Confiscated Conception. Delores Fossen

and returned to the computer. But Jared didn’t move. He stood there staring down at her. When she lifted her gaze to his, she saw that his immobility wasn’t just because of her tearful reaction to the photo.

      “Did you get through to Tanner?” she asked.

      Jared nodded. “We couldn’t talk long. He had to make another call.”

      “What’s wrong?” Rachel held her breath and waited for an explanation.

      “Tanner just told me that the cops found Sasha Young’s body a couple of hours ago.”

      “Oh.” It hit Rachel a lot harder than she would have thought it would, and the breath swooshed out of her. Moments earlier, Sasha Young had been simply a possibility. A potential piece of a puzzle.

      “She was murdered,” Jared continued. “Strangled. Her body was dumped in the Guadalupe River, but some fisherman spotted it and called the cops.”

      As horrible as that was, Rachel knew he wasn’t finished. There was more. “And?”

      “Tanner knows the medical examiner, so he got the guy to give him a preliminary report. Miss Young recently had a C-section.” Jared looked her straight in the eye. “He estimates the surgery was done about a week ago.”

      A week. The timing was perfect. The pieces were starting to come together—with one horrible, inevitable conclusion. Esterman’s plan was real. Not some hoax meant to scare her into cooperating.

      There was indeed a child.

      Somewhere.

      And he was in terrible danger.