Austin cursed. “You shouldn’t have come here. That’s too risky for you and Rosalie. Meet me at the sheriff’s office in town.”
“No. I told you I don’t trust the cops. I’m not going there.”
“You can trust the sheriff,” Rosalie insisted. “He’s my brother.”
Now it was Vickie who cursed. “I don’t care who he is. If you want the information I have, then open the cattle gate right now. If not, I disappear, and you’ll never see what I have or me again.”
Sweet heaven. Rosalie could practically feel the debate going on inside Austin because she, too, was having the same reaction.
She wanted to trust Vickie, but it was a huge risk to allow her onto the ranch. After all, she could still be working for the person behind the baby farm or could be the culprit and had come there to kill them. To permanently silence them in case they’d learned anything while undercover.
“I’ll come to you,” Austin finally said. “But first tell me what you have. I want to make sure it’s worth risking my neck.”
“Oh, it’s worth the risk, all right. But it’ll cost you. I need money to get away from here, and I figure the McKinnons have plenty of it.”
Blackmail. That turned Rosalie’s stomach, but if she were in Vickie’s shoes, she might be forced to consider doing the same thing.
“How much do you want?” Rosalie asked.
“Ten grand.”
Rosalie didn’t know the financial workings of the ranch, but she knew it was very successful, and it was highly likely that there was at least that much or more in the safe in Roy’s office.
“I’ll call the main house,” Rosalie whispered to Austin, but he caught on to her hand to stop her.
“I’m not just walking down to you, carrying ten grand,” Austin said to Vickie. “You need to tell me what you have.”
Silence. For a long time. So long that Rosalie’s heartbeat started to throb in her ears. If the woman refused and just drove away, the information might be lost. Still, there was Austin’s safety to consider. Rosalie definitely didn’t want him out there if this could turn into another attack.
“Well?” Austin prompted.
“The man who brought me your nephew called himself Jack Smith,” Vickie finally said. “There was a woman with him, dressed in white scrubs like a nurse. Anyway, the baby had some kind of seeds on his blanket.”
“Seeds?” Austin and Rosalie asked in unison. That certainly wasn’t something Rosalie expected Vickie to say.
“I mean the baby was clean and everything except for those seeds. I asked about them. More like casual conversation, you know, and the woman said they’d picked up the baby at the grain mill about ten miles from where I lived. Smith shushed her right up, and told me that the birth mother had hidden the pregnancy from her parents, and that she met them there at the mill so her folks wouldn’t find out that she’d given birth.”
“And you believed Smith?” Austin pressed.
“I did at the time. I didn’t think anything more about it until after this mess with the baby farm broke loose. Then, I began to think it might be a ruse of some kind. I mean, why would the birth mother choose to meet them in a grain mill?”
“You mean the old abandoned one on the other side of town?” Rosalie had only vague memories of the silo that jutted up in an overgrown field.
“That’s the one,” Vickie verified. “It’s exactly ten miles from me just like the woman said, and there’s not another one in the area. I went over there last night, looking for answers.”
“You did what?” Austin cursed again.
“I didn’t go alone. I took a couple of friends with me. They were armed, but the guns weren’t needed. Nobody was there. Just some boxes with files in them.” Vickie paused. “The files are connected to the baby farm.”
“Files,” Austin snapped, not sounding at all happy about this. “You contaminated a scene that could be critical to this investigation.”
“I found proof of the person who got Rosalie McKinnon’s daughter,” Vickie insisted. “And if you want it, it’ll cost you ten grand. I’ll be waiting at the end of the road.”
“Meet me at the sheriff’s office,” Austin argued, but he was talking to himself because Vickie had already ended the call.
Austin jabbed the button to return the call. No answer. It went straight to voice mail.
“I’ll see about getting the money,” Rosalie said, hurrying to the landline in the kitchen.
She considered calling her sister, who was still staying in the main house with her fiancé, but Rayanne was pregnant, and Rosalie didn’t want her anywhere near Vickie or the danger. Her brother Cooper was at his own house, which was about a quarter of a mile away. Not far, but it would eat up precious moments if he was the one she involved in this. Ditto for her other brother Tucker.
That left her younger brother, Colt, and her father.
Rosalie pressed in the number, not sure which she would get, and it was Colt who answered on the first ring.
“What the hell’s going on?” Colt immediately said. “The ranch hands just called, and there’s a woman parked right in front of the gate—”
“I need ten thousand in cash,” Rosalie interrupted. “The woman says she has information about my daughter.”
Rosalie took a deep breath, praying that whatever files Vickie had would do just that—help her find Sadie—and that it would all happen without anyone else getting hurt.
“I’ll be right there,” Colt assured her before she could tell him that she’d pay him back as soon as she could get to the bank.
Like Vickie, Colt quickly ended the call, and Rosalie hurried back to the front of the cottage to see what was going on. Austin was already outside on the porch, his gun drawn and his attention on the small black car at the end of the road.
“Stay back,” he warned her.
Rosalie did, but it was hard to do that with possible answers this close. It seemed to take an eternity, but she realized it was less than five minutes before Colt emerged from the main house and headed toward them. He, too, was carrying a gun and a thick plastic bag.
Austin turned around, snagged her gaze and slipped his cell into his shirt pocket. “Wait here, and I mean it. Don’t you even think about going out there with me. Call me, and I’ll leave my phone on so you can hear what’s going on.”
She nodded, her breath hitching a little when he idly brushed a kiss on her mouth and headed out, Colt falling in step right along beside him. As Austin had instructed, she called him, but he didn’t speak when he answered the call. Probably because he wanted to keep his attention on the woman who stepped from the car.
It was Vickie all right.
The woman had a large cardboard box that she set on the ground next to the fence, and she took out a manila folder from it.
“I want the money,” Vickie said when Austin and Colt approached her. “Then, you’ll get the files.”
“Show me that folder first,” Austin countered.
Because his back was to her, Rosalie couldn’t see Austin’s expression, but it must have been adamant enough for Vickie to rethink her demand. She handed him the folder.
Colt kept his gun trained on the woman while he volleyed glances at both Austin and the folder he opened. Time seemed to stop. Not her heart, though. It was slamming against her chest so hard that it hurt her ribs.
“Give her the cash,” Austin finally said. He glanced back over his shoulder at Rosalie. “Judging from the birthday, this could be Sadie’s file.”
Rosalie sucked in her breath so hard that she nearly got choked. “And?” was all she managed to say.
She heard Austin’s hard breath, too, but it was Vickie who answered. “Tell Rosalie that it has the name of the person who bought her daughter.”
Chapter Twelve
Austin wished like the devil that he could stop Rosalie from going with him for this visit, but he knew he didn’t stand a chance of making her stay at her family’s ranch. One way or another she would confront the man whose name had been in the file that Vickie had given them.
Trevor Yancy.
Austin shouldn’t have been surprised to see Yancy’s name on those papers claiming he was the one who’d bought Sadie. After all, the man was a serious suspect in the baby farm investigation and a multitude of other felonies. However, just the fact that it was Yancy meant that Rosalie wasn’t going to settle for anyone but her confronting him.
He couldn’t blame her.
But Austin darn sure could do whatever it took to protect her.
That’s why he was driving her to Yancy’s estate in San Antonio while her brother Colt followed them in his truck. In addition, Austin had called SAPD and asked them to send out a patrol car to keep an eye on the estate, to make sure Yancy didn’t try to run. Maybe, just maybe, Yancy would confess to everything, turn over a perfectly healthy Sadie to Rosalie and then Colt could arrest the piece of slime.
Austin only hoped Rosalie and he could keep their own tempers in check during this little chat.
He had a lot of dangerous energy brewing inside him, and that anger was headed right toward Yancy. The man had likely caused Eli’s death, and now he might have been the one to kidnap Rosalie’s daughter.
If Yancy had done that, he was going to pay hard.
“Hurry,” she insisted.
Rosalie kept her attention on the phone, and pressed Redial yet again. As with the other half dozen times that she’d tried to call Yancy on both his cell and home phones, the man didn’t answer. Maybe because he didn’t take calls this early or maybe because Vickie or someone else had given him a heads-up that Rosalie and the law were on the way. Of course, Austin wasn’t sure why Vickie would do something like that since she’d been the one to give them the file, but with all the insanity that’d gone on, anything was possible.
“If Yancy’s not home, we’ll find him,” Austin promised her, and it was a promise he would keep no matter what it took. Too bad though that he couldn’t keep it after he had Rosalie tucked safely away. He hadn’t stopped her from going to the estate, but if this turned into an all-out search, he wanted her far away from any path that Yancy and his hired thugs might take.
“I want to hear what he has to say about those adoption papers,” Rosalie mumbled.
“So do I. But if he does actually answer your call, it’s best not to ask him if he has Sadie. We wouldn’t want to spook him and have him run with her.”
“I doubt he can be spooked. He’s arrogant and certain that he’s above the law. He’s not.”
No, he wasn’t. “But until we have Yancy in our sights, it’s best if you keep the adoption questions general. Don’t ask specifically about Sadie. Agreed?”
He could tell she wanted to argue with him about that, but she finally nodded.
Her grip tightened even more on the phone until Austin thought it might shatter. Heck, she might shatter, too. Not with tears this time, but he could feel the rage boiling inside her just as it was with him.
“You have to remember that Vickie or someone else could have faked that paperwork,” Austin reminded her.
The anger flashed in her eyes as if she might argue about that, as well, but then a rough groan left her mouth. “I know. Vickie could be lying to cover her own guilt.”
Yeah, and that’s the reason Austin had called Rosalie’s brother, the sheriff, so he could escort Vickie into town for questioning. Vickie hadn’t liked that one bit, but Austin didn’t care. She’d possibly destroyed evidence by going to that grain mill.
And maybe worse.
“Maybe Vickie pretended to go to the grain mill to cover up any DNA evidence that might be there. Her DNA,” Austin clarified.
Rosalie made a sound of agreement. “But if she’s guilty, why didn’t she stay hidden away? She’s the one who contacted us about your nephew. Vickie could have just stayed in hiding or given the baby to someone else so that she wouldn’t be caught with him.”
Unfortunately, Austin could see that from another angle. “She could have heard that I’d been working undercover to find Nathan and thought she’d better cut her losses. By giving him to us, she might have hoped to get the heat off her and put it on someone else.”
“And she could have used the files to set up Yancy,” Rosalie finished for him a moment later. “That would explain why she didn’t just blow up the grain mill.” Her eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t mean Yancy’s innocent, though.”
No, it didn’t. But with all the finger-pointing that Sonny, Vickie and Yancy were doing at each other, it was hard to home in on the guilty party.
Rosalie tried Yancy’s number again. Same result. No answer. She checked the estimated time of arrival on the GPS. Yet something else she’d been doing since they started this drive from the McKinnon ranch. They were still a half hour out, and that likely felt like an eternity to her.
It did to Austin, too.
It also didn’t help that they were in the middle of a long stretch of rural property.
He’d taken the back roads to get there as fast as possible, but it meant Rosalie, Colt and he were at risk for another attack. The rural road would be a good place for it. Of course, the gunmen could have come after them on the highway, too. No place would be truly safe until the men were found and put in jail along with their boss.
And maybe their boss was Yancy.
“If Yancy has Sadie—”
“Don’t go there,” he insisted.
Austin hooked his arm around her and dragged her as close to him as the seat belt would allow. It wasn’t exactly a hug to comfort her, but it was the best he could do. He definitely didn’t want her to think about why Yancy would have purchased her child.
Because nothing good came to mind.
There was no acceptable reason for a weasel like Yancy to buy a baby.
That sent a new round of rage through him. If Yancy had done anything to Sadie, then no way would Austin be able to keep his temper in check. He would aim every bit of his venom at the man.
“I’m trying Yancy’s cell again.” Rosalie pressed Redial again, and Austin was about to tell her that she should just wait until they got to his place. But this time, she didn’t get his voice mail.
Yancy answered.
“It’s early,” Yancy snarled. “What in Sam Hill do you want at this hour?”
Probably because she was so shocked that he’d actually picked up, it took Rosalie a moment to find her voice. Or maybe she was remembering all the things that Austin had warned her that she shouldn’t say to him.
“What do you really know about the baby farms?” she asked.
Yancy cursed. “Not this again. I’m getting sick and tired of these—”
“Did you try to adopt a baby?” Rosalie snapped.
Austin held his breath, wondering if it might not be a good idea, after all, to go ahead and try to spook Yancy. The SAPD patrol was hopefully already in place at his house so they could stop the man from fleeing. And if Yancy did indeed run, it would just confirm his guilt.
“Who the devil told you that?” Yancy asked.
“Just answer the question,” Austin insisted, using his lawman’s tone that no doubt set Yancy’s teeth on edge. “Did you have anything to do with trying to adopt a baby?”
“Yeah,” Yancy finally said after mumbling plenty of profanity. “About a year ago, but I didn’t go through with it. The only reason I wanted a kid was to keep my wife happy so she wouldn’t divorce me and take a fortune. She decided to leave me, anyway, so I canceled the adoption.”
Rosalie glanced at Austin to see if he was buying this, but he had
to shrug. It sounded exactly like something Yancy would do, and Yancy had been through a bitter divorce. From what Austin remembered, there’d been no prenup, and Yancy’s ex-wife had gotten millions from his estate.
Still, that didn’t mean Yancy hadn’t taken Rosalie’s daughter.
“You have any proof that you backed out of the deal?” Rosalie asked.
A few long moments crawled by. “You got proof that I didn’t?”
“Yes, I think we do.”
Yancy’s next round of profanity was significantly worse. “I told you I had no part in that business with the baby farms, and if you’ve got something that says different, then it’s a lie just like the ones Sonny-boy was spewing.”
“You’re sure?” Austin pressed, causing Yancy’s profanity to continue.
“Damn straight. And ask yourself this little question. Why would an operation like this keep records lying around for someone to find? They wouldn’t. So, anything you find or will find has been manufactured to make somebody look guilty. And in this case, that manufacturing has been aimed at me.”
Yancy had a point, but it was a point all three suspects could make. There was situational evidence to suggest that all of them had motive and opportunity to pull off an operation like this. Sonny and Yancy had the means with their bank accounts, and Austin was sure if he dug harder, that he’d find Vickie had those same means.
“If you’re telling the truth,” Rosalie said, obviously ignoring his question, “then you won’t mind if we search your house.”
“Heck, yeah, I mind—”
Yancy continued to talk, but Austin tuned him out. That’s because he saw the large SUV coming down the road toward them, and it looked like the vehicle their attackers had used. Not a good time for this to happen since Austin was approaching a bridge where there’d be no place to maneuver.
He moved his hand over his gun and was about to call Colt to alert him, but the SUV swerved directly into their lane.
And it came right at them.
* * *
ROSALIE HAD HER attention focused on Yancy’s rant so it took her a moment to realize that something was wrong.
Kidnapping in Kendall County Page 11
