Page 54 of Protecting the Newborn

Whether or not Charla would call back was anyone’s guess. Ditto for her revealing what she was actually doing there. She could have been setting up another attack. Or she could have simply been looking for Tony. Ruston had no idea where he was. Then again, he could say that about all of their suspects except for Allie.

“You’re thinking how vulnerable we are here at the hospital,” Gracelyn muttered, and when he pulled himself out of his own thoughts, he realized she was staring up at him.

Ruston nodded. “Vulnerable here and anywhere else we happen to go,” he admitted.

Gracelyn matched his nod. “Once Allie’s out of surgery and we’re back at the ranch, we should talk about that plan for us as bait. And, no, I don’t like it any more than you do,” she was quick to add. “But the truth is, we’re no closer to catching this killer than we were two days ago. You and I are what he or she wants. We’re what could cause the killer to slip up and get caught.”

Every word of that was true, but it didn’t minimize the risks they’d be taking. That was why he tried again to offer her a plan B. “I can be the bait, and you can be part of the security setup. You can be the one to help pen in the killer.”

Ruston could tell from the look in her eyes that she was going to argue with that. She didn’t want to be tucked away somewhere while he was basically dealing with a serial killer. But she didn’t get a chance to voice that because of the sound of footsteps.

Both Gracelyn and he put their hands over their guns, proof of just how on edge they were, but it was Duncan who stepped into the doorway.

“Anything on Allie?” he immediately asked.

“She’s back in surgery,” Gracelyn answered. “Internal bleeding. It doesn’t sound good.”

Duncan muttered an “I’m sorry” and then paused. “The medical examiner found something on Zimmer’s body.”

That got their attention, and they pinned their gazes on Duncan.

“Zimmer had homemade tats between his toes,” Duncan explained. “Recent ones. It appears to be a username and password. For what, we don’t know, but I just got off the phone with the tech guys who are going to try to find out what they could mean.”

Ruston thought back through all the things Zimmer had told Gracelyn and him in that phone conversation. “If Zimmer wasn’t lying about investigating the baby farm, this could be his notes or something. Heck, it could give us the name of the killer.”

“Yeah,” Duncan muttered, not sounding overly hopeful, yet there was some hope there. Maybe because they didn’t have any other leads.

“Did Slater tell you about Charla’s vehicle being spotted near the ranch?” Ruston asked him.

“He did,” Duncan verified. “Any chance your pal Noah Ryland can locate her and ask her about that?”

“I’ll check,” Ruston said, taking out his phone. “While I’m at it, I’ll see if he can get any feed from security cameras near Devin’s. It’d be interesting to see if his story about Allie trying to break in meshes with what shows up on the cameras.”

Ruston started the text but then glanced up when the lights flickered. He frowned because there wasn’t a storm to cause any interference. Frowned, too, because any and everything that wasn’t normal was suspicious.

His suspicions skyrocketed.

The lights went out, and the room was plunged into total darkness.

GRACELYNHEARDHERSELFGASP, and she thought maybe her heart had skipped a beat or two. She immediately fumbled for her phone, but before she could take it out, a light came on. Not the overhead ones. This was a much dimmer one that was fixed on the wall.

“The generator kicked in,” she heard Ruston say.

Obviously, he didn’t think the loss of power was a fluke, because he’d stepped into the doorway next to Duncan and had already drawn his gun. Duncan and she did the same.

And they waited.

Her heartbeat started to race and thud as she thought of all the things that could go wrong. The killer could be coming after them. Right now. He could be using the dim lights as a way to get closer. But Ruston, Duncan and she were ready for that.

She hoped.

Gracelyn prayed the killer hadn’t come up with a way to get to them that they couldn’t stop. Or a way to crush her without even being near her.

“Abigail,” she muttered, and the fear came, soaring.

Because if the killer had arranged for this, there could be an attack at the ranch. Her hands were far from being steady when she took out her phone and made a call to Joelle.

More waiting. Each fraction of a second seemed to take an eternity, but Joelle finally answered.

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