Page 16 of Protecting the Newborn

Again, he didn’t put the call on speaker, maybe because he thought it would wake the baby. But after only a few seconds, Gracelyn knew that Ruston was hearing bad news from his brother.

That churned up the adrenaline again and caused the mother lode of flashbacks to come at her. Not just of this attack tonight but of the one from nearly a year ago. She had to fight hard to push all of that away just so she could try to steel herself up for whatever Ruston had just learned. It took some effort, lots of it, but she’d just managed to regather her breath when Ruston hung up and looked at her.

“Slater found the truck. The license plates are bogus, and the gunmen weren’t inside,” he relayed. “They were nowhere in sight. Slater and the others will keep looking for them,” Ruston added when she groaned. “A CSI team is heading out to examine the truck now and take a sample of the blood drops that Slater spotted. I guess I was right about one of them being injured.”

Good, because the blood could lead to a DNA match. She hoped the injury was so serious that it meant this snake couldn’t come after them again.

“Slater said it appears the gunmen ran from the truck on foot,” Slater went on. “They left a lot of stuff behind.”

There was something in the way he said the last part that put her back on full alert. She waited, fighting for her breath again, while Ruston spelled it out.

“Slater had a cursory look of the inside of the truck and found my wallet,” Ruston added to his account. “He figures it was taken the same time my badge was. The gunmen’s plan was probably to kill you and then set me up for your murder.”

Gracelyn tried to mentally work her way through that. Yes, that could have indeed been the thugs’ plan. They could have waited out of sight, out of range of her cameras, until Ruston had arrived and was inside. Then they could have broken in and tried to make it look as if some kind of gunfight had gone on between Ruston and her.

“But why would they want to set you up for my murder?” she asked.

Ruston shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said and then paused again. “But there was also an infant seat in the truck. And baby things.”

Gracelyn felt everything inside her tighten into a knot. “They were going to kidnap Abigail.” Her voice broke. “She was the target.”

Ruston came closer, met her gaze, and he took hold of her hand. Probably because spelling it out like that had shaken Gracelyn to the core, and he’d no doubt seen that. His gentle grip helped steady her. More than Gracelyn wanted.

And that was why she stepped back.

She couldn’t do this, not with the nightmares pressing so close to her that she could feel them. Memories of coming so close to them being killed ten and a half months ago.

Ruston didn’t move back toward her, but their gazes stayed locked. At least they did until his phone rang again. “It’s Noah,” he muttered when he glanced at the screen. This time, he turned down the volume and put the call on speaker.

“Is something wrong?” Ruston asked the moment he answered.

“Yeah,” Noah confirmed. “Something’s very wrong. On the drive to Marty’s, I made a call to a computer tech I trust so I could get a background check on Archie Ingram and Simon Milbrath.” He paused. “They’re both dead, Ruston. Someone murdered them.”

Chapter Five

Ruston sat in one of the chairs in the guest room and, well, multitasked. He was watching the sleeping baby while Gracelyn showered in the adjoining bath. But he was also working on a laptop while drinking coffee and hoping for a miracle.

One miracle was that the caffeine would perform some magic and make him feel as if he’d gotten a decent night’s sleep and now had a clear head. He’d slept some in this very chair, but that nowhere near qualified as anything decent, and so far, his head was nowhere near being clear.

Judging from the glimpse of Gracelyn’s bleary eyes as she’d headed for the shower, she was in the same boat. No surprise about that. Like him, not only had she been dealing with the aftermath of the attack on them but also the flood of information they’d gotten since arriving at the ranch.

Three murders.

And all of them people who’d had a connection to either Gracelyn or him. People who could have ultimately given them the identity of the person responsible for this nightmare.

Someone was clearly cleaning up after themselves. Tying up loose ends. And Ruston needed to find something,anything, that would give them a break so he could learn who wanted them dead.

Unfortunately, scouring the steady stream of reports coming in and going over Devin’s old interview wasn’t giving him anything he could use. He figured Duncan was no doubt going through those same reports in his home office, along with coordinating this end of the investigation. That included the CSI search of the gunmen’s truck and the search of the grounds of the rental where Gracelyn had been staying.

Detective Noah Ryland was keeping both Duncan and him updated about the active cases there: the three murders and the break-in at Ruston’s apartment. Noah had also managed not only to get himself assigned as one of the detectives on the murders, but also to secure Marty’s laptop since there hadn’t been any actual paperwork in the dead man’s office. The laptop was now in the hands of the IT specialist that Noah trusted.

So far, the updates from Duncan, Slater and Noah had been disappointing. And outright frustrating. Someone, somewhere, had to know something that would help make sense of all this, but for now, there were still a whole lot of questions and very few answers.

He hoped some of those questions were about to be answered when his phone dinged with a text. But it wasn’t from Duncan, Slater or Noah. It was from Charla.

Where are you?Charla texted.Tony wants you at headquarters right away.

Ruston frowned and then mentally cursed. Eventually, he was going to have to meet with Tony, but he didn’t want that to happen until he learned who was trying to kill Gracelyn and him.

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