Holden Read online

  Holden handed her the newborn and took one of the premade formula bottles from the bag. “I’ll warm this so we can feed him on the drive.”

  He followed his cousins, and it didn’t take long, less than fifteen minutes, before Holden returned to the interview room. He scooped up the rest of the baby supplies and motioned for her to follow him. He didn’t waste any time getting her into the cruiser that was just a couple of inches from the front door. Holden got in the backseat with her, and Landon was behind the wheel.

  It was a good thing Holden had thought of warming up the formula because the baby started to fuss the moment Landon pulled away from the sheriff’s office. Nicky had zero experience feeding a baby, but thankfully the infant took the nipple the moment she touched it to his mouth.

  “The reserve deputies are behind us in an unmarked car,” Landon said, glancing back at the dark blue sedan that was following them.

  With the reserves, that meant there were four lawmen to protect the baby. Nicky prayed that was enough.

  “Tell me everything you remember about those files you copied from the clinic and the recordings,” Holden demanded.

  Nicky had been expecting that demand, and Holden probably would have made it sooner if they hadn’t had to deal with the aftermath of the attack. Now, though, they were dealing with the possibility that the files were lost, and if that had indeed happened, what Nicky could recall might be the only information they would have.

  Not exactly a comforting thought.

  “As I said, Conceptions called it the Genesis Project, and there were three files. The files didn’t have names, only case numbers, but they had notes including the dates of the in vitro procedures, whether or not it was a success and then the delivery date. Except the only delivery date was for our nephew.”

  “Why did you hack into the Genesis Project file in the first place?” Holden asked.

  “Senator Minton. I went to Conceptions, hoping to find some clues as to his disappearance, and they stonewalled me. That’s when I hacked into their system and started poking around. That led me to the Genesis Project, and that in turn led me to Emmett and Annie’s file.”

  Even now it caused her stomach to tighten into a hard knot. The last thing she’d expected to find in those files was that she had a nephew.

  Holden glanced around, keeping watch just as Landon was. “Does Senator Minton have a child out there somewhere?” Holden added.

  She had to shake her head. “I don’t know. The notes in his file ended with the surrogate getting the in vitro procedure. It didn’t say if it was successful or not. And I couldn’t match his regular file at Conceptions with one of the numbers in the Genesis Project. I could only assume it was him because the dates of his wife’s harvested embryos matched the ones used with the surrogate.”

  He took a moment, clearly processing what she’d said, and then Nicky voiced the theory that she was sure was already forming in his head. “If Senator Minton does have a child out there, and they tried to get ransom money from him, he could have refused. Or something could have gone wrong. The person behind this could have murdered him.”

  Holden didn’t hesitate with his sound of agreement. “Or Minton could be on the run like you. Either way, Minton will need to be investigated. His wife, too.”

  “Beatrice,” Nicky began. “I looked into her background when I was searching for her husband. She has a reputation of being a gold digger. It’s his second marriage,” she added. “Beatrice is the trophy wife.”

  “How does wife number one feel about that?”

  “Her name is Dorothy, and she seems to have been glad to be rid of Minton because of all the cheating he did when they were married. The police have ruled her out as a suspect and so have I. Minton and she had been divorced for six years. No kids. Along with having a new man in her life, she’s financially independent.”

  “Unlike Beatrice?”

  “Unlike Beatrice,” she confirmed. “From what I can tell, the reason Beatrice was so driven to have a child was so that she could make sure to hang on to her rich husband.”

  “A husband who’s now missing.” Holden scrubbed his hand over his face. “As soon as I can arrange it, I’ll interview Beatrice.”

  “Good luck with that. Beatrice refused to see me.”

  “She’ll see me because if I have to, I’ll get a warrant for her arrest,” Holden insisted. “Once the FBI has the info in those files, Beatrice will become a person of interest not only in her husband’s disappearance, but also the Genesis Project itself.”

  That was true, and maybe under interrogation Beatrice would reveal something to help them with this investigation. But then Nicky had to shake her head.

  “Even if Beatrice had something to do with her husband’s disappearance, it doesn’t explain why she would have been involved with the Genesis Project. After all, she and her husband had already gone through the process to have a baby. She was getting what she wanted.”

  “Maybe she wanted more. As in more money. Think about it. The person behind this was going to get a million at least from your father and probably more money from us because I doubt they had plans to hand the baby over to Oscar tonight.”

  True. The kidnappers could have demanded a lot more from Nicky and Holden, and unless they had found another way around it, they would have paid the ransom.

  “You said there was a third file in the Genesis Project,” Holden went on. “And you have no idea who that is?”

  “No. I couldn’t find a case that matched the reference number in the files, and it didn’t have the info about the harvest date for the embryo. That could mean the clients didn’t go to Conceptions, that perhaps the kidnappers got the embryo from some other facility.”

  Nicky figured whoever the clients were, they must have money. Like her father, the Rylands and Senator Minton.

  Holden mumbled some profanity. “I hope this isn’t just the tip of the iceberg. I hope there aren’t more projects like this under a different name.”

  Mercy, she hadn’t considered that, but she should have. Anyone who would create babies only to ransom them to their loved ones had a sick enough mind to do just about anything.

  “As soon as we get to Kayla’s house, I’ll write down everything I can remember from those files,” Nicky said. Holden might be able to see something else she’d missed.

  And while that was important, critical even, so was taking care of the baby.

  “We’ll have to stop my father from getting that court order,” she said. Not exactly a news flash to Holden, but it helped her to say everything out loud. “Question Beatrice, too. I have a list of employees and former employees at Conceptions so we’ll need to go over that as well.”

  “That’s already in the works. Gage will be working on that along with anything we learn from the package that the kidnappers sent to your father.”

  She certainly hadn’t forgotten about that or the kidnapper’s car being processed, but with everything else on her mind, she’d pushed it to the back burner. The baby was on the front burner now. And not just his safety, either.

  “You heated the formula,” Nicky reminded Holden. “Does that mean you know how to take care of a baby?”

  “Not even close,” Holden mumbled.

  From the front seat, Landon groaned. “I guess that means I’ll be giving some instruction on diapering. Burping lessons, too. One of you will be taking the two a.m. feeding, though.”

  Gladly. “I want to take care of him, but I don’t want to mess things up,” she answered.

  “Oh, he’ll take care of the messing part,” Landon joked. “By the way, are we going to keep calling the baby he or him? Or do you plan to give him a name?”

  Nicky looked at Holden, and he shrugged. “For now we could call him Carter since that was Emmett’s middle name,” Holden sugg
ested.

  Both Nicky and Landon voiced their agreement, and then she looked at that precious face again. Yes, Carter suited him just fine.

  With that off of her list, Nicky moved on to something else she remembered. “In the grand scheme of things,” she said, “this might be minor, but I’ll need to call my neighbor and ask her to take care of my cat.”

  Holden took out his phone and sent a text to someone. Probably Gage. Nicky was about to thank him for that, but before she could say anything, Holden’s phone buzzed, and she saw Gage’s name on the screen. With everything going on, he could be calling about a dozen different things, but her first thought, and fear, was that someone was following them.

  Holden didn’t put the call on speaker, perhaps so he could try to hide the news from her if it was indeed bad. And it was. She could tell from the way the muscles in his shoulders and arms went stiff.

  “How?” Holden asked, and whatever answer Gage gave him caused Holden to mumble more profanity. “Call me back as soon as you know something.”

  He ended the call and put his phone away before Holden turned to her. “SAPD found Paul.”

  At first, she wanted to jump for joy. They’d found him, and he could explain what’d happened to those files. But that wasn’t a jumping-for-joy look on Holden’s face.

  “Is Paul all right?” Nicky asked hesitantly, though she wasn’t sure how she was able to speak. Her throat suddenly got very tight.

  “No.” And it took Holden a moment to continue. “The cops found Paul when they went out to his house.” Another pause. “Someone shot him.”

  Chapter Seven

  Holden read the latest text from Gage and groaned. Paul Barksfield was alive—barely. That was the good news. The bad news was that the man hadn’t regained consciousness while he’d been at the hospital.

  And the doctors weren’t optimistic about him waking up anytime soon, either.

  That meant Paul couldn’t tell them who’d shot him and left him for dead. Nor could he tell them what’d happened to those files that Nicky had put in online storage. In case Paul was never able to give them that info, Holden had already moved on to the next step.

  He was going through the personnel files from Conceptions.

  And he was also going through the copies that Gage had sent him of the contents of the package Oscar had received from the kidnappers. The personal files had too much information. The package contents, too little. On top of which, Holden hadn’t gotten much sleep and was now running on caffeine.

  No wonder Landon hadn’t volunteered to take the nighttime feedings.

  Carter had woken up every hour, causing either Holden or Nicky to scramble to the kitchen to warm up his formula, only to have the baby take a couple of sips and then fall asleep. Around 4:00 a.m., Nicky had offered to do it on her own so that Holden could get some rest. In the massive house, that wouldn’t have been a problem since it had nine bedrooms, but Holden had stayed there in the room with Nicky and Carter.

  He owed his brother that much.

  If their situations had been reversed, Emmett would have done the same thing for him. That would have included sleeping with the enemy. Or rather staying in the room with her.

  It’d been over a year now since he’d had sex with Nicky. Holden didn’t like to label them as lovers because of what’d happened afterward. Lovers made the whole thing seem too intimate. Besides, it’d been lust, that’s all.

  Still was.

  And Holden got a full dose of that lust when Nicky came into the kitchen, where he was working. She had Carter in her arms, and the baby was fussing again. Clearly he was ready for a bottle that he wasn’t going to finish, but Holden got to his feet to warm it up anyway.

  “Thanks,” Nicky said, sinking down onto one of the chairs at the table.

  When Holden had left the bedroom about an hour earlier, both Nicky and Carter had been asleep, and he’d hoped they would stay that way for a couple of hours. No such luck, though.

  Nicky yawned and after mumbling an apology, she helped herself to Holden’s coffee, his cue to fix another cup. Despite the yawn, her mussed hair and the fatigue in her eyes, Holden still saw something he didn’t want to see.

  A damn attractive woman.

  Even with no sleep or a hairbrush, Nicky was beautiful. Always had been. And that beauty had only fueled the lust when they’d first hooked up.

  Was fueling it now.

  Holden cursed the thought and shoved it aside. He came back to the table with both the bottle and a fresh cup of coffee. Apparently, it was exactly what both of them wanted because Carter took the bottle right off, and Nicky had some of the coffee.

  “Any updates on Paul?” she asked. Her voice was tentative, as if she might not want to hear the answer.

  She didn’t.

  But Holden gave it to her anyway. “He’s still critical, still not responsive.”

  Nicky showed no signs of surprise about that. Probably she knew he would have come and told her if there’d been a significant change. But that lack of surprise was accompanied by some sadness and frustration.

  “I’m responsible for this,” she said. “Once again, I nearly got a man killed.”

  Holden didn’t want to address what had gone on with Drury. Actually, he didn’t want to address any of it, but then he saw Nicky blinking back tears.

  Hell.

  He hated the hole that it punched inside him at seeing her grief. Holden didn’t consider himself a warm and fuzzy person, but he wasn’t a jerk, either. Not most days anyway. He put his hand on her arm. Hoped that it would give her some reassurance. But no. More tear blinking.

  “Paul’s a PI,” he offered. “He knew the risks of his job before he ever agreed to work for you.”

  She nodded but her body language indicated she didn’t buy that at all, that she still felt this was her fault. That got him out of his chair, and because he knew it would get her mind on something else, Holden leaned down and brushed a kiss on her forehead. It probably qualified as warm and fuzzy, and it was sincere, but it caused her to give him a funny look.

  That look.

  Yeah, mixed with those tears was the slam of heat she’d just gotten from what should have been a chaste kiss. Apparently, nothing could be chaste between them.

  Nicky avoided eye contact by staring at the baby, who had already gone back to sleep. Heck. He needed to talk to his cousins and find out how to fix this.

  “Where’s Landon?” she asked, looking everywhere but at him.

  “Working in one of the offices. There are three in the house.”

  “It’s a big house,” Nicky agreed. She tipped her head to the stuff he had laid out on the table. “You’re working, too. What is all of this?”

  “Grayson emailed me copies of what was in the package the kidnappers sent to your father.”

  That got her attention. She shifted the baby in her arms and leaned in for a closer look.

  “There’s not much,” Holden explained. “DNA results which may or may not belong to Carter. We won’t know if it’s a match for a while.” And even then it wouldn’t tell them much since they already knew the kidnappers had had the baby. It wasn’t much of a stretch to accept they’d also done a DNA test on him.

  Nicky picked up a picture of Carter. It had probably been taken only a couple of hours after he’d been born, and other than his carrier seat and the gown he was wearing, there was nothing else in the picture. That almost certainly had been by design. No way would those kidnappers have sent a photo to Oscar if it could have identified them in any way.

  She put the picture aside and went to the page of typed instructions on how to deliver the ransom money. It was all to have been done as a cash drop in the park, so there wasn’t even a bank account number to try and trace.

  The fina
l item she saw was a photo of a lock of Carter’s hair. It was a stupid response because it was just hair, but it was a powerful reminder that if these thugs had managed to cut his hair, they could have done anything with the baby. Once Holden got his hands on them, those snakes were going to pay for this.

  “Anything on the kidnappers?” she asked.

  He shook his head. Holden would have considered that good news since that meant there hadn’t been another attack, but in this case, out of sight was not out of mind. They were out there, and they would try to come at them again.

  That’s why Holden had used every security measure available at the house. Not just the internal alarms that were armed for every window and door, but also the ones for the perimeter. If the kidnappers tried to get onto the grounds, then the security system would alert them.

  “And the kidnappers’ car?” Nicky added. “Did the CSIs find anything?”

  “Nothing useable. The car was registered to a dummy company, and it could take years to dig through all the layers to find out who owns it. By then, the company and its owner will be long gone, I’m sure.”

  In fact, the person was likely already gone or else had set up the account with an alias. Or even a front person.

  Since Holden didn’t want to keep harping on all the bad news, he turned his laptop in her direction. “I got the personnel files for Conceptions Clinic, and it’s not as big of an operation as I thought it would be. A clinic manager, a medical records guy who did their computer entries, three nurses, a lab tech and two doctors. I also have the files of anyone who worked there in the past year.”

  Nicky put the bottle aside and scrolled through the records.

  “Grayson and the others will check out each person who worked there,” Holden explained. “The marshals will help with that. So will I, of course.”

  But Nicky didn’t seem to be listening to him. She tapped one of the names on the screen.

  “Amanda Monroe,” Nicky said. She looked up at Holden. “I talked to her.”

  “When?”