LITMIR.BIZ

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is.”

      When the man still stayed silent, Chase bashed his gun against the side of the guy’s head. “Tell me!” Chase demanded.

      The man didn’t open his mouth, not until Chase drew back the gun again to hit him. “I don’t know where she is. Somewhere with the nanny.”

      So her baby wasn’t alone in these woods. That was something at least. Well, it was if this snake was telling the truth.

      “A nanny you hired?” Chase asked her.

      “No.” Which meant it was someone working for the same person as these hired thugs.

      “And where’s the nanny?” April pressed, moving even closer to the gunman.

      “Don’t know. I don’t!” he shouted when Chase made a move to hit him again. “She was in a separate car with the kid. A black four-door, and she was supposed to follow us here.”

      Chase glanced at his brother. That was all it took, just a glance. “I’ll tell Jax to look for the car,” Jericho volunteered.

      With that search started, Chase turned back to the man. “Who’s us? Who else is here?”

      The man tipped his head to the dead guy. “Just Hank and me.”

      April wished she had a lie detector to know if he was telling the truth about there being no other gunmen, but even if he wasn’t, that wouldn’t stop her. “I’m going to look for the nanny’s car,” she said to no one in particular.

      But Chase clearly thought she’d been talking to him because he stopped her. “Hold on a second and I’ll go with you.”

      Chase turned his attention back to the man and he put his gun in the guy’s face. “One more question, and trust me, a wrong answer will cause you a lot of pain. Who hired you to do this?”

      The guy’s eyes widened, filling with fear. “I don’t know. I swear, that’s the truth. I just had orders to find anything that would lead to Quentin Landis. And to get that info by any means necessary. That includes killing you.”

      “Tony Crossman hired him,” Jericho spat out. “Unless somebody else is gunning for you and your idiot brother.” He slid a glare at April.

      “I can’t speak for Quentin, but I think only Crossman and you hate me,” she settled for saying.

      However, she wasn’t sure at all that it was the truth.

      Chase glanced at her, too, but his attention quickly shifted back to the gunman on the ground. He stared at him, his gun still poised to do some damage, but after several long moments, Chase stepped back.

      “Arrest him,” Chase said to his brother. “Maybe he’ll remember some things in interrogation.”

      Jericho didn’t waste any time hauling the man to his feet, and he took out some plastic cuffs from his pocket to restrain him.

      “Go ahead,” Jericho said as he checked the guy for other weapons. “Look for the nanny. I’ll take care of this piece of dirt and get someone out here for the woman’s body and the dead guy.”

      The word body gave April another slam of grief. And guilt. But there wasn’t anything she could do for Deanne right now. Though she could do something to find her baby.

      April turned and started in the direction of the Appaloosa Creek Bridge. She’d made it only a few steps when Chase’s phone rang. He caught up with her, glancing down at the phone screen before he answered it.

      “It’s Jax,” Chase relayed to her, and he put the call on speaker while they kept running.

      “I found a black four-door car,” Jax said. “It’s on the east side of the road, less than a quarter mile from the bridge.”

      Good. The gunman had said the nanny was driving a vehicle like that. “Is the baby there?” April and Chase asked in unison.

      Her stomach sank, though, when Jax hesitated.

      “Chase,” Jax finally said, “you need to get over here right now.” And with that, Jax hung up.

       Chapter Three

      Chase batted aside some low-hanging tree branches and ran as fast as he could.

      His thoughts and heart were racing, too. He wasn’t sure what had put the alarm in Jax’s voice or why his brother had hung up without an explanation, but with everything else that’d gone on the past hour, Chase figured it could be bad.

      And it could involve his baby.

      He hadn’t had even a moment to come to terms with the fact that he was already a father. Of course, he’d known April’s delivery date was approaching, but Chase had thought he had a little more time to deal with it.

      Or rather more time to deal with his feelings for April.

      His feelings for the baby were solid—he loved her, sight unseen, and would lay down his life to protect her.

      April was a different matter.

      Chase did indeed regret sleeping with her nine months ago. It’d been a mistake, one that had caused his family pain on top of pain.

      Him, too.

      However, he didn’t regret the baby. Not for one second. His only regret when it came to Bailey was that he hadn’t been there when she needed him to protect her.

      He could partly blame April for that.

      If April had just told him about Bailey, then maybe he could have put some more security measures in place.

      Somehow, April kept up with his breakneck pace, and it occurred to him that he should at least ask her if it was okay for her to be doing this. After all, she’d had a baby two months ago. Maybe this was too much activity, too soon for her body. But since he figured he didn’t stand a chance of talking her into slowing down, Chase just kept running.

      Even though it was only a couple of minutes, it seemed to take a lifetime or two for them to reach the road. The bridge was just to their left, but Chase went right since that was the direction where Jax should be. He prayed his brother was okay and hadn’t been hurt by yet another hired gun.

      Maybe that wasn’t the reason Jax had put such an abrupt end to the call. But something had certainly caused him to do that. Since Jax had just as much experience as Chase in law enforcement, it must have been something damn important.

      “I don’t see him,” April said.

      She sounded frantic. Looked it, too. Her eyes were wild. Her breath racing, and yet she didn’t even pause. She kept running up the road until Chase pulled her back to the side.

      “This could be an ambush of some kind,” he reminded her.

      Something he didn’t want to consider, but his lawman’s experience put it—and plenty of other bad possibilities—in the forefront of his mind. It could have been the reason Jax ended the call. Because Jax could have walked into a dangerous situation.

      Chase didn’t want April and him doing the same thing.

      He made sure his gun was ready. Made sure April was behind him, too, and using the trees and brush for cover, Chase made his way east. About a quarter of a mile, Jax had said, and from Chase’s calculations, that meant his brother and God knew who or what else were just around the curve ahead.

      “This way,” Chase told her, and he led April just a few yards off the road and back into the woods so they could thread their way to Jax without being out in the open.

      Finally, he spotted his brother. Jax was literally in the middle of the road, his gun aimed at the car.

      Oh, man.

      Nothing could have held April back at that point. She raced out

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