Holden

Landon stared back at her, and Gage even looked at her in the rearview mirror. Since they were clearly still skeptical, she huffed and tried to make this a quick explanation. Her voice was shaky. Heck, she was shaky, and with the adrenaline pumping through her, it was hard to think.

“I stole the information, all right,” she snapped. “But if I hadn’t done that and if I hadn’t put a listening device in Conceptions Clinic, I wouldn’t have even known the baby existed, much less found out where they were holding him.”

And she wasn’t going to apologize for that—especially since the info had turned out to be true and they had the baby.

“I’ll want those files,” Holden insisted. “The recordings and anything else you have. I don’t suppose in all your snooping you also got proof of who’s behind this?”

“Behind what exactly?” Gage queried.

This was probably going to be as hard for him to hear as it had been for her. Mainly because Nicky hadn’t believed that anyone could do something like this.

“Someone connected to Conceptions Fertility Clinic—I don’t know who, yet—used Annie and Emmett’s stored embryos to make this baby. And not just him,” Nicky added. “There are others. Not necessarily Annie and Emmett’s child, though. In fact, I don’t think it is, but there are two other newborns out there somewhere.”

That got the responses she expected. A stunned look from Landon. A sound of surprise from Gage. A glare from Holden.

“Where are the other babies?” Gage asked.

“I don’t know.” That was the truth. “It was pure luck that I overheard them talking about Annie and Emmett’s baby, and there were no other names mentioned.”

“This could be connected to the missing senator, Lee Minton,” Holden added after a long pause. “Could be,” he stressed. “But it could also be connected to Nicky’s father, Oscar.”

That caused both Holden and Gage to curse again, and Nicky didn’t have to ask why. Her father wasn’t any better liked by the Rylands than she was, and worse...he was dirty. He’d never been arrested for his shady business dealings, but that was only because he hadn’t gotten caught.

Gage looked at her again in the mirror. “Oscar wanted a grandchild?”

Nicky had to nod. “Specifically, he wanted a grandson to carry on his so-called legacy.”

“A daughter wouldn’t do?” Landon snapped.

“My father and I are, well, estranged,” she admitted. “And he wasn’t exactly thrilled with Annie when she married Emmett.”

“Probably because he didn’t like the idea of having a federal agent for a son-in-law,” Holden mumbled.

She had to add another nod to that as well. It was true. Her father hated Emmett, resented Annie for marrying him, and that’s why this didn’t make sense.

“It’s true that my father wants an heir,” Nicky continued, “but this seems...extreme considering that he hated Emmett.”

“Your father does extreme things all the time,” Holden reminded her. “Plenty of them illegal. Plus, if you two really are estranged, maybe he figured this was his only chance at having an heir from his own gene pool.” Then, he shook his head. “But if he did do this, something must have gone wrong because those kidnappers said this was the million-dollar baby.”

Nicky thought about that for a second. “I need to talk to my father.”

“It can wait,” Holden insisted. “We’re almost at the sheriff’s office.”

She glanced out the window and saw that they were only a mile or so away, and maybe because they were so close, Landon and Holden started making preparations. Landon called the hospital and asked that a doctor come to the sheriff’s office. To check out the baby, no doubt. If something was indeed wrong, though, the child would have to go to the hospital. Still might have to do that since he was obviously still a newborn.

Holden made a call, too. To his cousin Josh, who was also a Silver Creek deputy. Holden asked Josh to arrange to have some baby supplies brought in. He also asked Josh to have a CSI process the car they were driving and especially check it for a tracking device.

That got Nicky’s heartbeat revving up again because she realized the kidnappers could know exactly where they’d gone. Of course, there weren’t too many other places they could have taken the baby, considering that an army of kidnappers were out there.

“Are your legs steady enough to run inside while holding the baby?” Holden asked her.

Nicky nodded, prayed that was true. She wasn’t anywhere near steady enough, but there was no way she’d drop the baby.

Her nephew.

He wasn’t just a baby. He was her own flesh and blood.

The first time she’d heard about him on those recordings from the fertility clinic, the news had hit her like a lightning bolt. The blow didn’t feel any less now that she had him in her arms.

This was Annie’s son. The baby her sister had so desperately wanted that she’d gone through months and months of fertility treatments, some of them dangerous to her health. It broke Nicky’s heart to know that her sister wasn’t here to see the baby she’d sacrificed so much to have.

But maybe someone else had sacrificed, too.

Nicky didn’t have time to bring up her concern because Gage pulled to a stop in front of the sheriff’s office. Even though she’d assured Holden that she was steady enough, he still took hold of her arm as they hurried into the building.

The moment they were inside, Gage took the car to the parking lot, getting it away from the sheriff’s office. Maybe because he was concerned there was something more than a tracking device in it. After all, the men had said they were going to torch her house and car so they could have been carrying some kind of accelerants.

Holden didn’t stay by the door. He hurried her through the squad room and into one of the interview rooms. It wasn’t especially comfortable, what with the metal table and chairs, but Nicky breathed a little easier because there weren’t any windows in the room. That would make it harder for the kidnappers to come after the baby again.

Nicky sank down onto one of the chairs, but Josh and Holden stayed in the hall. They had a whispered conversation before Holden joined her, and she could tell from his expression that he was about to deliver bad news. And he did.

“The men that Gage and Landon tied up in the ditch got away,” Holden said. “In fact, there are no signs of any of the kidnappers.”

Nicky tried not to let that send her into a panic. Hard to do, though, and she gently pulled the baby even closer to her.

“They’ll come after him again,” she whispered.

“They’ll try.” Holden came closer, looking down at the baby. Unlike in the car, the overhead light was on, and Nicky figured he saw exactly what she was seeing.

The resemblance.

Annie’s hair. But the baby’s face was all Emmett.

“I’ve seen baby pictures of Emmett,” Holden said. “That’s his son.”

Yes. Nicky had no doubts about that, but knowing it was just the start. They still didn’t have a lot of answers.

“Obviously Conceptions Fertility Clinic was onto you,” Holden continued a moment later. “That’s why they sent that thug to your house. Where are the files and recordings?”

Nicky hesitated only because she’d been so terrified of the kidnappers finding them. It was the only thing she had to bargain with them in case she hadn’t been able to find the baby. But now that she had her nephew—their nephew, she mentally corrected—there was no reason to keep them hidden.

Well, except for the sickening dread of what Holden and the others might find when they reviewed them.

She adjusted the baby’s position in her arms so she could take the notepad and pen from the table and write down the storage cloud and her password. “I don’t know what all the files mean,” Nicky explained. “Some are just numbers and code, and I wasn’t able to connect them to any names in the Conceptions database.”

A muscle flickered in Holden’s jaw when he took the notepad with the info. “You should have come to me or the cops the moment you found out what was going on.”

“There was no time—”

“So help me,” he interrupted, “you better not have withheld this because you wanted to do a story on it.”

It felt as if he’d slapped her, and Nicky flinched.

More of Holden’s jaw muscles flickered. “Sorry, but you don’t have a good track record when it comes to this sort of thing.”

No. She didn’t. She’d often put the story ahead of a lot of things, including other people’s safety. “I learned my lesson with your brother.”

And it wasn’t something she would forget anytime soon. She’d almost gotten Drury killed by withholding some evidence too long. Nicky had been working with a CPA who was helping her gather information on a crime family.

A crime family who’d done business with her father.

But the research had taken much longer than Nicky had expected. By the time she had given it to Drury, the crime family had been alerted, probably her father had, too, and Drury essentially walked into a trap. He’d nearly been killed by people he possibly could have arrested hours earlier if Nicky hadn’t been digging for more.

It wouldn’t do any good to tell Holden that she’d been searching for more evidence to put Drury’s attackers away for life. It wouldn’t do any good to tell him she was sorry. Or that she hadn’t lied or withheld anything to protect her father. Sometimes, she felt as if she was drowning in the water under that particular bridge.

Holden stepped out into the hall to make a call. To his other brother, Lucas, she realized. A Texas Ranger. Holden gave him a quick update, including the cloud-storage info, and asked him to see what he could find. He then went back into the squad room for several moments.

“I wouldn’t have put the baby in danger,” Nicky said when Holden came back into the room. She brushed a kiss on the baby’s forehead. “I’d just figured out where he was when that thug showed up at my house. And then you showed up.”

With everything else going on, Nicky had forgotten about the reason Holden had come. To warn her that she was on the verge of being arrested. “Is the FBI really involved in this?” she asked.

He nodded. “Senator Minton’s family hired a team of PIs to help find him. I didn’t know what they found, but I got word that the FBI was looking at you as a person of interest.”

Oh, mercy. She didn’t need this now. “They think I had something to do with his disappearance?”

“I’m not sure. They’re keeping what they have close to the vest, but now that I know what went on, I can probably stop them from taking you into custody.”

“I can’t go with them.” She got to her feet so she could look him straight in the eyes. “Whoever hired those kidnappers had plenty of money. No doubt resources, too, to pull off a scheme like the one at Conceptions. He or she could also have a dirty cop or two on the payroll.”

Holden didn’t argue with that. Something that didn’t help steady her nerves one bit. Even though she’d been the one to point out that particular possible danger, she’d hoped that Holden could have assured her that it wasn’t likely. No way could he do that, though.

“There’s one more thing,” she said. “The surrogate.” Nicky had to take a deep breath before she continued. “There are no surrogate names in the files, but I saw something, well, disturbing in our nephew’s folder.”

That got Holden’s attention. He stared at her, waiting for her to continue.

“There were two notes entered on the day the surrogate delivered him. One was the location where the baby was being taken. The other was...contract terminated.” Even though it’d been hours since Nicky had first seen those two words, it still gave her a jolt. “Do you think they killed her?”

Holden opened his mouth, closed it and then scrubbed his hand over his face. “Yeah.”

There it was again, another jolt. Of course, Nicky had already considered it, especially after what’d gone on at the inn, but she’d held out hope. Hope that was quickly fading because the surrogate would have been a loose end. No way would the person behind this want her around so she could tell anyone about the baby she’d delivered.

Holden took out his phone again and fired off a text. “Since Grayson and the deputies are tied up here,” he told Nicky, “I’ll have someone in the marshals’ office check and see if there have been any reports of a dead or missing woman who recently gave birth.”

Nicky nodded, and even though she dreaded hearing that a woman could be dead, a woman who’d given birth to their precious nephew, they had to find out the truth. And not just about the surrogate, either.

“How will we handle the investigation into Conceptions?” she asked.

“There is no we in this. You aren’t handling anything,” he snapped, but he quickly reined in his temper.

“How are you handling it, then?” Nicky amended.

He took a deep breath first. “The other lawmen and I will have to go at it head-on. After everything that just happened, they know we’re onto them so there’s no need to back off. Gage is already contacting San Antonio PD and the FBI.”

That meant soon Conceptions Clinic would be swarming with cops and agents. Maybe there’d be something to find, including those other babies that were out there somewhere.

She heard the footsteps in the hall, and Nicky’s heart went into overdrive again, her body preparing for another threat. But it was only Landon.

“We have visitors,” Landon said, not sounding too pleased about that. “The doctor’s here to check the baby.” Then, his attention went to Nicky. “And your father just arrived.”

Nicky’s stomach went to her knees. No. Not this. Not now. She was still reeling from the attack, but she also knew she had to confront him, to try to get those answers they so desperately needed.

“Why is he here?” Nicky asked. “Why did he come?” She knew it wasn’t because he was worried about her, and there hadn’t been time for too many people to have heard news about the attack.

Landon’s gaze dropped to the baby, but he didn’t have to verbally answer. That’s because Nicky heard her father’s voice booming through the squad room.

“Nicky, I know you’re here,” her father shouted. “I want you to bring me my grandson now!”

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