AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pulled into the parking lot and parked toward the back and in a corner to give me some privacy. I stepped out of the car, retrieved Leo, and then moved into the passenger side to give us more space. By the time we were settled, he’d started crying, so we’d made it just in time.
My head leaned back against the headrest as he fed, and I slowly rolled my head to the side, watching people come in and out of the store. I never thought I’d be here, with a baby, about to go into the store to get enough food and supplies to last the week, and yet here I was. A fully fledged adult. But I couldn’t deny that it felt right. It was like the universe knew this was meant to happen, and although I’d gone through so much in the last twelve months, I wouldn’t change a single thing because it had all led me to this moment.
Once Leo was finished, I put myself back together, burped him, and exited the car. His little eyes closed as he fell asleep in my arms, and I was thankful that at least I’d be able to make it around the store without having to soothe him.
The cart had an attached baby carrier, so I strapped him inside and pulled my list out. Yes, I’d become the person who had a list when I went grocery shopping. I felt my mom taking over the older I got, and I realized I was becoming a version of her.
By the time I was in the line to check out, the cart was overflowing, and I was glad Ford had let me use his car because there was no way I would have been able to walk home with all of this stuff, no matter how much I managed to hook on to Leo’s stroller.
I paid—thankful there was someone there to bag all of my items—and then headed back out into the biting cold. The wind whipped against my cheeks, and I pulled the hood of Leo’s coat partially over his face so it didn’t get him as bad as it got me.
My cell vibrated in my pocket as I clicked on the button to open the trunk. It didn’t take me long to load all the groceries inside, and then I headed over to the cart bay to put the cart back and lift a still sleeping Leo out. I was almost across the lot, and only about ten feet away from Ford’s car, when tires squealed out into the otherwise quiet area.
My stomach dropped, my gut churning, and I whipped my head around to see a black van speeding into the lot of the grocery store. I quickened my pace, my instincts telling me something wasn’t right, and I yanked open the back door and placed Leo in his seat just as the van screeched to a stop behind the car.
I turned my head as the back door slid open, and I came face to face with two masked men. I slammed the car door shut on Leo and put my hands behind my back. Their boots pounded on the ground, and they were two steps away from me as I clicked the button on the fob to lock the car. Leo was safe inside the car. And that was all that mattered. I dropped the key fob on the ground and pushed it under the car with a flick of my foot. I didn’t care what they were here to do to me as long as Leo was okay.
Hands grappled at me, and I put up a fight, throwing punches and scraping my nails down anything I came into contact with, but a sharp scratch pierced my neck, and within seconds, my fight left me entirely, and the world started to become fuzzy.
Everything tilted, my body sagging, and I stared at the car as they dragged me to the van. My brain was telling me to fight, but I’d lost all connection with my body. All I could do was stare at the car with my baby inside it, and hope that he’d be found.
* * *
FORD
The more I combed through all of the paperwork, the more confused I got. Nothing made sense, not from the get-go. People I’d never heard of were popping up in statements and witness testimonies, and that was only while I had been undercover. The things that were added to the files after Garza’s arrest were jumbled, the timeline making no sense.
Why hadn’t this already been sorted through? Why had it gone to storage like this? It was almost as if someone had rifled through everything and not covered t
heir tracks once they’d found what they needed.
I pulled up Rory’s information for what felt like the thousandth time, trying to find a link between him and Curtis, but it just wasn’t there. What did he have to do with Curtis? Was he the reason he was in the cartel in the first place? Maybe there was something other than business going on here? Maybe they were together? But no, Curtis had told Belle he wanted her all to himself, so it couldn’t have been that. Maybe they were related? But I couldn’t find any trace of that, and I was still waiting on Curtis’ birth certificate to be emailed through to me.
Scrubbing my hands down my face, I leaned back in my seat and pushed my hand through Lottie’s fur. I was stumped, not knowing which way to go because the breadcrumbs I was trying to follow had all been eaten.
My cell buzzed on the table, and I didn’t recognize the number, so I let it go to voicemail. I’d shot off a message to Belle at noon, asking her how long she’d be at the store, and that was thirty minutes ago now, but I had a feeling she’d probably been delayed thanks to Leo and his insane feeding schedule. Every couple of hours he wanted more milk, and we’d taken to her pumping her milk more regularly than before so we could do half of his feeds with a bottle because it was just too much for her to feed at that demand.
“Hey, Ford?” Ky called, and I spun around on my chair to face him. He held the receiver to his desk phone in his hand and frowned. “Any reason your car would be called into dispatch?”
“What?” My head reeled back, and my brows furrowed. “What’s the call?”
He murmured something down the line, and his eyes widened. “Abandoned baby in the car.”
I flew out of my seat just as my computer dinged with a new email, but I couldn’t worry about that right now. Why the hell would Belle leave Leo in the car—
“Something isn’t right,” I ground out, already heading past Ky. My gut screamed at me to get there as fast as I could. “Belle wouldn’t leave him in the car, not unless his safety was at risk.” It may have been something innocent like she’d run back into the store, but I knew Belle, and I knew after everything that had happened, there was no way she would have risked that. Which meant alarm bells were ringing in my head.
I heard Ky’s footsteps behind me, and I glanced down at Lottie. Her body was tense as if she was about to go into battle. She knew something was amiss too. I yanked my cell out and brought her number up, calling it, but it went right to voicemail. “Where’s Brody?” I asked, stepping onto the elevator and punching the button for the ground floor.
“Out,” Ky replied and pulled his cell out. He threw me the keys to his car as we descended, knowing I’d want to drive. He reeled off the address of the store where the call came in from, but I already knew where Belle had been heading.
The elevator doors whooshed open, and I didn’t waste any time sprinting out of the main building and toward Ky’s car. I opened the door, and Lottie jumped in, then I slid inside and started the engine. Ky jumped into the passenger side, his cell to his ear.
“Brody isn’t answering, so I’ve messaged him to call me back.”
I didn’t answer Ky as I sped down the road and toward the grocery store. My hands shook the closer I got, and my stomach rolled, almost as if it knew what was going on before I’d even gotten there. A set of blue lights flashed across the lot, and I narrowed my eyes at the way they were parked behind my car on a slant. A uniformed officer stood next to the back window, looking inside it, and I knew that was where Leo’s car seat was.
I slammed my foot down onto the brake pedal and shot out of the car with Lottie behind me. One of the uniformed officers turned around and reached for the gun on his belt, but I flashed him my badge and shoved him aside. “How long have you been here?”
