The Baby’s Guardian Page 3

  Her body was merely practicing for the real thing, but she didn’t need the distraction now. She had to keep moving and get to safety.

  She saw the SWAT team then, on the building across the street. There were other officers crouched down behind a Dumpster and the gunmen’s SUV.

  The baby and she were safe.

  Or so she thought.

  But then, the shots rang out.

  Chapter Three

  Shaw cursed and hooked his arm around Sabrina.

  Despite the urgency that the deadly gunfire created, he tried to be careful with her, and he took the brunt of the fall when he pulled her to the ground. His shoulder hit hard, but he held on tight to his gun so that it wouldn’t be jarred from his hand.

  Shaw didn’t stop there. He crawled over Sabrina, sheltering her with his body, and he came up ready to return fire.

  This was obviously a situation he’d wanted to avoid at all costs. He didn’t want his baby in the middle of a fight with these armed fugitives, but when they fired that shot, they’d left him no choice. Now, the trick was to get Sabrina safely out of there.

  There was another shot. It slammed into the rough brick wall just inches from Shaw’s head. Not close, a good foot away, but the sound and the impact allowed him to pinpoint the origin of the shot. It was coming from the window where Sabrina and he had escaped.

  “Get down,” someone on the SWAT team yelled from the roof of the adjacent building.

  Shaw did. He dropped lower, covering Sabrina as best he could.

  She was breathing way too hard and fast, and he hoped like the devil that she didn’t hyperventilate. While he was hoping, he added that the baby hadn’t been harmed in all of this. Sabrina didn’t appear to have any physical injuries, but the stress couldn’t be good. She needed to get to a doctor so she could be checked out.

  There was another shot, but this one came from a rifleman on the SWAT team. Shaw didn’t look up, but he heard the sound of glass being blown apart.

  Good!

  That would stop the gunmen from aiming any more shots at Sabrina and him. At least from that window. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t go elsewhere to return fire. The abandoned building was large, at least five thousand square feet, and there were a lot of places for someone to hide or get into a position to kill.

  The shots continued, all coming from his men, which meant it might be time to try to get Sabrina to better cover. Shaw glanced at the front of the building. Hell.

  Too many windows.

  And a set of double doors with glass fronts.

  The gunmen could use any of those points of attack to fire again. That meant staying put until the officers and SWAT had apprehended the suspects. The one advantage that his officers did have was that the building was only one floor. The gunmen wouldn’t be able to move upstairs and launch an assault there. They were going to have to face the SWAT team and other cops head-on.

  So that Sabrina’s pregnant belly wouldn’t be smashed against the ground, Shaw eased off her and moved her to a sitting position so that her back was against the brick wall. They were close. Too close. And face-to-face.

  He found himself staring right into those sea-green eyes.

  Shaw quickly looked away. Then he turned around so he was facing outward. This would make it easier for him to cover all sides. It was a solid strategic move, he assured himself. And it was far better than staring at her.

  With the gunmen no longer firing at them, Shaw’s men started to close in around the building. One of the SWAT members bashed in the double front doors, and officers began to pour inside. It shouldn’t be long now before he could get Sabrina out of there.

  Once he had her in an ambulance and on the way to a hospital, he could return to the original crime scene and try to mop up things. He’d left Lieutenant Bo Duggan in charge, but that was strictly temporary. Since Bo’s own wife was a hostage, Shaw needed to get back on scene so that Bo could be with his wife. If their situations had been reversed, Shaw would have certainly wanted to be with Fay.

  “The gunmen said they were going to use me,” Sabrina muttered, her voice a shaky whisper. But it was loud enough to cut through his thoughts and snare his attention. “To get you to cooperate.”

  “What?” Shaw said that a little louder than he’d intended and glanced at her over his shoulder.

  Sabrina shook her head, sending a curl of that wild red hair flinging over her cheek. “I don’t know what they meant by that. Do you?”

  “No.” But he could guess. “I’m a police captain.” A lot of people might want him to cooperate, especially when it came to helping with a plea bargain or reduced charges.

  That wouldn’t happen in this case.

  Shaw turned his head away from her so he could keep watch of all the areas around them. “What else did they say?”

  “Not much. They were careful not to talk in front of me or the others. But I think they knew I’d be at the hospital this afternoon. They were waiting for me.”

  Oh, man. That didn’t sound good at all. “Why the heck were you even there?”

  Sabrina took a deep breath. “Someone from the hospital phoned me. A male nurse named Michael Frost, and he said Nadine Duggan had called an urgent meeting of the moms’ support group. So, I went.”

  Shaw cursed and didn’t bother to keep the profanity to himself. Sabrina knew how he felt about that group. It was headed by Nadine Duggan, the wife of one of his lieutenants and a woman who’d also become a hostage. Bo’s wife. Nadine was a psychologist and probably bound to keep secret whatever she was told in that support group, but Shaw didn’t want Sabrina baring her soul to someone who might share those soul-baring secrets with her husband, a man whom Shaw worked side by side with. Bo and all the other officers knew about Shaw’s late wife, of course.

  Everyone also knew about the baby.

  But Shaw hadn’t wanted Sabrina to talk about the problems that he’d had adjusting to her pregnancy. About all the appointments he’d missed for her checkups. All the calls from her that he hadn’t returned.

  Their arrangement was complicated since, after all, he’d ultimately given her approval to get pregnant. Hell, he’d provided the semen for the procedure, but he and Sabrina both knew he wasn’t really on board. Not emotionally.

  And it was those emotions Shaw wanted to keep to himself.

  Best not to let his men know the mental turmoil he was going through right now. Something like that could perhaps water down his authority, and as their leader, the last thing he wanted in a dangerous situation was to have his authority questioned or undermined.

  That’s why Shaw had offered to pay for Sabrina to attend another support group. But she’d refused.

  What else was new?

  They didn’t see eye to eye on, well, anything.

  “Is that why Nadine Duggan was there at the hospital, too?” Shaw asked, still keeping watch. Another wave of officers went into the building.

  “No. She was actually in labor. I saw her when I first arrived, but then she disappeared when the gunmen starting shouting. A lot of people did. It was chaos, and some of the women ran and hid.”

  Shaw had to take a deep breath. He hoped that didn’t mean anything bad had happened to the lieutenant’s wife or any of the patients, staff or babies.

  “What about this Michael Frost who called you?” he asked. “Did you see him after you arrived at the hospital?”

  “No.” She paused. “Why?”

  “No reason.” Not yet anyway. He’d make a call in a minute or two to have a background check run on the male nurse. Everything and everyone would be checked.

  “The gunmen killed someone,” Sabrina added.

  That caused Shaw to glance at her again, and this time those green eyes were filled with tears. “Who?”

  “A lab tech. I don’t know his name. They shot him. Right in front of me.”

  This time Shaw added a groan to the profanity. Sabrina had witnessed a murder, and in addition to the emotional
trauma that created, it could mean that she was now a target. If those gunmen thought for one minute that she could identify them, they wouldn’t want her around, so that’s why it was critical for this to end now.

  “Did the men shoot at you, too?” Shaw asked.

  She didn’t answer right away. “Yes. But not when they killed the tech. It was later. I could tell they were getting ready to leave, and I had a gut feeling they’d take me with them. So, I tried to sneak away.”

  Unfortunately, he could picture that scene all too well.

  “The gunman didn’t shoot at me, not really,” she added. “The bullet went in the ceiling.”

  Which confirmed the gunmen wanted her alive. After all, the gunmen had already killed others, so that meant they had a reason for allowing Sabrina to live.

  Was he that reason?

  “I’m sorry, Shaw. I’m so sorry,” Sabrina said. But he knew she wasn’t talking about this situation alone. She was dredging up the past.

  Something he wouldn’t discuss with her.

  “Don’t,” he warned.

  He didn’t add more because his phone buzzed. He glanced at the caller ID and saw it was from the SWAT team commander, Lieutenant José Rivera. “Tolbert,” Shaw answered.

  “Captain, we need you to stay put for a couple more minutes. We’re trying to secure the building now, but we don’t want Ms. Carr or you out in the open just yet.”

  “Yeah. Make it as fast as you can,” Shaw insisted. Because he didn’t want to stay there with Sabrina any longer than necessary, and he was anxious to get back to the primary crime scene.

  Shaw ended the call and waited with the sounds of the search going on in the building behind them. He didn’t stop watching the place. Definitely didn’t lower his gun. Because he didn’t want those men, those killers, coming back outside to grab Sabrina.

  “Think hard,” Shaw said. If he had to wait there with her, he might as well start the interrogation that had to happen for the reports and the cleanup. “What did these men want?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sabrina was crying. He could hear the tears in her voice. Part of him wanted to comfort her, but Shaw resisted. He couldn’t open up his heart to that kind of intimacy with her. The only way he had survived Fay’s death was to shut himself off, and he would continue to do just that.

  Shaw tried again with the questions. He wanted to keep this conversation on the business at hand. “Other than you and the lab tech they killed, did it seem as if the gunmen were after anyone specific?”

  “They kept calling out for someone named Bailey. I don’t think they found her though because they kept shouting her name. And then they had a group of us sit in the hall. One of them held us at gunpoint while the other gunman took this one pregnant woman. I don’t know where they took her, but she was gone for several hours. Then, she tried to escape, but she fell and hit her head. She was bleeding.”

  Each new thing he learned disgusted him even more, and it was just starting. All kinds of details would no doubt be brought out when the other hostages were questioned. He’d definitely need to speak to this woman whom the gunmen had yelled at.

  If she was still alive, that is.

  “What else did the gunmen do?” he asked. “Did they appear to be searching for anything specific?”

  “Other than the person named Bailey, I don’t think so.” She paused, shook her head. “Wait. One of them went into the lab and the records room. The lab door wouldn’t open so he shot the lock, and he stayed in there a long time. He also had one of the hostages with him a lot of time.”

  Okay. That was a start. He’d have every inch of those rooms processed and review the surveillance camera footage to see what the men had been after.

  “How about a drug cabinet or something like that?” Shaw didn’t enjoy forcing her to go over all the details, but with her memory still fresh, this was the time to do it. Later, the shock and the adrenaline crash might rob her of critical details.

  “No drugs. At least, I didn’t see them take or use any.” Behind him, Sabrina shifted her position, probably because she was trying to get comfortable. But with the shift, her belly pressed against his back.

  Shaw felt it then.

  The soft bumps.

  He glanced back at the contact and realized what he was feeling was the baby.

  “The baby’s kicking,” Sabrina explained, moving away again so that she wasn’t touching him.

  Shaw immediately felt the loss. It was the first time he’d felt his child move. The timing was lousy, but he couldn’t totally stop himself from reacting.

  In a month, maybe less, he’d be a father.

  His phone buzzed again. Thank God. He needed something to slap him back to the moment. It was Rivera, the SWAT team commander.

  “Captain, we have a patrol car ready to get you and Ms. Carr out of here. It’s pulling up to the curb right now.”

  Well, that was good news. “And the situation with the search?”

  “We have all points of the building secure. But no sign of the gunmen yet. We’re still looking.”

  “Find them!” Shaw ordered after he got his teeth unclenched.

  He pulled Sabrina to her feet so he could get her moving. The sooner he had her away from the building, the better.

  Even though she was obviously slowed because of the pregnancy, she hurried, keeping up right along with him, but she was breathing hard again by the time he got her into the backseat of the cruiser. The driver, a uniformed officer, drove away.

  “Ms. Carr will need to go to a hospital,” Shaw instructed the driver.

  She didn’t protest. Which wasn’t a good sign. Since Sabrina often protested any- and everything he suggested.

  Did that mean she was hurt?

  While the driver meandered his way through the deserted downtown streets, Shaw called Harris, the hostage negotiator, for a situation report from the maternity hospital. It took a while—four rings—before Harris answered, and the moment Shaw heard the strain in the man’s voice, he knew this conversation wasn’t going to be good.

  “The fire’s out,” Harris started. “It wasn’t much of one. The gunmen lit some damp papers, and that created more smoke than fire.”

  And they’d used that smoke to escape. “Casualties?” Shaw asked, dreading the answer.

  “Four so far.”

  Shaw cursed. “Not one of the babies?”

  “No, they all seem to be fine, but we have doctors on the way to check them all out,” Harris answered quickly, and then hesitated. “Three of the dead were on the medical staff here. The other was a patient. She died just a few minutes ago.” Another pause. “It was Nadine Duggan.”

  Ah, hell.

  The lieutenant’s wife. A cop’s wife. Shaw had to take a deep breath, but that didn’t stop the jolt from the memories of the night his wife had died.

  “Nadine was nine months pregnant,” Shaw said. He didn’t dare look at Sabrina, but he was aware that she was sobbing now. She’d obviously heard what Harris had said. “What happened to her child?”

  “They’re alive. Twins, a boy and a girl,” Harris added in a hoarse whisper. “Bo’s taking this pretty hard.”

  Of course he was. Bo loved his wife, and what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of their lives—the birth of their children—had turned into a nightmare.

  “We have another patient clinging to life,” Harris continued. “I don’t think she’s going to make it so we have someone tracking down her next of kin. Another woman is in critical condition. Both of them delivered babies during the standoff.”

  And this might be just the tip of the iceberg. His men had been in that building less than forty-five minutes. God knew what they would find when they searched every nook and cranny. The death and injury toll might skyrocket.

  “Sabrina said some of the women hid,” Shaw told Harris. “Some might be too scared to come out. You’ll need to look for them.”

  “Of course. We’ll go
through the place room by room. How is Sabrina? Did you find her?”

  Shaw had to clear his throat before he could speak. “I found her. She’s safe.” And because he needed to focus on the job, he checked his watch. “I’m dropping her off with a uniformed officer at the hospital on San Pedro, and then I can join you on scene.”

  “Good. Because we can use all the help we can get.”

  “Nadine’s dead?” Sabrina asked the moment Shaw ended the call.

  He settled for a nod.

  She pressed her fingers to her mouth, but he still heard the sob. Shaw wasn’t sure how well she knew Nadine, but they’d obviously met and chatted in that hospital support group. Plus, Sabrina was no doubt thinking that it could have been her who’d ended up dead.

  Shaw was certainly thinking it.

  Because Sabrina’s sobs were getting louder, he felt he had to do something. Anything. Even if he wasn’t sure he wanted to do it.

  Shaw slipped his arm around her, and she dropped her head onto his shoulder. He expected the contact to feel foreign and uncomfortable. It did.

  It also felt comforting.

  She was soft and warm and practically melted against him so Shaw just sat there and let her cry it out. By the time the driver stopped in front of the hospital, he felt raw and drained, and figured that was minor compared to what Sabrina was feeling.

  His phone buzzed again, and he flipped it open. Not Harris with reports of more deaths or injuries. This call was from Rivera, the SWAT commander.

  “Tell me you have good news,” Shaw greeted the man.

  But there was only a long heavy moment of silence. “Sorry. We’ve gone through the abandoned office building, every inch of it, and the gunmen aren’t here.”

  “What?” Shaw snarled. Beside him, Sabrina practically snapped to attention.

  “We think they escaped through the basement. We didn’t even know there was a basement because there are no marked stairs leading into that area. When we got down there, we found a single small window. Open.”

  “And no one saw two armed men coming out through that window?”