Page 18 of Protecting the Newborn

She made a sound of agreement. “How long had you known my address before you showed up?”

“About five hours.” He’d already given this plenty of thought as well. “So, maybe those men learned when I did. Perhaps Marty told them, or they found out through a mole or some kind of listening device. Either way, they would have had those five hours to figure out how to come after you.” He paused. “Did you do your own security or hire someone else to set it up?”

“I did it,” she answered, “with items I bought with cash the day I decided to disappear nearly a year ago. In fact, I’ve lived mainly off cash since then. Both Allie and I got a share of our parents’ life insurance money after they died in a car crash. Allie blew through hers, but I saved mine and have been living off it since my resignation.” She shook her head. “Those thugs didn’t locate me through the security system, and that takes us back to Marty or someone connected to him.”

Gracelyn seemed to settle a little. Ironic, since they were talking about the attack. But they were doing more than that. They were looking at this like cops and not intended victims.

“Did you get any calls or new reports when I was in the shower?” she asked.

“A few,” he verified, “and basically all said the same thing. Everything is still being processed and looked at. Including Simon’s and Archie’s murders. Times of death for those two are about an hour apart, so the same person could have killed them both and then gone after Marty.” He stopped and went through the mental checklist. “I also got three texts and a call from Charla.”

The worry returned to her eyes. “She’s demanding you come in?”

He nodded. “And you.”

“Me? How did she know about...?” Gracelyn stopped. “Duncan would have had to do a report, and she could have accessed it. Of course, she wouldn’t have needed to access it if she already knew I was an intended target.”

“Bingo.” It still didn’t sit well with him to think of a fellow cop as being responsible for this, but there were bad apples in every career field, and she might be one of them. “Charla says they got an anonymous tip, claiming that Marty was Green Eagle.”

Gracelyn’s eyes narrowed. “That’s convenient.”

“Isn’t it, though?” he quickly agreed. “It works both ways in the killer’s favor. If Marty was indeed Green Eagle, then he can’t spill about anyone else who was involved in the baby-farm operation. If Marty wasn’t Green Eagle, then someone wanted to set him up, probably with the hopes that setting him up would end any further investigation.”

“That’s one neat little package,” Gracelyn muttered. “Too neat for my liking.”

Ruston couldn’t agree fast enough. “Let’s see how this neat little package plays out. Charla will likely say that because Marty was Green Eagle, he wanted the baby for his still-ongoing business.”

Gracelyn picked up on that scenario. “And that Marty wanted to get back at us for infiltrating the baby farm and causing him to have to move locations. Probably costing him a lot of money because of that. So, Marty hired you, somehow already knowing who you were. You and I were supposed to die, with you being set up for my murder.”

He nodded. “But it’s equally possible that Marty didn’t actually orchestrate the attack against us. He could have been merely a middleman who had no connection to the baby farm or to us before someone used or hired him to set up yours and Abigail’s kidnappings. He might not have had a clue how someone else was intending for this to play out. In the meantime, the cops will focus on Marty, and the real killer could just fade into the background.”

“Or come after us again,” Gracelyn muttered, her voice barely louder than a whisper. He saw the punch of emotion hit her, but then she quickly shook it off. “And that brings us back to Charla and Tony. Maybe,” she amended. “And maybe they’re clean. If so, that leaves Allie and Abigail’s bio-father, Devin Blackburn.”

Yes, because those two were the only other known players in this potentially lethal puzzle. Ruston had to ask, though he knew it was going to give Gracelyn another of those emotional jabs. “Could Allie have been in on the attack? Does she have a motive?”

“Trust me, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” she muttered.

Of course she had. Gracelyn was still a cop at the core, and motherhood was an obvious connection they couldn’t overlook.

“There’d be no obvious reason for Allie to kidnap the baby and kill us,” Gracelyn said. “Obvious,” she repeated. “If she wanted Abigail back, Allie knows how to get in touch with me. She could have called or texted the burner phone in my go bag. I check it often, and there was no contact from her.”

Ruston figured Gracelyn had already thought of one possibility, so he voiced it. “What if Allie believed that you wouldn’t give Abigail back to her? What if she thought, or someone convinced her, that kidnapping the baby was the only way she’d get her child back?”

Gracelyn’s groan was soft, but it seemed to rumble through her entire body. “I wouldn’t have just handed Abigail over to Allie. Not until I was certain she wouldn’t do anything else reckless. And not as long as she was involved with a man like Devin Blackburn. So, yes, Allie might have known that, and Devin might have convinced her to go along with the kidnapping.”

“And our murders?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Allie wouldn’t have agreed to that. And, no, I’m not saying that because I’m her sister. I’m saying it because Allie isn’t violent. She’s, uh, more of a doormat. A very pliable, easily swayed one who Devin could have used to help him set up the kidnapping. Allie would have known what kind of security I was using, and there’s a slim chance she might have even had an idea of where I was.”

Ruston jumped right on that. “How?”

“I had notes on my tablet,” she admitted, her forehead bunching up. That in turn caused her to wince a little, and she dabbed at the cut again. “Notes about possible rentals that I could use to make quick moves. My tablet is password protected, but there’s a chance that Allie could have seen me typing and then accessed the notes without me knowing.”

“Why would she have done that?” he pressed.

“Not specifically to find the notes,” Gracelyn assured him. “But maybe to try to contact Devin. Or to check his social media posts.” She stopped and sighed in frustration. “One minute Allie would be cursing Devin for the way he treated her, and the next, she’d be going on about forgiving him. Right before she left, she had convinced herself that she was responsible for him hitting her.”

That was classic battered woman syndrome, and apparently the urge to forgive him and reunite had won out. Or maybe it had.

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