Читать книгу Kidnapping in Kendall County - Delores Fossen - Страница 10

Chapter Four

Austin held his breath and prayed that he’d get Rosalie away from the building in time.

The truck bolted through the doors, and the moment they were outside, Austin spun the steering wheel to get them on the road. He hit the gas again and got them moving.

Not a second too soon.

Behind them, the building burst into a fireball.

Obviously, someone had put a hefty amount of accelerant inside, and it’d worked. It wouldn’t take long for anything left inside to be destroyed.

Hell.

These goons were trying to cover their tracks, and in doing so they might have erased the very information that he needed to find his nephew.

“Call 911,” he told Rosalie, tossing her his phone. Austin kept watch around them to make sure they weren’t about to be ambushed. The narrow road was lined with trees on both sides, and that meant plenty of places for the shooters to hide. “Tell them we need the fire department and the locals out here. I want this entire area sealed off.”

Austin wasn’t sure how she managed it because her hands were shaking so hard, but Rosalie made the call. Maybe, just maybe, there might be something left to recover.

“I have to find out if Janice made it to someplace safe,” Rosalie said the moment she finished the 911 call. “Oh, God,” she added in a mumble. “What if the local county cops are in on this?”

“Don’t borrow trouble,” Austin reminded her.

He took his phone, scrolled through the numbers, located the number of his partner at the FBI, and gave the cell back to Rosalie. “Text him. Tell him to BOLO Janice Aiken and that she’s driving a black truck registered to my undercover alias, John Mercer.” Austin rattled off the license plate. “I want him to call me the minute he finds her.”

“BOLO,” she repeated while she wrote the text. “Be on the lookout.”

She’d obviously picked up some cop jargon from Eli or maybe her stepbrother Seth. Austin figured Seth wasn’t going to like Rosalie’s rogue investigation, and Rosalie wasn’t going to like it when Austin called her stepbrother so that Seth could force her to back off. Since she wouldn’t listen to him, he had no choice about doing that.

“These baby thieves know you’ve betrayed them,” Rosalie said after she finished the text.

Yeah, they did. The note proved that.

You’re a dead man, John Mercer.

And while the idiots behind the baby farms probably didn’t know his real identity, it wouldn’t be long before they figured out he was FBI. After all, they had countless images of him from those surveillance cameras.

Of Rosalie, too.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” he insisted. Obviously, he was repeating himself, but Austin hoped she realized just how much danger she was in.

“You came,” she pointed out.

Austin tossed her a scowl. The only thing he knew about Rosalie was what Eli had told him. That she was the quiet, shy type who was downright squeamish about his job as a federal agent.

Well, she’d clearly changed a lot.

This was no quiet, shy woman next to him. Or maybe Rosalie had just managed to put her squeamishness aside so she could find her daughter. Still, that wouldn’t happen if she got herself killed.

“What do we do now?” she asked. “What if there’s no evidence to recover from that building or the baby farm?”

Austin slowed as he approached the junction that would take him back to a main road. “I continue the investigation, and you go home.”

She huffed and would have no doubt argued with him about that if the movement hadn’t grabbed their attention.

Austin was almost at a full stop at the intersection when someone darted out in front of the truck. He automatically pushed Rosalie down onto the seat, and in the same motion, he took aim at the man.

“Don’t shoot!” the man yelled. He had his hands in the air but almost immediately dropped one to his arm. Thanks to the headlights, Austin could see blood on the sleeve of his jacket. “They tried to kill me.”

Austin had a fast debate with himself. He could just drive off and call for someone to come and get the guy. After all, despite that injury, this man could be part of this baby farm operation.

And that’s why Austin lost that mental debate.

Because if he was indeed part of the operation, then that meant he had answers, and Austin wouldn’t get those answers if he allowed him to disappear. Or die.

“Stay down,” Austin warned Rosalie.

Did she listen?

No, of course not.

She lifted her head, and Austin nudged her right back down before he lowered his window.

“I need help,” the man insisted, walking toward the truck.

“Don’t come any closer,” Austin warned him, and he took aim at him. “Who are you?”

“Sonny Buckland. I’m a P.I. from Austin.”

“Send another text to Sawyer Ryland, my partner at the FBI,” Austin told Rosalie. “Have him run this guy’s name and ask him to hurry.” While she did that, Austin pinned his attention to the man. “Open the sides of your jacket so I can see if you’re armed.”

“I’m not,” he insisted, and he winced when he pulled back the side with the blood. “They took my gun when they found me snooping around the place.”

“They?”

“Three armed guards. Big guys. The only reason I managed to escape is because they got a call from someone who told them to get out fast. I ran. That’s when one of them shot me.”

That meshed with what Austin figured had happened. The person monitoring the cameras at the baby farm had likely made the call to let the guards at this place know there’d been a breach in security.

“How do you know I don’t work for those guards?” Austin came right out and asked.

“If you did, you would have already killed me.”

True. But that didn’t mean Austin would blindly trust this guy. The guards could have left him behind with orders to finish off anyone who got near the place.

Sonny clamped his hand over his injured arm and fired nervy glances all around them. “Stating the obvious here, but it’s not safe to hang around. We need to get out of here.”

Austin nodded. “You’re not going anywhere with us until you convince me you’re not working for the baby snatchers.”

“I’m not working for them!” Sonny practically yelled. Then, he groaned, a mixture of pain and frustration. “A client hired me to find his missing pregnant friend. I followed some leads that I got from a criminal informant, and it led me to this place.”

Rosalie made a soft sound of agreement, and even though Sonny’s story meshed with hers about getting the info from a CI, Austin shot them both scowls for inserting themselves into a dangerous investigation. Yeah, he’d done the same thing. And not with authorization, either. But he was a trained agent. Neither of them was.

Of course, Sonny could still be a threat.

“Did you learn who was behind this operation?” Rosalie asked the man. “Did you find any records or anything that could help us locate some missing babies?”

Sonny huffed and made more of those uneasy glances around. He looked on the verge of trying again to press Austin to get him out of there, but maybe he realized the fastest way for that to happen was to give them any info he had.

“I did learn something,” Sonny said. Then, paused. “I think a piece of scum named Trevor Yancy is responsible for at least some of the baby kidnappings.”

Rosalie sucked in her breath, and her hand went to her mouth. Austin tried to rein in any response, but just like that, his thoughts jerked him back to a bad place, a bad time.

Eli’s murder.

Rosalie was no doubt doing the same thing. Because the man Eli and he had been investigating for gunrunning and a whole host of crimes was none other than Trevor Yancy.

“You know Yancy,” Sonny said. Not a question, either.

Obviously Austin hadn’t done a good job of hiding his reaction. No surprise there. Austin was responsible for the way that investigation had turned out, and it had turned out in the worst possible way.

With Eli shot dead by an unknown assailant.

And Yancy a free man.

If Yancy was indeed involved with the baby farms, then the question was why? Was it just another illegal venture on his part, or was there something even more sinister going on here? Something to do with Rosalie and him?

“What makes you think Yancy’s connected to this?” Austin demanded.

Sonny shook his head. “I’ll tell you once we’re out of here. These men will kill us all if they come back.”

Austin couldn’t dispute that, and despite his need for the truth, he could no longer keep Rosalie at the center of this possible danger. He was already responsible for Eli’s death. Best not to add hers to the nightmares that he stood no chance of ever forgetting.

With a firm grip on his gun, Austin opened his truck door, but before he could get out, Rosalie caught his arm. “You’re not going out there.”

For a split second Austin was taken aback by her concern. Her touch, too. But just as quickly as she’d touched him, she pulled away her hand. He realized then that her concern wasn’t aimed at him but rather their situation. If he got shot, her chances of getting out of there and finding her daughter would decrease big-time.

“I’m only going to frisk him,” Austin told her.

He stepped from the truck and did just that. Sonny cooperated, lifting his hands away from his body and wincing in the process.

“No gun, like I said,” Sonny explained. “But I’ve lost some blood.”

Yes, he had, and that meant Austin’s first stop had to be a hospital, and the nearest one was back in the ranching town of Silver Creek. He could leave Rosalie there, as well, since he knew the sheriff and deputies. He doubted Rosalie would like that, but Austin didn’t intend to give her a choice.

“You can ride in the back of the truck.” Austin motioned for Sonny to hop in, and the man did. It was freezing cold and wouldn’t be a pleasant ride, especially considering his injury, but Austin couldn’t risk allowing him in the cab of the truck with Rosalie and him.

“Keep an eye on him,” Austin said to her when he got back in.

He checked the road to make sure no one was out there waiting for them, and when Austin didn’t see anyone, he got them out of there fast.

“Trevor Yancy,” Rosalie mumbled. She turned in the seat so she could nail her attention to Sonny. “Has his name come up in your investigation of the baby farms?”

“No.” Austin didn’t have to think about that, either. A lot of names had popped up. Potential suspects and kidnap victims. But if he’d seen anything about Yancy related to this, he would have definitely remembered.

“Is it possible...?” Rosalie’s breath hitched, and even though they weren’t touching, Austin could practically feel her muscles tensing. “Would Yancy have kidnapped my daughter and your nephew because Eli and you had been investigating him?”

Anything was possible when it came to a snake like Yancy.

Anything.

And since that wasn’t likely to make Rosalie’s breath stop hitching, Austin didn’t spell it out for her. Still, this could be the lead that Austin had been searching for. He reached for his phone to have someone bring in Yancy for questioning, but it dinged before he could do that.

“It’s a text from FBI Agent Ryland,” Rosalie relayed. She still had hold of his phone and stared down at the screen. “He said there’s a Sonny Buckland who’s a P.I., and he’s attached a photo of him.” She held it out for Austin to glance at.

The photo was definitely of the same man who was now riding in the bed of the truck. At least Sonny hadn’t lied about his identity, but that didn’t mean Austin was anywhere close to trusting him.

“Sonny has no criminal record,” Rosalie continued to read. She paused though and cleared her throat. “And your partner wants to know what the heck is going on, except he used a lot more profanity than I just did. He also wants you to call him now.”

She showed him that part of the text, too, though Austin didn’t have to see it to know that Sawyer had likely figured out that Austin wasn’t on vacation as he’d claimed. Nope. He was on an unauthorized undercover investigation that had just gone to hell in a handbasket.

“I’ll call him as soon as I’ve dropped off both Sonny and you,” Austin said more to himself. Rosalie obviously heard it, though.

“I want to go with you to question Yancy or anyone else connected to this,” she insisted.

“Yeah, I bet you do, but it’s not going to happen. No way will I put you in danger like that.”

“I’m already in danger!” she practically shouted, but the fit of temper disappeared as quickly as it’d come. “I need to find my daughter. Eli’s daughter,” she added, probably because she figured it would touch every raw nerve in his body and soften him up.

He couldn’t let it work on him.

His phone vibrated, indicating he had an incoming call, and he saw Sawyer’s name on the screen. His partner had obviously meant that part about Austin calling him back now.

Bracing himself for questions he wasn’t ready to answer, Austin took his phone, issued another “Keep watch” to Rosalie and answered the call. He didn’t put it on speaker, and that was probably the reason Rosalie scooted across the seat—so she could hear.

“Well?” Sawyer said the moment Austin answered.

“I was looking for my missing nephew,” Austin settled for saying.

“Yes, and our boss already figured that out. He’s not happy, Austin, and he wants you back from your vacation.”

“I’ll be back soon.” He hoped. “For now, I just need your help. I’m en route to the Silver Creek hospital to drop off an injured P.I. who’s either a witness or a person of interest in some assorted felonies. I’ll be there in about five minutes. Can you make some calls and arrange for him to be guarded?”

Sawyer didn’t answer for several snail-crawling moments. “Sure.”

“I also need you to have someone secure two crime scenes on the farm road that runs directly east of the town of Silver Creek,” Austin added. “Both were baby farms and are owned by a dummy corporation, Real Estate Investments. There’s not much left of them, and there are possible explosives planted around the grounds.”

“I’ll get someone out there right away,” Sawyer assured him. Another pause. “You had a BOLO on a woman driving a black truck registered to your alias?”

“Yeah—”

“A deputy here in Silver Creek just phoned it in. They found her.” Sawyer paused again. “It’s not good news, Austin. The woman’s dead.”