“And you thought it was a good idea for a civilian to go walking into something like that with a person you didn’t even know if you could trust?”
She glanced away again. “I wanted to find those pregnant captives and save them. I didn’t want their babies sold like cattle. And I thought I had a better chance of getting in there than the cops, Rangers or FBI.” Laine paused. “I saw two women, including the one who was killed in the parking lot.”
Oh, man. “Funny you didn’t mention that connection right off the bat. You’ve told the FBI all of this?”
“I told them about the baby farm, but by the time we were able to work out where it was, it was too late. When they got there, the guards and the pregnant women were all gone.”
No surprise there. “You were lucky those guards didn’t kill you at the farm.”
She made a soft sound of agreement. “I pretended to be a potential buyer for one of the babies.”
“And they believed you?” Tucker asked, not bothering to hold back on the skeptical tone in his voice. He motioned for her to follow him to the bedroom so he could do something about their wet clothes.
Laine nodded. Then she lifted her shoulder. “They didn’t try to kill me, anyway. They made some calls, did a quick background check and learned that I had indeed been trying to adopt.”
Tucker hadn’t thought there could be any more surprises today, but he’d been wrong. “You did a fake adoption request for the sake of the investigation?”
“No,” she snapped. That put some fire in her ice-blue eyes, but it quickly cooled down. “I can’t have children, so I’ve been trying to adopt for months now.”
In a town the size of Sweetwater Springs, it was hard to keep secrets, but Laine had obviously managed to keep that one.
And it caused him to curse again.
“You gave those guards your real name?” The babies didn’t like his near shout, and they fussed even louder.
“I figured that was the fastest way to get them to believe I was really there looking for a baby.”
There were so many things wrong with that comment that Tucker didn’t know where to start. “So, you let them believe you were a customer willing to break the law. Obviously that didn’t work out so well, did it?”
“Obviously,” she mumbled. “One of the guards told me they’d be in touch, and we left. But they did follow us.”
Of course they did.
Tucker rummaged through his closet, locating some dry clothes for himself and a white button-up shirt for Laine. He dropped it all on the dresser. He also maneuvered her away from the window and helped her put the babies on the bed so she could change.
“They followed you to your office?” he asked.
But he darn near forgot the question when Laine shucked off her wet top. She had on a lacy white bra, but the rain had practically made it see-through.
This wasn’t the kid he’d kissed in his granddaddy’s kitchen.
Nope. Laine was a fully grown woman now, with real curves he had no business gawking at. She obviously felt the same because she scowled when she noticed where his attention had landed.
“Sorry, I forgot we had this...connection between us,” she mumbled.
“There’s nothing between us,” Tucker jumped to say.
Too bad it was a big fat lie. One that he had zero intention of straightening out. He yanked off his shirt as if he’d waged war on it.
“To answer your question—no, the guards didn’t follow me,” she snapped.
Because his mind still wasn’t where it should be, it took him a moment to remember the question—had the guards followed the CI and her back to her office?
“How would you know if they’d followed you there or not?” he pressed.
Laine huffed, snatched up the shirt. The moment she had it on, she eased down on the bed beside the babies, trying to comfort them. “The CI made sure of that. He drove around with me until they stopped following us, and he said it was safe.”
“Well, he was clearly wrong about that, wasn’t he?” He huffed. “Remember, there are two things that make a CI. Being a paid informant and being a criminal.”
“What does that mean?”
Her gaze snapped back to his. Probably something she wished she could take back, because Tucker had already stripped down to his boxers. Proving that she was the most stubborn woman in the whole state of Texas, she didn’t look away.
“It means the CI could have been looking for a way to earn a few bucks. He could have gone back to the baby farm and told them that he was suspicious of you and that you needed to be taken care of.”
Laine opened her mouth, no doubt to deny that, but then she shook her head. Her eyes widened, and she touched her fingers to her mouth. “Oh, God.”
“Yeah, oh, God,” he mumbled. “You took a serious risk going out there, going anywhere, with that idiot. And even if he was truly trying to help, he put your neck right on the line by taking you into a hornet’s nest.”
He could have continued his tirade for several more minutes, but his phone rang, and Tucker saw Reed’s name on the screen. He hoped the deputy had some good news, because they sure as heck needed it. He hit the speaker button so he could take the call and finish dressing.
“I was just out at the parking lot behind Laine’s office,” Reed said. “I found some blood.”
Tucker cursed, not because he hadn’t expected the news. After everything Laine had told him, he had, but that blood was confirmation they were dealing with killers and not just some loons out to kidnap a pair of newborns.
“There’s not much blood left because it’s raining hard,” Reed went on. “Still, I found some spots on the corner of the building beneath the eaves. Found a pacifier, too. Hard to tell, but it might have a fingerprint on it. DNA, too, if the rain hasn’t gotten to it.”
“Send it and the blood sample to the Ranger lab for immediate processing,” Tucker instructed. He glanced at the babies. He needed to know who the dead woman was so he could locate the babies’ next of kin.
“Any security cameras nearby?” Tucker asked. “Maybe we can get footage of what happened. In case we don’t have a print, we might be able to get some photos of her.”
And photos of her killers, as well.
After all, Laine had said they’d gotten out of the car to retrieve the body, and that meant a camera could show the murder in progress.
“Maybe,” Reed answered. “That new jewelry store up the street has cameras. Don’t know if the angles are right, but I’ll call them while I’m driving out to check Laine’s car for prints.”
“Make the call, but skip the fingerprints
