“LAR,” Darcy said under her breath.
Lost Appaloosa Ranch.
Well, maybe that’s what the initials meant. Of course, Nate could be wrong, and it could turn out to be a wild-goose chase. A chase that could cost them critical time because it tied up manpower that could be directed somewhere other than the remote abandoned ranch. According to Nate, the owner had died nearly a year ago, and his mortgage lender was still trying to contact his next of kin.
“Hurry,” Darcy told the medic again. And yes, she glared at him. She’d spent nearly fifteen minutes in the Silver Creek sheriff’s office, and that was fifteen minutes too long.
Darcy didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be out looking for Noah, but instead here she was, sitting at the sheriff’s desk while a medic stitched her up. God knows how she’d gotten the cut right on her hairline, and she didn’t care.
She didn’t care about anything but her son.
“I’m trying to hurry,” the medic assured her.
She knew from his name tag that he was Tommy Watters, and while she hated being rude to him, she couldn’t stop herself. She had to do something.
Anything.
Like Nate and his four brothers were doing.
Just a few yards away from her, Nate was on the phone, his tone and motions frantic, while he talked with the helicopter pilot, who was trying to narrow down the search zone.
“No,” Nate instructed. “Don’t do a direct fly over the Lost Appaloosa. I already have someone en route, and if the kidnappers are there, I don’t want to alert them. I want you to focus on the roads that lead to the interstate.”
Nate had a map spread out on the desk, and every line on the desk phone was blinking. Next door, Deputy Melissa Garza was barking out orders to a citizens’ patrol group that was apparently being formed to assist in the hunt for the kidnappers and the babies. The dispatcher was helping her.
Grayson, Dade and Mason were all out searching various parts of Silver Creek, interviewing witnesses and running down leads on the other black vans that had been spotted. The other deputy, Luis Lopez, was at the day care in case the kidnappers returned.
Darcy was the only one not doing anything to save Noah and Kimmie.
“I can’t just sit here.” The panic was starting to whirl around inside her, and despite the AC spilling over her, sweat popped out on her face. She would scream if she couldn’t get out of there and find Noah.
Darcy pushed aside the medic and would have run out of the room if Nate hadn’t caught her shoulder.
He got right in her face, and his glare told her this wasn’t going to be a pep talk. “You have to keep yourself together. Because I don’t have time to babysit you. Got that?”
She flinched. That stung worse than the fresh stitches. But Darcy still shook her head. “Noah is my life.” Which, of course, went without saying. Kimmie was no doubt Nate’s life, too.
Nate nodded, and eased up on the bruising grip he had on her shoulder. The breath he blew out was long and weary. He looked up at the medic as he put Darcy back in the chair. “Finish the stitches
now,
” he ordered.
Actual fear went through the medic’s eyes, and he clipped off the thread. “It’ll hold for now, but she should see a doctor because she might have a concussion.”
Before the last word left the medic’s mouth, Darcy was out of the chair. “Let’s go,” she insisted.
Thank God, Nate didn’t argue with her. “We’re headed to the Lost Appaloosa, Mel,” he shouted to Deputy Garza, and in the same motion Nate grabbed a set of keys from a hook on the wall.
Finally! They were getting out there and doing something. She hoped it was the
right
something.
“You have to keep yourself together,” Nate repeated. But this time, there was no razor edge to his tone. No glare. Just speed. He practically ran down the hall. “My brother Kade should arrive at the Lost Appaloosa in about ten minutes, and then we’ll have answers.”
“Answers
if
the babies are really there,” Darcy corrected.
Nate spared her a glance, threw open the back door and hurried into the parking lot. “Marlene probably risked her life to write those initials. They mean something, and if it turns out to be the Lost Appaloosa, then Kade will know how to approach the situation.”
“Because he’s FBI,” she said more to herself than Nate.
Darcy prayed Nate’s FBI brother truly knew what he was doing. It gave her some comfort to know that Kade would likely be willing to risk his life to save his niece. And maybe Noah, too.
Nate jumped into a dark blue SUV, started the engine and barely waited long enough for Darcy to get inside before he tore out of the parking lot.
“I need to know if you’re okay,” he said, tipping his head to her new stitches.
“Don’t worry about me,” Darcy said. “Focus on the kids.”
“I can’t have you keeling over or anything.” The muscles in his jaw stirred. Maybe because he didn’t like that he had to be concerned about her in any way.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, and even though it was a lie, it was the end of the discussion as far as Darcy was concerned. “How far is the Lost Appaloosa?”
“Thirty miles. It’s within the San Antonio city limits, but there’s not much else out there.” His phone buzzed, and he shoved it between his shoulder and ear when he answered it.
She listened but couldn’t tell anything from Nate’s monosyllabic responses. He certainly wasn’t whooping for joy because the babies had possibly been found.
Darcy leaned over to check the odometer so she would know when they were close to that thirty miles, and her hair accidently brushed against Nate’s arm. He glanced at it, at her, and Darcy quickly pulled away.
“Thirty miles,” she repeated, focusing on the drive and not on the driver. Nate put his attention back on the call.
That was too many miles between her and her baby, and the panic surged through her again. Nate was already going as fast as he could, but at this speed and because of the narrow country roads, it would take them at least twenty, maybe twenty-five, minutes to get there.
An eternity.
Nate cursed, causing her attention to snap back to him. She waited, breath held, until he slapped the phone shut. “Grayson just found another empty black van on a dirt road near the creek. Only one set of footprints was around the vehicle.”
So, not a call from Kade. Just news of another decoy van. Or else the team of kidnappers had split up. Did that mean they’d split up the children and Marlene, as well? Darcy hoped not.
“Shouldn’t you have heard from Kade by now?” she asked.
He scrubbed his hand over his face. “My brother will call when he can.”
Nate looked at her again, and his eyes were now a dangerous stormy-gray. “The person behind this has a big motive and a lot of money,” he tossed out there. He was all cop again. Here was the lieutenant she’d butted heads with in the past. And the present.
“You mean Wesley Dent,” she supplied.
Darcy didn’t even try to put on her lawyer face. Her head was pounding. Her breath, ragged. And her heart was beating so hard, she was afraid her ribs might crack. She didn’t have the energy for her usual power-attorney facade.
“Wesley Dent,” Nate verified, making her client’s name sound like profanity. “He’s a gold digger, and I believe he murdered his wife.”
Darcy shook her head and continued to keep watch in case she spotted another black van. She also glanced at the odometer, remembering to keep her hair away from Nate’s arm. Twenty-five miles to go.
“I won’t deny the gold-digging part,” she admitted, “but I’m not sure he killed his wife.”
Though it did look bad for Dent.
A starving artist, Dent had married Sandra Frasier, who wasn’t just a multimillionaire heiress but was twenty-five years his senior. And apparently she often resorted to public humiliation when it came to her boy-toy husband, who was still two years shy of his thirtieth birthday. Just days before what would have been their first wedding anniversary, Sandra had humiliated Dent in public at Dent’s art show.
A day after that, she had received a lethal dose of insulin.
“Sandra was diabetic,” Darcy continued, though she really didn’t want to have this conversation. Twenty-four miles to go. “So, it’s possible this was a suicide. Her husband even said she wrote about suicide in her diary.” But her death certainly hadn’t been accidental because the amount of insulin was quadruple what she would have normally taken.
“There was no suicide note,” Nate challenged. “No sign of this so-called diary, either.”
But that didn’t mean the diary didn’t exist. Dent had told her that his wife kept it under lock and key, so maybe she’d moved it so that no one would be able to read her intimate thoughts.
“The husband is often guilty in situations like this,” Nate went on. He had such a hard grip on the steering wheel that his knuckles were white. “And I think Dent could have orchestrated this kidnapping to force me to stop the investigation. I’m within days of arresting his sorry butt for murder.”
Darcy wished the pain in her head would ease up a little so she could think straighter. “There are other suspects,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, the dead woman’s ex-husband and her son, but neither has as strong a motive as Dent.”
“Maybe,” Darcy conceded. Another glance at the odometer. Twenty-three miles between the ranch and them. “But if Dent masterminded this kidnapping to stop the investigation, then why take Noah? I’m his lawyer, the one person who could possibly prevent him from being arrested.”
Nate shook his head, cursed again. “Maybe he thinks if he has your son that you’ll put pressure on me to cooperate.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but that kind of fight just wasn’t in her. Besides, there was a chance that Nate could be right.
In some ways it would be better if he was.
After all, if Dent took the children, then he would keep them safe because he would use them to make a deal. Darcy was good at deals. And she would bargain with the devil himself if it meant getting her son back.
Nate didn’t tack anything else on to his speculations about Dent, and the silence closed in around them. Except it wasn’t just an ordinary silence. It was the calm before the storm because Darcy knew what was coming next.
“Charles Brennan,” she tossed out there since she knew Nate had already thought of the man. Over a year ago Brennan had hired the triggerman who’d murdered Nate’s wife.
“Yeah,” Nate mumbled. “Any chance he’s behind this?”
Well, Brennan was dead, but she didn’t have to remind Nate of that. Because Nate had been the one to kill Brennan in a shoot-out after the man had taken a deputy hostage.
“Brennan made me executor of his estate,” Darcy volunteered. “I’ve gone through his files and financials, and there is no proof he left any postmortem instructions that had anything to do with you. Or me, for that matter.”
“You’re sure?” Nate pressed.
“Yes.” As sure as she could be, anyway, when it came to a monster like Brennan.
Nate made a sharp sound that clipped from his throat. It was the sound of pure disapproval. “Brennan was a cold-blooded killer, and you defended him.”
She had. And two months ago she would have argued that it was her duty to provide representation, but that was before her client had nearly killed a deputy sheriff, Nate and heaven knows how many others.
Darcy kept watch out the window. She didn’t want to look at Nate because she didn’t want him to see the hurt that was in her eyes. “There’s nothing you can say that will make me feel worse than I already do,” she let him know.
Silence again from Nate, and Darcy risked touching him so she could lean in and see the mileage. Just under twenty miles to go. Still an eternity.
Nate’s cell buzzed. “It’s Kade,” he said and flipped open the phone.
Just like that, both the dread and the hope grabbed her by the throat. She moved closer, until she was shoulder to shoulder with Nate. Darcy no longer cared about the touching risk. She had to know what Kade was saying.
“I’m on the side of the hill with a good binocular view of the Lost Appaloosa,” Kade explained. “And I have good news and bad.”
Oh, mercy. She wasn’t sure she could handle it if something had happened to the children. Nate’s deep breath let her know he felt the same.
“The good news—there’s a black van parked on the side of the main house,” Kade continued. “Something tells me this one isn’t a decoy.”
“How do you know?” Darcy asked before Nate could. She wanted to believe that was good news, but she wasn’t sure. “Do you see the children?”
“No sign of the children,” Kade told them. His voice was practically a whisper, but even the low volume couldn’t conceal his concern.
Kade paused. “Nate, call Grayson and the others and tell them to get out here right away. Because the bad news is—there are at least a half-dozen armed guards surrounding the place.”
Chapter Five
Nate parked the SUV near Kade’s truck—a good quarter mile from the Lost Appaloosa ranch house.