was still dizzy, her head was pounding, but she took hold of the railing as she ran down the steps. Reed was right there at the bottom to catch her again, but she didn’t want him to hold her back. Addison darted onto the porch, looking for any sign of Emily or those men.
And her heart dropped to her knees.
There was the wall of dust that the tires had kicked up as the SUV sped out of her driveway.
They’d gotten away.
God, no.
This couldn’t be happening.
“No license plates,” Colt shouted out to them, “but I’m calling in a description of the vehicle.”
Maybe that meant every cop in the area would respond so they could stop the kidnappers, but Addison couldn’t just stand by and wait for it to happen. She had to do something. Anything. Even if it meant risking her life.
Even if it meant risking Reed’s and Colt’s.
The only thing that mattered now was saving Emily.
“We have to go after them,” she told Reed. She was willing to beg if necessary. One way or another, she was leaving to follow the SUV.
Reed glanced at her, as if trying to decide what to do, and then ran toward his truck by the mailbox that the SUV had skirted around. He jumped inside.
“You need to stay here with Colt,” he grumbled to her.
But again, he didn’t stop her when she threw open the passenger door and dropped down onto the seat beside him. Addison still had her gun, and even though she wasn’t sure she could see straight enough to aim, she’d do whatever it took to get her baby back.
The memory of Emily’s cries echoed through her head, but she tried to shut them out. Tried to hold herself together. Hard to do with everything crashing down on her.
“I can’t lose her,” she heard herself say.
She also heard the hoarse sob that followed. And worse, felt the tears burn her eyes. Addison couldn’t stop them, but tears and sobs wouldn’t help now. Her little girl needed her to stay strong.
“You won’t lose her,” Reed promised.
Of course, it was a promise he couldn’t really give her, but Addison didn’t care. She would take anything she could get right now. She only wanted them to catch up with the SUV so she could have Emily back in her arms where she belonged. Too bad she didn’t know how to do that, but she was certain if she could just see Emily, she’d figure out a way.
“Put on your seat belt,” Reed reminded her as he sped away from her house.
Somehow, despite her shaking hands, Addison managed to get the seat belt on, and she grabbed on to the dash when Reed peeled out onto the road. To the left was a dead end. The main road was to the right, and that was the way he went. It was almost certainly the path the SUV had taken, too, and she prayed the kidnappers stayed on the road so that Reed and she could find them.
“I don’t see them,” Addison said, and she cursed the sharp curves in this part of the road.
There were too many blind spots. Plus, there were old ranch trails that a vehicle could pull into and hide on. Reed and she couldn’t lose them, and heaven knew where they’d take Emily. She might never see her baby again, and that felt like a crushing vise around her heart.
“Who are these men?” Reed asked.
She had to shake her head. “I don’t know.”
And she didn’t. Addison had gotten glimpses of their faces, and she was certain she’d never seen them before.
“Think,” Reed insisted. “Tell me everything you remember about what happened.”
Not easy to remember anything with her thoughts flying around like an F-5 tornado, but Addison drew in several hard breaths, forced herself to clear her head as much as she could.
“I came down to get a cup of coffee, and I saw them on the porch. There were two of them, but I think there was another one. I got a glimpse of something or someone behind me before I was bashed on the head.”
Reed said something she didn’t catch. “There must have been a third one. I saw two men running from your office window. The third must have taken the baby while the other two were rummaging around in there.”
Just the thought of it tore her into a million little pieces.
Some stranger grabbing her baby while she was taped up downstairs. Addison couldn’t bear it if they hurt her.
But who would hurt a precious little baby?
Emily was only two months old. No one could possibly want to do anything bad to someone so young and innocent. Did that mean this was some kind of kidnapping for ransom? If so, she didn’t have much, but she’d give them everything she had, everything she could get her hands on.
“What do you think they wanted?” Reed asked.
Addison was about to go with the ransom idea, but then she froze, the thought flashing through her mind. It couldn’t be that.
Could it?
“What?” Reed pressed when she didn’t answer.
It took her a moment to get it out. “I hired a P.I. to make sure everything was okay with the...adoption.”
Reed glanced at her, and even though she hadn’t thought it possible, there was even more concern on his face. Probably because there’d been a lot in the news lately about a black-market baby ring that’d been uncovered in the area.
“I didn’t do anything illegal to get Emily,” Addison quickly added. “But...”
And that was when her explanation ground to a halt.
How much should she tell him?
Not the whole truth, that was for sure. Not now anyway with everything else going on. Maybe not ever.
“You trust this P.I. you hired?” Reed asked. He didn’t slow down. Didn’t glance at her again. He just kept driving at breakneck speed around the curvy road.
“I thought I did. He had excellent references, and he contacted me to say he’d been doing other background checks for families with recently adopted babies. The P.I.’s name is Blake Rooney.”
And once she had her baby safely back in her arms, then she’d make sure Rooney hadn’t had any part of this.
Whatever this was.
If the P.I. had done something wrong, then Addison would make sure he paid, and paid hard. But for now, she had to battle herself. The tears came again. The fear, too. It felt as if it were choking the life right out of her.
“Focus,” Reed insisted. Probably because he sensed that she was about to lose it. “Did this P.I. find out anything suspicious about the
