LITMIR.BIZ

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would need to check out the woman.

      “Mary Jane Martin. I’ve known her for years.” One tear ran down Lenora’s face, then another. “If I had let Michelle know she wasn’t coming right away, this might not have happened. It’s all my fault.”

      Dallas covered his sister’s hands. “You aren’t to blame. The kidnappers are. It’s very likely you and Brady were targeted.”

      “How? Why?” Paul asked Dallas. “We don’t have much money to pay a ransom, but we’ll find a way.” Paul dropped his chin against his chest. “If they ever contact us.” He jerked his head up. “I guess I have to put the phone back on.”

      “Why don’t you get one of our relatives to answer the phone for the next couple of days?” Dallas asked.

      Paul frowned. “I guess I can ask my uncle. I don’t think either of us can deal with the calls right now, but what if the kidnapper does call?”

      “We’ll trace your calls. If that’s okay with you.” Rachel shifted her attention from Lenora to her husband. She was worried about Dallas’s sister.

      “Yes, anything to bring Brady back,” Lenora murmured, her words so low it was hard to understand her at first.

      “Then I’ll set it up, and I’ll have a deputy answer the phone. Excuse me.” Rachel left the room to find Deputy Jones. She wanted to give Dallas a moment to talk with his family alone. When Rachel located her deputy on the back porch, she told him about answering the phone and tracing any calls, then returned to the living room.

      “Why is this happening to us?” she heard Lenora wail.

      Dallas’s face paled. “There are several common reasons why someone abducts a child. A familiar person like a divorced mother or father. An individual or couple who have lost a child and want to replace theirs. And people who sell babies on the black market.”

      And it was easier to track down a kidnapper who fit the first two motives, but she kept that observation to herself. Rachel didn’t think that was the case here, which meant time wasn’t on their side.

      Lenora turned toward her brother. “No. This doesn’t happen in Cimarron Trail. This is a safe town.” Sobs tore from her, filling the air with the sound of agony.

      Dallas drew her against him, his arms enveloping his sister. “I’ll find Brady. I promise.”

      With all color bled from his face, Paul stood, opening and closing his hands. “I need to turn the phone back on. They may be calling right now with a ransom demand.”

      “Everything has been arranged,” Rachel said while Paul charged into the kitchen.

      Dallas looked at Rachel, his brown eyes darkening even more. Pain etched his expression, the hard planes of his face tearing at Rachel’s composure.

      Lenora leaned back and switched her attention between Rachel and Dallas while swiping her tears from her cheeks. “Y’all think he was taken to be sold.”

      Dallas nodded.

      Rachel’s chest constricted. Why, Lord? Why this baby? For the last two years of her marriage, she’d struggled to keep it together and prayed to God for an answer. The Lord never answered her call for help. She hoped He would for Lenora.

      Rachel inhaled a composing breath. “Lenora, where did you go while Michelle was babysitting?”

      “I went to church for a meeting about the building expansion. I’m on the committee. Then, afterwards, I’d planned to go to the grocery store before coming home. The meeting was just ending when I got the call about Brady.”

      “I need a list of the people on the committee.”

      “None of them would take my son!”

      Dallas patted Lenora’s hand. “We have to check every lead possible. We aren’t accusing anyone, but we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t consider who knew you would be away from the house.”

      “Pastor John Wiggins, Carl Stevens, Marvin Compton and Sue Palmer.” Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “They would never do something like this.”

      “I can’t see they would either.” Not even Marvin Compton, who’d run against Rachel for county sheriff.

      “Please do it quietly.” Lenora swiped her hand across her cheek. “I’ve known them for years.”

      “We found something I’d like you to look at.” Rachel rose and closed the space between Lenora and her. She held up the bracelet in the plastic bag, making sure the heart with the initials was visible. “Do you know who this belongs to?”

      Lenora’s eyes grew wide. “Where did you find it?”

      “In your dining room by a chair under the table.”

      “It’s mine. Mom gave it to me a few months ago. It used to be hers, and I would play with it when I was a child. She doesn’t wear it anymore, so she thought I would enjoy it.”

      “The initials are DN?” Rachel asked.

      “Mom’s maiden name was Dorothy Nash. I didn’t think of that.” Dallas twisted his mouth into a wry look.

      Rachel took the evidence bag from Lenora and returned to the wingback. “I thought this might have been left by the kidnappers.”

      “It could have been.” Lenora straightened. “I lost it last week when I was shopping with Brady. I looked everywhere when I realized it was gone, but I never found it.”

      As Paul returned to the living room after taking the portable phone out to the deputy, Rachel withdrew a pad and pen. “Where did you go that day?”

      “What’s going on?” Paul took his place next to his wife.

      “Remember when I lost my bracelet? Rachel found it in the dining room, but it couldn’t have been there. I remember having it when I left the house last week, and at the drugstore, but when I was through shopping and heading back to the car, it was gone. I retraced my steps to the last store I visited. I couldn’t find it in Knit n’ Pearl. Brady was so fussy I didn’t go to the other two shops. I called each one and left my contact information, but no one had turned it in.”

      So how did it end up back at their house? Rachel had planned on showing the bracelet at the news conference tomorrow morning and asking for leads to whoever owned it. She couldn’t do that now, but it was possible the woman kidnapper had found it and lost it in the dining room today. Rachel would have any prints on the piece of jewelry run through the system. “Besides Knit n’ Pearl, what other places did you go to?”

      “I went to two other stores in the Chesterfield Shopping Center on this side of San Antonio—Chesterfield Drug Store and Baby and Things. I normally go to the pharmacy in town, but I frequent the Chesterfield one when I shop at Knit n’ Pearl and Baby and Things. We don’t have anything quite like those places in Cimarron Trail.”

      Rachel wrote down their names. “Are the people at those stores familiar with you?”

      “Knit n’ Pearl, yes. I’m not sure about Baby and Things because I’ve only been going there for six months, after a friend told me about the store. It’s a great place to buy baby clothes at a reasonable price. I doubt the cashier where I checked out in the drug store would remember me being in there.” Lenora scrunched her forehead. “I don’t understand. How can this help you?”

      “It’s possible the woman kidnapper had been following you, and when you lost your bracelet, she picked it up. I’ll be interviewing the people working at those stores, and if they have any security video cameras, she might be on one of the tapes.” It was the best lead they had, and after the news conference tomorrow, Rachel would go to the shopping center. “Which day and time last week did you go to the shops?”

      “Friday in the morning. I left here at nine when the commuter traffic was less. It’s about twenty-five minutes

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