Page 3 of Protecting the Newborn

“Then why are you here?” Gracelyn’s tone was nowhere close to being friendly.

Since Ruston didn’t want to stand around outside any longer, he just spilled it. “Someone hired me to kidnap you. You and the baby who’s living here with you.”

But then he paused. And did some thinking. Or rather some calculating.

“The baby who’s living here with you,” he repeated. “How old is he or she?” Because that was a detail that Marty hadn’t given him. And it could be critical information, since Gracelyn and he had had sex ten and a half months ago.

Hell.

Was the child his?

“She’s a newborn,” Gracelyn muttered, her words rushing out as if to put a stop to the shock that must have been on his face. “She’s only two weeks old.”

Two weeks. So, the timing didn’t fit. “She’s your baby?” He had to ask because something else occurred to him.

That maybe Gracelyn had gotten the child from someone. Maybe from a baby farm or someone needing to put the baby in a safe place. That wouldn’t explain why Marty had wanted the child kidnapped, though. But there were a lot of things that needed explaining right now.

“She’s mine,” Gracelyn finally said, but she didn’t elaborate. However, she did take out something from the pocket of her jogging pants. The baby monitor he’d seen her looking at when she’d been by the window.

“Let’s go inside and talk,” he insisted. “Because something’s wrong. I’m not sure what, but we need to figure out why someone hired me to kidnap you and the newborn.”

She didn’t jump at his request, but after another glance at the monitor, she motioned for him to follow her. Gracelyn still had her gun gripped in her hand, and even though it was no longer pointed at him, she didn’t put it away.

Gracelyn led him into a small kitchen that at first glance seemed ordinary, with its outdated appliances and flowery wallpaper. Then he saw a tablet-sized device on the counter, and there were four images on the split screen that showed camera feed from all four sides of the house.

“Yeah,” he remarked, “you would have seen me coming on that.”

She made a sound of agreement and finally slipped her gun into what he realized was a slide holster in the back of her pants. She then triple locked the back door, took out her phone and showed him the same footage that was on the laptop.

“I get an alert if a camera or perimeter sensor is triggered,” she explained.

“That’s a lot of security,” Ruston muttered, holstering his own gun. “Want to tell me why you need it?”

Gracelyn glanced away, murmuring something under her breath that Ruston didn’t catch. “You might not have been tracked by anyone from our last mission, but I believe I have been. If not someone from the mission, then someone else.”

Everything inside him went still. “What do you mean?”

She dragged in a long breath and kept her attention pinned to the baby monitor. “About a month after I resigned from SAPD, I was renting a place in Dallas, and I wasn’t using my real name. It wasn’t the same identity I’d used in the undercover op either, and I was being careful.Very.Anyway, I realized someone was following me. I set up cameras and got proof of it. I couldn’t see his face, but he was definitely tracking me.”

Ruston cursed. “Was it a tall, lanky guy about six feet, sandy-blond hair and chin scruff?” he asked.

That got her gaze shifting back to him. “No. Dark hair, about six foot three, muscular build. Why? Who’s the guy you just described?”

“Marty Bennett, the lowlife who hired me to kidnap you and your baby.” Now Ruston needed a long, deep breath. “I figured it was for trafficking or a black-market adoption. But maybe not,” he added in a grumble.

Maybe Marty had a much bigger part in this.

One that had involved following Gracelyn long before he’d hired Ruston. But if Marty had known where she was all this time, why hadn’t he taken her before now?

“Tell me about this Marty Bennett,” Gracelyn insisted. “Is he connected in any way to the baby farm?”

Ruston shook his head. “Nothing in his background indicates that, and I dug hard and deep on him. Everything points to him being a somewhat successful money launderer and embezzler. He’s got gambling debts, so I figured he somehow found out about you and the baby and thought he could earn some quick cash.”

She didn’t say anything, but he saw the muscles tighten in her face. Heard the shudder of breath she released. Gracelyn was worried and scared.

“Has anyone else followed you since you moved here?” he asked.

“Not that I know of, but I’ve moved twice since leaving that apartment in Dallas. I was within a week of leaving here because it doesn’t feel safe to stay in one place for long.”

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