“Why? So it’ll be easier to kill us?” Austin came right out and asked.
“No. Because I don’t want to make it easier for you to kill me. Especially since I’m holding the kid and all.”
Rosalie sucked in a hard breath. “Don’t you dare hurt my baby!”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. She’s my ticket to that evidence. Oh, and by the way, she’s cute and sleeping like a baby for now. Keep it that way by following the rules. Ditch Calder and within five minutes, you’ll have your kid.”
Austin knew there was no way Rosalie could simply dismiss that as a lie. There was too much hope in her eyes to believe that she couldn’t soon have her baby in her arms.
“Where are you?” Austin demanded of the kidnapper, but he was talking to himself because the caller had already hung up.
Cursing, Austin hit the end call button and glanced in the rearview mirror at Seth’s car. Then, he glanced at Rosalie.
“We have to do it,” she insisted. “We have to tell Seth to stop.”
Austin had a quick debate with himself, but he knew there was only one solution here.
And it was a bad one.
“Call Colt and Cooper first to give them our location. Then, call Seth,” he finally said. “Tell him to pull off the side of the road until the kidnapper contacts us about the exchange.”
Rosalie gave a shaky nod and made the calls in the order he’d told her. Cooper and Colt gave her a quick okay. Seth argued, of course, but he would do as they asked.
Austin hoped.
And while he was hoping, he added that maybe there was some way he’d be able to get Rosalie out of this alive while also rescuing Sadie.
Behind him, he saw Seth pulled to the side as they’d requested, but Rosalie’s brother was also voicing his disapproval of the change in plans. However, Seth didn’t get a chance to voice it for long because another call came in on Austin’s phone.
“It’s the kidnapper again,” Rosalie said, quickly ending the conversation with her brother. As before, the screen showed that the caller ID had been blocked.
Austin automatically slid his hand over the gun in his shoulder holster. “What now?” Austin asked the moment Rosalie answered the call.
But the kidnapper didn’t jump to answer. The moments crawled by, and if Austin hadn’t heard the guy breathing, he would have thought no one was on the line.
“All right,” the kidnapper finally said. He was still using the voice scrambler that made him sound like a cartoon character. “Agent Calder is far enough away so you can take the turn just ahead.”
The windshield wipers were smearing the sleet on the windshield, so it took Austin a moment to see the road. Except it was more of a dirt-and-gravel path than an actual road. He eased on the brakes so he wouldn’t go into a skid, and he made the turn.
Also slowly.
He turned on his high beams, hoping it would give him a better look of their surroundings. There were plenty of trees and shrubs. No houses. But just ahead he spotted a dark-colored SUV parked in the center of the path.
Rosalie took the gun from the glove compartment.
“Yeah, that’s me,” the kidnapper said. “Drive closer.”
Austin didn’t. He came to a full stop then and there.
“Rosalie stays in the car while you and I make the exchange,” Austin insisted.
Again, the guy took his time answering. Maybe because he or she figured it would put them even more on edge. Austin wasn’t sure it was possible to do that since every nerve and muscle in his body was on full alert.
“Suit yourself,” the kidnapper finally said.
Austin hadn’t thought it possible, but that indeed made him even more concerned. He’d expected an argument.
One that Austin was sure he would lose.
So, was this some kind of trap to get him out of the car so Rosalie could be kidnapped?
Or worse?
But if this bozo just planned to kill them, why hadn’t he just started shooting? Maybe because the kidnapper suspected the car was bullet-resistant? Either way, there was nothing about this setup that Austin liked, and it just kept getting worse.
“I’ll put the laptops and files on the side of the road where I’m parked,” Austin said, trying a different angle. “Once that’s done, you come and get it.”
“Oh, I don’t think that would be a good idea,” the kidnapper answered. “It’s the weather, you see. Wouldn’t be good for the baby to be out for too long on a winter night like this. No. I’m thinking a better solution would be for you to drive closer. Less time outside for the kid.”
But closer meant Rosalie and he would be easier targets.
“You haven’t asked for proof that I’ve got the baby,” the kidnapper added. “Well, here it is.”
Austin didn’t have to wait long this time. Only a few seconds. Before the interior light came on in the kidnapper’s SUV. The light stabbed through the sleet and darkness, and even though Austin was parked a good thirty feet away, he had no trouble seeing the figures inside.
Two adults, both wearing dark clothes and ski masks.
And one of the masked adults was holding up a baby.
“Sadie,” Rosalie said on a rise of breath, and she threw open the door.
Chapter Seventeen
Rosalie didn’t even manage to get her foot out the door before Austin latched on to her shoulder and hauled her back into the car.
“I have to get to Sadie,” she blurted out.
She heard the panic in her own voice. Felt it in every inch of her body, but she couldn’t make herself stop. Everything inside her was screaming for her to get to her baby.
“You can’t help Sadie if you’re dead.” Austin dragged her even closer to him and got right in her face. “Don’t give them a reason to pull their triggers, not with the baby between them and you.”
Sweet heaven.
She hadn’t even considered that, but she did now. The threat of her own death didn’t frighten her, but she couldn’t bear the thought of doing anything to hurt Sadie. And if she stepped out there, those men might indeed try to shoot her because they thought she was some kind of loose end that needed to be tied up permanently.
Rosalie’s gaze snapped back to the SUV ahead of them. The interior light went out, and she could no longer see the men or the baby. That didn’t help with the panic and the nerves. At least if she could see Sadie, she would know that her little girl was all right.
Well, as all right as a baby could be while being held by kidnappers.
“Give her to me,” Rosalie sobbed, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. These monsters were using her precious baby as a bargaining chip. They didn’t care that it was tearing her apart.
“Oh, you’ll get her all right,” one of the kidnappers said. “Just have Agent Duran drive closer and put the evidence in the covered plastic bin by our SUV. The sooner he does that, the sooner you’ll get the kid.”
And with that, he ended the call.
Rosalie couldn’t think—her mind was a whirl of emotions and thoughts. She was about to ask Austin what they should do, but before she could say a word, he took the phone and texted Seth to give him their location and told her brother to approach on foot. Probably so the sound of his car engine wouldn’t be detected. On foot though Seth might not get there soon enough to help them rescue Sadie, and he would be out in the open, possibly an easy target.
“We have to stall them,” Austin said, easing the car close to the SUV. Not quickly. He inched along at a snail’s pace. “We have to give Colt, Cooper and Seth time to get into place.”
It made sense, but it also meant it would take even longer before she could get to her baby.
Austin kept driving, the car bobbing along on the uneven surface of the road, and he
came to a stop a good ten yards from the SUV and a green plastic bin. He waited, glancing at the phone. Probably waiting to see if the kidnapper would order him to go even closer.
But no call came in.
“Stay put,” Austin warned her, and he held eye contact with her again. Even in the dim light, she could see the warning he was giving her—Don’t go out there.
Rosalie nodded.
“And keep watch all around us,” Austin added. He put the car in Park, turned off the engine and the headlights. “I don’t want anyone sneaking up on us.”
She nodded again, and Rosalie lowered the window just a fraction so that she’d hopefully be able to hear anyone approaching their car.
Austin kept his gun in his right hand, and he stepped from the car, volleying his attention all around them, especially at the SUV where they were holding Sadie. He opened the back door and took out the first of the three laptops. Not quickly, either. He took his time getting a grip and moving it out of the vehicle and into the bin on the side of the gravel road.
His phone buzzed again. “It’s the kidnapper,” she relayed to Austin and hit the call button to put it on speaker.
“Hurry up for Pete’s sake,” the man snarled. “We don’t have all night. You got two minutes to get that stuff out of the car, or we’re driving off with the kid.”
“No!” Rosalie practically shouted.
The kidnapper hung up but not before she saw something else in the interior of the SUV. The illumination from his phone was just enough that she could make out someone else in the backseat.
“There are three of them,” she whispered to Austin.
Mercy, that didn’t help with the panic. She was an okay shot, but the extra person meant that Austin and she were outgunned. Rosalie prayed that her brothers made it there soon. Maybe their sheer presence would be enough to get the kidnapper to surrender.
She could hope, anyway.
Austin picked up the pace of moving the equipment while Rosalie kept her attention nailed to the kidnapper’s SUV. Not that there was anything to see. But those seconds were ticking by. She wasn’t sure if the man had been bluffing when he said they’d drive away, but it was a risk she couldn’t take.
With the window down and the back door open, it didn’t take long for the bitter cold to seep inside their own vehicle. The sleet was cutting like razors through the lights of the high beams, and the howling winter wind slapped at the tree branches, creating too much noise for her to hear much of anything.
The moment Austin finished moving the last of the laptops, his phone buzzed again, and when she answered it, Rosalie did hear the kidnapper’s scrambled voice.
“It’s too late,” the voice said. That was it. The only warning she got before she heard the roar of the SUV’s engine. The driver spun the car around, the tires digging into the soft ground on the side of the road.
What the heck was he doing?
But Rosalie soon got an answer to that when the driver hit the accelerator.
“No!” Rosalie shouted.
If the kidnappers even heard her, it didn’t do any good.
Because the SUV sped away.
* * *
AUSTIN’S HEART SLAMMED against his chest. No. This couldn’t be happening. Not when they were this close to getting Sadie from the kidnappers.
“Hurry!” Rosalie called out to him.
He did exactly that. Austin jumped back behind the wheel of the car and took off in pursuit.
Right now, every second was precious. He had no idea how long this particular ranch trail was, but he couldn’t let the kidnappers make it out to a main road. If that happened, well, he couldn’t go there.
“Why are they leaving?” Rosalie asked in between repeating for him to hurry.
“Maybe something spooked them.” Like Seth, Cooper or Colt though Austin hadn’t seen any signs of them. Austin pushed the accelerator hard. Going much faster than he should on the narrow, icy path. Still, it wasn’t as if he had a lot of options here. He had to follow that SUV.
“Put on your seat belt,” Austin warned Rosalie, “and stay down.”
She did the first but not the second. Probably because she couldn’t stop herself from watching the road ahead. She was also whispering a prayer.
They certainly needed a prayer or two.
Things were already bad, and there were plenty of things that could get even worse tonight. At least they were all alive. For now.
He had to maneuver the car through some tight curves on the uneven surface, and the trees and shrubs were so close to the path that they scraped like fingernails against the side of the car. The unnerving sound sure didn’t help steady his breathing or heartbeat.
“If they’re leaving the files and laptops behind,” Rosalie said, “then maybe they didn’t really want them in the first place.”
Austin had already come to that conclusion. Not that he’d ever thought this was about the evidence. But he went back to his original idea. That maybe all of this had been staged to convince them that Yancy was behind this.
Or maybe Yancy believed by making himself look guilty that it would in turn make him appear innocent. A weird reverse psychology and exactly the sort of thing that Yancy would do to play with their heads.
Either way, this could have been a ruse to throw Rosalie and him off track. However, that didn’t answer the question about the baby.
“You’re sure it was Sadie in the SUV?” he asked while he fought the steering wheel to stay on the road.
“I’m sure.” She didn’t hesitate, either.
That was enough verification for Austin. He never discounted gut feelings, even when a gut feeling could be leading them right smack dab into the middle of danger.
He took another sharp curve and immediately had to hit the brakes. The SUV was there, parked, not on the road this time but about twenty yards away in the center of a small clearing. The headlights were off, ditto for the interior light, and it was hard to tell if anyone was inside.
Austin hoped like the devil that they hadn’t ditched the vehicle and used another trail to get out. If so, it’d be darn hard to find them since he wouldn’t even have a description of a secondary vehicle.
“Don’t get out,” Austin reminded Rosalie, and this time she stayed put. Both of them stared at the SUV, waiting, while keeping watch around them. “Maybe the kidnapper will call soon.”
But soon didn’t happen.
The seconds dragged on, giving Rosalie and him plenty of time to think of all the bad things that could happen in the next couple of minutes.
“If they’ve already left, we need to know,” Rosalie finally said.
Yeah. And the longer they waited, the farther away the kidnappers could get. If they were indeed fleeing, that is. If not, well, that was a chance Austin was about to have to take.
“Wait here, and I mean it,” he repeated, taking his phone from her and shoving it into his pocket. Then he gave her a quick kiss. “There’s a burner cell in the glove compartment. Use it to call Seth if anything goes wrong.”
She took hold of his arm when he reached for the door. “Was that a goodbye kiss?”
“I hope not.”
“Well, it felt like one.” Her breath broke, and Rosalie leaned toward him and returned the kiss. “Swear to me that it won’t be a goodbye.”
Even though time definitely wasn’t on their side right now, he took a moment to make eye contact with her. “I promise,” Austin said.
At best, it was wishful thinking.
At worse, an out-and-out lie because it was a promise he had no control over keeping. Once he stepped out there, he was essentially a sitting duck with at least three hired guns in the area.
Still, he stepped out. And Austin kept his gun ready. It was impossible to stay beh
ind cover, but he used the trees, skirting around them to make his way to the SUV. Eventually, though, he would have to step out into that clearing and hope that Seth and the others would soon arrive for backup.
“Are you there?” Austin called out to whoever might be in that SUV.
No answer.
He glanced back at the car to make sure Rosalie was staying put. She was, thank God. And he hurried even closer to the SUV and ducked behind a scraggly mesquite. Not much cover, but if the kidnappers had wanted to shoot him, they’d already had ample opportunity.
“I left the files and laptops on the road,” Austin went on while he inched closer.
The windows on the SUV were heavily tinted, and there wasn’t even a moon for him to see shadows inside. However, if Rosalie was right, there were three of them. Plus, the baby. And the baby meant despite his having his gun ready, that the last thing he’d be doing was firing shots.
Maybe the kidnappers were on the same page.
Austin pulled in a long breath and stepped out from the tree. He didn’t charge forward. Best not to look as if he were on the attack. However, he was still a good five yards from the SUV when he heard something he didn’t want to hear.
Movement near the car.
He shifted in that direction, hoping that he didn’t see Rosalie hurrying toward him.
But he saw something much worse.
She was out of the car all right, and someone was behind her.
That someone had a gun pointed at Rosalie’s head.
Chapter Eighteen
Rosalie heard the sound behind her a split second too late. She felt someone hook an arm around her neck. Before she could even react or shout out a warning to Austin, the person snapped her back and pressed a gun to her temple.
“Move and you die,” he growled in a whisper right against her ear.
And there was no mistaking that it was a he. The person wasn’t using a voice scrambler, and the hard muscles of his chest pressed against her back.
“Rosalie!” Austin called out, and while using the trees for cover again, he started to race toward her.
Kidnapping in Kendall County Page 15
