Texas Baby Conspiracy
highlight_author
Barb Han
highlight_reads
16.7K
highlight_chapters
22
Chapter One
When Alyssa Hazel stirred and felt nothing but walls on all four sides of her, shock robbed her voice. Panic caused her pulse to pound and the extra blood thumped against her skull. Her head threatened to split open as she tried to recall where she was and why she was here.
She pushed her hands out, trying to see if the walls would give. The material was pliable but solid enough to hold form. She felt for cracks or anything she could grip. Movement hurt. She attempted to stretch out her legs and couldn’t get very far.
Where was she? What happened? Why was she enclosed in such a tight space? A haze pressed down on her brain and the pressure was the equivalent of a thunderstorm rolling in.
It was pitch black and she couldn’t remember a thing about where she’d been or what she’d been doing before ending up in this...whatever this was. Forcing recall only made her brain hurt more. A stomach cramp drew her legs tighter to her belly.
Wouldn’t there be a door if she was in some kind of compartment? There would have to be a crack around a door or hatch. She reached up and couldn’t find a ceiling. That seemed like the first good sign so far. It meant that she might be in a small closet or storage room.
She felt around, trying to get her bearings because right now she was at a loss as to where she was and what she was doing there. Bringing her hands to cradle her stomach, she knew one thing was certain, she was pregnant. Very pregnant. Her belly was huge.
Again, her mind drew a blank to a question that was so basic she felt like she should have an answer. What on earth was she doing there? She brought her hand up to her head and looked for a reason for the memory loss and headache. She touched a tender spot and felt dried blood.
At least she thought it was. Seeing was impossible despite her eyes adjusting to the dark.
Logic said if she’d gotten inside this structure, there had to be a way out. Bracing her hands against thin walls, she maneuvered up to a sitting position.
Next, she instinctively checked to make sure she had on clothes and then immediately checked for her wedding ring. The band was gone. Thank heavens she had on a cotton shirt and jeans. No shoes but she did have on socks. She remembered wearing her favorite boots. The random memory seemed to float around with no context to ground it. Where had she been going? What had she been doing?
A noise startled her. She froze, unable to make out what it was or exactly where it came from other than out there.
There had to be a handle or lock that she could maneuver in order to free herself. But when she ran her hand along the fiberglass, she felt nothing but a hole where a knob should be. She ran her fingers over it and through it, trying to figure out how to open it. Then, she realized it was a pocket door.
The door slid open easily once she figured out how it worked. Light practically blinded her. She brought her hand up to shield her eyes from the beams coming in directly from the window across from her.
The paper-thin walls allowed a pair of men’s voices to travel through. The voices hadn’t come from far.
Alyssa had no idea how long she’d been inside the closet. Her aching body said too long. She crawled out on all fours. A creek sounded. She froze, listening for the sounds of footsteps from down the hall.
When she was certain no one had heard, she sat down. She shook out her hands, trying to get some blood flowing.
The room had no dressers or chairs. There was a well-worn mattress pushed up to one corner of the room. It sat on the floor. No blanket. No pillow.
The trailer had the overall smell of a locker room if it sat dead center of a frat house. The greasy smell of day-old pizza and stale beer sent a wave of nausea slamming into her. Bile burned the back of her throat as she tried to swallow against a dry mouth.
The carpeting looked like a 1960’s relic. Fear, sweat and desperation reeked. Looking around the room, her mind immediately snapped to a human trafficking ring. She sat back on her heels and held on to her belly. There was no way she was letting someone take her child.
“What does Bus Stop say the Judge wants?” A distinct male voice came through the wall. His voice was gruff and his words slow, like he had to think about each word.
“He wants answers. We can’t hang on to her forever. She’s too hot of a property. Anyone figures out she’s missing, and the heat will come down.” The second voice had more of a nasal-sounding pitch.
“I’ve done a lot of things with no problem, bro. You know me,” Gruff said. “But torturing a pregnant lady seems all kinds of wrong. You know my baby is due next month. This one is about the same size as my girlfriend. I don’t know about breaking someone’s fingers in her condition.”
“I hear you, bro. But how else you gonna get her to talk?” Nasal asked. “She’s stubborn. You already saw that from earlier.”
Alyssa performed a once-over on her body, checking her arms and legs for bruises. She found a massive one the size of a softball on her right hip.
“What if she don’t give us what we want?” The fact Gruff didn’t want to hurt her because he had a kid on the way sent an icy chill down her back. Was that the only reason she was still alive? That she hadn’t been tortured? Maimed?
At least it didn’t seem like they wanted to take her baby. The reality that she was the one they wanted didn’t provide much relief. Hurt her and they were hurting her baby too.
“Then we have to suck it up and do our job, bro.” Nasal was the more heartless of the two. Although, she doubted she’d see either one at Sunday church service anytime soon.
“I don’t want to be the one to do it, bro.” Gruff had a beating heart. She might be able to lean on his weakness. Find a way out of there safely.
The window that the sunlight had blasted through was too small to climb out of in her condition. The slats on the blinds looked like they’d gone through a tornado. With paper-thin walls, she couldn’t risk making too much noise as she stood up and then crossed the room to get close to the door.
“Yeah? She’s not worth my life. Push comes to shove, baby or not, I got no plans to die over a chick I don’t even know.” Nasal sounded determined.
The earth tilted on its axis as panic set in. The reality that those men were prepared to take her life slammed into her like a rogue wave on a sunny day. They obviously wanted something from her. What?
Alyssa should know what the two men were talking about but came up empty. Based on the conversation she’d overhead, there were others involved. Nasal was clearly in charge and he thought she had something or knew something.
What?
She didn’t even know who the Judge was let alone Bus Stop. Obviously, those were nicknames but not being able to remember was beyond frustrating. Searching her mind and drawing a hard blank was also scary.
How long had she been knocked out? A day? Two?
She had to be late term in her pregnancy based on her belly’s size. Although, she couldn’t exactly recall how far along she was. Her husband, Blake O’Connor, must be worried sick about her. Blake.
Hunger pangs picked that time to tell her that she must not have eaten in a while. She had no cell phone on her. No car keys in her pocket. No purse.
The only way to get out of the trailer she was in would be to walk right past Gruff and Nasal, and she highly doubted either would let her waltz out the door without a word. From the sounds of their conversation, their mentality was kill or be killed.
Or, maybe she could find a soft spot in the flooring and pick it open. The thought of sliding out underneath heaven knew what sent another ripple of fear through her. The ancient trailer seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Speaking of which, she moved to the mattress as quietly as she could and, with effort, shifted its position.
That’s when she hit pay dirt. Whoever had been in the room before her had squirreled a hole in the corner. She peeled back rusted piece after rusted piece of rotting floor until she saw dirt. Her imagination picked that time to go wild. There had to be dozens of spiders and other insects down that hole. And what else? Rats? With only socks on her feet, she might be cut if there was any broken glass or jagged cans in there.
More possibilities crossed her mind and not ones she liked. The worst of her worries was the thought of insects crawling on her. She shivered at the thought. But she didn’t see another choice.
Closing off her mind to all the potential creepy-crawlies that might be under there waiting for an opportunity like this one, she forced her thoughts to freedom instead. Getting out of there and away from those men was her only chance at keeping her baby alive. Alyssa had yet to officially meet the little bean growing in her belly, but she already knew she loved him or her.
The thought of seeing that little face in a few weeks or a month, based on her size, carried her through her fears as she slipped into the hole. She drew her right foot up almost immediately after touching down for fear that she’d stepped on a sharp object.
Rather than take the time to look around, she crawled on her hands and knees toward the lattice. At least there was enough light to see where to put her hands in front of her. The crawl space was about three feet deep.
A large something moved to her right. A rat? She swallowed a gasp and kept moving. Whatever was over there seemed to be trying to get away from her as much as she was trying to steer clear of it.
The first sound she heard when she emerged was the hum of vehicles on a highway. It was close. She had a shot at reaching it before they realized she was gone. The next thing she did was run her hand over her head and body, swiping at cobwebs.
Then, she grabbed hold of her belly and made a run for it.
THE SUN WAS coming up, signaling the end of another deep night shift for Blake O’Connor. These shifts were killing him. He hadn’t worked the overnight shift in years when he’d volunteered for the grind after being served divorce papers six months ago.
The idea of sleeping alone every night had been too much and, besides, it wasn’t like he got any sleep after Alyssa left him anyway. His Houston apartment had never felt emptier than when she’d cleared out her belongings. Hell, she hadn’t even left her citrus-smelling shampoo behind. And he hadn’t been able to eat an orange or grapefruit since. Even lemons reminded him of her.
The separation that was supposed to give his new wife time to figure out what she really wanted after her father’s death had turned into divorce. No explanation. No discussion. No chance to make it right. Just the term irreconcilable differences listed as the reason.
What did that even mean?
Yeah, he was still chewing on that bitter pill all these months later. So much for being able to let it go and move on with his life.
Being on the force and having a routine—which he’d been ready to quit so the two of them could move back to the O’Connor family ranch in Katy Gulch and claim his birth rite—was keeping him sane.
Blake came from a tight-knit ranching family, one of the most successful in Texas. The O’Connors were a close bunch. He figured part of the reason they were taught to love one another was because his parents had survived their worst nightmare. Their six-month-old daughter, and Blake’s only sister, had been a kidnapping target decades ago. Despite years of searching, neither the infant nor her abductors were ever found. His mother might have been forced to move on from the tragedy, but she never stopped thinking about Caroline or hoping for her child’s safe return.
A few weeks after the kidnapping, his mother leaned she was pregnant again. She credited the pregnancy as being her saving grace. For the sake of her growing family, she’d forced herself to pick up the pieces of her life and carry on when she’d been so devastated that she’d wanted to stop living.
The kidnapper’s trail might have dried up decades ago, but new evidence had come to light that had Blake and his brothers revisiting the cold case. Their father had been killed after taking it upon himself to investigate and life generally had been turned upside-down.
So, yeah, tired didn’t begin to cover just how much he needed to face-plant in his bed right now.
Blake pulled into his complex and navigated around to the back of his townhouse. He had an end unit, which let in a little more sunlight. He’d more or less adapted to city life after growing up on a ranch with acreage to spare.
On his twenty-first birthday, like each of his siblings, he’d been handed keys to his own home on the property. That’s where he went to spend his days off and every vacation. He came home as often as he could during calving season to help out.
Pulling into the garage, the hairs on Blake’s neck pricked. The feeling that something was off settled over him.
The trash can, he realized, had been pushed up against the wall. It wasn’t trash day and he knew for a fact he hadn’t been the one to move it.
He parked and kept the garage door open. With an eye on his side-view mirror, he caught someone trying to slip inside.
Was this person kidding him? Hand on his gun, he removed the safety strap. He kept low as he opened the door. Climbing out, he moved so that the tire would cover him.
“Hands where I can see them.” His demand came as he moved around to the back of his vehicle.
Weapon leading the way, he used the Jeep as cover. When no response came, he repeated the command.
“I’m alone. Don’t shoot.” The familiar female voice caused his heart to freefall.
At first, he didn’t believe Alyssa could be standing inside his garage. A glance in her direction confirmed her presence. It was definitely her. But what he saw nearly cut a hole in the center of his chest.
She was pregnant.
