Picking up the phone, he immediately called Joy, his mind racing at what she might be walking into.
* * *
JOY SLOWLY CAME TO, ignoring the pain in her head. She stared at the faces surrounding her. All three she recognized. Edith and Henry Dunmore and one of the men she’d seen in the car with Effington. He was holding a gun on her. He was the same man the FBI had fingered as Murphy Erickson’s killer. Jerome Post. “What is this about?” she heard herself asking them.
Edith laughed. “I played the part of a crazy woman and got you out here.”
“You were stupid to fall for that,” Henry added, grinning.
The man who towered over them said nothing, but Joy could see hatred in his eyes. “Because of you my partner died tonight and you’re going to pay for it.”
Joy knew she had to keep them talking and buy some time. “Give yourselves up. My police department knows I’m out here and will be sending backup if I don’t report to them that I’m okay,” she said, wishing that was true.
Post laughed. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve timed this place to blow up in thirty minutes. By then, we’ll be gone and you and the others will get blown to smithereens.”
Joy frowned. “The others?”
Edith put her hands on her hips. “Mandy Clay might have escaped, but there are others.”
Joy had figured there might be, especially when it was discovered a woman was a fake surrogate to so many couples. For now she would play dumb to stall for time. “Other women?”
“Yes. Women who were handpicked and kidnapped to impregnate. You see, Detective Ingram, we have quite a bustling business going on here, a real surrogate farm.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Joy said. “Let me guess. Anderson Hopkins ran things.”
“Sort of,” Henry said. “I liked him. Real businessman.”
“So why was he killed?” Joy hoped by now Stonewall was wondering what was going on and why she hadn’t returned to the car.
“Because he began making too many costly mistakes,” Post said in an annoyed tone. “Having an affair with Dr. Langley was the first. Having her killed was the second. He didn’t get permission to do that.”
“And the reason she was killed?”
“Because she wanted out. He’d talked her into becoming involved, then she got a guilty conscience.”
Joy nodded. “And the Effingtons?”
“Only the old man. The stupid wife knows nothing.”
Joy drew in a deep breath. She didn’t want to think of the women who’d been kidnapped and impregnated against their will. Women being held somewhere in this place.
At that moment her phone rang and Post said, “That’s probably your fellow officers wanting to know if you need backup. Too bad you won’t be answering that.”
Joy tried to keep her gaze on the three when something moved behind them, and she knew at that moment it was Stonewall. Her hands were tied behind her back, and they’d taken her gun away. It would be Stonewall against these three and one had a gun. She had to keep them talking.
“Are you the ringleader?” she asked the tall man. She figured the only reason they were telling her anything was because they thought she would be dead soon.
He chuckled. “No. I’m second in command. We have quite a little organization. The Brotherhood. They pay me well to get rid of troublemakers.”
“So who’s the big guy in charge?”
All of a sudden there was a loud noise of something hard hitting the wall.
* * *
SANCHEZ PACED HIS KITCHEN. It wasn’t like Joy not to answer her phone. Making a decision, he dialed another number and cringed when a sleepy voice answered. “Hello.”
“Chief Harkins, this is Detective Sanchez.”
“What is it, Sanchez? What’s wrong?”
“I think Lieutenant Ingram might be in trouble, sir.”
* * *
THE THREE PEOPLE TURNED, giving Stonewall the time he needed. He opened fire. Joy reared back in her chair to knock into the tall man, who was taking aim at Stonewall.
Stonewall swiftly grabbed him by the collar to knock him down to his knees. Before Joy’s eyes, Stonewall became a fighting machine. Joy hated feeling useless and tried working her hands from the tight bindings. Using the technique she’d been taught at the police academy, she was able to work her hands free. Right on time. Edith tried coming at Stonewall from behind. Henry had taken one of Stonewall’s hits, and Joy wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead.
Joy tackled Edith, who didn’t put up much of a fight, while Stonewall quickly disarmed the man with the gun and knocked him out. Rushing to Stonewall, Joy grabbed his hands. “He said explosives are set to blow in less than thirty minutes. We need to get everybody out. I’m calling for backup and the bomb squad.”
After moving quickly to find something to bind everyone’s hands, Stonewall began tying everyone up and dragging them outside.
Stonewall reached out and touched the bruise on the side of her head. “You okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine. While you finish here, I’ll look for the others,” Joy said frantically.
“What others?”
She told Stonewall what the three had said. “Women are being held somewhere in here?”
“Yes, and I need to find them.”
“Help me with this and we can both look.”
Henry was alive but had taken a bullet to his shoulder. They made doubly sure the three were securely bound by tying them to trees.
“You can’t leave us like this. There are wild animals out here,” Edith wailed.
Joy glared at the woman. “I know, and I’m staring into the eyes of three of the wildest, cruelest and most inhuman right now.” She and Stonewall then raced back inside the house.
They searched from room to room before Stonewall noticed that the panels on one wall looked out of line with the others. When he checked he discovered it was a movable wall that led to a hallway with a set of stairs going down to a basement. “Come on,” he said, taking her hand. They rushed down the stairs and entered a place that looked like a surgical room in a hospital. Or, more precisely, a delivery room. Then they went through another door that opened to several sleeping quarters. Joy kicked open the doors. Women were in each one and, to Joy’s horror, most of them were pregnant.
“Jesus,” she heard Stonewall mutter under his breath. The women wanted to talk all at once, and Joy tried calming them down. “We’re here to get you out. You need to follow me quickly. Is everyone capable of doing that?” Joy felt she had to ask since a couple of the women looked as if they were about to deliver their babies any minute. They all assured her they were, and she and Stonewall led them to the stairway.
“Wait!” one of the pregnant women said. “Dorcas is missing. She delivered her baby a few hours ago.”
“Where is she?” Joy asked, desperately glancing around.
“Probably still in recovery. It’s located that way,” one woman said, pointing. “I’m not sure if they took her baby away from her yet.”
Stonewall turned to Joy. “Lead them upstairs and out of here. I’ll look for the other woman.”
“This place is set to blow up, Stonewall,” she said, not able to keep the fear out of her voice. They were racing against time and didn’t know exactly how much they had. At that moment Stonewall wasn’t just her protector. He was the protector of all the women present.
“I’ll be quick.” A smile touched his lips and he tenderly caressed the side of her face near her bruise. “Remember we still need to talk, after you get medical attention.” Then, in a voice that brooked no argument, he said, “Get them out of here, Joy. Now!”
He raced toward the area the woman had pointed to and was gone. Joy drew in a deep breath before turning her attention to the wome
n. She’d counted twenty of them. “Ladies, please follow me. We need to get out of here as quickly as we can.”
* * *
STONEWALL RACED FROM room to room, not believing the setup down here. No wonder they’d managed to go undetected. It was like a medical facility and a dormitory all rolled into one. He remembered one of the victims saying the woman he was looking for was named Dorcas. He began calling out to her. Realizing she might not answer because she wouldn’t know he was one of the good guys, he said, “Dorcas, I’m Stonewall Courson, and I’m helping to get you out of here. The cops are outside.” Okay, so he lied. There was only one cop outside, but in his book Joy was worth a dozen cops.
“Dorcas?”
He heard a faint sound and then a voice that said, “We’re in here.”
He moved toward the voice and opened a door to discover a woman sitting in a small room, cradling a baby in her arms. She looked at him with defiance in her eyes. “He’s mine, and you can’t have him.”
He nodded. “I just want to get you and your baby out of here, alright?”
She stared at him, trying to decide if she could trust him, and then she nodded. “Alright.”
Stonewall moved quickly. The baby wasn’t even covered in a blanket. Pulling the shirt over his head he gave it to the woman to wrap up the baby. He then scooped both mother and baby into his arms.
* * *
JOY HAD MANAGED to get the pregnant women out safely, far away from the cabin. She then had to keep them from attacking Edith and Henry when they saw them tied to the trees. That had been difficult.
“You don’t understand,” one of the pregnant young women said with tears streaming down her face. “They took my two babies from me. They took my babies!”
The women all began talking at once. They had been kidnapped from all over the country, from college campuses, while out jogging or shopping. All were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two and forced into surrogacy.
“Mandy got away, and then they wanted to let us know what happened to her. That woman told us what would happen to us if we ever tried getting away like Mandy did. It was awful.”
After calming the women down, Joy checked her watch. The man had said the explosion was set for thirty minutes. They had less than five minutes left. She looked toward the cabin. Where was Stonewall?
Suddenly she heard police sirens and saw the flashing blue lights of several police cars and several unmarked ones, as well as ambulances. Sanchez, Chief Harkins and Special Agent Felton emerged from their vehicles and raced toward her. Their eyes took in the pregnant women. She’d filled in Chief Harkins when she’d phoned for backup. Uninformed officers and federal agents were untying the three criminals she and Stonewall had bound to the trees. A paramedic was checking Henry’s wound and Edith and Post were being handcuffed. A number of other paramedics were tending the pregnant women.
“The bomb squad is here,” Agent Felton said. “Is everybody out?”
“No!” Joy said in a loud voice, her body filled with more fear than she’d ever felt before. “Stonewall is inside searching for a missing woman and her baby.”
“Damn!” Chief Harkins said, shaking his head.
An officer dressed in bomb squad gear ran over to them. “The guy who set the explosives won’t tell us anything other than it will blow any minute. Not sure if the dogs will have time to sniff out the location of—”
Before the man could finish what he was saying, an explosion shook the ground beneath their feet.
“Stonewall!” Joy cried out and moved to race forward. Chief Harkins held her back. “No, no, let me go,” she screamed. “I’ve got to go. He can’t die. He can’t.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Chief Harkins said sadly. “I don’t see how anyone could have survived that. I am truly sorry.”
Suddenly there was the sound of a baby crying.
“Damn, would you look at that?” Agent Felton said, amazed.
Joy turned and saw what Felton did.
Walking away from the rubble and flames of the now decimated cabin and heading toward them was a shirtless Stonewall. And he was carrying a woman who was clutching a baby in her arms. Chief Harkins released his hold on Joy and, like the others, she raced toward them.
As soon as Stonewall turned over the woman and her child to the paramedics, he pulled Joy into his arms and held her for the longest time. She finally pulled back and looked up at him. “But how did you escape that?” she asked him. Others were standing around as well, wanting to hear what he had to say.
“I knew I couldn’t make it out the front door in time so I took them out the back way. We had gotten far away from the cabin before the explosion hit.” He embraced her again. “We still need to talk,” he said for her ears only.
She smiled up at him and, not caring that they had an audience, she leaned up and kissed him on the lips. “And we will. Most definitely.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“WHAT A LEGAL MESS,” Joy said, taking the television remote out of Stonewall’s hand.
A day had passed since they’d rescued those women. Most had been reunited with their families. Jerome Post hadn’t talked but Edith and Henry had. Norm Austen had been arrested and was working out a deal with the Feds. He’d provided the FBI with the name of every man associated with the Brotherhood. Everyone had been shocked to find that the admired Senator Patrick Holland headed the list. Oliver Effington’s body had been found and so had the man who’d tried to shoot Joy. He had died from the wound he’d suffered from Stonewall’s gun.
Joy had been taken to the emergency room with the twenty-one women and baby. She was released after being check. One of the women had gone into labor before Joy walked out the hospital doors.
The legal mess Joy referred to was the kidnapped women demanding rights to their babies. Babies that were with their parents. Attorneys were fighting to keep records sealed, but a judge ordered all records opened. Beautiful Creations hadn’t been the only surrogate agency involved in shady dealings, and a number of CEOs and their attorneys had been arrested, as well. And that included the man who’d represented Effington, Attorney Robinson. Several women who’d worked as fake surrogates to gain the couples’ trust had been rounded up and were now behind bars.
Courts were trying to determine who had legal rights to the babies. DNA tests had been ordered for Chasta Carrington. She was the biological child of Mandy Clay and Brett Carrington. Rachel Carrington’s egg had not been used. Joy couldn’t imagine how the woman was taking the news. In trying to help his sister, Anderson Hopkins had caused her great pain. It was reported that Sunnie Clay had flown into town, making a legal claim to her sister’s child.
“You’ve become a celebrity,” Stonewall whispered to her. She had been credited with breaking the case. She had had to return to Stonewall’s house since the media practically surrounded hers. Chief Harkins told her to take an additional week off because she deserved it.
“And you’re a hero,” she said, smiling. The photo of Stonewall with a burning cabin in the background, carrying a mother and her child, had made the front page of USA TODAY, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, compliments of a female paramedic who’d snapped the picture. Shirtless, he had looked big, strong and sexy, while carrying all that weight like it had been nothing. The headlines had simply read, The Hero.
“And that woman you rescued is naming her newborn son after you. Just think. Another Stonewall.”
Joy was aware that he’d gotten calls from all his friends to make sure he was okay and to congratulate him for his heroism. Dak Navarro had even called. Stonewall’s grandmother and sister had dropped by, and Joy had the chance to meet them. Granny Kay had invited her to Sunday dinner, which Joy had accepted. She had gotten calls from her family, as well. Her father had told her how proud he was, and
that made her feel good.
Stonewall pulled her into his arms. “Ready to talk now?”
She cuddled close to him on his sofa. “Yes, I’m ready.” It wasn’t that they had avoided talking. There just hadn’t been any time. When they left the hospital they’d gone to FBI Headquarters and then police headquarters to give statements. As more details came from the twenty-one women rescued, Joy and Stonewall became overnight sensations. Both as celebrities and heroes.
Mandy Clay was also being held up as a hero, and for that Joy was glad. She had been the one bold enough to escape. The men responsible for Dr. Langley’s and Walter Fowler’s deaths had also been apprehended.
Stonewall lifted her up and placed her in his lap to face him. “So, what am I to you, Joy?”
Joy wrapped her arms around his neck. “You are my everything, Stonewall. I love you. I hadn’t realized it until I thought you had died in that explosion. It hit me just what you meant to me and that I could have lost you.”
She forced back tears from her eyes and asked him, “I know you don’t believe in forever, but—”
“I do believe in forever, with you, Joy. Just like it took me almost dying for you to realize how you felt, the same was true with me. That night you almost got shot was a game changer for me. I knew then how much I loved you, and that I wouldn’t be your diversion any longer. That you would have to accept me as the man who loved you.”
“Oh, Stonewall,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder. “I love you so much.”
“And I love you, too.”
She lifted her head and smiled down at him. “We make a great team, don’t we?”
“Yes, the best. So you know what this means, right?” he asked her.
“No, what does it mean?”
“It means I want to marry you, Joy. I want you to always be my Joy in the morning, at night, during the daytime. For always. Will you? Will you marry me, Joy?”
Locked in Temptation Page 34
