Page 20 of Protecting the Newborn

He didn’t want to hide behind Bree and legal walls anyway. He’d talk to Tony, give whatever statement was necessary, all the while watching for any signs that the lieutenant could be a cold-blooded killer.

There was a knock at the door, and for a moment, Ruston thought that meeting with Tony would be even sooner than he’d thought. But it was Slater.

“It’s me,” Slater said, keeping his voice low, no doubt because of the baby.

“Thanks for the info,” Ruston told Noah, and he ended the call before he opened the door.

His brother was indeed there and not alone. Joelle was with him, and she had a tray of breakfast items. Fruit bowls, pastries and some juice. “You’re probably not hungry,” she immediately said. “But I decided to bring it up anyway.”

Ruston checked the time. Just past nine, so not late, but he realized he should have already gotten Gracelyn and himself something to eat since neither of them had had dinner the night before. And, yeah, they wouldn’t be hungry, but they should still try to eat.

He thanked his sister, who had already set down the tray and was making her way to look at the baby. “How did she sleep?” Joelle asked.

“Pretty good,” Gracelyn supplied. “She had a four-hour stretch before she woke up for a bottle. And now she’s about an hour into a nap. She might nap for another three hours before I have to feed her again.”

“Speaking of feeding,” Slater said, handing Ruston a large canvas shopping bag. “Extra diapers and formula,” he explained. “Joelle arranged to have it delivered.”

“But I made a point of telling the store clerk I was having some serious nesting urges and that I wanted the items for the nursery,” Joelle added. “That way, no one is blabbing about a baby being here at the ranch.”

Gracelyn added her own thanks to Joelle. It was possible the ranch hands were aware that Abigail was here, but the fewer people who knew, the better.

They shifted their attention to Slater. Everything about Slater’s expression conveyed that he didn’t have good news.

“Did you find the gunmen?” Ruston came out and asked. He set the canvas bag in the chair where he’d slept.

“No, but we think we know who one of them is. The blood is at the lab, and that might take a while to process, but there was a single partial fingerprint on the passenger’s-side door handle. The handle had been wiped down, but he must have missed this one. Probably because he was in a hurry to get out of there. Anyway, the CSIs ran the partial, and they got an immediate hit for a man named Terry Zimmer.”

Ruston tested out the name by repeating it a couple of times, but it wasn’t familiar. “Zimmer has a record? Is that why his prints were on file?”

Slater shook his head. “He was a cop in Austin and resigned after some complaints about excessive force. That was three years ago, and afterward he supposedly worked for a company that provides security for large parties, weddings and corporate events.”

Ruston latched on to one word.“Supposedly?”

“He did work there, part-time,” Slater confirmed, “but he quit a little over a year ago, and no one at the company has heard from or seen him since.” He paused a moment. “The CSIs found something when they ran facial recognition on him.”

Slater took out his phone, and Gracelyn and Ruston stepped closer to look at the picture. It was a grainy shot but still clear enough for Ruston to realize what he was seeing. The sprawling Victorian house that had once been a small hotel. That’d been its purpose fifty years ago, anyway. But it had been converted into something else.

The baby farm.

This had been the place Gracelyn and he had infiltrated. The place where they’d nearly died.

Gracelyn had no trouble recognizing it either, it seemed, because Ruston heard her quick intake of breath. Despite the god-awful memories it held, though, she didn’t back away. Neither did Ruston. That was because the house wasn’t the only thing in the picture. There was a man dressed in dark camo, and he was armed. His stance suggested he was standing guard.

Slater zoomed in on the man’s face. “This was a picture taken shortly before Gracelyn and you arrived there undercover. And that’s Terry Zimmer.”

Ruston’s mind began to whirl with thoughts of what this might mean. One immediate question came to mind. Was this Green Eagle? Ruston’s guess was no. The boss of an operation that made millions of dollars probably wouldn’t have been doing guard duty.

“Why wasn’t this match made after the attack?” Gracelyn wanted to know. “Why did it take so long to identify him in this picture?”

“Apparently, because there are hundreds of photos that were taken over a monthlong period when the San Antonio cops had the place under surveillance,” Slater explained. “Or that’s what the CSIs told me, anyway. Hundreds that are still in queues waiting to be processed. This picture was one of them, and it popped because it’d been scanned into the system, but that’s about all that had been done with it.”

Ruston knew it wasn’t that unusual for evidence to take months to process. He only hoped that someone, like a dirty cop, hadn’t purposely delayed the examination of this photo.

“Does Duncan know all of this?” Ruston asked.

Slater nodded. “I filled him in before I came up to tell you.” He paused. “While I had the CSI on the phone, I asked for a quick background on Zimmer, and I got his employment history. As a rookie cop in Austin, he worked with your lieutenant.”

“Tony knows him,” Gracelyn muttered, sounding just as rocked by that tidbit as Ruston was.

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