LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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