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He nearly reminded her again that he’d merely asked that she be reassigned because of their old baggage. His supervisor had agreed with him. End of story.
Except it obviously wasn’t.
“What’d you do?” Tucker asked, once he got his teeth unclenched.
“The case was important to me,” she said, her chin coming up in a defiant pose. Just as quickly, it came down, and she dodged his gaze. “I didn’t want to just drop it because you and I couldn’t get along. I wanted to help find those women and babies.”
Yeah, so had he.
By all accounts, there were dozens of missing women and babies lost in the maze of a massive black-market baby ring. Not just illegal adoptions, but illegal surrogacies, as well. Even pregnant women who were kidnapped until their babies were born, at which point the new mothers were murdered.
Cooper had helped to uncover and shut down a baby farm. That was a start. But there was evidence of many other farms.
And just as many cold-blooded killers operating them.
“Please tell me you didn’t do anything dangerous or stupid,” Tucker said.
Laine sure didn’t jump to tell him that she hadn’t. Which meant she had.
Tucker groaned. “What’d you do?” he repeated.
“I used some of the criminal informant contacts from the investigation to try to find another baby farm.” She paused, her gaze coming back to his. “And I found one.”
“Where?” But unfortunately Tucker had to wave off her answer when he heard a soft whistle.
It was Colt.
And the whistle was a signal they’d used since they were kids playing cops and robbers. It was just to let Tucker know he was approaching so he wouldn’t mistake him for a bad guy. Or in this case, shoot him.
Tucker glanced back and spotted Colt making his way across the road. His brother wasn’t headed inside the house with them, but rather toward Rayanne and the prisoners.
“What’s wrong?” Laine asked, and despite having both arms filled with babies, she hurried to the door beside Tucker and looked out. The medics were lifting the wounded prisoner into the ambulance.
“Rayanne, can you ride in the ambulance and keep an eye on this guy?” Tucker asked. “Colt and I will get someone else there shortly, but first I need to settle some things with Laine.”
“Laine?” she repeated in an unfriendly tone. “As in Laine Braddock?”
Tucker nodded, knowing the confirmation wasn’t going to help the venom in Rayanne’s eyes. Unlike Rayanne, he didn’t care much about their mother’s upcoming trial, but he didn’t want his dad and brothers dragged into it. The Braddocks, especially Laine’s mother, had threatened to do just that. She’d tossed around plenty of accusations about obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence.
All unfounded and untrue.
So basically Tucker was caught in the middle. Not a comfortable place to be, especially with Laine right by his side and an estranged sister snarling at both of them.
“You mean you called me out here to save her sorry butt?” Rayanne spat out.
“Not just her,” Tucker explained. “She had two newborns with her. Even you wouldn’t refuse to help little babies.”
Despite the rain and storm winds lashing at her, Rayanne stood there, glaring at him. Glaring at Laine, too, since she was now peering over Tucker’s shoulder.
“Let me guess,” Rayanne snapped, shifting her glare back to Tucker. “They’re your kids?”
Now it was time for Tucker to give her an eye roll. “I’m not exactly the daddy type, now, am I? No, these are babies that Laine rescued.”
He hoped.
If he was to believe anything their attacker said, then it was a strong possibility that Laine hadn’t told him the truth about the babies. Or about anything else.
Still grumbling something under her breath, Rayanne followed the medics into the ambulance.
“Thank you for helping,” Laine called out to her. Not a good thing to say. Anything at this point would have been unwise, especially anything coming from Laine, because it earned her another nasty glare from Rayanne.
“I’ll call for more backup,” Colt said, getting the second man into his cruiser. “I’m guessing Laine and the babies need a doctor, too?”
“Yeah.” At least for a checkup. “I’ll drive them to the hospital.”
“But what about the missing gunman?” Laine asked the moment Tucker shut the door. “He could follow us into town and attack us again.”
“He could, but it’s my guess he’s in regroup mode. And that means you need to tell me everything you did to cause these goons to come after you. Start with that criminal informant who helped you find the baby farm.”
Tucker motioned for her to start talking while he went to the doors and locked them. He didn’t intend to be in the house for long, but he also wanted to take a few precautions in case he was wrong about his regroup theory.
Laine didn’t jump to answer, something that put a knot the size of Texas in his gut. Tucker motioned for her to get on with it.
“The criminal informant was Gerry Farrow, and he took me to the baby farm,” Laine finally said. “He made me wear a blindfold so I couldn’t see where we were going, and he drove around for a long time. In circles, I’m sure, so I wouldn’t be able to find the place later.”
His groan didn’t help hush the babies any. “And you thought it was a good idea for a civilian to go walking into something like that with a person you didn’t even know if you could trust?”
She glanced away again. “I wanted to find those pregnant captives and save them. I didn’t want their babies sold like cattle. And I thought I had a better chance of getting in there than the cops, Rangers or FBI.” Laine paused. “I saw two women, including the one who was killed in the parking lot.”
Oh, man. “Funny you didn’t mention that connection right off the bat. You’ve told the FBI all of this?”
“I told them about the baby farm, but by the time we were able to work out where it was, it was too late. When they got there, the guards and the pregnant women were all gone.”
No surprise there. “You were lucky those guards didn’t kill you at the farm.”
She made a soft sound of agreement. “I pretended to be a potential buyer for one of the babies.”
“And they believed you?” Tucker asked, not bothering to hold back on the skeptical tone in his voice. He motioned for her to follow him to the bedroom so he could do something about their wet clothes.
Laine nodded. Then she lifted her shoulder. “They didn’t try to kill me, anyway. They made some calls, did a quick background check and learned that I had indeed been trying to adopt.”
Tucker hadn’t thought there could be any more surprises today, but he’d been wrong. “You did a fake adoption request for the sake of the investigation?”
“No,” she snapped. That put some fire in her ice-blue eyes, but it quickly cooled down. “I can’t have children, so I’ve been trying to adopt for months now.”
In a town the size of Sweetwater Springs, it was hard to keep secrets, but Laine had obviously managed to keep that one.
And it caused him to curse again.
“You gave those guards your real name?” The babies didn’t like his near shout, and they fussed even louder.
“I figured that was the fastest way to get them to believe I was really there looking for a baby.”
There were so many things wrong with that comment that Tucker didn’t know where to start. “So, you let them believe you were a customer willing to break the law. Obviously that didn’t work out so well, did it?”
“Obviously,” she mumbled. “One of the guards told me they’d be in touch, and we left. But they did follow us.”
Of course they did.
Tucker rummaged through his closet, locating some dry clothes for himself and a white button-up shirt for Laine. He dropped it all on the dresser. He also maneuvered her away from the window and helped her put the babies on the bed so she could change.
“They followed you to your office?” he asked.
But he darn near forgot the question when Laine shucked off her wet top. She had on a lacy white bra, but the rain had practically made it see-through.
This wasn’t the kid he’d kissed in his granddaddy’s kitchen.
Nope. Laine was a fully grown woman now, with real curves he had no business gawking at. She obviously felt the same because she scowled when she noticed where his attention had landed.
“Sorry, I forgot we had this...connection between us,” she mumbled.
“There’s nothing between us,” Tucker jumped to say.
Too bad it was a big fat lie. One that he had zero intention of straightening out. He yanked off his shirt as if he’d waged war on it.
“To answer your question—no, the guards didn’t follow me,” she snapped.
Because his mind still wasn’t where it should be, it took him a moment to remember the question—had the guards followed the CI and her back to her office?
“How would you know if they’d followed you there or not?” he pressed.
Laine huffed, snatched up the shirt. The moment she had it on, she eased down on the bed beside the babies, trying to comfort them. “The CI made sure of that. He drove around with me until they stopped following us, and he said it was safe.”
“Well, he was clearly wrong about that, wasn’t he?” He huffed. “Remember, there are two things that make a CI. Being a paid informant and being a criminal.”
“What does that mean?”
Her gaze snapped back to his. Probably something she wished she could take back, because Tucker had already stripped down to his boxers. Proving that she was the most stubborn woman in the whole state of Texas, she didn’t look away.
“It means the CI could have been looking for a way to earn a few bucks. He could have gone back to the baby farm and told them that he was suspicious of you and that you needed to be taken care of.”
Laine opened her mouth, no doubt to deny that, but then she shook her head. Her eyes widened, and she touched her fingers to her mouth. “Oh, God.”
“Yeah, oh, God,” he mumbled. “You took a serious risk going out there, going anywhere, with that idiot. And even if he was truly trying to help, he put your neck right on the line by taking you into a hornet’s nest.”
He could have continued his tirade for several more minutes, but his phone rang, and Tucker saw Reed’s name on the screen. He hoped the deputy had some good news, because they sure as heck needed it. He hit the speaker button so he could take the call and finish dressing.
“I was just out at the parking lot behind Laine’s office,” Reed said. “I found some blood.”
Tucker cursed, not because he hadn’t expected the news. After everything Laine had told him, he had, but that blood was confirmation they were dealing with killers and not just some loons out to kidnap a pair of newborns.
“There’s not much blood left because it’s raining hard,” Reed went on. “Still, I found some spots on the corner of the building beneath the eaves. Found a pacifier, too. Hard to tell, but it might have a fingerprint on it. DNA, too, if the rain hasn’t gotten to it.”
“Send it and the blood sample to the Ranger lab for immediate processing,” Tucker instructed. He glanced at the babies. He needed to know who the dead woman was so he could locate the babies’ next of kin.
“Any security cameras nearby?” Tucker asked. “Maybe we can get footage of what happened. In case we don’t have a print, we might be able to get some photos of her.”
And photos of her killers, as well.
After all, Laine had said they’d gotten out of the car to retrieve the body, and that meant a camera could show the murder in progress.
“Maybe,” Reed answered. “That new jewelry store up the street has cameras. Don’t know if the angles are right, but I’ll call them while I’m driving out to check Laine’s car for prints.”
“Make the call, but skip the fingerprints on the car for now.” With the rain, it was probably a lost cause anyway. Besides, he had something more important for Reed to do. “Come out to my place. I’d like someone close by in case things get ugly again.”
That didn’t help soothe any of the tension from Laine’s face. It wouldn’t help soothe his, either, but it was a precaution Tucker needed to take.
Not just for Laine, but for those babies.
The moment he finished the call with Reed, Laine said, “The dead woman could have heard the guards or the CI mention me. She could have heard my name, and that’s why she called me.”
Yeah, Laine’s phone number wouldn’t have been hard to find. But why had the woman thought she could trust Laine? And how the heck had she gotten away from the baby farm and into town?
“She probably heard more than just your name,” Tucker explained. “She likely heard the guards say that they didn’t trust you, that you could be working for the cops.”
Of course that meant assuming the woman was totally innocent in all of this. And that she was indeed trying to protect her babies. But maybe the men killed her for a different reason, and finding that reason would only be possible if they first learned her identity. Hopefully the blood Reed had found would help with that.
“Come on.” Tucker grabbed some towels from the adjoining bathroom. “Reed will be here soon, and I need to get the babies and you to the hospital for checkups.”
Laine gave a shaky nod, probably because she wasn’t thrilled about going outside, where the missing gunman might spot her. “And then what?”
“Protective custody. A safe house.”
Another nod. She wrapped the babies each in the towels. Not ideal cover, but it was better than using the damp blanket Laine had used to hold them earlier.
“Can you manage to carry both of them?” he asked. It was a strange question, because she’d carried them across the pasture to get to his house, but she was more shaken up now. After all, she’d just come darn close to dying.
“Yes.” And her attention went to the belt holster he’d just put on. Then to the backup weapon he slid into the back of his jeans.
“I’ll pull the truck right up to the steps,” he assured her. “By the time we make it to the road, Reed should be here.”
Tucker had barely made it a step before he heard the sound of a car engine. He hurried to the front window, expecting to see Reed’s truck, but it was a black four-door sedan.
“What’s wrong?” Laine asked, obviously noticing the change in his body language.
“Maybe nothing.” Of course, it felt like something since it could be their attacker returning.
However, the man who stepped out from the car wasn’t the escaped gunman. This guy was in his late twenties and had pale blond hair. He was wearing a dark gray suit, with no sign of a weapon. He ducked his head against the storm and ran toward the porch.
