Protecting the Newborn
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Delores Fossen
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Chapter One
Staying behind the cover of some sprawling oak trees, Detective Ruston McCullough pressed the night-vision binoculars to his eyes and got his first look of the place.
His target’s house.
It was one story with a white stone exterior and was positioned dead smack in the middle of about three acres. Woods and old ranch trails formed a horseshoe around the house and the pasture.
Lots of places for someone to lie in wait.
Lots of places for a kidnapper or killer to hide.
Once, the house had belonged to a rancher and his wife, both now deceased, and their heirs rented out the place. The current renter, Lizzy Martin, had been living there for a little less than a month.
And she was Ruston’s target.
Well, she would have been the target if he truly was a scumbag thug hired to kidnap the woman and her baby. He wasn’t. He was an undercover San Antonio PD detective posing as a scumbag thug, but the slime who’d hired him didn’t know that.
The slime, aka Marty Bennett, believed that Ruston was a dishonorably discharged army combat specialist with a rap sheet for assault who would do the job that Marty had hired him to do. That Ruston would kidnap the woman and baby and then bring them to Marty, so the baby could probably be sold on the black market and the woman could likely become a human-trafficking victim.
Ruston wouldn’t be doing that.
No way.
Once he had the kid and woman secure and out of any harm’s way, Ruston’s fellow officers would move in to take Marty into custody at his San Antonio residence. Then Ruston would start creating another undercover persona while other detectives figured out for certain why Marty wanted this particular woman. Trafficking and the black market were always good guesses in situations like this.
But something about that theory didn’t feel right.
If those were indeed Marty’s motives, then Ruston wondered how the heck Marty had even seen her and the baby. This place in rural Texas wasn’t on any beaten path, and judging from the gossip Ruston had picked up from his moles and snitches about this Lizzy Martin, no one had seen her in any of the nearby towns.
All three of those towns, including his own hometown of Saddle Ridge, were plenty small enough that folks would have recalled a stranger, especially one with a newborn baby. Added to that, he had siblings in law enforcement in Saddle Ridge, and neither of them had seen anyone resembling the description he had of Lizzy Martin.
Marty hadn’t given Ruston a photo of the woman. Only her name, address and a few skimpy details. She was supposedly around five and a half feet tall, average build, brown hair and brown eyes. Considering that could apply to many women, Ruston had decided to run a background check on her—a skill set his undercover persona wouldn’t have had, so Ruston had had to cover his tracks there in case Marty was monitoring him.
It had taken a while for Ruston to weed through all the possibilities with the name variations for Lizzy Martin, but he thought the one who had rented this place was a website designer who worked from home. Her driver’s license photo showed a woman who was indeed as average as Marty’s description of her. It seemed to Ruston that Lizzy was actually trying to fade into the background of that DMV photo. That was a lot to assume from a picture, but it had put him on further alert.
People who tried to hide usually had a reason for doing so.
That was why he’d come to the house earlier than planned. Ruston had told Marty that he would take the target at midnight, but he’d arrived four hours before that with the hopes that he’d catch a glimpse of her.
So far, he hadn’t.
But someone was definitely inside the house, because he’d seen lights go on and off.
The breeze rustled through the trees around him, and he welcomed the somewhat cooler night air. It was late June, but in central Texas, it could still be scalding hot even at this time of night. Proof of that was the line of sweat already trickling down his back.
Ruston shifted the binoculars when he caught some movement in the front window. It was indeed a woman, and while he couldn’t see her face, since she had her back to him, her height and hair color fit Marty’s description. He watched as she picked up something.
A baby monitor.
She peered down at a little screen that he saw light up. The binoculars weren’t clear enough for him to see the baby she was watching, but he could make out the outline of a crib on the screen.
Ruston continued to watch until she moved out of sight. A few seconds later, he saw the light go on in the front right window. Probably a bedroom or an office. Since he had verification she was indeed there, it was showtime.
Putting away his binoculars, Ruston eased out from the cover of the trees, and he crouched down to make his way closer to the house. He kept watch, looking and listening for anything or anybody, but the only sounds were an owl, some cicadas and the soft drumming of his own heartbeat in his ears.
He stayed low, not going toward that window with the light since he didn’t want Lizzy to see him and then call the cops. Because there was a child on the premises, the locals would likely respond fast, and word of that could get back to Marty if he had his own moles and snitches in law enforcement. Ruston didn’t want Marty to have a clue this was a sting operation until he had the woman and baby someplace safe.
Keeping up his slow and steady pace, Ruston went toward the back of the house, figuring he would first scope out all sides to see if there was an easy point of entry. He didn’t like breaking in, but that was his best bet. Then he could sneak up on her, and before she could make that call to the locals, he could convince her that he was a cop and was there to help.
He stopped at the back corner of the house, peered around it. And because of the dim light coming from the porch, he saw the gun.
It was pointed right at his face.
He automatically drew his own gun. His body jolted, flooding with adrenaline, and he was ready to fight, to get that gun, but then he saw the face of the woman holding it. Not Lizzy and damn sure not the face of the woman in the driver’s license. However, it was someone he instantly recognized.
“Gracelyn Wallace,” he snapped.
His former partner at SAPD, and a woman he hadn’t seen in nearly a year. Correction—a woman he’d been trying to find for ten and a half months. He sure as heck hadn’t expected to find her here.
But she had obviously expected to see him.
There wasn’t any surprise in her expression, just a steely anger. And some fear. Yeah, she couldn’t mask that completely.
Her looks had changed plenty since he’d last laid eyes on her. No short, choppy blond hair but rather the shoulder-length brown that fit the description Marty had given him. Her face was thinner, as if she’d lost weight. And while she sort of resembled the photo on her driver’s license, it was obvious that was a fake.
“What are you doing here?” Ruston demanded, though he was pretty sure that was a question she’d been about to ask him.
Her crystal green eyes narrowed even more. “I’m trying to stay alive,” she snarled.
He hadn’t been sure how she would answer, but Ruston hadn’t expected that. “Alive?” he repeated. “Who’s trying to kill you?”
Gracelyn huffed, lowered her gun. “Well, I guess it’s not you.” She tipped her head to the eaves of the house. “I didn’t see anyone else with you. Are you alone?”
He glanced up at the eaves, and while it was too dark to spot a camera, one was obviously there. Hell. Whatever was going on, this was not the easy snatch and grab that Marty had said it would be.
“I’m alone,” he assured her, “and you’re in danger. But I’m guessing you already know that if you have cameras.”
“I have cameras and perimeter security. You tripped one of the sensors, and my phone immediately gave me an alert.” She made an uneasy glance around them. “Tell me why you’re here and then leave. I don’t have time for a long explanation.”
Ruston mentally replayed each word. That was a lot of security for someone who was no longer a cop. It was more of a setup that a criminal would have. Or someone scared to the bone.
He was going with door number two on this.
And he thought he knew why.
Over ten months ago, Gracelyn and he had had the undercover mission from hell. Deep-cover infiltration of what was basically a baby farm. A place where pregnant women had been held and then their babies had been sold. Some of the women hadn’t been there voluntarily either. Many were runaways who’d been scooped up by the SOBs who’d set up the operation. Others were illegal immigrants. Some were victims of human trafficking.
The operation hadn’t been sloppy or easy to break into, but Gracelyn and he had managed it by being hired as security guards. They’d been in the facility for less than twenty-four hours and had managed to get absolutely nothing on the person or persons running the place when they realized their covers had been blown. That had become crystal clear when thugs had come into their quarters to murder them. They’d managed to escape, barely, but had then ended up in a seedy motel together, waiting for some fellow undercover cops to come and get them.
Ruston had a lot of nightmarish memories of that night.
And some memories that weren’t of the nightmare variety.
Before that night, there had always been an attraction between Gracelyn and him. Always the heat.
Which they’d resisted because they were partners.
But they hadn’t resisted enough after nearly being killed. They’d landed in bed, and a couple of hours later, when they’d been safely taken back to headquarters in San Antonio, Gracelyn had put in her resignation papers and had disappeared.
Ruston had not only looked for her, but he’d also continued to hunt for the person who’d run the baby farm. He’d ended up needing to hunt for the farm itself, too, since they’d moved locations. Of course they had. If the powers that be had figured out Gracelyn and he were cops, they would have known the place was no longer safe for their operation.
“I haven’t been able to find the baby farm,” he admitted. “You’re worried about them coming after you?”
“And you’re not?” she countered.
“I look over my shoulder a lot,” he muttered, doing that now. He didn’t like being out in the open like this. Even with all her security, that didn’t mean someone couldn’t gun them down.
“I have a new undercover identity,” Ruston explained. “One that has no connections to the assignment we had together. But I’ve closely monitored the old identities we used, and there aren’t any red flags.” In other words, no one was searching for them under those names.
“Then why are you here?” Gracelyn’s tone was nowhere close to being friendly.
Since Ruston didn’t want to stand around outside any longer, he just spilled it. “Someone hired me to kidnap you. You and the baby who’s living here with you.”
But then he paused. And did some thinking. Or rather some calculating.
“The baby who’s living here with you,” he repeated. “How old is he or she?” Because that was a detail that Marty hadn’t given him. And it could be critical information, since Gracelyn and he had had sex ten and a half months ago.
Hell.
Was the child his?
“She’s a newborn,” Gracelyn muttered, her words rushing out as if to put a stop to the shock that must have been on his face. “She’s only two weeks old.”
Two weeks. So, the timing didn’t fit. “She’s your baby?” He had to ask because something else occurred to him.
That maybe Gracelyn had gotten the child from someone. Maybe from a baby farm or someone needing to put the baby in a safe place. That wouldn’t explain why Marty had wanted the child kidnapped, though. But there were a lot of things that needed explaining right now.
“She’s mine,” Gracelyn finally said, but she didn’t elaborate. However, she did take out something from the pocket of her jogging pants. The baby monitor he’d seen her looking at when she’d been by the window.
“Let’s go inside and talk,” he insisted. “Because something’s wrong. I’m not sure what, but we need to figure out why someone hired me to kidnap you and the newborn.”
She didn’t jump at his request, but after another glance at the monitor, she motioned for him to follow her. Gracelyn still had her gun gripped in her hand, and even though it was no longer pointed at him, she didn’t put it away.
Gracelyn led him into a small kitchen that at first glance seemed ordinary, with its outdated appliances and flowery wallpaper. Then he saw a tablet-sized device on the counter, and there were four images on the split screen that showed camera feed from all four sides of the house.
“Yeah,” he remarked, “you would have seen me coming on that.”
She made a sound of agreement and finally slipped her gun into what he realized was a slide holster in the back of her pants. She then triple locked the back door, took out her phone and showed him the same footage that was on the laptop.
“I get an alert if a camera or perimeter sensor is triggered,” she explained.
“That’s a lot of security,” Ruston muttered, holstering his own gun. “Want to tell me why you need it?”
Gracelyn glanced away, murmuring something under her breath that Ruston didn’t catch. “You might not have been tracked by anyone from our last mission, but I believe I have been. If not someone from the mission, then someone else.”
Everything inside him went still. “What do you mean?”
She dragged in a long breath and kept her attention pinned to the baby monitor. “About a month after I resigned from SAPD, I was renting a place in Dallas, and I wasn’t using my real name. It wasn’t the same identity I’d used in the undercover op either, and I was being careful. Very. Anyway, I realized someone was following me. I set up cameras and got proof of it. I couldn’t see his face, but he was definitely tracking me.”
Ruston cursed. “Was it a tall, lanky guy about six feet, sandy-blond hair and chin scruff?” he asked.
That got her gaze shifting back to him. “No. Dark hair, about six foot three, muscular build. Why? Who’s the guy you just described?”
“Marty Bennett, the lowlife who hired me to kidnap you and your baby.” Now Ruston needed a long, deep breath. “I figured it was for trafficking or a black-market adoption. But maybe not,” he added in a grumble.
Maybe Marty had a much bigger part in this.
One that had involved following Gracelyn long before he’d hired Ruston. But if Marty had known where she was all this time, why hadn’t he taken her before now?
“Tell me about this Marty Bennett,” Gracelyn insisted. “Is he connected in any way to the baby farm?”
Ruston shook his head. “Nothing in his background indicates that, and I dug hard and deep on him. Everything points to him being a somewhat successful money launderer and embezzler. He’s got gambling debts, so I figured he somehow found out about you and the baby and thought he could earn some quick cash.”
She didn’t say anything, but he saw the muscles tighten in her face. Heard the shudder of breath she released. Gracelyn was worried and scared.
“Has anyone else followed you since you moved here?” he asked.
“Not that I know of, but I’ve moved twice since leaving that apartment in Dallas. I was within a week of leaving here because it doesn’t feel safe to stay in one place for long.”
Ruston wanted to curse again. And pull her into his arms. Not because of the heat, though that was still there. No, he wanted to try to ease some of that fear. But after what had happened between them, he seriously doubted a hug from him would give her much comfort.
“What about your sister, Allie?” he asked. “Does she know where you are?”
Allie was the only family Gracelyn had. Well, other than the baby. And while Allie and Gracelyn hadn’t been especially close, just the opposite actually, anyone wanting to get to Gracelyn could use Allie to do it. Allie had been pretty much a screwup most of her life, and Gracelyn had had to pull strings and call in favors several times to get her kid sister out of a jam.
“Allie doesn’t know,” Gracelyn answered, and then she swallowed hard. “And I don’t know where she is either.” She paused. “I’m not sure if she’s safe or not.”
Hell. Of course, she’d be worried about Allie. Worried about someone using her sister to get to her.
“You should have gotten in touch with me,” he said. “You should have told me. I could have helped.”
She laughed, but there was no humor in it. It was dry as West Texas dust. “Right. The man with one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. The last person I wanted to contact was you.”
Ruston’s stomach twisted. But he couldn’t deny what she’d just said. That last op they’d been on together, the one that had nearly gotten them killed, had obviously sent them in opposite directions. He’d kept up the deep-cover work, and she’d chosen to make her world as safe as possible. The pregnancy and the baby had no doubt factored into her lifestyle decisions.
And that brought him back to her newborn.
Two weeks old, which meant Gracelyn had hooked up with her baby’s father six or seven weeks after she’d resigned from the force. Since they’d been partners, Ruston knew plenty about Gracelyn’s personal life. And vice versa. She hadn’t been involved with anyone when they’d had their one-off, and even though that night had been the culmination of the worst of circumstances, he’d thought it would be the beginning of a relationship since there’d always been an intense attraction between them.
Clearly, he’d been wrong about the relationship.
But not wrong about the attraction. It was still there, even now. Or maybe he was reading way too much into it. After all, Gracelyn had been with her baby’s father roughly nine and a half months ago, which meant that was a month after Ruston and she had had that one night together.
“Is your baby’s father in the picture?” he asked. Ruston watched her face to see if that was playing into this. Relationships went south all the time, and this man could be the threat to Gracelyn and her daughter.
It seemed to him that she tensed even more. Something he hadn’t thought possible. After a long pause, Gracelyn opened her mouth but didn’t get a chance to answer.
Because of the soft beeping sound.
Her gaze flew from his and went to the laptop monitor. “Someone or something just triggered the security alarm.”
