a place to hide might find an abandoned homestead near the place he was working as a temporary cowboy very handy.

  The memory of a flashing light came to her, of her and Victoria thinking it was neat because it winked at them. The light had been on an antenna. The antenna was located in the field behind the abandoned homestead! Like the one in the picture with the baby!

  Leaping to her feet, she started from the office as if the hounds of hell were at her heels. She stopped. Dev! She had to call him to tell him she knew where the baby was! Grabbing up the phone, she punched in his cell phone number.

  Dev hit the steering wheel with the flat of his hand as anger and frustration beat a tattoo of fury in his blood. They had been that close to nabbing the guy, but something had spooked him.

  The cowboy had pulled into the motel parking lot on the heels of the detective, had studied the office where the cop was filling out a registration form while the owner processed his credit card, then had reversed and taken off. Ryan had arrived a minute later with the money.

  The detective had alerted the team, and he and Dev had given chase. They had lost the guy on the back roads between Leather Bucket and San Antonio.

  The detective pulled into a restaurant parking lot on the outskirts of San Antonio. Dev pulled up beside him.

  “I’ve seen the cowboy before,” the detective said. “I used to work as security in my off-duty hours at some of the local rodeos when I was on a regular beat. He must have recognized me and thought something was up.”

  Dev cursed. Of all the rotten luck. To have the one cop the perp might know as their point man. Hellfire!

  He managed a wry smile for the young, worried officer. “Win some, lose some. We might as well go home and wait to see what they do next.”

  “I could stick around—”

  “Nah. They won’t be back. We’ll just have to wait to see what they do.”

  They talked to Wyatt, then signed off. Dev said good-night and left. A picture of a baby propped in a chair kept popping into his mind. He stopped and studied the map.

  Shaking his head at his probable foolishness, he headed southeast of town. He might just drive out a couple of country roads, maybe cruise by those towers—

  The ring of the cell phone interrupted his thoughts. He answered with an annoyed, “Yeah?”

  “Dev, I know where the baby is! I know where the farmhouse is! And the antenna with the winking light!”

  He recognized the excited voice in a heartbeat. Her words didn’t make sense. “Slow down. Start at the beginning and tell me what you’re shouting about.”

  “The baby. Bryan,” she said impatiently. “I know where he is. At the end of an old ranch road—RR1023. That’s where Vicky and I used to go with Mom when we were kids. We liked the winking light. And that’s on the antenna in the picture of Bryan!”

  The hair stood up on his neck. “How do you know this is the place?”

  She told him about finding a notepad in the ranch office and about seeing the indentation of writing, then rubbing over it with a pencil. “The baby’s there. I know he is. We can go get him while the kidnappers are picking up the money,” she finished triumphantly.

  He frowned heavily. “I’ll go get him. You stay put, you hear? The kidnappers could return at any moment.” He didn’t go into detail on why this could be true.

  “The baby will be frightened. He’ll need someone from the family with him. I’m his aunt—”

  “No! You’ll damn well stay there, or else.” He calmed down with an effort. “Look, I appreciate the information, but it probably doesn’t mean a thing.”

  He sensed her disappointment.

  “I’ll check it out,” he said. “You’re less than ten minutes from the place. If the baby’s there, I’ll call you to come get him. Okay?”

  But not until after he and Wyatt got the kidnappers.

  “Okay,” she agreed reluctantly. “Promise you’ll call?”

  “Promise.” He hung up. He’d never met a woman who set such store by promises. He would call, but only after the case was wrapped up nice and tidy. But first, he would check it out. No use sending the whole county sheriff’s department on a false run if this didn’t pan out.

  Vanessa paced the office. Frustration and worry ate at her. She hated waiting while events unfolded close by. The baby would be terrified when another stranger grabbed him and took off. Frowning, she considered, then shook her head as if arguing with an unseen opponent. But, darn it, she knew she could be of help. Bryan would need her.

  Making up her mind, she jammed her old gray felt Stetson over her hair. After a second’s deliberation, she opened the safe and removed a .38 semiautomatic from its box. She inserted the bullet clip.

  After tucking the weapon into her waistband, she wrote a note for Ruben and Cruz, telling them where she was going and why. If anything happened, they would know what to do.

  However, she really didn’t expect any trouble. She and Dev would slip in, grab the baby and get away while the men were gone. Besides, Wyatt would have arrested them by now.

  They might have left someone behind to watch Bryan, though. Hence the gun. On a ranch, a person learned to be prepared for unforeseen emergencies.

  She drove down the country road at high speed, taking the curves at a fast clip, her low-slung sports car hugging the road. That the kidnappers might be only a few miles from the ranch added insult to injury, as if they thumbed their noses at her family.

  Then again, like Dev said, this might be a wild-goose chase and the cowboy who’d been at the ranch might be nowhere near.

  As she neared the old house, she slowed to a crawl. Finding an overgrown trail, she turned onto it and pulled up under a leafy tree next to the fence that circled the property. She climbed out of the car.

  Clouds covered the last rays of sunset on the horizon, and twilight cast a gloom over the landscape. Her tan and green clothing were close to camouflage colors. She tucked her hair into her hat.

  Dev was probably inside, but she decided caution was the better part of valor. She crept as quietly as possible through the field toward the house where all was dark, except for one sliver of light shining from the back.

  Her heart raced, and she paused, hidden behind an old lean-to that had once sheltered a winter’s supply of wood. No vehicles of any sort around. Where was Dev?

  The silence drummed in her ears. She realized it was her heartbeat. She checked the gun, made sure the clip was secure, then hid it in the small of her back so her blouse would cover the bulge.

  Taking a deep breath, she sped across the weed-choked yard. At the house, in a slit in the curtains, she peered into the dim room. Her heart jumped to her throat.

  Driving as fast as he could, Dev cruised the road that had once been paved but had fallen into disrepair. The pavement looked like an alligator hide. Felt like one, too. He winced as his tire dropped into a pothole with a lurch that shook the entire frame of the vehicle.

  Coming ar
ound a curve, he spotted the tower off to his right. It was well back from the road. He kept an eye out for a road to the right that would take him to it…or to a house where a baby was being kept hostage.

  He spotted an overgrown road that was mostly two ruts through grass and weeds. When he pulled in, he threw on the brakes. His heart stopped as suddenly as the SUV, then thudded painfully.

  A smart sports car nestled, nearly hidden, under the branches of some scrub oak growing along an old fence row. Three guesses who it belonged to, and the first two didn’t count. The darkness roiled and churned in him. He could sense danger with that sixth sense cops developed.

  He pulled up under the leafy overhang, checked his gun, added several clips to his jacket pocket and headed across the field which lay in dark gray shadows between him and the house in the distance.

  Beyond the house, a radio tower winked its light at him, off and on, off and on. At that moment he heard a shot. He broke into a run, fear eating his heart alive.

  No one appeared to be in the house.

  Vanessa worked her way all around it, peering into every window. Going to the back door, she tried the knob. It wasn’t locked. She eased inside.

  Her knees went weak at a loud creak from a floor-board. She stopped dead-still and waited. Nothing.

  She tiptoed across the kitchen and into the hall. She paused again. The silence mocked her fears. She slipped into the back bedroom, which was empty except for one thing.

  A baby lay on a blanket, overturned kitchen chairs forming a pen around him. He was asleep.

  Hands trembling, she bent over a chair and carefully lifted Bryan into her arms. He roused and wrinkled his little forehead in a frown. She swayed from side to side, rocking him back to sleep. He nodded off again.

  She turned toward the door. Her heart hardly dared beat, she wanted so desperately to be silent, to get out of there and get home.

  A noise toward the back alerted her. She heard the kitchen door open and close, then footsteps inside. From outside, she heard the sound of a truck engine and the crunch of its tires on gravel. It came to a sliding halt.