Nate

Darcy was far from convinced of that, but to the best of her knowledge, Dent was the only thing that connected Nate and her. Still, it didn’t matter at this point if Dent was the one responsible. They needed to find the van.

Nate’s cell phone rang, and without picking it up, he jabbed the button to answer the call on speaker.

“It’s Grayson,” the caller said.

The sheriff, and from what she’d heard, a very capable lawman. Darcy held her breath, praying that he had good news.

“Anything?” Nate immediately asked.

“No. But we’re putting everything in place.” He paused just a second. “Dade said you have Ms. Burkhart in the vehicle with you.”

“Yeah. She jumped in as I was driving away.”

The sheriff mumbled something she didn’t catch, but it sounded like profanity. “I shouldn’t have to remind you that if you find this van, you should wait for backup. You two shouldn’t try to do this alone.”

Nate paused, too. “No, we shouldn’t. But if I see that van, nothing is going to stop me. Just make sure you have a noose around the area. I don’t want them getting away.”

“They won’t. Now, tell me about this note you gave Dade.”

“It said, ‘Nate Ryland and Darcy Burkhart, we have them. Cooperate or you’ll never see your babies again.’ And yes, I know what that means.” Nate tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “They won’t harm the children because they want them for leverage. I think this is connected to a man named Wesley Dent. Call my captain and have Dent brought in for questioning. Beat the truth out of him if necessary.”

Darcy knew she should object to that. She believed in the law with her whole heart. But her son’s safety suddenly seemed above the law.

“I don’t suppose it’d do any good to ask you to come back to the station,” Grayson said. “We have plenty of people out looking for the van.”

“I’m not coming back. Not until—” Nate’s eyes widened, and she followed his gaze to what had grabbed his attention.

Oh, mercy. There was a black van on the side street. It was moving but not at a high speed.

Noah could be in there.

“I just spotted the possible escape vehicle on Elmore Road,” Nate relayed to his brother. “It’s on the move, and I’m in pursuit.”

Nate turned his car on what had to be two wheels at most, and with the tires squealing, he maneuvered onto the narrow road. There were houses here, spaced far apart, but thankfully there didn’t seem to be any other traffic. Good thing, too, because Nate floored the accelerator and tore through the normally quiet neighborhood.

So did the driver of the van.

He sped up, which meant he had no doubt seen them. Not that she’d expected them to be able to sneak up on the vehicle, but Darcy had hoped they would be able to get closer so she could look inside the windows.

Nate read off the license-plate number to his brother, who was still on the line, though she could hear the sheriff making other calls. Grayson was assembling backup for Nate. She only prayed they wouldn’t need it, that they could resolve this here and now.

“Can you try to shoot out the tires or something?” she asked.

“Not with the kids inside. Too risky.”

Of course, it was. She obviously wasn’t thinking clearly and wouldn’t until she had her baby safely in her arms. “How will we get it to stop?”

“Grayson will have someone at the other end of this road. Once the guy realizes he can’t escape, he’ll stop.”

Maybe. And maybe that shoot-out would happen, after all. Darcy tried not to give in to the fear, but she got a double dose of it when the van sped over a hill and disappeared out of sight.

“Are there side roads?” she asked. She’d never been on Elmore or in this particular part of Silver Creek.

“Yeah. Side roads and old ranch trails.”

That didn’t help with the fear, and she held her breath until Nate’s car barreled over the hill. There, about a quarter of a mile in front of them, she could see the van. But not for long. The driver went around a deep curve and disappeared again.

It seemed to take hours for Nate to reach that same curve, and he was going so fast that he had to grapple with the steering wheel to remain in control. The tires on her side scraped against the gravel shoulder and sent a spray of rocks pelting into the car’s undercarriage. It sounded like gunshots, and that made her terror worse.

They came out of the curve, only to go right into another one. Nate seemed to realize it was coming because he was already steering in that direction.

Darcy prayed that it wouldn’t be much longer before Grayson or someone else approached from the other side of the road so they could stop this chase. She didn’t want to risk the van crashing into one of the trees that dotted the sides of the road.

She could hear the chatter on Nate’s cell, which was still on speaker. People were responding. Everything was in motion, but the truth was Nate and she were the ones who were closest to the van. They were their children’s best bet for rescue.

“Hold on,” Nate warned as he took another turn. “And put on your seat belt.”

Her hands were shaking, but she managed to get the belt pulled across her. She was still fumbling with the latch when their car came out of yet another curve followed by a hill.

The moment they reached the top of the hill, she saw the van.

And Darcy’s heart went to her knees.

“Stop!” she yelled.

Nate was already trying to do just that. He slammed on the brakes. But they were going too fast. And the van was sideways, right in the middle of the road. The vehicle wasn’t moving, and there was no way for Nate to avoid it.

Darcy screamed.

Just as they crashed head-on into the black van.

Chapter Three

Nate heard the screech of his brakes as the asphalt ripped away at the tires. There was nothing he could do.

Nothing.

Except pray and try to brace himself for the impact.

He didn’t have to wait long.

The car slammed into the van, tossing Darcy and him around like rag dolls. The air bags deployed, slapping into them and sending a cloud of the powdery dust all through the car’s interior.

It was all over in a split second. The whiplashing impact. The sounds of metal colliding with metal.

Nate was aware of the pain in his body from having his muscles wrenched around. The mix of talc and cornstarch powder from the air bag robbed him of what little breath he had. But now that he realized he had survived the crash, he had one goal.

To get to the children.

Nate prayed they hadn’t been hurt.

He lifted his head, trying to listen. He didn’t hear anyone crying or anyone moaning in pain. That could be good.

Or very bad.

Next to him, Darcy began to punch at the air bag that had pinned her to the seat. He glanced at her, just to make sure she wasn’t seriously injured. She had a few nicks on her face from the air bag, and her shoulder-length dark brown hair was now frosted with the talc mixture, but she was fighting as hard as he was to get out of the vehicle. No doubt to check on her son.

“When we get out, stay behind me and let me do the talking,” Nate warned her.

Though he doubted his warning would do any good. If the kidnappers hadn’t been injured or, better yet, incapacitated, then this was going to get ugly fast.

Nate got a better grip on his gun and opened his door. Or rather, that’s what he tried to do. The door was jammed, and he had to throw his weight against it to force it open. He got out, his boots sinking into the soggy shoulder of the road, and got a good look at the damage. The front end of his car was a mangled heap, and it had crumpled the side of the van, creating a deep V in the exterior.

Still no sounds of crying. In fact, there were no sounds at all coming from the van.

“I’m Lieutenant Nate Ryland,” he called out. “Release the hostages now!”

He waited, praying that his demand wouldn’t be answered with a hail of bullets. Anything he did right now was a risk and could make it more dangerous for the children, but he couldn’t just stand there. He had to try something to get Kimmie and Noah away from their kidnappers.

In the distance he could hear a siren from one of the sheriff department’s cruisers. The sound was coming from the opposite direction so that meant Grayson or one of the other deputies would soon be there. But Nate didn’t intend to wait for backup to arrive. His daughter could be hurt inside that van, and he had to check on her.

Darcy finally managed to fight her way out of the wrecked car, and she hit the ground running. Or rather, limping. However, the limping didn’t stop her. She went straight for the van. Nate would have preferred for her to wait until he’d had time to assess things, but he knew there was no stopping her, not with her son inside.

“Noah?” she shouted.

Still no answer.

That didn’t stop Darcy, either, and she would have thrown open the back doors of the van if Nate hadn’t stepped in front of her and muscled her aside. This could be an ambush with the kidnappers waiting inside to gun them down, but these SOBs obviously wanted Darcy and him for something. Maybe that something meant they would keep them alive.

“Kimmie?” Nate called out, and he cautiously opened the van doors while he kept his gun aimed and ready.

It took him a moment to pick through the debris and the caved-in side, but what he saw had him cursing.

No one was there. Not in the seats, not in the back cargo area. Not even behind the wheel.

A sob tore from Darcy’s mouth, and if Nate hadn’t caught her, she likely would have collapsed onto the ground.

“Where are they?” she begged. And she just kept repeating it.

Nate glanced all around them. There were thick woods on one side of the road and an open meadow on the other. The grass didn’t look beaten down on the meadow side so that left the woods. He shoved his hand over Darcy’s mouth so he could hear any sounds. After all, two gunmen and three hostages should be making lots of sounds.

But he heard nothing other than Darcy’s frantic mumbles and the approaching siren.

“They were here,” Nate said more to himself than Darcy, but she stopped and listened. He took the hand from her mouth. “That’s Kimmie’s diaper bag.” It was lying right against the point of impact.

“And that’s Noah’s bear,” Darcy said, reaching for the toy.

Nate pulled her back. Yes, the children had likely been here, but so had the kidnappers. The diaper bag and the toy bear might have to be analyzed. Unless Nate found the children and kidnappers first.

And that’s exactly what he intended to do.

“Wait here,” he told Darcy. “I need to figure out where they went.” He tried not to think of his terrified baby being hauled through the woods by armed kidnappers, but he knew it was possible.

By God when he caught up to these men, they were going to pay, and pay hard.

“Look!” Darcy shouted.

Nate followed the direction of her pointing index finger and spotted the name tag. It was identical to the ones he’d seen Tara and the other woman wearing in the preschool. This one had the name Marlene Lambert, a woman he’d known his whole life. Her father’s ranch was just one property over from his family’s.

“The name tag looks as if it was ripped off her,” Darcy mumbled.

Maybe. It wasn’t just damaged—one of the four crayons had been removed. He glanced around the name tag and spotted the missing yellow crayon. It was right at the base of the rear doors.

“She wrote something.” Darcy pointed to the left door at the same moment Nate’s attention landed on it.

There was a single word, three letters, scrawled on the metal, but Nate couldn’t make out what it said. Later, he would try to figure it out, but for now he raced away from the van and to the edge of the road that fronted the woods.

Nate didn’t see any footprints or any signs of activity so he began to run, looking for anything that would give them a clue where the children had been taken. Darcy soon began to do the same and went in the opposite direction.

He glanced up when Dade’s truck squealed to a stop. His brother had put the portable siren on top of his truck, but thankfully now he turned it off. Unlike Darcy and Nate, Dade was coming from a straight part of the road and had no doubt seen the collision in time. That was why Nate hadn’t bothered to go back to his car and try to retrieve his cell phone so he could alert whoever would be coming from that direction.

“They’re not inside,” Nate relayed to his brother, and he kept looking.

Dade cursed. “There’s a helicopter on the way,” he let Nate know. “And I’ll call the Rangers and get a tracker out here. Mason, too,” Dade added the same moment that Nate said their brother’s name.

Mason was an expert horseman, and he was their best bet at finding the children in these thick woods. First, though, Nate needed to find the point at which they’d left the road. That would get him started in the right direction.

And he finally found it.

Footprints in the soft shoulder of the road.

“Here!” he called out to his brother. But Nate didn’t wait for Dade to reach him. Nor did he follow directly in the footsteps. He hurried to the side in case the prints were needed for evidence, and there were certainly a lot of them if castings were needed.

But something was wrong.

Hell.

“There’s only one set of footprints,” Nate relayed to Dade.

Dade cursed too and fanned out to Nate’s left, probably looking for more prints. There should be at least three sets since the adults would be carrying the babies.

“The person who made this set of prints could be a diversion,” Nate concluded, and he hurried to the other side of the road, hoping to find the real trail there.

Darcy quickly joined him. She was still limping, and blood was trickling down the side of her head. He hoped like the devil she wasn’t in need of immediate medical attention or on the verge of a panic attack. He needed her help, her eyes, because these first few minutes were critical.

“Go that way,” Nate instructed, pointing in the opposite direction where he intended to look.

He ran, checking each section of the pasture for any sign that anyone had been there. He knew the kidnappers weren’t on the road itself because Darcy and he had come from one end and Dade the other. If two kidnappers and three hostages had been anywhere near the road, they would have seen them.

Nate made it about a hundred yards from the collision site when he heard Dade’s cell ring. He didn’t stop looking, but he tried to listen, hoping that his brother was about to get good news. Judging from the profanity Dade used, he hadn’t.

“This van’s a decoy,” Dade shouted.

Nate stopped and whirled around. Darcy did the same and began to run back toward Dade. “What do you mean?”

“I mean two other eyewitnesses spotted black vans identical to this one.”

Darcy made it to Dade, and she latched on to his arm. “But there’s proof the children were inside. Noah’s bear and Kimmie’s diaper bag. Marlene’s name tag is there, too.”

Dade looked at Nate when he answered. “This was probably the van initially used in the kidnapping, but the children and Marlene were transferred to another vehicle. Maybe they were even split up since at least two other vans were seen around town.”

Nate had already come to that conclusion, and it made him sick to his stomach. He couldn’t choke back the groan. Nor could he fight back the overwhelming sense of fear.

“If they split up, then there are probably more than two of them,” Nate mumbled.

That meant things had gone from bad to worse. The kidnappers could have an entire team of people helping them, and heaven knows what kind of vehicle they had used to transfer the children.

Nate was betting it wasn’t a black van.

It could have been any kind of vehicle. Darcy and he could have driven right past the damn thing and wouldn’t have even noticed it.

“We have people out on the roads,” Dade reminded them. “More are coming in. And there’s an Amber Alert and an APB out on the van. SAPD and all other law-enforcement officers in the area will stop any van matching the description. We’ll find them, Nate. I swear, we’ll find them.”

Nate checked his watch. About twenty minutes had passed. That was a lifetime in a situation like this. The kidnappers could already have reached the interstate.

“I’ll take you back to the sheriff’s office,” Dade insisted. He glanced down at Darcy. In addition to the nicks on her face, her jacket was torn, and there were signs of a bruise on her knee. “You need to see a medic.”

“No!” she practically shouted. “I need to find my baby.”

But the emotional outburst apparently drained her because the tears came, and Nate hooked his arm around her waist. He didn’t feel much like comforting her, or anyone else, for that matter, but the sad truth was there was only one person who knew exactly how he felt.

And that was Darcy.

She sagged against him and dropped her head on his shoulder. “We have to keep looking,” she begged.

“We will.” Nate looked at his brother. “We need another vehicle. And I need to call the San Antonio crime lab so they can come out and collect this van.” Silver Creek didn’t have the CSI capabilities that SAPD did, and Nate wanted as many people on this as possible.

Nate adjusted Darcy’s position so he could get her moving to Dade’s truck, but he stopped when he took another look at the scrawled letters written in yellow crayon. He eased away from Darcy and walked closer.

“You think Marlene wrote that?” Dade asked.

Nate nodded. “She might have tried to leave us a message.” He studied those three letters. “L-A-R,” he read aloud.

“Lar?” Dade shook his head, obviously trying to figure it out, too.

“Maybe it’s someone’s initials,” Darcy suggested. She moved between Dade and Nate, and leaned in. “Maybe she’s trying to tell us the identity of the person who took her.”

It was possible. Of course, that would mean it wasn’t Wesley Dent, and it would also mean Marlene had known her kidnapper. That possibility tightened the knot in Nate’s stomach. But there was something more here.

Something familiar.

Dade rattled off names of people who might fit those initials. He only managed two—an elderly couple with the last name of Reeves. Nate figured neither was capable of this. But his own surname began with an R.

Did that mean anything?

“A street name, then,” Darcy pressed.

Dade lifted his phone and snapped a picture. “Come on. Let’s go. We’ll try to work it out on the drive back to the sheriff’s office.”

It was a good plan, but Nate couldn’t take his attention off those three letters. They were familiar, something right on the tip of his tongue.

“Let’s go,” Darcy urged. She tugged on Nate’s arm to get him moving.

They only made it a few steps before Nate heard a phone ring. Not Dade’s. The sound was coming from his wrecked car, and it was his phone. He hurried toward it, but it stopped ringing just as he got there. He located his cell in the rubble and saw the missed call.

The number and caller’s identity had been blocked.

Hell. It had probably been the kidnappers. “It could have been the ransom call.”

“Try to call them back,” Darcy insisted. But the words had hardly left her mouth when another phone rang. “That’s my cell.” She frantically tore through the debris to locate her purse. She jerked out the phone and jabbed the button to answer it.

She pressed the phone to her ear, obviously listening, but she didn’t say a word. When the color drained from her face, Nate moved closer.

“But—” That was all she managed to say.

Nate wanted the call on speaker so he could hear, but he couldn’t risk trying to press any buttons on her phone. He darn sure didn’t want to disconnect the call. All he could do was wait.

“I want my son. Give me back my son!” she shouted. The tears welled up in her eyes and quickly began to spill down her cheeks. Several seconds later, Darcy’s hand went limp, the phone dropping away from her ear.

Nate snatched the phone from her, but the call had already ended.

“Who was it and what did they say?” Nate demanded. He caught her by the shoulders and positioned her so that it forced eye contact.

She groaned and shook her head. “The person had a mechanical voice, like he was speaking through some kind of machine, but I think it was a man. He said he had the children and Marlene and that if we wanted them back, he would soon be in touch. Then he hung up.”

“That’s it? That’s all he said?” Nate tried to calm down but couldn’t. “He didn’t say if the kids were safe?”

“No,” she insisted.

Nate took her phone. He tried the return-call function on his cell first. It didn’t go through. Instead he got a recording about the number no longer being in service. The same thing happened when he tried to retrieve the call from Darcy’s phone.

A dead end.

But maybe it was just a temporary one.

Dade gathered both cells. “I’ll see if we can get anything about the caller from these. Darcy, you need to write down everything you can remember from that conversation because each word could be important.”

She nodded and smeared the tears from her cheeks. “Let’s get that other vehicle so we can look for them.”

Nate agreed, but he stopped and stared at the three letters written on the door of the van.

LAR.

“I already have a picture of it,” Dade reminded him. “You can study it later.”

Nate cursed. “I don’t need to study it.” He started to run toward Nate’s truck. “I know what Marlene is trying to tell us. I know where we can find the children.”

Chapter Four

“LAR,” Darcy said under her breath.

Lost Appaloosa Ranch.

Well, maybe that’s what the initials meant. Of course, Nate could be wrong, and it could turn out to be a wild-goose chase. A chase that could cost them critical time because it tied up manpower that could be directed somewhere other than the remote abandoned ranch. According to Nate, the owner had died nearly a year ago, and his mortgage lender was still trying to contact his next of kin.

“Hurry,” Darcy told the medic again. And yes, she glared at him. She’d spent nearly fifteen minutes in the Silver Creek sheriff’s office, and that was fifteen minutes too long.

Darcy didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be out looking for Noah, but instead here she was, sitting at the sheriff’s desk while a medic stitched her up. God knows how she’d gotten the cut right on her hairline, and she didn’t care.

She didn’t care about anything but her son.

“I’m trying to hurry,” the medic assured her.

She knew from his name tag that he was Tommy Watters, and while she hated being rude to him, she couldn’t stop herself. She had to do something. Anything.

Like Nate and his four brothers were doing.

Just a few yards away from her, Nate was on the phone, his tone and motions frantic, while he talked with the helicopter pilot, who was trying to narrow down the search zone.

“No,” Nate instructed. “Don’t do a direct fly over the Lost Appaloosa. I already have someone en route, and if the kidnappers are there, I don’t want to alert them. I want you to focus on the roads that lead to the interstate.”

Nate had a map spread out on the desk, and every line on the desk phone was blinking. Next door, Deputy Melissa Garza was barking out orders to a citizens’ patrol group that was apparently being formed to assist in the hunt for the kidnappers and the babies. The dispatcher was helping her.

Grayson, Dade and Mason were all out searching various parts of Silver Creek, interviewing witnesses and running down leads on the other black vans that had been spotted. The other deputy, Luis Lopez, was at the day care in case the kidnappers returned.