tipped the brim of his Stetson as a greeting. “I’m really sorry for what happened, but I honestly don’t know who took your child.” He turned to Raleigh. “Are you sure this is connected to Hannah, or is it a copycat?”
A muscle flickered in Raleigh’s jaw. “Too early to tell. Do you have a reason for being here?” There definitely was nothing friendly about his tone.
Warren sighed. “Yes. I was worried about Thea and thought she might need a ride home because she’s so shaken up.”
“She will, but only after she’s given her statement about the attack.” Again, there was no friendliness from Raleigh. “I was about to take her to my office now. No reason that I know of for you to be there for that, but you can wait for her at the café across the street.”
Warren would do that if he couldn’t get Raleigh to relent and let him stay with her in the sheriff’s office. And Raleigh wouldn’t back down on this.
They started down the steps, and Thea didn’t miss it when she saw Warren wince and slide his fingers over his chest. He quickly moved his hand away, but she knew he’d been touching the scar beneath his shirt. The scar he’d gotten from a gunshot wound six months ago.
The wound itself had healed, but the muscles there had been damaged enough that Warren would always have pain. Something he obviously didn’t want to discuss because he shook his head when Thea opened her mouth to ask if he was okay. Maybe it was a guy thing not to want to admit that he was in pain, or maybe he just didn’t want to talk about it in front of Raleigh.
“Ride in the cruiser with Raleigh,” Warren whispered to her, and he made a lawman’s glance around them. “There are a lot of places for a killer to lie in wait on the road that leads into Durango Ridge.”
She nodded, but his reminder only gave her another jolt of adrenaline. So did the sound of her phone ringing. Not a reaction she wanted to have as a deputy. Nor was the reaction she had next.
Her stomach went to her knees when she looked at her phone screen.
“Unknown caller,” she said.
That stopped Raleigh and Warren, and Yvette eventually stopped, too, when she realized they were no longer moving toward the cruiser.
It could be nothing, maybe even a telemarketer, but Raleigh must have realized it could be something important because he took out his own phone to record the call, and he motioned for her to answer it. She did, and unlike what Yvette had done earlier, Thea put it on speaker.
“I’m guessing you’re looking for the kid,” a man immediately said. Thea didn’t recognize his voice, but it was possible that it was the same man who’d taken Sonya.
Yvette gasped, and Warren motioned for her to stay quiet. Good move because it wouldn’t do any good to have Yvette start yelling at this thug.
“Where’s the baby?” Thea demanded. Of course, she wanted to ask the snake why he’d murdered Sonya, but right now, the baby had to come first. It was too late to save Sonya, but maybe they could still help the child.
“I’ll give her to you. All you have to do is come and get her.”
Thea looked at Raleigh to get his take on this. Like her, he was clearly skeptical, but at the moment, this was all they had. Maybe it was a matter of paying a ransom. If so, she figured they could scrape together whatever amount they needed to get the child safely away from a killer.
The conversation must have alerted Dalton because he came down the steps and into the yard with them.
“Where’s the baby?” Thea repeated to the man.
“I’ll text you the time and the place where you can get her. Oh, and I’ll text you the rules, too. Don’t forget those or you won’t get the kid.” He sounded arrogant, and Thea wished she could reach through the phone and make him pay for what he’d done.
She tamped down the anger so she could speak. “How do I know you actually have her? This could be a trap.”
“Sweetcakes, if I’d wanted you dead, you already would be. You wouldn’t have made it off that back porch of Sonya’s house.”
Since Thea had already realized that, she knew it was true. But there were plenty of other things that didn’t make sense. “How do I know for certain that you have the newborn?” she pressed.
The man didn’t answer. Not with words anyway. But Thea heard the sound in the background.
A baby crying.
Raleigh cursed and snatched the phone from Thea. “Tell me the location of the baby now!” he demanded. But he was talking to the air, because the kidnapper had already ended the call.
“Oh, God.” Yvette grabbed the phone, too, and she hit Redial.
No answer.
A hoarse sob tore from Yvette’s mouth, and she would have likely fallen to the ground if Warren hadn’t caught her. Raleigh didn’t thank him for doing that because he didn’t want the man anywhere around here. Raleigh had enough distractions with Thea and Yvette, and he didn’t need to add his so-called father to the mix.
Raleigh turned to Dalton. “Take Yvette to the station. Call a doctor for her, too. She might need some meds to calm her down.”
“The only thing I need is my baby!” Yvette shouted.
The woman tried Redial again, and she was gripping Thea’s phone so hard that Raleigh thought she might break it. That wouldn’t be good since it was obviously the way the kidnapper had chosen to communicate with them.
“She’s a newborn,” Yvette went on. “She has to be fed. Someone has to take care of her.”
“And the men who have her will do that,” Thea said. “They’ll want to keep the baby safe and well. Remember, they took formula so she won’t be hungry.”
True, but that didn’t mean a newborn was going to get expert care from the thugs who’d snatched her. That’s why they had to find her ASAP.
Dalton gently took Yvette by the arm. “Once we get to the station,” he told the woman, “I’ll examine the call. I might be able to get a match on his voice, because Raleigh will send me the recording of the conversation.”
Raleigh would do that, but he wasn’t holding out any hope for a match. Or that the call would be traced for that matter. The kidnapper had almost certainly used a burner cell, a disposable one that couldn’t be traced. Still, they’d try.
“What can I do?” Warren asked him.
“You can go home to your wife and family in McCall Canyon until I’ve got time to interrogate you. After all, it was your name on that wall, and there had to be a reason for it.”
That was a knee-jerk reaction. One that Raleigh instantly regretted. Not because he hadn’t meant it—he had. But it was
