“What happened?” Tucker pressed. He hated to sound impatient and insensitive, but if a murder had truly taken place, he needed to report it.
“The woman was scared. Terrified,” Laine corrected. “And she only had a chance to say a few words to me when a car came screeching into the parking lot. She told me to run and hide. So I did. She said I was to stay in hiding, no matter what happened. I ducked behind the Dumpster.”
Tucker knew that parking lot and the position of the Dumpster. Laine’s office was on the far edge of Sweetwater Springs, in a small cottage that shared a back parking lot with three other small buildings. Two were empty, and the third was a law office. Tucker hoped someone else was in that office to witness what’d gone on, in case this turned into an investigation.
“If I’d known what was going to happen,” Laine continued, “I wouldn’t have hidden. I would have tried to get help.” She pulled in a long breath, and the trembling got worse. “The car came to a stop, and two men jumped out. They were wearing police uniforms.”
That gave him a moment’s pause. “What kind?” The cops in Sweetwater Springs didn’t often wear uniforms, but when they did, they were khaki-colored.
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. They were blue, and they had badges and guns.”
Maybe they had been from another town or jurisdiction and they’d tracked the woman to Laine’s office. “Did they try to arrest the woman?”
A sob tore from her throat. “No. She motioned for me to stay put and she ran. She bolted toward the street, and they shot her. Oh, God. Tucker, they shot her.”
It didn’t matter that he was a lawman. Hearing about a shooting hit him hard. Except something about this wasn’t adding up. “Why didn’t anyone report the shots? Why didn’t you report them?”
“They used guns with silencers.” She pressed her fingers to her mouth a moment. “They shot her in the back as she was running. She was dead. I could tell by how limp her arms and legs were when they picked up her body and threw her in the trunk of their car.”
Hell.
Since it hadn’t started raining yet, there’d be blood. Maybe even some other evidence.
Tucker’s cell phone was in the bedroom by his holster, and he didn’t want to leave the room to go get it. Instead, he reached for the landline on the kitchen wall. He had to call Colt and get him to the scene ASAP.
“Don’t.” Laine latched onto his wrist. “They had a police radio in their car. I heard it. And if you call the sheriff’s office, they’ll hear it, too. They’ll know I came here.”
Tucker blew out a long, frustrated breath. Not good about the police radio, but like uniforms, they could be faked or stolen. It didn’t mean cops had actually killed the woman.
“Why did you come here?” he asked.
Laine let that question hum between them for several moments. “Because I knew the lawman in you would help me.”
Tucker let her answer hum between them a couple of moments, too, even though he couldn’t argue with it since it was the truth. “The murder has to be reported, but I’ll tell my brother not to put any of this on the police radio. Did you get the license plate on the car?”
“No. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight.” Another sob. “I should have done something to stop them.”
“If you’d tried, they likely would have killed you, too.” It was the truth, and even though Laine and he were essentially enemies, he didn’t wish that on anybody. As it was, this nightmare would be with her for a long time.
He reached for the phone again, but once more Laine stopped him. “I stayed hidden like the woman told me to do. I did everything she insisted that I do.” Her voice was frantic now, and she sounded like she was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. “And the words she said to me keep repeating in my head.”
Everything inside Tucker went still. “What words?”
“‘Hide them. Protect them.’” She turned, maybe to bolt out the door, so he took her by the shoulders.
“Who’s them?” He groaned. Were there more women still being held at the baby farm? That wouldn’t be good, because if everything Laine had told him was true, their captors were cold-blooded killers.
She pried off his grip and went back to the door of the pantry.
Tucker braced himself to see his pantry crammed with women who were on the run from the men who’d gunned down one of their fellow captives.
But there were no women.
In fact, because the lights were off, Tucker couldn’t see anything other than the food on the shelves.
“I have to protect them,” Laine repeated, her voice breaking.
Tucker went closer to the pantry and looked around. On the floor was a rumpled blanket.
Except it wasn’t just a blanket.
Wrapped in the center of it was something he’d never expected to find in his pantry.
Two sleeping newborn babies.
Laine tried to brace herself for Tucker’s reaction. By all accounts, he was a good lawman, so she doubted that he would just toss the babies and her out the door. It was one of the reasons she’d come to him. That, and there being literally no one else she could trust.
She wasn’t sure she could trust him, either.
But she was certain that he’d do what was right for the babies.
“They need to be protected,” Laine said when Tucker just stood there volleying glances between her and the babies. “The killers will be looking for them. And for me.”
Tucker shook his head, obviously trying to process this. She wished him luck with that. She’d had more than an hour to process it, and it still didn’t make sense.
“Why are you so sure the killers will be looking for you?” he snapped.
“Because if they don’t know already, they’ll find out I’m the person renting that office space, that it was my car the woman was hiding behind. And that I had a connection to the illegal adoption investigation.”
He made a sound of agreement with frustration mixed in. He tore his gaze from the babies. “How’d this woman know to come to you?”
“I’m not sure. She didn’t get a chance to tell me.” In fact, the only thing Laine was certain of was the woman’s warning that kept repeating through her head.
Hide them. Protect them.
“I don’t know anything about these particular babies,” Laine said. The panic started to crawl through her again. “But I’m sure they’ll be hungry soon. I figured since you have a nephew, you might be able to get some baby supplies.”
What Tucker did do was curse and reach for the phone again. Once again, she tried to stop him, but before he could make a call she didn’t want him to make, the phone rang. The sound shot through the room and sent her heart slamming against her chest. It also caused the babies to stir.
“Colt,” Tucker said when he answered. Someone that she knew well. Colt was his kid brother and the deputy sheriff of Sweetwater Springs. He was also someone else she wasn’t sure she could trust. “I was just about to call you.”
Tucker still had his gun gripped in his hand, and he turned his steely-gray lawman’s eyes to the window when he put the call