Guarding the Babies Read online

  “Sure. I’ll take you back myself. His wife’s with him right now, but he’ll be glad to see you.”

  Cole followed the doctor back to Dan’s hospital room and fifteen minutes later emerged satisfied that Dan was going to be all right. He felt as if a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders as he walked from the hospital toward his car. When he climbed in, he was about to start the engine when he thought of Holly’s message again. He had never listened to it.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and stared at it before he punched the button to connect to his voice mail. His skin warmed as the sound of her voice rippled in his ear: “Cole, this is Holly.”

  As he sat there in shock, he heard what Holly was saying, but he almost couldn’t believe it was true. Cole sat there for several minutes as he tried to digest what he’d just heard. Holly loved him, and she wanted to stay in Jackson Springs. The questions began to fly through his mind. How could they reconcile their two lives? What if she decided she wanted to leave again? Could he risk going through the heartbreak a second time?

  He bowed his head and poured out his heart to God. “I love her so much, God, and I want to be with her, but I’m scared. Help me find the answer to what I should do.”

  He sat there for a while before he opened his eyes. A new certainty filled him. There was only one thing to do. Put his trust in God that He would be there for him no matter what happened. If the two of them still loved each other, God could work out all the problems.

  With a heart lighter than it had been in years, he reached for the ignition. Before he could turn the key, his cell phone chimed with the station’s ringtone. He connected the call. “Hello.”

  “Cole, this is Brenda. I thought I’d better call you and tell you what happened.”

  Her voice was shaking, and Cole sat up straighter in the seat. “What is it, Brenda?”

  “Holly Lee was doing an interview in the city park with her two children when a car broke through the barricade her security team had erected and barreled right to her.” She stopped, and a sob reached his ear.

  Cole’s heart was in his throat. “Brenda! Tell me what happened!”

  “Two men shot both her security team members and one of the cameramen. His assistant got away and called the police.”

  “And Holly? What happened to her?”

  “They abducted her and the children.”

  He felt as if the life had just left his body. Just minutes ago, he’d been ready to run to Holly and tell her how much he loved her, too. Now she was missing, along with Emma and Ethan. Despair washed over him, and he covered his eyes with his hand. He had to do something to get them back. But what?

  “Brenda,” he said, “I’m on my way to the park.”

  “There’s no need for that. The police are already there, and the three men who were shot are en route to the hospital.”

  “What’s their conditions?”

  “I don’t know, but maybe one of them can talk.”

  “Thanks, Brenda. I’ll stay in touch.”

  He disconnected the call and sat staring out the windshield. He couldn’t lose Holly. Not when they were so close to being happy together. At the moment, though, he had no idea which way to turn. Maybe one of the injured men would be able to tell him something to help him go in the right direction.

  The sound of an ambulance’s siren pulled him from his thoughts, and he watched as the emergency vehicle pulled into the parking lot and backed up to the unloading bay. Several nurses and orderlies rushed out the door as the paramedics jumped from the vehicle.

  Cole took a deep breath, got out of his car and walked back toward the emergency room. As he headed into the reception area, he said a quick prayer that these men would survive and would give him some information that would help him find the woman he loved and the children he wanted to raise with her.

  THIRTEEN

  Emma and Ethan weren’t doing well in the strange car seats they’d been buckled into. It was as if they sensed danger, and they had been crying ever since their abductors had driven away from the park. She had done everything she could think of to soothe them, but nothing was working.

  The man who’d shot Todd looked over his shoulder at her and glared. “Keep those kids quiet, or I’ll shut them up myself.”

  The tone of his voice sent fear spiraling through her, and she leaned over and kissed Emma’s tiny hands that reached for her. The crying only ramped up in volume when she didn’t pull Emma from the car seat. Holly tried to ignore the panic that was building inside her. She’d never felt so helpless in her life. She had to do something, but she didn’t know what.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked the man in front of her.

  He glanced back at her and grinned maliciously. “Why does anybody do anything? For money. I’m getting paid very well for this.”

  “For abducting my children?” she yelled. “What kind of man are you?”

  “I’m one who finishes every job I start, and I intend to finish this one.”

  “But why?” Holly begged. “We’ve done nothing to you. Why would you want to hurt these babies?”

  He chuckled, and the sound of it made Holly’s skin crawl. “I don’t want to hurt them. I panicked at the supermarket when I pushed them in front of that car. At the time I was only concerned with getting away. But you don’t have to worry now. I’ll take good care of them. They’re worth a lot of money to me. You, on the other hand, aren’t, so you might want to shut up before you make me angry.”

  His words made no sense to Holly. She knew she should be quiet, but she couldn’t refrain from speaking. “Do you want money? I have lots of money. I’ll pay you whatever you want to let us go. I promise I won’t say anything to the police.”

  “Well, you see, that sounds good, but I know you won’t keep your word. You’ll head straight to the cops, and they’ll be after me in no time. This way, I can get my money and be on my way without anybody knowing Willie Trask was involved.”

  A chill ran through Holly, and she gaped at the man. “You’re Willie Trask, the man Sarah Palmer warned us about?”

  He shook his head and pursed his lips. “Poor Sarah. She should have kept her mouth shut. Maybe if she had, she’d still be alive. So would Teresa Wilson if she’d just let the twins go.”

  The mention of Teresa jolted Holly to attention. She sucked in a quick breath. “Did you kill Teresa?”

  “She had it coming. She shouldn’t have backed out of the deal.”

  Holly had suspected that Teresa had been killed—that was why Cole had gotten a court order for the autopsy, after all—but it was still a shock to hear the man admit it so casually. She stared in disbelief at Willie. “You killed her because she’d decided not to give up the twins.”

  Willie swiveled in his seat and stared at her with burning eyes. “Yeah. That meant the money we’d gotten from your sister and brother-in-law would have to be returned, and we ran the risk of their telling the police about how we’d sold them two babies. There was nothing else we could do. She had to be stopped.”

  Tears burned Holly’s eyes as she stared at Emma and Ethan. Her heart broke for the young woman who’d decided she couldn’t give up her babies, for her sister and brother-in-law, who had gotten in the middle of a baby-selling operation, and for the twins she’d come to love, who would never know any of the first three parents to love them.

  “You’re despicable,” she muttered. “I’ll see that you are punished for what you’ve done.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “I doubt that. I don’t think you’ll survive long enough to tell anybody.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why didn’t you just kill me at the park if you only wanted the children?”

  Willie shrugged. “I just follow orders, and I was told to bring you with us.”

  Her heart pounded so hard
she was afraid he might hear it. “But you won’t hurt the children?”

  “No. The new buyer might not like getting damaged goods.”

  Holly could only stare in disbelief. “You’re selling them to someone else?” she screeched.

  He shrugged. “Well, I’m not. But Greg is. He’s supposed to meet us.”

  “Wh-where is he sending them?”

  “Somewhere they’ll never be found.”

  Holly leaned back in the seat, unable to bring herself to ask anything more. Thankfully, the twins had finally settled down. She dozed off but woke when the car hit something that made it jerk. She opened her eyes and stared out the window as she tried to figure out where she was. They passed a road that turned off to the right, and she recognized it as one that led to the top of a mountain she and Cole had hiked many times.

  She frowned and glanced around as a run-down cabin with a helicopter pad beside it came into view. She recognized it right away. Mo Calloway had lived there for years and had run helicopter flights for tourists over the mountains until his death. No one had lived there since, as far as she knew. She looked around for other cars, but there were none in sight. Then her gaze drifted back to the helicopter pad, and she remembered what Trask had said about his and Greg’s plans for the children. A sick feeling began to gnaw at her stomach, and she swallowed the bile that flowed into her mouth.

  She wished this was a horrible nightmare that she could wake up from, but she knew it wasn’t. She was about to die, and Emma and Ethan were about to disappear into the dark world of child trafficking.

  * * *

  Cole paced up and down the hospital waiting-room floor just as he had done earlier when Dan and Greg had been brought in. Now the reason he couldn’t sit still was because he needed to talk to the survivors from the shooting in the park. He just hoped someone had noticed a hint or a clue that would lead him to where the abductors had taken Holly and the children.

  He stopped in his tracks when the door to the emergency wing swung open and the same doctor he’d talked with earlier emerged. He headed straight to Cole.

  “You’re back again?”

  “Yeah, Doc. Tell me how the victims of the park shooting are doing.”

  The doctor sighed and rubbed his eyes. “It’s touch and go with the two men who were working security. If they make it through the night, they have a chance. The wounded cameraman is in better condition. The bullet that hit him grazed his head, but didn’t penetrate to do any serious damage. There was a lot of blood. That’s probably what saved his life. He pretended to be unconscious, and the attackers saw the blood and thought he was dead. They might have finished him off if they’d known he was faking.”

  “I’m glad he was able to think that quickly. So you think he’ll be okay?”

  “He should be,” the doctor said. “He’s awake and is asking to see the investigator in charge of the case. Is that you?”

  Cole rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. “I guess that’s me. Both shootings are linked. If I solve one, the other one will fall into place.”

  “Well, follow me, and I’ll show you where he is.”

  Just as he had done earlier, Cole followed the doctor down the hallway to one of the hospital rooms. When they stopped, the doctor pointed to the door. “He’s in there. Don’t wear him out.”

  “I won’t, Doc. Thanks.”

  Cole tapped on the door, and a voice from inside called out. “Come in.”

  He opened the door and stepped inside. A young man who appeared to be in his late twenties lay on the bed. The bandage covered most of his forehead, and he stared at Cole with dark eyes. “I understand you were the cameraman with Holly Lee at the park.”

  He nodded. “Yes. My name is Stephen Blakemore.”

  Cole stepped over to the bed. “I’m Detective Cole Jackson. I’m here to ask you some questions about the abduction. Do you feel up to talking?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I want to do everything I can to help Miss Lee and those babies.”

  Cole pulled out his notepad. “Tell me what you were doing with Miss Lee today.”

  He took notes as Stephen told him about the interview, how they’d worked at her house in the morning and then gone to the park to document an outing with the twins. “Everything was going fine until this SUV roared up and bullets began to fly.”

  Cole looked up and pointed his pen at Stephen’s head. “The doctor says you were smart enough to fool them.”

  Stephen chuckled. “For some reason, I knew I needed to lie still. I guess they thought I was dead.”

  “Had you ever seen either of the men before?”

  “No. But I won’t forget what they looked like.”

  Cole nodded. “I guess going through something like that would leave an impression on your mind. We have a sketch artist at the station who is very good. If I had him come over, do you think you could describe the men?”

  Stephen frowned and shook his head. “There’s no need for that. I can just give you the video, and you can see for yourself.”

  “What do you mean?” Cole asked.

  Stephen pushed himself up in the bed and pointed to his camera that lay on a chair across the room. “I had my camera rolling when they drove up. I turned around and aimed the camera at them. That’s when they shot me.”

  Cole’s heartbeat quickened as he stared at the camera. “Do you think you caught them on the video?”

  Stephen laughed. “I did better than catch them. I kept the camera rolling all the time I was on the ground, and I filmed the whole abduction. Even got the car and the license plate when they drove away.”

  Cole could hardly believe what he’d just heard. “You got the SUV’s license number?”

  “Yeah. Want me to show you?”

  Cole strode over to the chair, grabbed the camera and handed it to Stephen. “Show me what you have.”

  The video only lasted a few minutes, but Cole didn’t think he’d ever seen anything that tore his heart out like that short clip. The scene was filled with joy when it opened with Holly and the twins sitting on a blanket in the park, but it quickly turned to terror with the roar of a speeding vehicle. He flinched when Todd, Ray and Stephen were shot and then bit down on his quivering lip as he saw Holly and the children pulled into the SUV. As the vehicle pulled away, the camera zoomed in on the license plate, displaying it in perfect clarity just as Stephen had said.

  Cole grabbed his cell phone and hit speed dial for the office line. Brenda answered on the first ring. “Cole, is that you?”

  “Yes. I’m at the hospital. The cameraman got a shot of the abductor’s license plate. Let me read it to you.” He rattled off the number and then paused. “Did you get that?”

  “Got it.”

  “Put out a BOLO on it right away, and check the DMV records for the registration. I’m on my way to the station, but call me as soon as you’ve ID’d the owner.”

  “Will do,” she said before hanging up.

  Cole exhaled a deep breath and reached out to shake hands with Stephen. “Good work, Stephen. You’ve helped us a lot, and I hope you don’t have to stay here too long.”

  The young man grinned. “I hope so, too, and I’ll be praying you find Miss Lee and those two children.”

  “Thanks. That’s all we’ve got going for us right now, but as the Bible says, ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’”

  With a wave, Cole headed to the door and out to the parking lot. He’d just gotten in his car when his cell phone rang. It was the department.

  “Brenda, what do you have for me?”

  “The car belongs to a rental agency out of Knoxville. They say the car was rented yesterday by a man named Willie Trask. When we ran his name earlier, we found out he has a record for everything from armed robbery to assault. He’s had several murder accusations, but nothing could ever be
proved.”

  “Thanks, Brenda. I’m coming back to the station right now.” He started to disconnect the call, but a sudden thought struck him. “Brenda, are you still there?”

  “I am.”

  “I was just thinking. Holly never goes anywhere without her cell phone. Tell our tech guys to see if they can track the location and any movement on it.”

  “Will do,” she said and then hung up.

  Cole stared out the window for several minutes and thought back over the video he’d just seen. He mentally replayed it from beginning to end, but he couldn’t figure out anything that would help him locate where the men had taken Holly and the twins.

  His heart ached at the thought of how scared she must be right now. He had to find her. He could only hope that she had her cell phone, and that her captors hadn’t taken it away. If it was still with her, they might be able to locate where they’d been taken.

  He cranked the engine and put the car in gear. “Hang on, Holly, and don’t give up. I’m coming for you and the twins.”

  * * *

  The twins had quieted during the drive, but now that they were waiting at the cabin, their fussing had started up again. Holly had tried everything she knew to quiet Emma and Ethan, but nothing had worked. Trask had brought them inside the cabin in their car seats and ordered her to leave them buckled up. They were furious at being imprisoned, and they’d screamed in anger ever since. She’d fed them, played peekaboo until she thought she would go crazy and begged them to settle down.

  Now she was singing to them. She’d spent many hours with them in the nursery, singing them to sleep, since they’d been with her, and it had become a favorite activity for her. It sliced her heart in two as she thought this might be the last time she’d get to do it.

  She sang one lullaby after another and watched with satisfaction as the cries tapered down and their eyes began to droop. When they drifted off, she pulled their blankets out of the bag and covered each of them. She watched them as they slept and thought again of Ruth and Michael, and how they had loved these children.