He frowned, walked to her and pulled her back onto the bed. Kade also slipped his hand into the robe and cupped her breast. “We have at least another hour,” he drawled. “My suggestion? We stay naked.”
Bree laughed before she could stop herself.
And just like that, the moment was perfect again. No doubts. No worries of hearts. Kade sealed the moment with another of those searing, mind-draining kisses that reminded her that yes, they were indeed naked. Or almost. He shoved open the robe and kissed his way down from her mouth to her stomach.
At first Bree thought the sound was the buzzing in her head, but when Kade cursed, she realized it was his phone.
He rolled off the bed, grabbed his jeans from the floor and jerked out his phone. He glanced at the screen and shook his head.
“The caller blocked the number,” Kade mumbled, and he put the call on speaker. “Special Agent Ryland.”
“Agent Ryland,” the person answered.
And with just those two words, Bree’s blood turned to ice. Because it wasn’t a normal voice. The caller was speaking through a voice scrambler.
“Who is this?” Kade demanded.
“Someone you’re going to meet in an hour at the Fulbright Clinic in San Antonio.”
The voice sounded like a cartoon character, making it impossible to recognize the speaker. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t figure out who it was. After all, there weren’t many people who would make a demand like that.
“The Fulbright is closed,” Kade reminded the caller. “It’s an abandoned building now.”
“Yes.” The caller paused. “And that’s exactly why it’s a good place for us to meet. Show up in one hour alone. Just you and Bree. And when you come, bring those missing surveillance backups with you.”
Kade glanced back at her and groaned softly. This was no doubt one of their suspects. But which one? McClendon, Anthony, Jamie?
Or heaven forbid, Coop?
“We don’t have the backups,” Kade said.
“Yes, but you can get them from SAPD. And trust me, it’ll be in your best interest to get them and bring them to me at the clinic.”
The caller didn’t raise his voice, didn’t change his inflection, but the threat slammed through her.
“Leah,” she mouthed.
Kade shook his head, pulled her down to him and whispered in her ear, “Grayson would have called if something had gone wrong with Leah.”
True. If something hadn’t gone wrong with Grayson, too. Maybe the missing shooter or one of the suspects had gotten into the estate and was holding them all captive.
“Call him,” Kade whispered, and he pointed to the house phone on the nightstand next to Kade’s laptop. And he mouthed the number.
“It won’t do any good to try to trace this call,” the voice on the phone said. “Prepaid cell. And I’ll toss it once we’re done here.”
Bree kept one ear tuned to what was being said, but she grabbed the house phone and went to the other side of the room. Grayson answered on the first ring.
“Is Leah okay?” she whispered.
“Of course. Why? What’s wrong?”
The breath swooshed out of Bree, and the relief nearly brought her to her knees. “Are you all okay? Is anyone there threatening you?”
“Not a chance. I have this place locked up tight with Nate and Dade standing guard. Why?”
Bree couldn’t get into details, mainly because she had to figure out what exactly the details were. “We might have a problem. Kade will call you when he can.” And she hung up so they could finish this puzzling call.
“Leah’s okay,” she relayed in a whisper to Kade.
The relief was quick and obvious.
“Give me one reason,” he said to the caller, “why Bree and I would meet you and give you evidence?”
“One reason?” the person repeated. “Oh, I have a big one reason. Well, actually a small one, but I think it’ll be a very big reason to Bree and you. Check your email.”
Bree’s heart was still pounding like crazy, and she wanted to dismiss all of this as some kind of ploy, but that didn’t stop Kade and her from moving toward his laptop. It was already on so he clicked into his email and found a new one with an attachment.
“Click onto the link in the attachment,” the caller ordered.
Kade did, and the link took them to an online video. One with very poor quality. It appeared to be a dark room, so dark that Bree couldn’t make out anything in it.
“Let me move closer to the camera,” the caller said.
There was the sound of footsteps. Still no light. But as the footsteps got louder, she could just make out the image of someone. An adult. The person was cloaked in black. Maybe a cape with a hood. And the person was seated in a chair.
He or she was holding something.
Bree drew in her breath. Waited. And zoomed in on whatever was in the person’s arms.
Oh, God.
It was a baby.
“Leah!” she practically screamed when she saw the baby’s face.
“It’s not her,” Kade said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “It’s some kind of trick.”
Yes. Bree forced herself to remember that Grayson had just told her that Leah was all right. Kade’s brother wouldn’t have lied, and he hadn’t sounded under duress when he’d answered her.
“No trick,” the caller assured them, the cartoon voice sounding smug. “But the baby isn’t Leah.”
Bree shook her head. It was a real baby all right. Dressed in a pink dress and wrapped in a pink blanket, she was asleep, but Bree could see the face.
A face identical to Leah’s.
“Confused?” the caller mocked. “Well, I’ve been keeping a little secret. And the secret is the reason you’ll both come alone to the clinic and bring me those tapes.”
“Who’s baby is that?” Kade demanded.
The caller laughed. “Yours. Yours and Bree’s,” he corrected.
“What?” Bree managed to say. She had no choice but to drop down onto the bed.
Kade didn’t look too steady, either. “What do you mean?”
“I mean seven weeks ago, Bree gave birth to identical twin girls.”
“Oh, God,” Bree mumbled, and because she didn’t know what else to do, she kept repeating it.
She stared at the face, at the shadows, and could only shake her head. What was going on?
“Here’s the bottom line,” the caller continued, the horrible voice pouring through the room. “If you don’t want your second daughter to be sold on the black market, then you’ll be here alone at the clinic in one hour. I’ll trade the baby for the backups.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Wait!” Kade shouted into the phone.
But it was too late. The caller had already hung up. And his computer screen went blank. Someone had pulled the plug on the video feed.
Behind him, Bree was gasping and shaking her head.
“It is possible?” Kade asked. “Could you really have had twins?”
She looked at him, her eyes filled to the brim with tears. “I suppose so. They sedated me for the C-section.”
Kade cursed. Yes, it was possible this could be some kind of elaborate hoax, but it was too big of a risk to take to ignore it.
He wiped away her tears. “Get dressed. We’re going after the baby.”
Bree nodded, and even though she was shaky, she hurried to the bathroom where she’d left her clothes. Kade dressed, too, and he called his brother Grayson.
“We have a problem,” Kade said when Grayson answered. “I don’t have time to sugarcoat this or explain it other than to say I need those surveillance backups from SAPD. Someone called and wants the backups in exchange for a baby. A twin girl that Bree might have delivered when she had Leah.”
“What?” Grayson snapped.
Kade ignored his brother’s shock and the questions Grayson likely wanted answered now. “Just have an SAPD officer, one you can trust, meet us at the
intersection of Dalton and Reyes in San Antonio.”
“The Fulbright Clinic is near there. Kade, you’re not thinking—”
“Bree and I have to go in alone. That’s the condition.”
Grayson cursed. “But it could be dangerous. It could be a trap.”
Both of those were true. “What would you do if it were your child?” Kade fired back.
Grayson cursed again. “At least let me arrange to have some backup in the area.”
“Only if they stay far away and out of sight. I’m figuring this guy has already set up some kind of perimeter surveillance. They’ll know if we have someone with us.”
“Who did this?” Grayson pressed.
“When I know, I’ll you let know. For now, just get me those backups.”
Kade ended the call, knowing his brother would make it happen. After all, his other brother Nate, was an SAPD lieutenant, and he could do whatever it took to have those backups ready and waiting for them.
He hurried, dressing as fast as he could, and by the time he’d finished, Bree ran out of the bathroom. Dressed and looking ready to panic.
“We can do this,” he promised her and hoped it wasn’t a lie.
Kade put on his shoulder holster and ankle strap, filled both with guns and extra ammunition, and he took his backup weapon from the nightstand and handed it to Bree. She also grabbed some extra magazines of bullets and stuffed them into her pockets. They couldn’t go in there with guns blazing, not with a baby’s safety at stake, but Kade had no plans to go in unarmed, either.
They both ran down the stairs, but Kade used the security monitor by the door to make sure no one had sneaked onto the ranch. When he was sure it was safe, they hurried outside to his truck, and he drove away fast.
“What about the backups?” she asked.
“Grayson will get them.”
She nodded and made what sounded to be a breath of relief. But Kade knew neither of them would be in the relief mode until they figured out what the heck was going on.
“Think back,” he told her. He flew down the ranch road and onto the route that would take them to the interstate. “When you were pregnant, did you have any indications there was more than one baby?”
“Maybe.” Her forehead bunched up. “There was a lot of movement from the baby, a lot of kicking and moving around and I felt huge. But I figured plenty of pregnant women felt that way.”
“They do.” He’d gone through his sister-in-law’s pregnancy and now Grayson’s wife, and both had complained about their size. “What about an ultrasound?”
“They did one, but they didn’t let me see the monitor.”
Hell, probably because they hadn’t wanted her to know that it was twins.
But why keep that from her?
One baby or two, Bree wasn’t going to fight them back for fear of harming the child. Her captors had her exactly where they wanted her.
“The second baby is their ace in the hole,” Bree mumbled. And she groaned. “I remember Kirk using that term, but I thought he was talking about me. Or Leah. I had no idea he was talking about another baby.”
Kade mentally groaned, too. “What did Kirk say exactly?”
She lifted her hand in a gesture to indicate she was thinking about it. “He said it wouldn’t do any good for me to escape, that he had an ace in the hole.” Her gaze rifled to him. “But why would Kirk’s boss wait all these weeks to tell us about the other baby?”
Unfortunately, Kade had a theory about that. “Maybe the boss thought you were dead and if so, you couldn’t testify against him. When you resurfaced, that meant you became a threat.”
She turned in the seat toward him. “But Jamie’s the real threat because she’s the one who had those backups.”
He shook his head. “She wasn’t a threat as long as she kept the backups hidden. After all, those backups implicated her in a crime, too. She didn’t want the cops or us to have them. She wanted to hang on to them as her own ace in the hole.”
Bree pulled in her breath, nodded. “Then SAPD found the backups and now all of this has come to a showdown.”
A showdown where his baby could be in danger.
“Twins,” he said under his breath. He had to accept that it was possible. And that meant he had to do everything humanly possible to save his child.
“I’m sorry,” Bree whispered, her voice shaking hard. “I should have put all the little things together to know there was a second baby.”
“You couldn’t have known. This was all part of some sick plan, and keeping you in the dark was essential.” He took the ramp to the interstate. “But Jamie should have known. Even if she wasn’t there for your C-section, she must have heard Kirk talking to someone about it.”
“Yes,” Bree agreed. “So, why didn’t she say anything at the park?”
Kade could think of a reason. A bad one. Maybe Jamie was the person behind all of this. Those backups could have been her protection from Kirk’s boss.
Or Jamie could be the boss.
“This might be Jamie’s way of getting the backups back,” Kade pointed out.
Bree stayed quiet a moment and then nodded. “That would explain why we’re just now getting the news of the other baby.” Another pause. “There must be something incriminating that we don’t know about on those backups.”
Kade agreed. And the bad flip side to that was SAPD hadn’t had time to review them. Neither had Kade and Bree.
“It’s too big of a risk to take in fake backups,” Bree said. “And we can’t give him or her just one or two. This person knows how many backups there are.”
She took the words right out of his mouth. No, the person would almost certainly verify they were real before he or she handed over the baby.
And then what?
Kade didn’t like the scenarios that came to mind. But there was a possible good outcome.
Well, semigood.
“The person disguised his or her voice,” Kade explained, playing this through in his mind. “So, it’s possible we can do a safe exchange. The backups for the baby.”
“And we just walk out of there,” Bree added in a mumble.
Yeah. That was the best-case scenario. Kade didn’t want to do any bargaining with this SOB while the baby was still in the picture. Later, once they were all out of there, he’d move Bree, the twin and Leah to another safe location.
Then, he’d go after the person who’d orchestrated this.
Of course, that was just the beginning. If the second baby was real, then he had another child. To love and raise. To protect. Another custody issue to work out with Bree.
Since all of that was only clouding his mind, he pushed it aside and focused just on now. And now started with getting the backups.
Kade drove into San Antonio and kept an eye on both Bree and the clock. The caller had given them only an hour to deliver the backups, and half that time was already gone. He hated to think of what would happen if they were late.
He slowed down when he reached the intersection of Dalton and Reyes, and Kade’s heart nearly stopped when he didn’t see anyone waiting for them. But then, his brother Nate stepped from the side of a gas station. Kade mumbled a prayer of thanks and pulled in, stopping right next to Nate.
“The backups,” Nate said. He handed the evidence envelope to Kade when he lowered the window.
“Thanks.” Kade dropped the envelope on the seat between Bree and him. “Did this put your badge on the line?”
Nate shrugged. Meaning, it had.
“I’m sorry,” Kade told him. And he was. He knew how much the badge meant to Nate, but he also knew how much family meant to him. “Grayson told you about the baby?”
“Yeah.” Nate looked over his shoulder in the direction of the Fulbright clinic only a block away. “I put some SWAT guys on the roof.” He hitched his thumb to the three-story building not far from where they stood. “And I have six others waiting to respond. We haven’t seen anyone outside the clinic, but we’v
e only been here about ten minutes.”
Kade mumbled another thanks, took out his phone and set it so that he could reach Nate with just the touch of one button. “What about using infrared to get a glimpse of who’s inside?”
Nate shook his head. “We tried. No luck. The place used to be a radiology clinic, and infrared won’t penetrate the walls.”
Bree made a frustrated sound, and even though the timing sucked, Kade remembered that he hadn’t introduced Bree to this particular brother. But it would have to wait.
“Be careful,” Nate said, and he stepped back from the truck.
Kade nodded and drove away, making his way toward the clinic. Less than a year ago, Bree and he had to battle their way out of here and had run along this very street.
Maybe they wouldn’t have to do that again.
The thought of trying to escape with a baby under those circumstances sickened him.
Bree pulled in a hard breath when Kade came to a stop in the clinic’s parking lot. It was empty. Not another vehicle in sight. No lights, either. Even the ones in the parking lot were out—maybe because the caller had disabled them.
There was also a problem with the windows. Each one facing the parking lot had burglar bars. Thick metal rods jutting down the entire length of the glass. It would be impossible to use those to escape.
The moment Kade turned off the engine, his phone buzzed. The caller’s info had been blocked, just like before.
“Agent Ryland,” the scrambled voice greeted him when Kade answered. “So glad you made it. Do you have the backups?”
“I do,” Kade hesitantly answered.
“Excellent. Both of you enter the clinic through the front door. I’ve already unlocked it. You’re to put all your weapons and the backups on the floor—”
“I’ll give you the backups when you give us the baby,” Kade interrupted.
There was silence for several heart-stopping moments. “All right,” the caller finally said. “Then, let’s get this show on the road.”
The person ended the call, and Kade looked at Bree to make sure she was up to doing this. She was. Yes, she’d cried earlier, but there weren’t tears now. Just the determined face of a well-trained federal agent who would do anything to get her baby out of harm’s way.
Kade Page 15
