Читать книгу: «The Cradle Files», страница 2

With her gun.

Even if he hadn’t had a weapon in his right hand, his body would have certainly been classified as one. He was all sinew and muscle.

And he was all over her.

His right leg was wedged between hers. His chest squashed against her breasts. Their middles aligned perfectly, as if they were about to have sex.

That alignment didn’t bring back any memories.

However, it did remind her that he was a very virile man.

As if she needed anything to remind her of that.

What was wrong with her, anyway? Her brain was messed up. So was her body. Only three and a half weeks ago she’d given birth, and here she was reacting to a man who for all practical purposes was a stranger. Maybe this was a bad case of postdelivery hormones. If so, it was a sick trick to play on her.

Because Garrett was so close, Lexie caught his scent. His ocean-scented deodorant soap. His shampoo. His spearmint toothpaste. And beneath all the toiletry stuff, his own scent was there. All man.

Not that she’d had any doubts about that.

“Well?” he said. Definitely not a question, but more like a challenge. It had a tinge of a Texas drawl and a hefty amount of anger in it.

He didn’t believe her.

For the first time since she’d started this fiasco, Lexie was truly afraid. “What are you going to do to me?”

He blinked, surprised, as if genuinely insulted. “I’m not going to kill you, that’s for sure. If I’d wanted you dead,” he informed her, enunciating each word carefully, “you already would be.”

Because she couldn’t let him think she was weak, Lexie hiked up her chin and met him eye to eye. “I could say the same thing,” she retorted.

Okay, so that was a lie. But maybe Garrett didn’t know that, and right now, she’d do whatever it took, including an attempt at intimidation, to get his cooperation. She had to make him believe her because she needed his help.

He shifted slightly, so that his thigh wasn’t pressed against the V junction of her jeans. “If the condom failed, then I have just one question,” he said. “Where’s the baby?”

It was the only question that mattered.

The memories of the delivery came flooding back. The pain. God, the pain. That tiny cry. And just like that, Lexie found herself blinking back more tears.

So much for her attempt at appearing strong and sturdy.

She was failing at a lot of things tonight.

“I tried to stop it,” she heard herself say. Mercy, her voice was ripe with fatigue and weariness. “But the man was too strong.”

Garrett eased off her. “The man who tried to kill you?”

“No. This man was there when I delivered. With the doctor. The doctor had slightly graying hair. He was tall, with wide shoulders. And he shoved a needle in my arm. It was filled with some kind of drug. I think it was the drug that left me with all these gaps in my memory.”

Garrett stood, staring down at her. “Then how do you know the baby isn’t a drug-induced figment?”

“She isn’t a figment,” Lexie insisted. “She’s real.”

Garrett paused. “She?”

“I didn’t actually see the baby, but I’m positive it was a little girl.”

His expression softened. Briefly. And then the concern returned and settled into his eyes. “Lexie, what happened? What did this man do?”

She wasn’t even sure she could say the words aloud. Just thinking them nearly ripped her heart apart.

“He stole the baby. And we have to find her, Garrett. One way or another, we have to get our daughter back.”

Chapter Three

Garrett felt as if someone had slugged him. Twice.

“Oh, man,” he mumbled. And because he didn’t know what else to say or do, he just stood there and kept mumbling it.

A baby.

Specifically, a three-and-a-half-week-old daughter.

A child he’d conceived with Lexie during the “adrenaline sex” they’d had after she testified against her boss.

Well, maybe.

And maybe all of this was some bizarre encounter with a woman who was no longer sane.

Except Lexie seemed sane. Well, she did if he disregarded half of what she’d said. Oh, and if he didn’t count the fact that she’d broken into his house and held him at gunpoint.

Not exactly the actions of a sane woman.

But if what she’d told him was true, then what she had been through would have tested anyone’s sanity.

Lexie got up from the bed. Not slowly, either. And she immediately started toward him.

“Don’t you even think about trying to get this gun back,” Garrett warned through clenched teeth. “And forget any thoughts about trying to pound me into the floor by using your martial arts training. And definitely don’t do anything else that’ll rile me.”

She blinked. “I have martial arts training?”

He was certain he scowled—because under the circumstances it seemed a semi-trivial question and because he probably shouldn’t have informed her of that particular talent. “Yeah. You do.”

Lexie touched her fingertips to her right temple. “I wish I’d known that sooner.”

“Lucky for me you didn’t, because I obviously have enough to deal with.” And he needed to start dealing. “Honesty time,” he insisted, turning toward her. Unfortunately, because she was already so close, that move put their faces only a couple of inches apart. Breath met breath. “Is all of what you told me true?”

“Yes.” She paused. Nodded. Paused again. “There are some blank spots in my memory, but giving birth isn’t one of them. I swear I had a baby.”

And he was the father.

Okay. He didn’t doubt that last part. If Lexie had indeed had a child, then the timing was perfect for it to be his. Unfortunately, the pregnancy timing was the only thing that was perfect or that made sense.

She pressed her lips together for a moment and gave him a considering stare. “I don’t think I would have left your bed and gone to another man.”

“You wouldn’t have.” In fact, in those days leading up to Billy Avery’s trial, while Lexie had still been in his protective custody, they’d talked about a lot of things, including their sex lives.

Or lack thereof.

Lexie wasn’t a person who slept around. Neither was he, despite the player reputation he had among his fellow officers.

Even though he tried to tamp down all the wild scenarios that started to fly through his head, he wasn’t completely successful. But Garrett forced himself to focus.

First things first.

He ejected the ammunition from her weapon. The unfired bullets landed on the floor. Using his bare foot, he kicked them several feet away from her.

She watched the cartridges scatter, and her gaze flew to his again. “You still think I’m here to shoot you?”

“I don’t want you to have the opportunity to even consider it. Confiscating and disarming a weapon are standard police procedures.”

“If I were a suspect.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what you are. Or what’s going on. You broke into the home of a cop, which only makes things worse for you. And for me. I just want to follow some kind of rules and regs so I know I’ll be doing something right.”

Which was a joke that would have earned him some serious ribbing from his brother, sister and parents—all four of whom were cops or former cops. He’d never really thought of himself as a rule follower. However, in this case, he hoped the rules would ground him, because he needed something to do that.

“Who stole the baby?” he asked.

Just like that, the fight in her expression and posture faded. No more hiked up chin. No more adamant if-I-were-a-suspect retorts. “I don’t know. As I said, I have gaps in my memory, and unfortunately that’s one of them.”

“All right.” Those gaps wouldn’t make this easier, but it wasn’t impossible. “Start with what you do know.”

She waited a moment, apparently considering his suggestion. “I know who I am. More or less. I remember my childhood, growing up on a ranch in east Texas with my father. I remember the day I left to go to college. It’s my adulthood that’s a little fuzzy. I can’t recall working as a bodyguard for William Avery, and I didn’t have any idea about his arrest or the trial.”

Those weren’t just gaps in her memory. They were huge craters that encompassed months of time. “And you didn’t remember me?”

She drew in her breath, released it slowly. “No.”

Garrett worked his way through the implications of what she was saying. For all practical purposes, he was a gap. “Then why did you come here to my house? How did you guess that we’d even had sex?”

“In one of the articles there was a photo of us leaving the courthouse. You had your arm curved around my waist and were obviously trying to get me out of the path of the photographers and the press.”

He remembered the picture. In fact, he’d stared at it for hours after Lexie had left. “From that, you decided I’d fathered your baby?”

“There was something about the way you were holding me.” She shrugged. “It was…intimate.”

She looked at him.

He looked at her.

And it was still intimate.

Even now.

Hell. He could feel the attraction. Evidently that was something even gaps in memory couldn’t cool down. Well, he sure as heck would put an end to it. He was not going to lose his badge by giving in to emotions that he should have never felt in the first place.

“Yeah. Intimate,” he repeated. His boss had thought the same thing—so much so that the single photo had spurred some hard questions from Internal Affairs. Questions about Garrett’s professionalism. About his dedication to the badge and his assignment.

Questions that had cut to the core simply because they’d been asked.

No.

He wasn’t going back there.

“After you testified that day, you were upset. Rightfully so,” Garrett explained, trying to make it sound clinical. “Billy Avery’s lawyers had asked some tough questions and tried to rattle you while you were on the stand. They also tried to discredit you and your testimony about the illegal activity that you’d witnessed. But you held your ground. You were able to give details that the defense couldn’t refute.”

“And it was after I left the courthouse that we went to the hotel and…had sex?”

Garrett waited a moment. “You remember anything about that?”

“No.”

That didn’t matter. Because he had enough memories for both of them.

“And I don’t remember leaving,” she continued. “Though there was an article that mentioned I’d disappeared.”

There was no way he could keep this clinical, so he settled for keeping it short. “You did.”

She stared at him. “I don’t know where I went. Where I stayed. What I did. All of that is a blank, and I don’t remember anything until I went into labor.”

Well, at least they had that. “You have no idea who took the child?”

“None. But I remember where it happened. It was at the Brighton Birthing Center.”

The facility instantly rang a bell. There’d been some kind of altercation there recently, but he couldn’t remember the details. “That’s one of those back to nature places just outside the city limits?”

She nodded. “This isn’t a real memory, but more like a vague recollection coupled with a theory. I went there when the labor started. Why, I don’t know. Maybe because I was staying close by, or maybe because I knew someone who worked there. I delivered the baby. And then the doctor gave me that syringe filled with drugs. I think he did that so the other man could take the baby from me.”

Despite her sketchy details, Garrett could almost see it. A sterile, milk-white delivery room. Lexie, weak from giving birth. At that moment, she was about as vulnerable as she could get.

“What happened next?” he asked.

“The doctor left me there in the birthing room. I managed to get off the bed, somehow. I went to look for the baby. But I was dizzy, and I couldn’t see where the man had taken her. Then I heard the doctor telling the security guard to find me and make sure I didn’t get out of there.”

Garrett forced the emotion aside and dealt with the facts. “But you obviously escaped.”

“Through the fire exit. I was still wearing a hospital gown, and I was barefoot. Not to mention I was drugged. I saw the man who took the baby. He put her in a dark blue van and sped away. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay conscious for long so I, uh, borrowed a car from the parking lot and tried to go after him.”

Garrett ignored the borrowed part. He would deal with the stolen car issue if and when it came up again. “You weren’t successful.”

She shook her head. “No. I only made it a few miles, and I barely managed to get off the road and onto a path deep in the woods before I blacked out. When I came to, it was nearly two days later, and the man, the dark blue van and the baby were nowhere around.”

He could almost see that, too. As a cop. And as a prospective parent. Neither viewpoint pleased him.

Mercy, did he really have a child out there somewhere?

A child who’d been born, and stolen, under the circumstances Lexie had just described? He certainly couldn’t dismiss it, but he couldn’t dismiss the problems in her account, either.

“When you regained consciousness, you didn’t go to the police?” he asked.

“I tried.” She made a soft, throaty sound of disapproval. Probably because it was obvious he was now interrogating her. “I was on my way there when someone ran me off the road. It was a cop.”

Garrett felt his stomach tighten. “A cop?”

“Well, he was wearing a cop’s uniform, anyway. I managed to get away. I drove the car back into the woods so the cop or anyone else on the road wouldn’t be able to see me, but I was so weak that I passed out at the wheel again. Someone found me. A rancher. And he took me to a small county hospital and that’s where I’ve been—in and out of consciousness, for nearly three weeks.”

And with her having no wallet, ID or memory, the medical staff wouldn’t have known whom to contact. Not that she had a next of kin—her parents were dead.

“Why didn’t the doctors at the county hospital call the police?” Garrett asked.

“Because I begged them not to. I told them I was on the run from an abusive ex, that he’d beaten and drugged me. And I told them that my ex was a cop.”

“And they bought all of that?”

She nodded. “They wanted to give me a gynecological exam. They thought maybe I’d been raped, but I assured them that a rape hadn’t occurred, that I was simply having a heavier than usual menstrual cycle. I didn’t want them discovering that I’d recently given birth, because it would have spurred too many questions, and it might have caused them to call the cops, after all. I couldn’t risk that. I couldn’t even stand on my own two feet, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to fight off another attack.”

Garrett considered everything she’d said. “Yet you weren’t so weak that you couldn’t come up with a whole list of apparently believable lies.”

Oh, that earned him a glare. “Be thankful that the lies came easily. If they hadn’t, I probably would be dead by now. And where would that have left the baby, huh?”

He wasn’t ready to think about that just yet. But soon. Very soon. “After you were discharged from the hospital—”

“I wasn’t discharged,” she interrupted. “Once I regained consciousness and some strength, I sneaked out. Because I was afraid someone would try to kill me again.”

Her fear certainly seemed genuine, but like her memory, there were some huge gaps in her story. “And you still didn’t go to the police?” he pressed.

“I didn’t think I could trust the cops. Especially since it may have been a cop who ran me off the road.” She turned away from him, in the direction of his dresser. She didn’t exactly glance at his Glock, but Garrett figured she was well aware that it was there.

“Remember that part about not doing anything to rile me?” he warned.

“Well, you’re riling me,” she retorted. But she wasn’t just kidding around. Anger chilled her voice, and she got right in his face. “Don’t you get it? We have a baby out there, and someone has her. Do you think it’s a good idea to stand around here wasting time with all these questions? We could be using this time to find her.”

“Information and facts will help find her, and you seem to be seriously short on both.”

“Because I can’t remember!” she shouted. The burst of emotion left as quickly as it came. Her shoulders slumped. “Please, just believe me.”

It was the please that got him. That, and the teary look. “And what if I do?”

A glimmer of hope flashed in her eyes. “I need to get back into the Brighton Birthing Center.” She glanced at her gun, which he still held in his hand. “I wasn’t sure I could even shoot straight. And I didn’t know about the martial arts training. I figured if I went barging in there asking questions, I’d just get myself killed. After what happened with the cop trying to run me off the road, I figured I couldn’t go to the police. Present company excluded, of course. I decided that since you were likely the baby’s father, I should tell you.”

So, there it was. In a nutshell. Even if he had doubts about the validity of her memory, he couldn’t doubt that sincere please. But it didn’t mean he’d agree to go off on some renegade chase. This had to be done by the book. He had to get his lieutenant involved.

Garrett opened his mouth to tell her, but that was as far as he got. He saw the movement out of the corner of his eye, behind her. To the right of the double French doors that led to his backyard.

“Get down,” Garrett said. Not a shout; he practically whispered it. But it still came through loud and clear as an order.

Lexie tried to follow his gaze, no doubt to see what had triggered his reaction, but he didn’t give her the chance. Garrett slapped off the light switch, plunging them into darkness. In the same motion, he hooked his arm around her waist and shoved her to the floor.

It was barely in time.

Because a bullet slammed through the one of the French doors, pelting them with a deadly spray of splintered wood and broken glass.

Chapter Four

It took a moment for Lexie to figure out what was happening. One second the French door was there. A second later, there was a gaping hole in it, and Garrett and she were being pelted with glass.

“He used a silencer,” she heard Garrett say. Somehow. With her pulse pounding she was surprised she’d managed to hear anything.

But she fully understood that someone had just tried to murder them.

Lexie’s heart kicked into overdrive. She hadn’t thought her life could get any more complicated, but she’d obviously thought wrong.

“There are three of them out there,” Garrett announced. “Maybe more.”

Oh, God. It just kept getting worse. “All armed?”

“I only got a glimpse, but it appears that way.”

The adrenaline and the fear slammed through her. Lexie wasn’t helpless, but she certainly wasn’t mentally or physically prepared to take on gunmen who would brazenly fire shots into a cop’s house.

“I guess this isn’t a good time for me to say I told you so,” she mumbled. “You didn’t believe me when I said someone was after me.”

“Can we put this argument on hold, huh?” he snarled. “We’ve got a situation here.”

Yes, a situation they might not survive.

Garrett scrambled across the room, and even though he’d turned out the lights, there was enough illumination from the moonlight filtering through the French doors that she could see him reach for his gun. In another smooth move he slid her weapon across the floor to her. Lexie took the cue and tried to retrieve the ammunition that he’d expelled minutes earlier. There was just one problem: she couldn’t find it.

“I-told-you-so’s aside, who’s out there?” Garrett asked. He hurriedly locked the bedroom door. The simple gesture was a sickening reminder that the gunmen might not stay outside. They’d likely come in after them. “What are we up against?”

She waited a moment, praying the answer would come to her. It didn’t. “I don’t know.”

And she didn’t. Unfortunately, there were a lot of things she wasn’t sure of, but she was certain of one thing—this attack was meant for her. Maybe it was the doctor. Or the man who’d actually stolen her baby. Maybe it was both. At this point it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was staying alive so they could find their daughter.

“Call for backup,” Garrett ordered, crawling across the room to the window. Using his bare foot, he kicked the ammunition and sent it rolling her way. “The phone’s next to the bed. Stay low.”

Lexie scooped up the bullets and reloaded as she scurried to the phone. She yanked it from its cradle, her index finger already poised to dial 911, but there was no dial tone.

“It’s not working,” she relayed to Garrett. “I think they cut the line.”

He cursed. “You don’t happen to have a cell phone on you?”

“No.”

He mumbled something she couldn’t distinguish. “Mine is in the kitchen.”

“Enough said,” she mumbled back. Because she knew the kitchen had lots and lots of windows, plus a glass patio door. Going in there would be suicide. Besides, it was probably the area the gunmen would no doubt choose to break and enter. It’d certainly been her first choice to gain access to the place.

Garrett lifted his head for a quick look out the French doors. It was necessary, she knew. He needed to assess the situation.

But she also knew he’d just risked being shot.

He’d put his life on the line, not necessarily for her, though. He was, after all, a cop through and through. And Lexie was counting heavily on that. Because she needed all his cop skills, all his resolve—everything—to get out of this and find the baby.

“Are they still out there?” she asked, and was almost afraid to hear the answer.

“I don’t see them.” He paused. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

Lexie silently agreed. She seriously doubted the gunmen would just leave. Which meant that Garrett and she needed a plan. There was just one problem. Three gunmen, maybe more, and she couldn’t even remember if she knew how to shoot straight.

“I know how to use this gun, right?” she whispered.

“You know how.” He glanced at her and made eye contact from across the room. “That doesn’t mean you’re going to get the opportunity to prove it.”

“You have a better idea?”

“A better idea than shooting our way out of here? Yeah, I think I do. Follow me.”

Crawling across the glass-littered floor, he went to the door that led into the hall, and pressed his ear against it.

She made her way toward him. To his side. And listened as well. She heard the mechanical rhythm of the air conditioner, but nothing else.

Garrett reached for the doorknob.

Lexie reached for him, latching on to his wrist. “We’re going out there?”

“We don’t have a choice.” His voice was strained and had little sound. “We have no way to call for backup, and with those silencers we can’t count on the neighbors hearing anything and calling the cops.”

It all made sense. Unfortunately. They couldn’t just stay put. There was nothing to stop the gunmen from crashing through those French doors.

“You’re just going to have to trust me on this,” Garrett said.

He didn’t give her time to respond. He took her hand from his wrist and opened the door. Just a fraction. He glanced out into the hallway and must have approved of what he saw, or rather what he didn’t see, because he whispered, “Let’s go.”

Crouching, Garrett opened the door wide and had another quick look before he started out of the room. He moved in bursts, his vigilant gaze darting around the hall.

Lexie followed. Staying low. And keeping a firm grip on her gun.

They went toward the kitchen—the last place on earth she’d thought he would go. And that put a substantial dent in her resolve to trust him. Still, she continued to follow him, and she continued to pray. They had to make it out of this. Failure was not an option.

Lexie forced herself to remember her baby’s cry. It was the only thing she could remember about the child she’d given birth to. But that cry was enough to sustain her, and Lexie held on to it as they inched their way across the kitchen floor.

The room was dark. Not by accident. She’d turned out the lights before she’d gone into the hall to confront Garrett. Maybe, just maybe, the darkness would shield them so they could go wherever Garrett was taking them.

She heard a sound. Not the baby’s cry that she’d fixed in her head, but a snap. As if someone had stepped on a twig. The sound was close. Too close. It had likely come from the backyard, mere feet away.

Garrett paused. Lifted his head, listening. Another snap, closer this time. The doorknob on the kitchen door moved. Someone was testing to see if it was locked. Thankfully, it was. But that testing caused Garrett to look over his shoulder at her.

Even with just the dim moonlight, she saw his expression. Saw the question on his face. “I locked the patio door when I came in,” she whispered. “I was afraid someone might follow me. Obviously, I was right to be afraid.”

Not that a locked glass door would provide them with much protection.

Garrett evidently knew that as well, because he didn’t look for his phone. He went straight to the laundry room, which was little more than a corridor. He didn’t stop there. He reached up and grabbed keys from a wooden rack mounted on the wall, and unlocked the door that led into the garage.

There was a crash of glass from the kitchen. The gunmen were either inside or would be within seconds. Lexie felt another slam of adrenaline, and it gave her the jolt of energy that she needed.

Garrett opened the door and caught her arm, practically dragging her into the garage. He didn’t waste a moment. He yanked open the driver’s door of his vintage black Mustang and shoved her inside. Lexie scrambled into the passenger’s seat so that Garrett could get behind the wheel and start the engine.

“Hang on and stay down,” he warned.

And with that, he gripped the steering wheel with his left hand and gunned the motor. The car bolted forward, crashing through the garage door.

GARRETT HAD HOPED that his garage door wouldn’t put up much resistance, but unfortunately, it did. A slab of it landed right in the middle of his windshield. The safety glass cracked, webbed and otherwise obstructed his view, but it stayed firmly in place.

He didn’t dare put down his window and stick his head out so he could navigate, either. Not with three gunmen in the area. But he did turn on his headlights and floored the accelerator. He braced himself for the gunmen to shoot at them, braced himself for an all-out attack, and tried to keep his own gun steady.

“I don’t think they’re following us,” he heard Lexie say.

He glanced at her and saw something that caused his blood pressure to spike.

She was looking out the back window.

Garrett immediately shoved her back down in the seat. “What part of stay down didn’t you understand?”

“I might have to return fire. You concentrate on getting us out of here. I’ll do what I need to do.”

He couldn’t argue with that. It was reasonable. Well, semi-reasonable. There wasn’t a lot about this situation that qualified as reasonable. Still, he truly might need her to return fire if this evolved into a gun battle. He didn’t like the three-to-one odds if he had to do this alone. But then, he didn’t care much relying for backup on someone with memory issues.

Garrett checked the side mirror and was a little surprised at what he saw. He was also slightly relieved. An empty street stretched out behind them. So maybe the gunmen hadn’t pursued them. For now, anyway.

But he couldn’t count on them just giving up.

“Go back through the bits of memory you have,” Garrett insisted. “And come up with a theory as to who just tried to kill us.”

“The doctor with me during the delivery,” she readily answered. “The man who took the baby. Or the cop who ran me off the road.”

Three suspects. Three gunmen. Coincidence? “And you don’t know who any of these men are?”

She shook her head. “No. But I intend to find out.”

“Because they’re the only ones who might know where the baby is.”

He hadn’t meant to say that aloud. Heck, he hadn’t even meant to think it. He couldn’t devote a lot of mental energy to the baby now. Mainly because he didn’t know if there was a child. And if their daughter had actually been born, he needed to get Lexie to safety before he started to unravel this deadly puzzle she’d brought to him. Even if there wasn’t a child, it was abundantly clear that someone was after Lexie.

And him.

The shot that’d come through his bedroom could have been aimed at either of them. Or both. And if they hadn’t immediately turned out the lights and gotten down on the floor, Garrett had no doubts that there would have been a second shot. Probably a third. There would have been as many bullets as it took to eliminate them.

This had not been a warning. It’d been a cold, calculated attempt to execute them.

Why?

He checked the mirror again, and when he saw that things were still clear, he slowed to a reasonable speed and took the turn to the highway.

“Where are we going?” Lexie asked.

He didn’t answer her, because he knew it was an answer she wouldn’t like. Even with the possibility that a cop was involved in this, he had no choice. He was going to police headquarters.

Garrett only hoped it wasn’t a fatal mistake.