Reining in Justice

Again, she had to fight through the panic so she could answer. Where the heck was that SUV?

“I just asked Rooney to do background checks on the lawyers and the woman who gave birth to Emily,” she answered.

And maybe Rooney had found something. But what? What could he have found that would have sent a team of kidnappers after her baby?

“You’re bleeding,” Reed let her know. And he grabbed a handful of tissues from a box between the seats and pressed it against her head.

She didn’t feel the blood. Didn’t feel any pain at all and was about to push the tissues away when Reed rounded the next curve.

There. Just ahead.

The SUV.

Not driving away from them.

It had stopped right in the middle of the road.

Reed cursed, slammed on his brakes, and tried to push her down onto the seat. Addison batted him away because there was no chance she would stay out of this. Not after what she saw in front of them.

There was a man dressed all in black holding Emily.

At least she was pretty sure it was her baby. Addison couldn’t see any part of the baby’s face, but she recognized the blanket. It was the pink one that’d been in Emily’s crib.

“Wait!” Reed shouted when Addison bolted from the truck.

She didn’t listen. Addison hurried out and faced the man head-on. He had a gun in his right hand, the baby cradled in his left arm, but he didn’t take aim at her.

Addison soon realized why.

There were two other gunmen inside the SUV, and both of them had weapons trained on Reed and her. One of them was slumped forward, bleeding, but that might not affect his aim.

Reed got out and pointed his gun at the driver.

“Give me the baby,” Addison insisted.

Even though she still had hold of her gun, she also didn’t aim it at the men. She didn’t want to give them any reason to start shooting again.

Addison glanced around to make sure another vehicle wasn’t coming. This wasn’t a busy road, but that didn’t mean the deputy, Colt, or someone else couldn’t come around the corner and crash into them. It was early, and there was still some slick moisture on the road surface. Not the best place for an impromptu meeting, but at least she had her baby in front of her.

“We’ll trade the kid for you,” the man said, tipping his head to Addison. He was big. Well over six feet tall and had bulky shoulders. It was the same man she’d seen on her porch before she was hit.

“No,” Reed answered. “Hand her the baby and drop your weapon. You, too,” he added to the others. “I want those guns on the ground now.”

Reed sounded like the cowboy cop that he was. A man with a badge and in charge. However, she hadn’t expected the kidnappers just to do as he’d ordered.

And they didn’t.

The man holding Emily stared at Addison. “You want to save her? Then get in the SUV with us now.”

Addison wanted to do just that if it would get Emily safely out of there. But she had just enough sanity left to know this was almost certainly a trick. If she got into the vehicle, there was nothing to stop them from killing Reed and driving away with both Emily and her.

Still, she’d be with her baby.

“Don’t,” Reed warned her when Addison took a step toward the man.

“It’s the only way,” the man insisted. “We have to know what you learned and who you told.”

That stopped Addison in her tracks, and she shook her head. “I didn’t learn anything.”

“Time’s up,” the driver said, ignoring her denial. He pointed his gun right at her. “We need to get out of here now.”

She braced herself for an attack. But it didn’t happen. The man holding Emily charged forward, and he thrust the baby toward Reed. Addison got a glimpse of what was inside the blanket then.

Emily!

The relief was instant. Thank God. And her baby appeared to be unharmed. She was awake and flailing her arms around as if she was about to start crying.

“Take her!” Addison shouted to Reed.

Reed did. He moved fast, and he scooped the baby from the man’s arms. In the same motion, the gunman reached out for Addison, and he probably would have managed to latch on to her arm if the sound hadn’t distracted him. The kidnapper glanced up when the vehicle came around the corner.

It was Colt.

The deputy had obviously taken the turn too fast and was in a full skid. His dark blue truck flew past them just as Reed got the baby inside his own vehicle.

Addison ran there, too, racing toward Emily. However, she’d barely made it a step when Colt’s truck crashed right into the side of the SUV. The air was suddenly filled with the sounds of metal scraping against metal.

The gunman shouted something but got out of the way in time. He was just a blur of motion from the corner of Addison’s eye, and she didn’t wait to see where he’d land or what would happen next.

She hurried as fast as she could back toward Reed’s truck, jumped inside and scooped the baby up into her arms.

Emily didn’t cry. The baby only looked up at Addison as if trying to figure out what was going on.

“Get down!” Reed yelled.

This time, Addison did exactly as he said. She dropped to the floor, sheltering Emily’s body with hers.

She heard the squeal of the tires on the asphalt.

Followed by a shot.

Addison looked up in time to see the bashed-in SUV coming right toward them. Obviously the crash hadn’t disabled the engine.

There was no time for Reed to get his truck out of the way. He could only brace himself for a collision, and Addison tried to do the same. The SUV was damaged, banged up on the side where Colt’s truck had hit it, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t have a hard enough impact to hurt the baby.

Reed managed to get off a shot to try to stop the driver, but the bullet skipped off the roof of the SUV just as it darted around his truck.

And the kidnappers sped away.

Chapter Three

Reed finished his call with the sheriff and watched as the medic put the bandage on Addison’s head. She didn’t even react. She had her attention solely on the baby cradled in her arms. The little girl seemed to be sleeping peacefully now, but Emily still occasionally sucked the bottle that the nurse had made for her.

The medic had cleaned away the blood from Addison’s forehead, but there was a dark blue bruise already forming. The same color as her troubled eyes.

“Any sign of the kidnappers?” Addison asked the moment Reed put his phone away. She was still ash pale except for that bruise, and along with the relief of being safe at the hospital, he could also see the fear etched on her face.

Reed had to shake his head. “Not yet. But everyone’s out looking for them. Plus, there’s a CSI team headed out to your place. They might find some prints or DNA to tell us who they were.”

After all, Reed had shot one of them, so there’d be blood in the backyard. If the guy was in the system, then they could get a match, and in Reed’s experience, once they had a name, they could start figuring out what had gone on. People generally didn’t commit assorted felonies, including attempted kidnapping and murder, for no reason.

“Thank you,” Addison told Reed when the medic walked away. “You saved our lives.”

True, but only because they’d gotten lucky by being in the right place at the right time. Reed hated it’d taken something as fragile as luck to make that happen.

Luck might not be on their side again.

After the SUV sped away, his lawman’s instincts had been for him to turn his truck around and go in pursuit, but it would have been too big a risk. Those gunmen could have started shooting again. Reed wanted to catch the dirtbags, but he hadn’t wanted to do that by putting Addison, the baby and even Colt in further danger.

Even though the adrenaline was still pumping through him, Reed forced himself to sit down next to Addison in the E.R. examining stall. Over the past year he’d completely avoided any contact with his ex, and she’d done the same with him. But this wasn’t personal now.

He repeated that to himself.

Funny, but it always felt personal with Addison, and that wasn’t personal in a good way. Too many old, bad memories were in the mix, too.

Before the split, they’d been married for nearly three years, had dated five years before that, but their long relationship had soured big-time when Addison pressed and pressed him to have kids.

And they’d tried despite his reservations about fatherhood and the strain that pregnancy would put on her body.

However, her infertility had only added to their differences. One failed in vitro procedure after another, and they’d finally pulled the plug a year ago on both the baby plans and the marriage, and he had filed for a divorce. Addison had moved to San Antonio, and Reed had thought he might never see her again.

Clearly, he’d been wrong about that, because here she was and apparently in a boatload of trouble.

“I was only going to be here a few weeks,” Addison volunteered. “Just enough time to get the place ready to sell. If they’d come after me while I was at my apartment in San Antonio, they might have succeeded in taking her.”

It was true, but Reed didn’t bother confirming it. Addison was already shaken up enough. “Did the P.I., Blake Rooney, visit you at your apartment?”

She nodded. “He came earlier this week.”

Reed didn’t like the timing of that. “Did you tell him you were coming to your late aunt’s place here in Sweetwater Springs?”

Addison shook her head, at first, but then the alarm went through her eyes. “He saw my suitcases and baby things and asked if I was going on a trip. I told him I’d inherited a house and was going to sell it. You think Rooney had something to do with those kidnappers?”

“Maybe. Colt’s trying to contact him now,” Reed explained. “We’ll make sure he’s okay and bring him in for questioning.”

It was possible Rooney had indeed suspected something illegal about Emily’s adoption or had even been a part of it. That was Reed’s top theory now. But it must have been many steps past being bad for someone to send three armed men to steal whatever the P.I. had discovered.

Or to learn what Addison might have done.

If she had indeed participated in an illegal adoption, then someone might have wanted to cover it up. The problem was she might not even have known she’d done anything illegal. That meant Addison would need to be questioned thoroughly to make sure everything was aboveboard.

The door to the examining room opened, and a nurse stuck her head in. “You’ll be able to go soon. Just waiting on the paperwork from the doctor.”

Soon couldn’t come soon enough for Reed. He needed to put some space between Addison and him, but that wouldn’t happen until he started to get some answers to all those questions he had.

“Why’d you decide to go ahead and adopt a baby?” Reed asked, figuring it was a simple enough question and a good way to go back to the beginning. “Being a single parent couldn’t have been an easy decision for you.”

Something flashed through Addison’s eyes. Maybe because this wasn’t exactly a safe subject for them. After all, it’d been at the root of their breakup.

“I’m thirty-four and decided not to wait any longer for the right fertility treatment,” she finally answered. “Or wait for Mr. Right, for that matter. Haven’t had much luck in that department.”

She paused just long enough for him to understand he was in the Mr. Wrong category, but Reed hadn’t needed the pause to get that.

“You know how much I’ve always wanted to be a mom,” she added a moment later.

He did, and that said it all. Addison had wanted it and had gone for it. But maybe in going for it, she had cut the wrong kinds of corners.

“If you hired Rooney, you must have suspected something wasn’t right,” Reed tossed out there.

She got that look in her eyes again, as if this was the last thing on earth she wanted to discuss. Tough. They were discussing it.

“Not suspected. But I was worried,” she explained, “because of all the things I was hearing.”

Yeah, he got that, too. The black-market baby rings had been all over the news. Pregnant women had been kidnapped and their babies sold. In some cases, the birth mothers had been murdered, but others had escaped. Maybe Addison had wanted to make sure one of those escapees wasn’t Emily’s real birth mother. If so, that birth mother could step in and take Emily from her long after the adoption had been finalized.

“Could this be related to something...well, personal?” he asked. “Like maybe a boyfriend or ex who wants to get back at you?”

She shook her head, seemingly relieved, and looked away. “You’re the only ex I have who hates me.”

Reed opened his mouth to say he didn’t hate her. That he only hated the demands she’d put on him to become a father.

However, it was best not to go there.

“But, no. There’s no recent ex. No recent anything since Emily,” Addison said.

Maybe, but Reed kept pressing. “What about your job? Are you still working as an accountant?”

Another nod. “But I’m not working on anything that’d cause kidnappers to come after Emily and me. I’m sure,” she added before he could challenge that.

“I’ll need a list of all your recent clients anyway,” Reed continued. Addison dealt with people’s bank accounts and such, and it was possible someone hadn’t wanted her to uncover some illegal activity.

“I’ll give you whatever you need to find those men,” she said, her voice shaky again. Actually, she was shaky, too. The room wasn’t cold, but he figured she was about to deal with an adrenaline crash.

A sob tore from her mouth, and she leaned her head against him. Reed would have had to be a coldhearted jerk to push her away. But he made things a lot worse by putting his arm around her and pulling her against him.

“I’m scared,” Addison whispered.

She had reason to be scared, but Reed didn’t voice that. Nor did he ease her away though the shaking started to ease up a little.

He settled for saying, “I don’t think these guys were amateurs. They could have killed you the moment they broke into your house. They didn’t. Instead they wanted to know what you’d learned and who you’d told. Maybe about the adoption, maybe about something else. I think that’s why they took your files, laptop and cell phone.”

“Oh, God.” Addison got to her feet so fast that she startled the baby. “Last night I called Jewell at the county jail.” She frantically shook her head. “I just wanted to tell her about Emily.”

Of course. Jewell. Yet another source of bad blood between them.

Jewell McKinnon and Addison were friends despite their age difference, and Jewell was his boss’s estranged mother. Estranged in a very bad way because twenty-three years ago, Jewell had abandoned her sons and husband and left town under a cloud of suspicion that she’d murdered her lover. Well, the suspicion had caught up with her, and now Jewell was in jail waiting on her upcoming murder trial.

A trial that would put Addison and Reed at odds yet again since Addison believed Jewell was 100 percent innocent. He thought the woman was as guilty as sin. Plus, Reed wasn’t exactly fond of Jewell abandoning people he cared about—like Jewell’s sons.

“Call the county jail,” she insisted. “Make sure these men don’t go after Jewell.”

“The jail’s secure,” Reed reminded her, and he tried to make her sit back down. “If those men show up there, they’ll be caught.”

Of course, Reed doubted they’d get that lucky or the men would be that stupid. It was ironic, but right now Jewell was safer than the rest of them.

“I also called my attorney, Dominic Harrelson,” Addison quickly added. “You think they’d go after him?”

Reed couldn’t rule that out so he made a quick call to the sheriff, Cooper McKinnon, and asked him to have someone check on the attorney. “Who else did you contact?” he pressed when he’d finished the call.

“No one. I’ve been spending all my time with Emily. I haven’t had much time for anything else.”

For the investigation, that was a good thing. Fewer contacts meant fewer people might be in danger.

Of course, Reed had no idea how many people were involved in this.

The door opened again, and Reed automatically moved away from Addison so he could stand in front of her. However, it wasn’t the kidnappers or the nurse. But rather Colt. And Reed hadn’t moved fast enough away from Addison, because Colt had seen the close contact between them.

Colt frowned, added something that Reed didn’t need to catch to understand. His fellow deputy certainly knew the emotional wringer Reed had been through with Addison and the divorce. Reed was right there with Colt in the disapproval department, and he made a note to keep his hands off Addison.

Reed soon realized, though, it wasn’t just the close-contact stuff that’d put the look on Colt’s face. Colt and he had been deputies together for over six years, and that was plenty enough time for Reed to know something was wrong.

“Before the CSI team could get out there and have a look around, someone torched Addison’s house,” Colt explained. He’d said it practically under his breath, but Addison must have heard it, because she gasped and clutched the baby even closer to her.

“They burned down my aunt’s house?” she asked. And even though Reed had told himself that there’d be no more close contact, he took hold of Addison again because she looked ready to sink to the floor.

“They did cleanup, too, of the blood in the yard,” Colt added. “Still, they might have left something behind.”

Addison was mumbling, shaking her head.

And crying.

Yes, the tears came, too, but Reed tried to focus on what this turn of events meant. The men were pros, definitely. Someone with lots of money and with a whopper of a motive. But what?

Everything that Addison had said and done in the past couple of days could be critical to finding out what they wanted.

And how to stop them.

“I have to get out of here,” Addison insisted.

Colt and Reed exchanged glances. “She needs to give us a statement about what happened,” Colt reminded him.

Reed hadn’t forgotten that, but he also didn’t think Addison was in any shape to do it right now. Except he rethought that when he looked at her. She was still pale. Still well past the shaky stage, but she met him eye to eye.

“What can I do to stop them?” she asked.

That was a good question, but it wasn’t the foremost one in Reed’s mind. “We’ll be the ones doing the stopping. You need to be in protective custody.”

She blinked. “Yours?”

Reed went through the options. There weren’t that many.

Either Addison would have to be with him or she’d have to stay with one of Jewell’s sons—sons who disliked Addison because of her friendship with their murdering, abandoning mother. With the trial bearing down on them, that would breach all sorts of legal issues because Addison would no doubt be called as a character witness for Jewell.

“I’ll stay with you for now,” Reed said. But he’d remedy that soon even if he had to call in the Rangers or the marshals.

“Take her statement, Reed,” Colt added over his shoulder as he left.

He intended to do just that, but something wasn’t right here. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. That something wasn’t right feeling only got worse when Addison dodged his gaze again.

“Who was involved in the adoption?” he asked Addison, and that was when Reed noticed she’d gone pale again.

Hell.

“You did cut corners,” he spat out.

She swallowed hard. “Not like you’re thinking. I went through a private agency called Dearborn, but they don’t only do adoptions.” She paused, gathered her breath. “They have surrogates.”

“Surrogates,” he repeated. Reed gave that a moment to sink in.

It didn’t sink in well.

Oh, man.

“I hired a surrogate to carry her,” she said. Addison’s gaze came to his. “Emily is our baby.”

Chapter Four

The only thing Addison could do now was wait for the fallout. And there would be fallout. She was certain of it. She’d just delivered a bombshell to Reed. One that was going to make him hate her even more than he already did.

If that was possible.

Reed’s gaze rifled from her. To Emily. And back again.

“Oh, man,” he said, and Reed just kept repeating it while he got up and went to the other side of the stall. As far away from Addison as he could get.

“I’m sorry,” Addison said.

That covered a multitude of things but not Emily herself. Addison wasn’t sorry at all that she had her precious little girl, but she’d made mistakes to get the baby.

Well, one big mistake anyway.

Reed groaned, put his hands on the sides of his head and turned away from her. For several long moments he stood there, repeating that “Oh, man” before he swung back around to face her.

“It’s true,” Reed said. Not a question exactly, but Addison nodded. “How? Why?” he asked.

His questions no doubt covered a multitude of things, too, so Addison started from the beginning. Well, the beginning after the end of their marriage, that is. The past year had been eventful to say the least.

“Six weeks after we separated, I got the divorce papers your lawyer sent. Even though I’d known they were coming, I was still shaken up.” A massive understatement, but it wasn’t something Reed would want to hear now.

Maybe not ever.

He’d washed his hands of their marriage and wasn’t the sort to take treks down memory lane.

“As you know, I’d already had two miscarriages and three failed in vitro procedures, and there was only one of our embryos left in storage,” she continued. “I figured I stood a better chance of having it work with a surrogate than me trying again.”

His jaw muscles seemed to freeze. Not his eyes, though. He glared at her. “And you didn’t think you should include me in a decision like that?”

“Of course I did, but I knew you’d say no. And at that point, I knew I couldn’t live with a no. I wanted a baby, and I was desperate and willing to do whatever it took to make that happen.”

Even if what she’d done was wrong.

“My doctor told me I couldn’t have any more eggs harvested for at least a year. Maybe not ever because I’d had a bad reaction to the fertility drugs.” A reaction that’d almost killed her. “I figured one fertilized embryo was a long shot, but it was the only shot I had. So I hired a surrogate, Cissy Blanco, to carry Emily for me.”

Reed cursed, groaned again. He opened his mouth, closed it and with his back against the wall, sank down onto the floor.

“I didn’t tell you, because I knew how you felt about becoming a father,” Addison added.

“You knew it, and yet you went through with this.” His voice was raw and clipped, each one of his words punching into her like fists.

“I never expected you to be a father to the baby,” she went on.

“But I fathered her!” he practically shouted. It was so loud that it startled Emily, and she started to whimper.

Addison pulled the baby closer to her and rocked her, hoping it would help, but it was possible that Emily was picking up on the tension in the room. There was certainly plenty enough of it to pick up on.

The door flew open again, and just like that, Reed was back in lawman mode. He pulled his gun and got to his feet. But it was just the nurse again. This time there was plenty of concern in her eyes.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. “I heard someone shouting.”

“Everything’s fine,” Addison lied.

A burst of air left Reed’s mouth. A laugh, but definitely not from humor. “My ex-wife and I were just having a little talk,” he grumbled.

The nurse gave Addison a long look, no doubt silently asking if it was okay for her to leave, and Addison finally nodded. There was no need for an audience for the argument that Reed and she were about to continue having.