The Cradle Files. Delores Fossen
put his life on the line, not necessarily for her, though. He was, after all, a cop through and through. And Lexie was counting heavily on that. Because she needed all his cop skills, all his resolve—everything—to get out of this and find the baby.
“Are they still out there?” she asked, and was almost afraid to hear the answer.
“I don’t see them.” He paused. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”
Lexie silently agreed. She seriously doubted the gunmen would just leave. Which meant that Garrett and she needed a plan. There was just one problem. Three gunmen, maybe more, and she couldn’t even remember if she knew how to shoot straight.
“I know how to use this gun, right?” she whispered.
“You know how.” He glanced at her and made eye contact from across the room. “That doesn’t mean you’re going to get the opportunity to prove it.”
“You have a better idea?”
“A better idea than shooting our way out of here? Yeah, I think I do. Follow me.”
Crawling across the glass-littered floor, he went to the door that led into the hall, and pressed his ear against it.
She made her way toward him. To his side. And listened as well. She heard the mechanical rhythm of the air conditioner, but nothing else.
Garrett reached for the doorknob.
Lexie reached for him, latching on to his wrist. “We’re going out there?”
“We don’t have a choice.” His voice was strained and had little sound. “We have no way to call for backup, and with those silencers we can’t count on the neighbors hearing anything and calling the cops.”
It all made sense. Unfortunately. They couldn’t just stay put. There was nothing to stop the gunmen from crashing through those French doors.
“You’re just going to have to trust me on this,” Garrett said.
He didn’t give her time to respond. He took her hand from his wrist and opened the door. Just a fraction. He glanced out into the hallway and must have approved of what he saw, or rather what he didn’t see, because he whispered, “Let’s go.”
Crouching, Garrett opened the door wide and had another quick look before he started out of the room. He moved in bursts, his vigilant gaze darting around the hall.
Lexie followed. Staying low. And keeping a firm grip on her gun.
They went toward the kitchen—the last place on earth she’d thought he would go. And that put a substantial dent in her resolve to trust him. Still, she continued to follow him, and she continued to pray. They had to make it out of this. Failure was not an option.
Lexie forced herself to remember her baby’s cry. It was the only thing she could remember about the child she’d given birth to. But that cry was enough to sustain her, and Lexie held on to it as they inched their way across the kitchen floor.
The room was dark. Not by accident. She’d turned out the lights before she’d gone into the hall to confront Garrett. Maybe, just maybe, the darkness would shield them so they could go wherever Garrett was taking them.
She heard a sound. Not the baby’s cry that she’d fixed in her head, but a snap. As if someone had stepped on a twig. The sound was close. Too close. It had likely come from the backyard, mere feet away.
Garrett paused. Lifted his head, listening. Another snap, closer this time. The doorknob on the kitchen door moved. Someone was testing to see if it was locked. Thankfully, it was. But that testing caused Garrett to look over his shoulder at her.
Even with just the dim moonlight, she saw his expression. Saw the question on his face. “I locked the patio door when I came in,” she whispered. “I was afraid someone might follow me. Obviously, I was right to be afraid.”
Not that a locked glass door would provide them with much protection.
Garrett evidently knew that as well, because he didn’t look for his phone. He went straight to the laundry room, which was little more than a corridor. He didn’t stop there. He reached up and grabbed keys from a wooden rack mounted on the wall, and unlocked the door that led into the garage.
There was a crash of glass from the kitchen. The gunmen were either inside or would be within seconds. Lexie felt another slam of adrenaline, and it gave her the jolt of energy that she needed.
Garrett opened the door and caught her arm, practically dragging her into the garage. He didn’t waste a moment. He yanked open the driver’s door of his vintage black Mustang and shoved her inside. Lexie scrambled into the passenger’s seat so that Garrett could get behind the wheel and start the engine.
“Hang on and stay down,” he warned.
And with that, he gripped the steering wheel with his left hand and gunned the motor. The car bolted forward, crashing through the garage door.
GARRETT HAD HOPED that his garage door wouldn’t put up much resistance, but unfortunately, it did. A slab of it landed right in the middle of his windshield. The safety glass cracked, webbed and otherwise obstructed his view, but it stayed firmly in place.
He didn’t dare put down his window and stick his head out so he could navigate, either. Not with three gunmen in the area. But he did turn on his headlights and floored the accelerator. He braced himself for the gunmen to shoot at them, braced himself for an all-out attack, and tried to keep his own gun steady.
“I don’t think they’re following us,” he heard Lexie say.
He glanced at her and saw something that caused his blood pressure to spike.
She was looking out the back window.
Garrett immediately shoved her back down in the seat. “What part of stay down didn’t you understand?”
“I might have to return fire. You concentrate on getting us out of here. I’ll do what I need to do.”
He couldn’t argue with that. It was reasonable. Well, semi-reasonable. There wasn’t a lot about this situation that qualified as reasonable. Still, he truly might need her to return fire if this evolved into a gun battle. He didn’t like the three-to-one odds if he had to do this alone. But then, he didn’t care much relying for backup on someone with memory issues.
Garrett checked the side mirror and was a little surprised at what he saw. He was also slightly relieved. An empty street stretched out behind them. So maybe the gunmen hadn’t pursued them. For now, anyway.
But he couldn’t count on them just giving up.
“Go back through the bits of memory you have,” Garrett insisted. “And come up with a theory as to who just tried to kill us.”
“The doctor with me during the delivery,” she readily answered. “The man who took the baby. Or the cop who ran me off the road.”
Three suspects. Three gunmen. Coincidence? “And you don’t know who any of these men are?”
She shook her head. “No. But I intend to find out.”
“Because they’re the only ones who might know where the baby is.”
He hadn’t meant to say that aloud. Heck, he hadn’t even meant to think it. He couldn’t devote a lot of mental energy to the baby now. Mainly because he didn’t know if there was a child. And if their daughter had actually been born, he needed to get Lexie to safety before he started to unravel this deadly puzzle she’d brought to him. Even if there wasn’t a child, it was abundantly clear that someone was after Lexie.
And him.
The shot that’d come through his bedroom could have been aimed at either of them. Or both. And if they hadn’t immediately turned out the lights and gotten down on the floor, Garrett had no doubts that there would have been a second shot. Probably a third. There would have