left was a dead end. The main road was to the right, and that was the way he went. It was almost certainly the path the SUV had taken, too, and she prayed the kidnappers stayed on the road so that Reed and she could find them.
“I don’t see them,” Addison said, and she cursed the sharp curves in this part of the road.
There were too many blind spots. Plus, there were old ranch trails that a vehicle could pull into and hide on. Reed and she couldn’t lose them, and heaven knew where they’d take Emily. She might never see her baby again, and that felt like a crushing vise around her heart.
“Who are these men?” Reed asked.
She had to shake her head. “I don’t know.”
And she didn’t. Addison had gotten glimpses of their faces, and she was certain she’d never seen them before.
“Think,” Reed insisted. “Tell me everything you remember about what happened.”
Not easy to remember anything with her thoughts flying around like an F-5 tornado, but Addison drew in several hard breaths, forced herself to clear her head as much as she could.
“I came down to get a cup of coffee, and I saw them on the porch. There were two of them, but I think there was another one. I got a glimpse of something or someone behind me before I was bashed on the head.”
Reed said something she didn’t catch. “There must have been a third one. I saw two men running from your office window. The third must have taken the baby while the other two were rummaging around in there.”
Just the thought of it tore her into a million little pieces.
Some stranger grabbing her baby while she was taped up downstairs. Addison couldn’t bear it if they hurt her.
But who would hurt a precious little baby?
Emily was only two months old. No one could possibly want to do anything bad to someone so young and innocent. Did that mean this was some kind of kidnapping for ransom? If so, she didn’t have much, but she’d give them everything she had, everything she could get her hands on.
“What do you think they wanted?” Reed asked.
Addison was about to go with the ransom idea, but then she froze, the thought flashing through her mind. It couldn’t be that.
Could it?
“What?” Reed pressed when she didn’t answer.
It took her a moment to get it out. “I hired a P.I. to make sure everything was okay with the...adoption.”
Reed glanced at her, and even though she hadn’t thought it possible, there was even more concern on his face. Probably because there’d been a lot in the news lately about a black-market baby ring that’d been uncovered in the area.
“I didn’t do anything illegal to get Emily,” Addison quickly added. “But...”
And that was when her explanation ground to a halt.
How much should she tell him?
Not the whole truth, that was for sure. Not now anyway with everything else going on. Maybe not ever.
“You trust this P.I. you hired?” Reed asked. He didn’t slow down. Didn’t glance at her again. He just kept driving at breakneck speed around the curvy road.
“I thought I did. He had excellent references, and he contacted me to say he’d been doing other background checks for families with recently adopted babies. The P.I.’s name is Blake Rooney.”
And once she had her baby safely back in her arms, then she’d make sure Rooney hadn’t had any part of this.
Whatever this was.
If the P.I. had done something wrong, then Addison would make sure he paid, and paid hard. But for now, she had to battle herself. The tears came again. The fear, too. It felt as if it were choking the life right out of her.
“Focus,” Reed insisted. Probably because he sensed that she was about to lose it. “Did this P.I. find out anything suspicious about the adoption?”
It took her a moment to get her mouth working. “I don’t think so. He was supposed to email me a report this morning.”
Reed cursed. “Those men were going through papers in your office. And they took your laptop. They were clearly looking for something.”
Oh, God. Had it been the P.I.’s report they were after?
If so, Addison wasn’t even sure she’d received it yet. She had planned to check her email after she’d had coffee if Emily hadn’t wakened yet. However, she hadn’t gotten the chance to do that, because the kidnappers had shown up.
“What exactly was the P.I. looking for?” Reed asked.
Again, she had to fight through the panic so she could answer. Where the heck was that SUV?
“I just asked Rooney to do background checks on the lawyers and the woman who gave birth to Emily,” she answered.
And maybe Rooney had found something. But what? What could he have found that would have sent a team of kidnappers after her baby?
“You’re bleeding,” Reed let her know. And he grabbed a handful of tissues from a box between the seats and pressed it against her head.
She didn’t feel the blood. Didn’t feel any pain at all and was about to push the tissues away when Reed rounded the next curve.
There. Just ahead.
The SUV.
Not driving away from them.
It had stopped right in the middle of the road.
Reed cursed, slammed on his brakes, and tried to push her down onto the seat. Addison batted him away because there was no chance she would stay out of this. Not after what she saw in front of them.
There was a man dressed all in black holding Emily.
At least she was pretty sure it was her baby. Addison couldn’t see any part of the baby’s face, but she recognized the blanket. It was the pink one that’d been in Emily’s crib.
“Wait!” Reed shouted when Addison bolted from the truck.
She didn’t listen. Addison hurried out and faced the man head-on. He had a gun in his right hand, the baby cradled in his left arm, but he didn’t take aim at her.
Addison soon realized why.
There were two other gunmen inside the SUV, and both of them had weapons trained on Reed and her. One of them was slumped forward, bleeding, but that might not affect his aim.
Reed got out and pointed his gun at the driver.
“Give me the baby,” Addison insisted.
Even though she still had hold of her gun, she also didn’t aim it at the men. She didn’t want to give them any reason to start shooting again.
Addison glanced around to make sure another vehicle wasn’t coming. This wasn’t a busy road, but that didn’t mean the deputy, Colt, or someone else couldn’t come around the corner and crash into them. It was early, and there was still some slick moisture on the road surface. Not the best place for an impromptu meeting, but at least she had her baby in front of her.
“We’ll trade the kid for you,” the man said, tipping his head to Addison. He was big. Well over six feet tall and had bulky shoulders. It was the same man she’d seen on her porch before she was hit.
“No,” Reed answered. “Hand her the baby and drop your weapon. You, too,” he added to the others. “I want those guns on the ground now.”
Reed sounded like the cowboy cop that he was. A man with a badge and in charge. However, she hadn’t expected the kidnappers just to do as he’d ordered.
And