Page 71 of Deny Me
Hugh Moncrief latched on to her the minute the doors opened. “Hello, Charlotte,” he said, his smile confident despite the fact that he looked…rough. Worried. In fact he looked strangely like he hadn’t slept last night either.
Of course, he looked rough. His brother had died yesterday.
“Hugh, is something wrong?”
His gaze dropped to the bassinet, and his smile widened. “Not anymore.”
Before she could register the movement, he leaped toward her, leading with his fist. The punch connected with her temple, the impact sending her flying away from the bassinet onto the hard floor. The back of her head hit the tile. For a moment the room spun, went black, and then she was watching without truly registering as Hugh snatched Sophia from the bassinet and shoved the cart back at the nurse, knocking her down.
“No!”
∞
“Whois here?” King asked, certain he couldn’t have heard Dain right.
“Hugh Moncrief. He’s on the elevator headed your way.”
“Maybe he’s here to see Charlotte?” The minute the words were out of his mouth, the wrongness of them rang in his head. It would seem reasonable for Hugh to seek out his brother’s best friend the day after he’d committed suicide, except…Hugh shouldn’t know where they were. Even if he’d called the house, Ruth and Ben were under strict instructions not to mention their whereabouts.
And still Hugh, whose brother was dead, who could have been a carbon copy of his sibling, was here, at the hospital Becky had delivered at.
The same building that held a newborn wanted by a baby-selling ring.
“I don’t think so, King,” Dain said in his ear, cutting off his spinning thoughts. “Go get Elliot. I’ve got Saint headed your way.”
“Got it.” He pressed the End button just as a shout from the end of the corridor caught his attention.
“Shit!”
Charlotte took the punch directly to the face, too far away for King to stop it. Hugh, eyes frantic, scooped the pink-swathed bundle out of the cart, using it to push the nurse off her feet. King skidded to a stop next to Charlotte. “Okay?”
She nodded shakily, leveraging his body to get herself up off the floor. “He’s got the baby!”
Charlotte’s arm in his grip, he rushed them around the corner leading to the nursery, only to come skidding to a stop.
Hugh stood, frozen, in the middle of the hall next to the nurses’ station. King shifted closer to the wall and saw Saint standing at the opposite end, outside the nursery doors, his gun up and aimed at Hugh. “Put her down, man,” Saint said.
Hugh glanced over his shoulder, saw King and Charlotte, and glanced back at Saint. He lifted the baby higher on his chest with one arm, drawing a thin cry from her, his other hand reaching for the back of his waistband. King grimaced as his cousin pulled a handgun out and pointed it at the baby.
“Hugh, no!” Charlotte slipped King’s grip, making it three steps closer before King caught hold of her shirt and dragged her back. “Please, don’t do this! Give her to me!”
Hugh shook his head, glancing frantically back and forth between Saint and King. “There’s no giving her back. Don’t you get that? It’s her or me, and I’m sure as hell not going down for some stupid bitch’s kid.”
The pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together in King’s mind, stealing his breath. He struggled to form the words he needed. “You killed Wes?”
How? Why? God, what had Wes ever done that Hugh could shoot his own brother in the head?
“You were too close,” Hugh shouted, the gun going from Sophia’s head to aim at King. “You should have left well enough alone and none of this would have happened.”
“It was you all along?” Charlotte cried. “How? How could you sell innocent children, Hugh?”
He shrugged, his aim wavering between Charlotte and King too much for King’s peace of mind. “Easy money. They were being adopted anyway; why not make my own life easier along the way.”
“They weren’t all willing,” Charlotte snarled, “and you knew that! You knew it when Richard Jones made the deal for his grandchild, then tried to kill me.”
“And that would have been the end of it if you’d just let it go!” Hugh shifted the baby in his hold again. The loud noises and clumsy grip had Sophia crying harder now, face red with anger. “Wes had all the details I needed—the families, the babies. I matched them with that stupid nurse and gave her a push to pass my name along. Well, not my name”—he shrugged—“but I’d picked up enough jargon along the way to impersonate a lawyer when I needed to.” He took a step back, glanced over his shoulder at Saint, then stopped. “It was the perfect setup until you ruined it, Charlotte, calling them in.” A jerk of the gun toward King.
Down the corridor, King saw Saint moving forward. Dain and Elliot weren’t in sight, but he knew they were here somewhere. The thought was confirmed when the door to the stairs at the end of the hall behind Saint opened and Dain stepped out.
