and he walked with his chin high and back straight. That had to be McCall. Serena had said she was bringing her partner with her.
Serena—all graceful movements and willowy lines—met up with McCall at the front of the car. She stepped in front of him when the passage was too narrow for them to walk side by side, and the big guy’s eyes never left her form. It wasn’t an outright assessment of his partner, but there was something in his eyes that revealed a strong emotion between them. Maybe it was just respect.
Maybe not.
Zach stepped from beneath the cement overhang to greet them. Reaching out to shake the thin woman’s hand, he said, “Marshal Summers?”
She had a firm grip and an easy smile. “Call me Serena.” Nodding her head, she indicated the man at her side. “This is my partner, Josh McCall.”
McCall’s shake was even tighter than Serena’s had been, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Zach gave back as good as he got, and a flicker of admiration appeared in the other man’s eyes, if only for a second.
“Zach Jones, Minneapolis P.D.”
“Good to meet you.” Josh let go and put his hand into his pocket, hunching his shoulders against the brisk early spring wind.
Serena’s eyes shifted toward the sliding glass door, but Zach didn’t move to lead them inside to his witness. To his Julie. First, he had questions that required answers. And the hospital waiting room wasn’t the place to find any kind of privacy.
“I know you’re eager to talk with Julie, but you should know that she doesn’t have any memory of the night she was attacked.”
Josh and Serena shared a quick look, their eyes meeting in a flash and tearing apart just as quickly. Josh cleared his throat, but it was Serena who spoke. “None at all?”
Shaking his head, he frowned. “As of two o’clock this morning, she can’t remember a thing. Including that she was carrying a baby the night that she was attacked. And I haven’t told her about that yet.”
Two sets of eyebrows rose in unison before Josh responded. “You know that’ll have to come up today, right?”
A gust of wind picked up Serena’s long ponytail, whipping it back and forth over her shoulder. She wrestled it back into place with her free hand, the other clutching a brown folder to her chest.
Shivers ran down Zach’s arms, the cold stealing its way to his skin, joining the doubts bombarding his mind. He wanted to find the missing baby just like the marshals, but would telling Julie about the child really do anyone any good? He battled a vision of her terrified features when she learned what he’d seen in the video. She’d be horrified to discover that a baby had gone missing from her care. That kind of emotional trauma could just be a setback on her road to healing—and to ultimately uncovering what really happened that night.
Whether Zach’s doubts played across his face or she was a pro at reading people, Serena leaned toward him. Her movement was barely a few inches, but it caught and held his attention. “I bet you’ve become pretty close to your witness.” Her voice was low and a little husky. “We don’t want to scare her, but we’re dealing with something bigger than one missing child.”
He’d figured as much.
Josh didn’t bother changing his body language, his stance firm and unmoving. “We just need to ask her a few questions. Your witness—”
“She’s a victim.” At Zach’s interruption, Josh’s chin snapped up, so Zach continued, “She’s not just the only witness, she was beaten to within an inch of her life. She can’t recall her name or where she lives or who her family is.” His words picked up speed as his pulse did the same. “As if one attack wasn’t enough, someone snuck into her hospital room last night and tried to kill her again.”
Almost certainly Serena’s training and experience were the only things keeping her jaw from flapping open at his declaration. Her eyes were bright with the revelation of the second attack, and she held her packet even tighter below her chin. “Is she all right?”
“She’ll be okay. The doctor said there was no permanent damage. But I hope you can see why I’m hesitant to add to her emotional strain, especially knowing that she hasn’t been able to remember anything, and this is probably all a dead end.”
Josh caught Serena’s gaze yet again, his eyebrows pinching together as he pressed his hands deeper into his pockets. “So she saw someone last night?”
“Ye-es.” Zach dragged the word out, not quite sure where Josh was going with his line of questions.
“So she could identify him?”
“Yes. She could probably pick him out of a lineup or identify a mug shot.”
Serena’s smile dipped, turning grim as her brown eyes squinted directly at him. She had to be picking up on his hesitation. As silence hung over their small group, she rubbed her chin and glanced at the ground.
Josh watched her closely, his stance alert, but he held back, letting her take the lead, despite a nearly palpable tension radiating from him.
“Zach, it’s imperative that we talk with your witness. We have to know as much information as she can give us. There are lives on the line—babies are disappearing.”
Babies.
His gut clenched. Hard. This was bigger than the missing baby he was already looking for. And he couldn’t look himself in the mirror if he didn’t do everything in his power to help those kids.
With his hands on his hips, he asked, “What’s going on?”
The marshals glanced at each other again, and Josh gave a quick nod before speaking. “Serena and I have been keeping tabs on a man named Don Saunders.”
Josh paused, as though waiting for any reaction from Zach. “Never heard of him.”
“Don was arrested in connection to a murder and was being transported for questioning in police custody near Saint Louis, but a couple of his buddies staged a car accident, and he escaped.”
Zach sucked in a harsh breath. Letting a suspect escape could shatter an officer’s confidence. Being a cop was hard enough when everything was going right. But a man could drive himself crazy wondering what he could have done differently.
Poor guy.
But what did this have to do with Julie and missing babies?
Serena seemed to be able to read his mind, answering the question before he could ask it. “Other marshals tracked Don down in Denver, where they found him about to board a plane with an unidentified child. We still haven’t been able to locate the baby’s parents or figure out where she came from.
“Don escaped again before we could figure out what was going on, but we were able to locate Sam Wilson, one of the guys who helped to set up the last break. At first he was pretty closemouthed, but after a few weeks in custody, he folded like a hot dog bun, revealing that he’d been working with a man named Frank Adams to stage the car accident. According to Sam, Frank has a place pretty close to this area, although we don’t know exactly where.”
Like dominoes tumbling down in a row, the pieces of the story all fell into place. Zach nodded slowly, crossing his arms over his chest to keep the edges of his jacket from whipping around in the breeze. “So you figure that a missing baby near Frank’s known hideout might have a connection to this Don Saunders.” He didn’t bother phrasing it as a question, and Serena’s slow nod confirmed his assessment of the situation.
“We’re running out of leads to follow up on.” Josh tugged at his earlobe, hunching his shoulders. “This is the best tip we’ve got.”
Zach couldn’t stop a humorless chuckle from escaping. “A woman who doesn’t know her own name is your best lead?”
With mirrored smiles, Josh and Serena nodded. “It may be a long shot, but