Page 10 of The Sheriff's Baby

“Kate Moreland,” Slater immediately said, and he rattled off an address in San Antonio. “Age fifty-three. Divorced. No criminal record. She’s a very wealthy businesswoman who owns a half dozen martial arts and workout gyms.”

“You have the name of her son?” Duncan pressed.

“Yeah. Brad. Age twenty-eight, and I’m just scratching the surface on him. Why? Is he part of this?”

“Kate seems to think so,” Duncan quickly verified. “She believes her son might be out to kill Joelle.”

Slater cursed. “He’s got a record for assault during a bar fight, but I don’t see any connection to Joelle or Saddle Ridge...” His words trailed off, and he cursed again. “But his ex-wife, Shanda Cantrell, does. My dad and you arrested her nearly two years ago for reckless driving and resisting arrest. Either of you remember that?”

“I do,” Duncan said.

“So do I,” Joelle murmured, trying to zoom in on any info that was lingering around in her memory. The info had plenty of gaps in it so she took out her phone and started searching while she continued. “I recall Dad and Duncan bringing in a woman for those charges. They had me search her for weapons, and because she was being so combative, Dad put her in a holding cell.”

“A definite yes to her being combative,” Duncan agreed. “She tried to take a punch at me. And she cursed and spat at Joelle. Cursed the sheriff, too.”

Slater must have pulled up the file right before she did because he was the one to add more. “She ended up pleading guilty, paid a fine and did some community service. Dad worked it out so she could do that service in San Antonio so she wouldn’t miss any work at her job as a florist.” Slater paused a moment. “Had she been drinking?” he asked. “Was that the reason for the reckless driving?”

“No alcohol,” Joelle was able to provide. “She admitted to having been in a heated argument with someone on her phone. She was also speeding when she rammed into a mailbox, swerved and nearly hit another car.” Then, she paused. Had to. Because she spotted something in the file notes. “Shanda was three months pregnant.”

Both Duncan and Slater went silent, but she could hear Slater clicking away on a keyboard. “She has no children listed. Neither does Brad.”

So either Shanda had miscarried or the baby had died. Either way, that might play into motive. If there was motive for Shanda, that is. Kate hadn’t said a word about her ex-daughter-in-law, only her son. Maybe then, losing a child had something to do with why Kate had come here to issue that warning about Brad.

“I’ll obviously want a conversation with both Shanda and Brad,” Duncan insisted.

“I can arrange that,” Slater volunteered. “When I call him, how much do you want him to know about his mother?”

Duncan’s forehead bunched up while he gave that some thought. Joelle definitely wanted to hear how he was going to handle this, but her phone rang, and her chest tightened when she saw Unknown Caller on the screen.

“This could be the ransom demand,” Joelle muttered, answering the call on speaker and hitting the record function on her phone.

She steeled herself up to hear a snarled threat and demand from the kidnapper. But it wasn’t.

“Help me,” the woman said.

It was Molly.

Chapter Four

“I’ll have to call you back,” Duncan told Slater the moment he heard Molly’s voice.

He didn’t wait for Slater to respond. Duncan ended the call and went closer to Joelle.

“Where are you?” Joelle asked Molly. “Are you all right?”

Molly didn’t answer, but Duncan could hear some kind of shuffling around, and several moments later, someone spoke. But this time, it wasn’t Molly.

“Don’t ask any questions,” a man said. His voice was muffled and practically a growl. No doubt because he was trying to disguise it. Did that mean Duncan knew this person? “I made a mistake, and I’m trying to fix it.”

Despite the man demanding no questions, Duncan had so many of them. Joelle no doubt did, too. But at the top of their list had to be if Molly had been harmed.

“We’re listening,” Duncan prompted so the man would continue.

“A big mistake,” he muttered, adding some profanity. “I’ll leave the woman somewhere you can find her.”

Duncan jumped right on that. It wasn’t the ransom demand—or any other kind of demand—he’d been expecting. “Where?”

“I’ll call you once I’ve dropped her off, tell you where she is, and you can come and get her,” the man was quick to say.

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