No. He’d been murdered only months after Annie’s death. His killer was dead, but that didn’t soften the blow for Holden. Emmett wasn’t coming back from the grave just because the Rylands had managed to get justice for him.
Before their deaths, Emmett and Annie made multiple trips to Conceptions Fertility Clinic in San Antonio with the hopes of finally getting the baby they so desperately wanted. But that hadn’t happened. Because they’d both died before the process could be completed.
So, why would Nicky steal files from the place now?
“You’re either going to give those files to me now, or I’ll start putting bullets in you,” the man warned her. “I won’t kill you, yet, but I’ll make you wish you were dead.”
Every word of that threat put Holden on higher and higher alert, and he had to move fast.
Still trying to keep quiet, Holden hurried to the end of the hall and peered into the living room. Nicky was still by the front door, and there was a man between Holden and her. And yeah, the guy had a gun pointed right at her.
Nicky didn’t say a word, but her eyes widened just a fraction when she saw Holden, and the man must have noticed even her slight reaction. He pivoted, taking aim at Holden.
The thug fired.
Not a loud blast. He was using a silencer on his gun.
Holden jumped out of the way just in time, and the bullet tore through a chunk of the wall.
“Get down,” Holden shouted to Nicky, but she was already doing just that.
She scrambled behind the sofa. It wouldn’t give her much cover, but Holden was counting on this moron shooting at him instead of her.
And that’s just what he did.
The gunman ducked down beside a chair and fired another shot at Holden. Then, another. The shots wouldn’t be loud enough to get the attention of the neighbors, which was a good thing. Holden didn’t want bystanders hurrying over to Nicky’s house to check on this.
Whatever this was.
“You want him to die?” the man barked. “Because that’s what’ll happen if you don’t tell him to get the hell out of here.”
Holden wasn’t going anywhere. He dropped lower to the ground, leaned out and fired a shot at the guy. However, before Holden could even tell if he’d hit him, all hell broke loose.
There was the sound of something metal clanking onto the floor, and a few seconds later, tear gas began to spew through the room. The effects were instant. Holden’s gray eyes burned like fire, and he started to cough. He could hear Nicky having a coughing fit, too.
But not the man.
Maybe he’d brought a gas mask or something because Holden heard him take off running, and saw him bolt out the back door.
Even though he was coughing too hard to catch his breath, Holden hurried after the guy, but he’d only made it a few steps when Nicky called out to him.
“Let him go. We have to leave now.” Covering her mouth with her hand, she staggered her way to him, caught him by the wrist and led him toward the side entrance to the garage.
“Landon will be here soon,” he choked out.
“We don’t have time to wait around for him. Please, we need to go.”
Holden didn’t fight her as they’d gone into the garage because he welcomed the fresh air. Also welcomed getting into her car since he didn’t want to be standing out in the open with that gunman still out there. But he did clamp his hand over hers when she tried to drive away.
“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded. “Who was that man and what files did you steal?”
Nicky shook her head, fighting to get his grip off her, but Holden held on.
“The people at Conceptions Clinic did some very bad things. There are babies in danger,” Nicky said, her breath shivering. “And one of them is our nephew.”
Nicky knew that Holden had plenty of questions, but she couldn’t wait any longer. That gunman who’d broken into her house was no doubt on the way to the person who hired him.
And that person might move the baby before she could get to him.
“We have to get out of here fast,” she reminded him.
Even though Nicky was still coughing, she threw the car into Reverse and gunned the engine despite the fact that Holden still had his hand gripped around hers.
Nicky didn’t look at him. Partly because she was trying to maneuver her car out of the garage. Hard to do that, though, with him holding on. He finally let go.
“Start talking,” Holden insisted. He, too, was still coughing and rubbing his eyes. “I want answers, and I want them now.”
Easier said than done. There were a lot of pieces to this puzzle, some that could get her arrested, but the only one that mattered right now was the baby. Nicky had failed her sister in so many ways, but she couldn’t fail this time.
“Who was that man?” Holden added when she didn’t say anything.
“A hired thug. I don’t know his name, but I’m sure he’s already told his boss what happened.”
And what had happened was that things had just fallen apart. Nicky had thought she had more time, hours at least, to come up with a plan. But time had just run out.
She couldn’t help herself. The tears came, and she tried to fight them back. The tears wouldn’t save Annie’s baby. Right now, she had to focus and get to the hotel as soon as possible.
“Where are we going?” Holden demanded, and he took out his phone and texted someone.
Probably one of his cousins or brothers. They were all lawmen, and under different circumstances, they might be able to help. But in this case, they could make things much, much worse.
“The Victorian bed-and-breakfast about ten miles from here.”
“The place out in the middle of nowhere?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’m pretty sure that’s where they’re holding the baby.”
Holden cursed and sent another text. “There’d better be a damn good explanation as to why you’re pretty sure about that. And there’d also better be an equally good explanation as to why you told me Emmett and Annie had a baby.”
It was hard to think with everything racing through her mind, with her heart racing, too, but she tried. Sometime in the next five minutes she needed to convince Holden that he had to help her.
“This all started when I was investigating the missing senator, Lee Minton,” she said. “I found out he and his wife had gone to Conceptions Fertility Clinic around the same time as Emmett and Annie. So, I went to Conceptions, too, not expecting to find much, but they stonewalled me. That made me push even harder to find out what they were hiding.”
He mumbled, “Right.” Probably a dig at the fact that she usually pushed too hard. Sometimes, with deadly consequences.
“And what they were hiding was a baby? Emmett and Annie’s baby?” There was a boatload of skepticism in his voice.
Once, she’d been plenty skeptical, too. If she hadn’t been, if she’d jumped on this earlier, they might not be racing to save a child.
“Yes, their baby,” Nicky affirmed. “And don’t ask why they did all of this because I don’t know. Not yet anyway. But I think it might somehow be connected to the senator’s