The Baby’s Guardian

Delores Fossen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Copyright

Welcome to the first book

in Delores Fossen’s fantastic new

TEXAS MATERNITY: HOSTAGES mini-series.

Don’t forget to look out for the final instalment

The Mummy Mystery in April 2011

Chapter One

The sound of the gunshot sent Captain Shaw Tolbert’s heart to his knees.

Hell. This couldn’t happen. He couldn’t lose a single one of those hostages.

“Hold your fire!” Shaw shouted to the nearly three dozen officers and SWAT team members he had positioned all around the San Antonio Maternity Hospital.

For a split second everything and everyone around him froze. No more frantic orders and chatter from his men. Even the reporters and photographers who were pressed against the barricades nearly a block away went still, their cameras no longer flashing the bursts of light that knifed through the night.

The stunned silence didn’t last. The officers and the SWAT team already had their weapons ready, and they adjusted, taking aim in the direction of that shot.

But the shot hadn’t come from any of them.

It’d come from the fourth floor where a group of pregnant women, newborns and hospital staff were all being held at gunpoint. Hostages that included Nadine Duggan, the wife of one of Shaw’s own men, Lieutenant Bo Duggan.

That shot meant Nadine or one of the others could have been killed.

Shaw didn’t know all the hostages’ names. Heck, he wasn’t even sure he had an accurate head count. Basically, anyone unlucky enough to have been on the fourth floor at 3:00 p.m. had been taken captive by at least two gunmen wearing ski masks and carrying assault weapons. Shaw had managed to get that meager bit of information from a nurse who’d made a hysterical nine-one-one call during the first minutes of the attack. Since then, neither the nurse nor any of the other known hostages had answered their cells or the hospital phones.

Using the back of his hand to swipe the slick sweat from his forehead, Shaw maneuvered his way through his men and the equipment and hurried from his command center vehicle to the hostage negotiator. It was Texas hot, and the unforgiving August heat was still brutal despite the sun having set hours earlier.

He spotted the negotiator, Sergeant Harris McCoy, in the passenger seat of a patrol car that several officers were using as cover. The blond-haired, blue-eyed officer might look as if he’d just stepped off a glossy recruitment poster, but he was the best that San Antonio PD had. In the past four years, Harris had successfully negotiated nearly twenty hostage situations. Shaw desperately needed him to add one more gold star to his résumé.

“What happened?” Shaw asked.

Harris shook his head. “I’m not sure. I was talking to one of the gunmen on his cell—trying to get the guy to give us his demands. Then he shouted ‘she’s getting away’ and he hung up. About five seconds later, someone fired the shot.”

Shaw cursed. He prayed that shot had been fired as a warning and not deadly force. Because if a hostage had been killed, he’d have to seriously consider storming the place ASAP. He couldn’t sit back and let all those people die. But the SWAT team and police forcing their way onto the ward would almost certainly cause its own set of casualties.

“Try to get one of the gunmen back on the line,” Shaw told Harris.

While Harris pressed redial and waited for the gunman to answer, Shaw held his breath and paced. Not that he could go far. The scene was a logjam of law enforcement officers who’d initially responded, and more had arrived as this ordeal had dragged on. Nine hours. God knew what kind of havoc the gunmen could have created in that much time.

“What happened?” Harris demanded the moment he had one of the gunmen on the phone. Like the other calls throughout the afternoon and evening, this one was on speaker.

“Everything’s under control,” the gunman assured him. Which was no assurance at all.

After nine hours, Shaw was familiar with that voice, though the guy had refused to identify himself. But it was a voice Shaw would remember, and when he had everyone safely out of this, he was going after this SOB and his accomplice. That wasn’t his normal role as a captain. These days, he was pretty much a supervisor working from his desk, but for this, he’d make an exception and do some field duty.

“Is anyone hurt?” Harris asked the gunman.

“No. It was a misunderstanding, that’s all. It won’t happen again. Will it? “

“No,” someone said. A woman. And her voice created an uneasy feeling inside Shaw.

No way.

It couldn’t be her.

Shaw jerked his phone from his pocket and scrolled through the numbers until he found Sabrina Carr’s. He jabbed the call button. Waited. And cursed when he heard the ringing. Not just on his own phone, but the sound was also coming through Harris’s cell. Each ring went unanswered, and each ring confirmed that this nightmare had just gotten a lot worse. Sabrina’s phone was on the fourth floor of that hospital.

And so was she.

“That was Sabrina Carr’s voice,” Shaw managed to say to Harris in a whisper.

Harris’s head whipped up, and he pinned his alarmed gaze to Shaw’s. “You mean …” Harris mouthed, but he didn’t finish.

Shaw didn’t finish it for him, either, but they both knew what this meant. Sabrina Carr was the surrogate carrying Shaw’s child. She was eight months pregnant.

And Sabrina was a hostage.

Shaw resisted the urge to lean against the patrol car that was just inches away, and he choked back the profanity. This was a complication he didn’t need, and the situation had just gotten a lot more personal.

“Are you certain the hostage is all right?” Harris demanded from the gunman.

“See for yourself,” the man answered.

Shaw looked up at the row of eight-foot-tall windows that encircled the entire fourth floor. The building was about thirty yards away, but he still saw the movement behind the thick glass.

Someone pushed a woman into view.

The height and build were right for it to be Sabrina. About five-six and average. So was the pregnant belly that her tan cargo shorts and bulky green top couldn’t hide. Ditto for that mop of shoulder-length red hair—Sabrina had hair like that. But praying he was wrong, Shaw grabbed a pair of binoculars from the officer next to him and took a closer look.

Hell.

It was Sabrina all right.

She was shades past being pale, and he could tell from her expression that she was terrified. Probably because she’d just come close to dying. That shot had no doubt been fired at her.

Even though there was no love lost between Sabrina and him, Shaw wasn’t immune to the terror he saw on her face and in her eyes. After all, she was carrying his child.

Their child, he silently amended.

The image of his late wife flashed through his head. The baby Sabrina was carrying should have been his wife’s. His and Fay’s. Sabrina should have been just a surrogate, that’s all, but that had changed when none of Fay’s eggs had been viable. Sabrina had become the egg donor then, too. Sabrina’s DNA, not Fay’s. More than a mere surrogate. But that was an old wound that he didn’t have time to nurse right now.

“Did you know Sabrina was in there?” Harris asked, placing his hand over the receiver so the gunman wouldn’t be able to hear the question.

Shaw shook his head. Sabrina had her regular prenatal checkups at a clinic in the hospital, but she wasn’t scheduled for anything this week. Shaw knew that because she always sent him the dates and times of her appointments. Not that he’d ever gone with her to any of them. But he knew she wasn’t scheduled for anything until the day after tomorrow.

So, why was she there?

“Ask to speak to her,” Shaw instructed.

Harris nodded. “I want to talk to the hostage to make sure she’s okay,” he relayed to the gunman.

The gunman didn’t respond right away, and with the binoculars pressed to his eyes, Shaw watched. Waited.

The seconds crawled by.

Then, much to his surprise, he saw the gloved hand jut out and give Sabrina the cell phone.

Because Shaw was watching her so closely, he saw her look in the direction of that hand. The gunman’s hand. Shaw could hear the man give her whispered instructions, but he couldn’t make out what the guy was saying. It was almost certainly some kind of threat.

“Captain Shaw Tolbert?” she said.

That sent another hush around him. Inside, Shaw was having a much stronger reaction than a hush. Why the devil was she asking for him? If the gunmen knew her association with the captain of the SAPD, things could get even worse for her.

And the baby.

“Yes?” Shaw answered, trying to sound official and detached. Judging from the sound of her voice, the call was on speaker at Sabrina’s end, which meant the gunmen were listening to his every word. He certainly didn’t want to let them know that he knew her name, just in case he could salvage this situation.

“They read my medical records,” Sabrina explained. She swallowed hard. “They know you’re my emergency contact.”

Shaw choked back a groan. By knowing that bit of information, the gunmen had already guessed that Sabrina and he had some kind of relationship. Heck, her records might even say that he was the baby’s father. If so, the gunmen had some serious leverage.

Both Sabrina and the baby.

“Are you … all right?” Shaw asked.

“She is, for now,” the gunman answered for her. “You’ll need to do some things to make it stay that way.”

Even though he could clearly hear the man, Shaw took Harris’s phone and brought it closer to his mouth.

“What things?”

The gunman grabbed Sabrina’s phone as well, but she stayed in the window, staring down at the crowd. He saw her pick through the faces until she spotted him. Shaw looked away. He needed to focus, and he couldn’t do that if he was looking at her. Because looking at Sabrina only brought on those haunting images of his wife.

A man didn’t forget watching his wife die in his arms.

“My partner and I are ready to get out of here,” the gunman announced.

Shaw didn’t celebrate either silently or aloud because he knew this was just the first step to ending this, and every step afterward would be even more dangerous than the present situation.

“We’re coming out through the front entrance,” the gunman continued. “And we’ll have a hostage with us.”

They were probably planning to take Sabrina, unless Shaw could get them to change their minds.

“So, no tricks,” the gunman warned. “Have your officers back way off and have a car waiting for us out front. We’ll give the driver instructions as to where we need to go.”

Shaw sandwiched the phone between his shoulder and his ear so he could motion for one of his men to spring into action. They’d anticipated the car request and had one ready. A vehicle with not one but two hidden GPS trackers that would allow them to find the guys.

Well, maybe.

There was something not quite right about all of this.

The gunmen hadn’t requested money or any other form of ransom. That wasn’t just unusual, it was downright unsettling. After all, the men had just spent hours holding the hostages, and they’d done that without saying why this situation had started in the first place. A hospital maternity ward wasn’t the setting for many hostage standoffs, especially since this didn’t seem to be personal.

At least it hadn’t been until now.

Had the gunmen gone after Sabrina in the first place, or had that happened only after they’d learned about her connection to an SAPD police captain? Maybe the plan was to take her to a secondary location and ask for ransom?

That theory would have held some merit if Shaw had been a rich man. He wasn’t.

So, what did the men want?

Drugs, maybe. That was always a possibility when it came to hospital robberies. Maybe that was all there was to it. They’d wanted drugs and now they had them and needed to get away. That didn’t lessen the danger, but it would make the investigation a little simpler.

The officer parked the car in front of the hospital, and Shaw motioned for everyone to move away. He would pull all his men back onto the sidewalk of the building across the four lanes of St. Mary’s Street. The SWAT team would stay in place on the rooftops. Because the surrounding buildings were taller than the hospital, Shaw didn’t think the gunmen had actually seen the SWAT team. But still, they must have known they were there. This hostage situation was all over the news, and the world was watching. The gunmen must have realized that every conceivable measure would have been taken to apprehend them.

“The car’s in place,” Shaw told the gunman over the cell.

“Good. We’re coming out. Remember, no tricks.”

“My advice? Don’t take one of the new mothers or pregnant women hostage. Too much trouble, and too many things can go wrong. Take me instead.”

“No, thanks. I got my own ideas about how to handle a hostage.” And the gunman hung up.

Shaw didn’t have time to react to that bold threat because movement caught his eye. A gloved hand reached out and grabbed on to Sabrina’s arms. She snagged Shaw’s gaze then. For just a second. And the gunman yanked her out of sight.

It sickened Shaw to think of the stress this was creating for the baby. And the danger. No unborn child or pregnant woman should have to go through this, and Shaw had to make sure this ended now.

Shaw relayed the information he’d just learned to one of the uniforms who would pass it on to the other officers posted at various points around the building. He handed the phone back to Harris, and he drew his gun while he moved back across the street with his men. He kept his attention fastened to the front of the building. Watching. Bracing himself for whatever was about to go down.

When the gunmen came out, it was possible the SWAT team would have clean shots, but if that didn’t happen, the plan was to let the gunmen drive away and have plainclothes officers in unmarked cars follow in pursuit. Then, he could get his men inside the building to assess the damage. It was entirely possible they would have dead bodies or injuries on their hands. Ambulances were waiting just up the street since the hospital itself had already been evacuated, and the staff inside might need medical attention of their own.

Shaw wouldn’t be able to hold back the lieutenant whose wife was inside, so he hoped this departure ended with the gunmen being killed.

If not, well, the night was just starting.

“Smoke!” Harris shouted.

Shaw looked in the direction of Harris’s pointing finger. Oh, mercy.

What now?

It was smoke all right, and it was coming from a window on the fourth floor where the hostages were.

There was a fire engine standing by, and Shaw motioned for it to get in place. It was a huge risk. The gunmen might not come down to the car if they saw the fire department responding, but Shaw couldn’t take the chance of leaving those hostages trapped on the floor with a raging fire.

“The hospital has an overhead sprinkler system,” Harris reminded him.

But no one needed to remind Shaw that the gunmen could have disabled it. God knows what smoke and fire would do to all those babies in the newborn unit. He had to get them help immediately, even if it meant the gunmen might get away.

“Where are they?” Shaw mumbled, watching the front door.

The fire engine darted across the street and stopped at the side of the building. They immediately retrieved the ladder so they could scurry up the four floors. It was a start, but Shaw needed to get others inside so he could speed up the evacuation. In addition to the babies, there might be patients who couldn’t get out on their own.

The passing seconds pounded in his head, and at least a minute went by with no sign of the gunmen or the hostage that they claimed they would have with them.

Gray coils of smoke made their way down to them. Soon, very soon, it would obstruct their view. And maybe that’s what the gunmen had intended.

Shaw grabbed the binoculars again and checked out the front windows on the fourth floor. He could see the overhead sprinklers spewing out water. He could also see people running. Women. Some of them pregnant. Some of them carrying babies bundled in blankets.

He couldn’t delay this any longer. He had to move now.

Shaw was about to give the signal when he heard the voice on the hand-sized scanner clipped to his belt. It was Lieutenant Bo Duggan, the officer who was positioned on the west side of the building.

“The fire’s a smokescreen!” Bo shouted. “The gunmen just left through the side door and got into a white SUV with heavy tint on the windows. I can’t see the license plate number—it had mud or something covering it—and they’re moving out of the parking lot now.”

Hell.

“Shaw?” Bo said. “We couldn’t shoot at them because they have a hostage. It’s Sabrina Carr.”

Shaw’s stomach knotted, but he forced back the avalanche of emotion and dread. “Take over the evacuation,” he ordered Bo. “Get everyone out of there.” He turned to Harris. “You get in there, too. Take every available man.” Shaw turned to run toward his squad car.

“Where are you going?” Harris shouted.

“After the gunmen.”

And every second counted.

Shaw had already lost his wife, and by God he wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to his baby.

Chapter Two

Sabrina forced herself to stay calm.

It was nearly impossible to do that because there was a gun jammed against her head, and one of the ski-mask-wearing kidnappers shoved her into the backseat of an SUV. The other got behind the wheel and sped out of the parking lot.

There were plenty of officers nearby, all with guns aimed, but none of them fired a shot. Probably because they hadn’t wanted to risk wounding her and the baby. Sabrina was thankful for that, but she wondered if she’d just gone from the frying pan into the fire.

Her heart was racing, and it was so loud in her ears that it was hard for her to hear, but she thought she might have heard one of the officers shout. Maybe that meant someone would follow them because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get herself out of this without help.

She glanced behind her at the hospital. The building was engulfed in milky gray smoke, but she could still see even more cops. Some armed with rifles were on top of the surrounding buildings.

Shaw was out there, too.

Sabrina had seen him from the window. He’d been standing among all the officers assembled to respond to the hostage situation. And even though Shaw had been so far away when she stepped into view, she had been able to make out his expression when he realized she was a hostage. That wasn’t fear on his face. More like anger.

Or even disgust.

He was probably thinking she’d screwed up again. And in a way, she had.

The gunman-driver made a sharp left turn and sent her sliding toward the door. Her captor hauled her right back so he could keep her in a close, firm grip against his side. She wanted to punch him for what he was doing.

For what he’d done back at the hospital.

Sabrina had seen him shoot an unarmed lab tech who was hardly more than a kid. He’d used a gun rigged with a silencer for that deadly assault, and the shot had hardly made a sound. It made her wonder how many others had been killed in a silent hush.

And why?

Why would be the biggest question of all.

Was it connected to the call from the nurse, Michael Frost, that she’d gotten earlier? The call that sent her to the hospital in the first place?

Maybe.

But for now, her focus had to be on survival. The cops were no doubt following them, and she had to believe they would launch a rescue. She also had to believe they would succeed. Sabrina couldn’t even consider an alterative, not with her baby’s safety at stake.

She looked up at the street signs, trying to memorize them just in case she got the opportunity to tell someone where she was, but the gunman must have noticed what she was doing because he shoved her down onto the seat.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” he snarled. He stank of sweat, onion chips from the hospital vending machine and the peppermint breath mints that he’d sucked on throughout the standoff.

Sabrina would remember that sickening scent. That raspy voice. Those dull brown eyes that were flat, like a man on the job rather than one on a personal mission.

He was almost certainly a hired killer.

And when this was over, she would make sure he and his partner were punished for this havoc they had caused. All those women and babies had been put through a nightmare, and it wasn’t over. Not for her, not for them. They would have to deal with the terrifying memories forever.

Something that Sabrina already knew too much about.

“We lost the cops,” the driver announced.

That didn’t help with the fear or the dread. But he could be wrong. He had to be wrong.

The driver slowed to a crawl, and several seconds later, the car came to a stop. In a dark alley.

Oh, God.

Sabrina tried not to think of what could happen here. She didn’t think these men had rape or assault on their minds, but they wouldn’t hesitate to use her as a human shield when the cops arrived.

“Move fast,” the gunman ordered, and he threw open the door and pushed her out into the alley.

“Right,” she grumbled. Fast wasn’t possible for her these days.

She didn’t see any other cars or people. Definitely no cops. And her heartbeat grew significantly harder and faster. God. Had the driver been right about SAPD not being able to follow her? Had the gunmen made a clean getaway?

The gunman latched on to her arm and dragged her into the adjacent building. It was dark, musky and hot. No AC. Not even a trickle of fresh air. No furniture, either. From what Sabrina could see in the shadows, it was an abandoned office building, and judging from the distance they’d driven, they were somewhere in the downtown area of San Antonio. Not a good part, either.

“Lock the door,” the gunman told his partner. “I’ll tie her up. But don’t make the call until you’re out of her earshot. No sense broadcasting what’s going on.”

The man didn’t take her to a room near the door but to one about midway down the long tiled corridor. He shoved his gun into the back waist of his pants so he could use both hands to snag her wrists.

Sabrina knew what was coming.

She’d already seen him tie up members of the hospital staff and some of the patients. He took two thin plastic handcuffs from his pocket and looped one around her wrists. The other, he hooked through the first so that it chained her to the doorknob. The plastic cuffs might be cheap, but they were extremely effective. They would hold her in place until … but Sabrina didn’t want to think beyond that.

She would get out of this before they managed to take her out of the city and to God knows where. She needed a miracle.

The man reached down and pulled off her sandals. “In case you figure out how to get out of those cuffs, there’s broken glass on the floor. It’ll slice your feet to shreds,” he snarled and went down the hall with her shoes dangling in his hand.

Being shoeless wouldn’t stop her, either. Sabrina looked around the dark room, praying there was something she could use to cut the tough plastic. Maybe a piece of the glass he’d mentioned. It was there, all right. Beer bottles had been shattered, but none of the pieces was close enough for her to reach.

There were only threads of light coming from the single window on the center wall. The glass panes were coated with grime and taped yellowing newspapers that practically blocked off illumination from the nearby streetlights. But it allowed her to see just enough to realize there was nothing she could use as a cutter. With the exception of the broken glass and some trash on the floor, the room was empty.

Inside her, the baby began to kick, hard. Probably to protest her cramped sitting position. Sabrina shifted, trying to get more comfortable, but that was impossible on a hard tile floor.

Up the hall, she heard the peppermint-popping gunman say something, and she wiggled closer to the doorway in the hopes that she could hear and see what was going on. The men had apparently stepped into one of the other rooms because they were nowhere in sight, but she did get bits and pieces of their softly spoken conversation.

“Tolbert,” one of them said.

That grabbed her attention. They were talking about Shaw. Sabrina tried to wriggle even closer though the plastic cuffs were digging into her wrists.

“It’ll work.” That was from the gunman who’d driven them away from the hospital. He was whispering as if he wanted to ensure she didn’t hear what he was saying, but the empty building carried the sound. “We can use her to get Tolbert to cooperate in case something else turns up.”

Oh, God. They were going to use her to force Shaw to do something. But cooperate with what?

All of this had to be connected to the hostage mess that’d just gone on in the hospital, but Sabrina was clueless as to why she and the others had been terrorized all those hours.

What did any of this have to do with Shaw?

The men didn’t know she was carrying Shaw’s child. Or did they? It certainly wasn’t in her medical records, but they had seen that she had listed Shaw as the person to contact in case there was an emergency. Maybe the men thought she and Shaw were lovers.

As if.

Shaw hated her with a passion. And this situation was only going to make him hate her more. Once again, she’d brought danger to someone he loved. This time, the danger was aimed at his unborn child. He would never forgive her for placing the baby at risk.

Of course, Sabrina wouldn’t forgive herself, either.

Had that call she’d received all been a hoax? Something designed to get her into the hospital?

If so, then her abduction wasn’t a spur of the minute thing as she’d originally believed. She might have been their target all along, and she hadn’t even questioned the call. She’d blindly responded to the request and had walked right into a hornet’s nest.

The minute she’d stepped off that fourth floor elevator, one of the men had aimed a gun at her and then corralled her into the hall where they were already holding several dozen hostages. Sabrina wouldn’t forget their faces. The fear. The overwhelming feeling of doom.

“The car’ll be here in ten minutes,” she heard one of her captors say. “Go ahead, give her back the shoes. I want us to be ready to roll.”

Ten minutes. Not much time at all. And judging from their other conversation, they’d be taking her with them. If that happened, they might kill her once they had what they wanted. Because of the ski masks, she hadn’t seen their faces, but she did know details about them. She was a loose end and a dangerous one.

The man appeared again, his ski mask still in place, and he carefully placed the shoes on the floor beside her. When she didn’t move to slip them on, he cursed at her, shoved them on her feet and walked away.

She waited until he was out of sight before she fought with the plastic cuffs again. No luck. So, she decided to try to chew her way through them, though she knew that would be next to impossible. The cuffs were designed to prevent such an escape. Still, she had to try. Those ten minutes were already ticking off.

There was a sound. Just a slight bump. It didn’t come from the men up the hall but from the window. Someone was outside.

Sabrina chewed even harder on the cuff, while she kept watch up the hall and at the shadowy figure on the other side of that murky glass.

There was a soft pop. And the window eased open. She got a good look at the dark-haired man then.

It was Shaw.

Relief flooded through her entire body. He’d come for her. Well, he’d come for the baby anyway. Now the question was, could he get them safely out of there?

Shaw glanced around the room and put his index finger to his mouth in a stay-quiet gesture. Sabrina quit struggling with the plastic cuffs and tipped her head toward the men up the hall.

“There are two of them,” she mouthed, and in case Shaw hadn’t heard, she held up two fingers.

Shaw nodded, climbed through the window, swung his legs over the sill and quietly placed his feet on the floor. He had his standard-issue Glock ready in his right hand, and he lifted it, aiming it at the door. If her captors heard Shaw’s entrance, they would no doubt come running.

But they didn’t.

The men continued to talk, and Shaw used the sound of their muffled voices to cover his footsteps as he made his way across the dusty floor toward her. Shattered glass crunched softly under his feet. He spared her a glance.

Barely.

That was normal. Shaw never looked in her eyes, which was probably a good thing. Even something as simple as eye contact between them brought back the painful memories of Fay’s death. But Sabrina knew that his eyes were multiple shades of blue. Cool and piercing when he was in a good mood. Dark and stormy when he was wasn’t.

She didn’t have to guess the intensity level tonight.

With his attention fastened to the hall and doorway, Shaw reached in his pocket, brought out a small knife and used it to slice through the plastic. He didn’t waste a second; he took her arm, got her to her feet and eased her behind him. His hand brushed against her stomach. An accident for sure.

Like eye contact, touching was out, too.

Shaw motioned toward the window. “You think you can climb out?” he whispered.

Sabrina glanced down at her megapregnant belly and then at the window. It’d be a tight squeeze, but the alternative was going out into the hall and then trying to make their way through a locked door at the end. That was far riskier than the window.

She nodded, and he maneuvered her behind him while he continued to face the door.

Shaw leaned closer and put his mouth to her ear. No peppermint and sweat smell for him. She took in the scent of his starched white shirt, the leather of his boots and the woodsy aftershave he favored. Not that he would have shaved recently. He had dark desperado stubble on his chin, but a hint of the aftershave was still there.

“Once we’re outside and away from the scene, SWAT will storm the building,” Shaw whispered.

Good. This had to end, and she didn’t want those gunmen to be able to hurt anyone else.

Thankful that she was wearing shorts so she could maneuver better, Sabrina somehow managed to get her leg onto the sill. But then, she heard the footsteps in the hall.

Oh, no. One of the gunmen was coming.

Sabrina tried to hurry, but Shaw clamped on to her arm to stop her from moving. Without the sound of her rustling, the room fell silent.

So did the footsteps.

They waited there. Listening. Sabrina prayed the men wouldn’t come closer. The last thing she wanted was a gun battle where the baby could be hurt. Obviously, Shaw felt the same because he moved protectively in front of her. Close. With his back right against her front.

As a cop, he’d perhaps been in situations similar to this where his life was on the line, but this whole ordeal was a first for her, and Sabrina hoped she didn’t lose it. Falling apart wouldn’t get them out of there, and it wouldn’t help the baby.

“Call him back,” the gunman finally said. It was the peppermint guy. “I’m getting a weird feeling about being here. We need to get out now.”

With her breath stalled in her lungs, Sabrina stayed still, and she finally heard what she prayed she would hear. The gunman went back down the hall away from them. At least she hoped that’s what he’d done.

Shaw nudged her to get moving, and Sabrina didn’t waste any time. She climbed through the window, trying to protect her belly from scraping against the sill. Her feet finally touched down onto the ground. Shaw was right behind her. While continuing to face the direction of the gunmen, he shimmied out the window and landed right next to her.

“Come on,” he ordered. Using his left hand, he grabbed her arm and started to move as fast as she could.

The baby kicked even harder, and her stomach started to cramp. Sabrina silently cursed the Braxton Hicks contraction.

False labor.

Her body was merely practicing for the real thing, but she didn’t need the distraction now. She had to keep moving and get to safety.

She saw the SWAT team then, on the building across the street. There were other officers crouched down behind a Dumpster and the gunmen’s SUV.

The baby and she were safe.

Or so she thought.

But then, the shots rang out.

Chapter Three

Shaw cursed and hooked his arm around Sabrina.

Despite the urgency that the deadly gunfire created, he tried to be careful with her, and he took the brunt of the fall when he pulled her to the ground. His shoulder hit hard, but he held on tight to his gun so that it wouldn’t be jarred from his hand.

Shaw didn’t stop there. He crawled over Sabrina, sheltering her with his body, and he came up ready to return fire.

This was obviously a situation he’d wanted to avoid at all costs. He didn’t want his baby in the middle of a fight with these armed fugitives, but when they fired that shot, they’d left him no choice. Now, the trick was to get Sabrina safely out of there.

There was another shot. It slammed into the rough brick wall just inches from Shaw’s head. Not close, a good foot away, but the sound and the impact allowed him to pinpoint the origin of the shot. It was coming from the window where Sabrina and he had escaped.

“Get down,” someone on the SWAT team yelled from the roof of the adjacent building.

Shaw did. He dropped lower, covering Sabrina as best he could.

She was breathing way too hard and fast, and he hoped like the devil that she didn’t hyperventilate. While he was hoping, he added that the baby hadn’t been harmed in all of this. Sabrina didn’t appear to have any physical injuries, but the stress couldn’t be good. She needed to get to a doctor so she could be checked out.

There was another shot, but this one came from a rifleman on the SWAT team. Shaw didn’t look up, but he heard the sound of glass being blown apart.

Good!

That would stop the gunmen from aiming any more shots at Sabrina and him. At least from that window. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t go elsewhere to return fire. The abandoned building was large, at least five thousand square feet, and there were a lot of places for someone to hide or get into a position to kill.

The shots continued, all coming from his men, which meant it might be time to try to get Sabrina to better cover. Shaw glanced at the front of the building. Hell.

Too many windows.

And a set of double doors with glass fronts.

The gunmen could use any of those points of attack to fire again. That meant staying put until the officers and SWAT had apprehended the suspects. The one advantage that his officers did have was that the building was only one floor. The gunmen wouldn’t be able to move upstairs and launch an assault there. They were going to have to face the SWAT team and other cops head-on.

So that Sabrina’s pregnant belly wouldn’t be smashed against the ground, Shaw eased off her and moved her to a sitting position so that her back was against the brick wall. They were close. Too close. And face-to-face.

He found himself staring right into those sea-green eyes.

Shaw quickly looked away. Then he turned around so he was facing outward. This would make it easier for him to cover all sides. It was a solid strategic move, he assured himself. And it was far better than staring at her.

With the gunmen no longer firing at them, Shaw’s men started to close in around the building. One of the SWAT members bashed in the double front doors, and officers began to pour inside. It shouldn’t be long now before he could get Sabrina out of there.

Once he had her in an ambulance and on the way to a hospital, he could return to the original crime scene and try to mop up things. He’d left Lieutenant Bo Duggan in charge, but that was strictly temporary. Since Bo’s own wife was a hostage, Shaw needed to get back on scene so that Bo could be with his wife. If their situations had been reversed, Shaw would have certainly wanted to be with Fay.

“The gunmen said they were going to use me,” Sabrina muttered, her voice a shaky whisper. But it was loud enough to cut through his thoughts and snare his attention. “To get you to cooperate.”

“What?” Shaw said that a little louder than he’d intended and glanced at her over his shoulder.

Sabrina shook her head, sending a curl of that wild red hair flinging over her cheek. “I don’t know what they meant by that. Do you?”

“No.” But he could guess. “I’m a police captain.” A lot of people might want him to cooperate, especially when it came to helping with a plea bargain or reduced charges.

That wouldn’t happen in this case. Shaw turned his head away from her so he could keep watch of all the areas around them. “What else did they say?”

“Not much. They were careful not to talk in front of me or the others. But I think they knew I’d be at the hospital this afternoon. They were waiting for me.”

Oh, man. That didn’t sound good at all. “Why the heck were you even there?”

Sabrina took a deep breath. “Someone from the hospital phoned me. A male nurse named Michael Frost, and he said Nadine Duggan had called an urgent meeting of the moms’ support group. So, I went.”

Shaw cursed and didn’t bother to keep the profanity to himself. Sabrina knew how he felt about that group. It was headed by Nadine Duggan, the wife of one of his lieutenants and a woman who’d also become a hostage. Bo’s wife. Nadine was a psychologist and probably bound to keep secret whatever she was told in that support group, but Shaw didn’t want Sabrina baring her soul to someone who might share those soul-baring secrets with her husband, a man whom Shaw worked side by side with. Bo and all the other officers knew about Shaw’s late wife, of course.

Everyone also knew about the baby.

But Shaw hadn’t wanted Sabrina to talk about the problems that he’d had adjusting to her pregnancy. About all the appointments he’d missed for her checkups. All the calls from her that he hadn’t returned.

Their arrangement was complicated since, after all, he’d ultimately given her approval to get pregnant. Hell, he’d provided the semen for the procedure, but he and Sabrina both knew he wasn’t really on board. Not emotionally.

And it was those emotions Shaw wanted to keep to himself.

Best not to let his men know the mental turmoil he was going through right now. Something like that could perhaps water down his authority, and as their leader, the last thing he wanted in a dangerous situation was to have his authority questioned or undermined.

That’s why Shaw had offered to pay for Sabrina to attend another support group. But she’d refused.

What else was new?

They didn’t see eye to eye on, well, anything.

“Is that why Nadine Duggan was there at the hospital, too?” Shaw asked, still keeping watch. Another wave of officers went into the building.

“No. She was actually in labor. I saw her when I first arrived, but then she disappeared when the gunmen starting shouting. A lot of people did. It was chaos, and some of the women ran and hid.”

Shaw had to take a deep breath. He hoped that didn’t mean anything bad had happened to the lieutenant’s wife or any of the patients, staff or babies.

“What about this Michael Frost who called you?” he asked. “Did you see him after you arrived at the hospital?”

“No.” She paused. “Why?”

“No reason.” Not yet anyway. He’d make a call in a minute or two to have a background check run on the male nurse. Everything and everyone would be checked.

“The gunmen killed someone,” Sabrina added.

That caused Shaw to glance at her again, and this time those green eyes were filled with tears. “Who?”

“A lab tech. I don’t know his name. They shot him. Right in front of me.”

This time Shaw added a groan to the profanity. Sabrina had witnessed a murder, and in addition to the emotional trauma that created, it could mean that she was now a target. If those gunmen thought for one minute that she could identify them, they wouldn’t want her around, so that’s why it was critical for this to end now.

“Did the men shoot at you, too?” Shaw asked.

She didn’t answer right away. “Yes. But not when they killed the tech. It was later. I could tell they were getting ready to leave, and I had a gut feeling they’d take me with them. So, I tried to sneak away.”

Unfortunately, he could picture that scene all too well.

“The gunman didn’t shoot at me, not really,” she added. “The bullet went in the ceiling.”

Which confirmed the gunmen wanted her alive. After all, the gunmen had already killed others, so that meant they had a reason for allowing Sabrina to live.

Was he that reason?

“I’m sorry, Shaw. I’m so sorry,” Sabrina said. But he knew she wasn’t talking about this situation alone. She was dredging up the past.

Something he wouldn’t discuss with her.

“Don’t,” he warned.

He didn’t add more because his phone buzzed. He glanced at the caller ID and saw it was from the SWAT team commander, Lieutenant José Rivera. “Tolbert,” Shaw answered.

“Captain, we need you to stay put for a couple more minutes. We’re trying to secure the building now, but we don’t want Ms. Carr or you out in the open just yet.”

“Yeah. Make it as fast as you can,” Shaw insisted. Because he didn’t want to stay there with Sabrina any longer than necessary, and he was anxious to get back to the primary crime scene.

Shaw ended the call and waited with the sounds of the search going on in the building behind them. He didn’t stop watching the place. Definitely didn’t lower his gun. Because he didn’t want those men, those killers, coming back outside to grab Sabrina.

“Think hard,” Shaw said. If he had to wait there with her, he might as well start the interrogation that had to happen for the reports and the cleanup. “What did these men want? “

“I don’t know.”

Sabrina was crying. He could hear the tears in her voice. Part of him wanted to comfort her, but Shaw resisted. He couldn’t open up his heart to that kind of intimacy with her. The only way he had survived Fay’s death was to shut himself off, and he would continue to do just that.

Shaw tried again with the questions. He wanted to keep this conversation on the business at hand. “Other than you and the lab tech they killed, did it seem as if the gunmen were after anyone specific?”

“They kept calling out for someone named Bailey. I don’t think they found her though because they kept shouting her name. And then they had a group of us sit in the hall. One of them held us at gunpoint while the other gunman took this one pregnant woman. I don’t know where they took her, but she was gone for several hours. Then, she tried to escape, but she fell and hit her head. She was bleeding.”

Each new thing he learned disgusted him even more, and it was just starting. All kinds of details would no doubt be brought out when the other hostages were questioned. He’d definitely need to speak to this woman whom the gunmen had yelled at.

If she was still alive, that is.

“What else did the gunmen do?” he asked. “Did they appear to be searching for anything specific?”

“Other than the person named Bailey, I don’t think so.” She paused, shook her head. “Wait. One of them went into the lab and the records room. The lab door wouldn’t open so he shot the lock, and he stayed in there a long time. He also had one of the hostages with him a lot of time.”

Okay. That was a start. He’d have every inch of those rooms processed and review the surveillance camera footage to see what the men had been after.

“How about a drug cabinet or something like that?” Shaw didn’t enjoy forcing her to go over all the details, but with her memory still fresh, this was the time to do it. Later, the shock and the adrenaline crash might rob her of critical details.

“No drugs. At least, I didn’t see them take or use any.” Behind him, Sabrina shifted her position, probably because she was trying to get comfortable. But with the shift, her belly pressed against his back.

Shaw felt it then.

The soft bumps.

He glanced back at the contact and realized what he was feeling was the baby.

“The baby’s kicking,” Sabrina explained, moving away again so that she wasn’t touching him.

Shaw immediately felt the loss. It was the first time he’d felt his child move. The timing was lousy, but he couldn’t totally stop himself from reacting.

In a month, maybe less, he’d be a father.

His phone buzzed again. Thank God. He needed something to slap him back to the moment. It was Rivera, the SWAT team commander.

“Captain, we have a patrol car ready to get you and Ms. Carr out of here. It’s pulling up to the curb right now.”

Well, that was good news. “And the situation with the search?”

“We have all points of the building secure. But no sign of the gunmen yet. We’re still looking.”

“Find them!” Shaw ordered after he got his teeth unclenched.

He pulled Sabrina to her feet so he could get her moving. The sooner he had her away from the building, the better.

Even though she was obviously slowed because of the pregnancy, she hurried, keeping up right along with him, but she was breathing hard again by the time he got her into the backseat of the cruiser. The driver, a uniformed officer, drove away.

“Ms. Carr will need to go to a hospital,” Shaw instructed the driver.

She didn’t protest. Which wasn’t a good sign. Since Sabrina often protested any-and everything he suggested.

Did that mean she was hurt?

While the driver meandered his way through the deserted downtown streets, Shaw called Harris, the hostage negotiator, for a situation report from the maternity hospital. It took a while—four rings—before Harris answered, and the moment Shaw heard the strain in the man’s voice, he knew this conversation wasn’t going to be good.

“The fire’s out,” Harris started. “It wasn’t much of one. The gunmen lit some damp papers, and that created more smoke than fire.”

And they’d used that smoke to escape. “Casualties?” Shaw asked, dreading the answer.

“Four so far.”

Shaw cursed. “Not one of the babies?”

“No, they all seem to be fine, but we have doctors on the way to check them all out,” Harris answered quickly, and then hesitated. “Three of the dead were on the medical staff here. The other was a patient. She died just a few minutes ago.” Another pause. “It was Nadine Duggan.”

Ah, hell.

The lieutenant’s wife. A cop’s wife. Shaw had to take a deep breath, but that didn’t stop the jolt from the memories of the night his wife had died.

“Nadine was nine months pregnant,” Shaw said. He didn’t dare look at Sabrina, but he was aware that she was sobbing now. She’d obviously heard what Harris had said. “What happened to her child?”

“They’re alive. Twins, a boy and a girl,” Harris added in a hoarse whisper. “Bo’s taking this pretty hard.”

Of course he was. Bo loved his wife, and what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of their lives—the birth of their children—had turned into a nightmare.

“We have another patient clinging to life,” Harris continued. “I don’t think she’s going to make it so we have someone tracking down her next of kin. Another woman is in critical condition. Both of them delivered babies during the standoff.”

And this might be just the tip of the iceberg. His men had been in that building less than forty-five minutes. God knew what they would find when they searched every nook and cranny. The death and injury toll might skyrocket.

“Sabrina said some of the women hid,” Shaw told Harris. “Some might be too scared to come out. You’ll need to look for them.”

“Of course. We’ll go through the place room by room. How is Sabrina? Did you find her?”

Shaw had to clear his throat before he could speak. “I found her. She’s safe.” And because he needed to focus on the job, he checked his watch. “I’m dropping her off with a uniformed officer at the hospital on San Pedro, and then I can join you on scene.”

“Good. Because we can use all the help we can get.” “Nadine’s dead?” Sabrina asked the moment Shaw ended the call.

He settled for a nod.

She pressed her fingers to her mouth, but he still heard the sob. Shaw wasn’t sure how well she knew Nadine, but they’d obviously met and chatted in that hospital support group. Plus, Sabrina was no doubt thinking that it could have been her who’d ended up dead.

Shaw was certainly thinking it.

Because Sabrina’s sobs were getting louder, he felt he had to do something. Anything. Even if he wasn’t sure he wanted to do it.

Shaw slipped his arm around her, and she dropped her head onto his shoulder. He expected the contact to feel foreign and uncomfortable. It did.

It also felt comforting.

She was soft and warm and practically melted against him so Shaw just sat there and let her cry it out. By the time the driver stopped in front of the hospital, he felt raw and drained, and figured that was minor compared to what Sabrina was feeling.

His phone buzzed again, and he flipped it open. Not Harris with reports of more deaths or injuries. This call was from Rivera, the SWAT commander.

“Tell me you have good news,” Shaw greeted the man.

But there was only a long heavy moment of silence. “Sorry. We’ve gone through the abandoned office building, every inch of it, and the gunmen aren’t here.”

“What?” Shaw snarled. Beside him, Sabrina practically snapped to attention.

“We think they escaped through the basement. We didn’t even know there was a basement because there are no marked stairs leading into that area. When we got down there, we found a single small window. Open.”

“And no one saw two armed men coming out through that window?”

“No, sir. It was on the south side of the building where there are heavy shrubs, and they might have slipped into those and used them as cover so they could get away.”

Hell! This was not supposed to happen. “Those men are killers. We have four DBs on our hands back at the hospital, and two more might soon join the list.”

“I understand. These are very dangerous men. We’re searching the area now, and I’m bringing in more officers.”

“Do that. Do whatever it takes.” Shaw slammed his phone shut and cursed.

“They got away,” Sabrina mumbled. “They got away.” And she continued to repeat it. The more she said it, the closer she sounded to getting hysterical.

And Shaw knew why.

“Drive to the precinct now,” Shaw ordered the driver. “Ms. Carr can see the doctor there.”

He had to get Sabrina to safety and put her in protective custody. Because those gunmen would try to eliminate any and all witnesses.

And that meant they would come after Sabrina to finish what they had started.

Chapter Four

“You can wait in my office,” Shaw said to her the moment Sabrina came out of the ladies’ room.

He motioned for her to follow him down the glossy tiled corridor that was lined with fallen officers’ photos and department commendations.

His voice sounded so professional. So detached. And Sabrina couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t touch her. He hadn’t since they were in the car driving away from that building where Shaw had rescued her. From the moment they’d stepped out of the vehicle and into SAPD headquarters, he’d kept at least several inches of distance between them.

“Thank you, for everything,” she managed to say, though she didn’t know how. Her mouth was trembling, and the words came out shaky, as well.

When Shaw finally stopped walking and pointed to the open room, Sabrina stepped into the large office with an ornate desk nameplate that had Captain Shaw Tolbert scrolled on it. The nameplate and the office were reminders that Shaw was an important man in SAPD. A leader.

And he had better things to do than babysit her.

“While you were in the bathroom, I had some food brought in for you,” Shaw explained. He tipped his head to the bottle of water and wrapped sandwich that had come from a vending machine. “Yeah, I know it’s not very appetizing, but I figured you’d be hungry and dehydrated.”

“The gunmen gave us water,” she mumbled.

No food, though. Despite not having eaten for about ten hours, she wasn’t hungry, but she sat in the leather chair next to his desk and opened the water and sandwich anyway. Both tasted like dust. But she continued to eat because the baby needed this.

“Did the gunmen hurt you, physically?” he asked.

She lifted her wrist so he could see the marks. “Just a bruise or two from where one of them grabbed me. That was the peppermint guy who did that. He chewed on breath mints during most of the standoff, and he threw some of the wrappers on the floor.”

Shaw took out a notepad from his desk and jotted that down.

“Do you need to bag my clothes so you can check for fibers or anything?” she asked.

“I’ll get them later. For now, just eat.” Shaw took out his phone and asked whomever he called for a situation report.

While he listened to that report, Shaw stood there so stoically. He looked the ultimate professional. And for just a second, she was reminded of the first time she’d seen him at a fundraiser dinner nearly eight years ago. She and Fay had gone with dates, but the minute they’d spotted the “hot cop” as Fay had called him, they’d both flirted with him.

Shaw had flirted back.

He truly had been a hot cop. Still was, she reluctantly admitted. With his classic good looks all mixed together with a touch of bad boy, he was every woman’s fantasy.

More than a little tipsy that night eight years ago, Fay and she had drawn cocktails straws for dibs on who would go after him. Fay had won. But even after all this time, Sabrina couldn’t help but wonder what her life would be like if she hadn’t drawn the short straw that night.

“Your doctor’s on the way,” Shaw let her know, ending the call.

He didn’t come back into his office. He stood in the doorway but fired glances all around. Probably because the headquarters building was buzzing with activity from the hostage situation, and he was trying to keep abreast of what was going on. Or maybe because he didn’t want to be too close to her. Nadine Duggan’s death was likely bringing back memories. Bad memories. Of Fay.

And of Sabrina.

“Go ahead. You can leave.” Sabrina tried to make it sound like an order. She took another bite of the sandwich. “I’ll be fine.”

That was a lie. He knew it. So did she. But Shaw still turned and walked away.

“I have to see someone for a minute,” he said from over his shoulder.

Sabrina soon saw the reason for his quick exit. Along with several other officers, Lieutenant Bo Duggan was just up the hall, and Shaw went to them.

She watched them through the open doorway, but she couldn’t hear their conversation. She didn’t need to. Shaw laid his hand on Bo’s arm and no doubt offered words of sympathy, something that Shaw knew all about. He was almost certainly remembering Fay’s death.

Sabrina remembered it, too.

Bo’s wife had died under perhaps violent circumstances, or at least terrifying ones while being a hostage by those gunmen. Fay had chosen her own death. Well, her depression had chosen it for her anyway. Still, the final result was the death of a loved one.

“You shouldn’t have gone off your antidepressants,” Sabrina mumbled to Fay, who, of course, could no longer hear her.

Sabrina had said the same words to her while Fay had been alive. Fay hadn’t listened—because the antidepressants couldn’t be taken with the meds necessary for Fay to harvest her eggs for the in vitro procedure for the surrogate. And that surrogate was none other than Sabrina since Fay couldn’t carry a child.

A baby at any cost, Fay had said.

Sabrina had argued with her, had even considered telling her best friend that the surrogacy offer was off the table so that Fay would go back on her meds. But Fay hadn’t listened to that, either. Sabrina had lost the argument.

Fay had gone through with the harvesting, only to learn that none of her eggs was viable. That’s when Sabrina had volunteered to use her own eggs. Shaw had agreed, reluctantly, and only to appease Fay, but there hadn’t been time to finish what they started. Because of the long-term effect of going without her meds, Fay had taken her own life before Sabrina could get pregnant.

Some women would have stopped there. Some women wouldn’t have continued to press to carry a baby for a dead friend. But she owed Fay. She owed Shaw. And that’s why three months after Fay’s death, Sabrina had pressured Shaw for her to use the embryos that Shaw and she had created. It hadn’t been an easy fight—especially since the embryos were her DNA, not Fay’s. However, in the end Shaw had agreed, probably because he’d been too beaten down by Fay’s death to realize the full impact of having a baby with Sabrina.

Well, he no doubt knew the full impact now.

Sabrina certainly did. Yes, she’d owed Shaw and Fay. She’d owed them this child, but there were consequences for delivering on a promise to a dying friend.

One of those consequences was headed her way. Shaw was walking back toward her. Alone. Bo was going in the other direction, no doubt so he could start handling the aftermath of his wife’s death.

“How’s Bo doing?” she asked the moment Shaw returned.

“How do you think he’s doing?” Shaw snapped, then he cursed under his breath and mumbled something that sounded like an apology.

He still didn’t come in the room with her. But she got his visual attention. Shaw bracketed his hands on both sides of the doorway and stared at her. “Your doctor’s in the building, and she’ll be here any minute.”

“There’s no hurry. I wasn’t injured. I’m not having any cramps or anything.”

“That’s good.” A moment later, he repeated it. “I just got a situation report from one of my sergeants. Still no sign of the gunmen, but we’ll find them.” He was back to sounding professional, as if giving her a briefing.

“Do you need to take my statement now?”

“It can wait until morning. All the interview rooms are already being used.”

Yes. Because there were so many witnesses.

So many victims.

“On the drive over, one of those calls I made was to start the process to get background checks on all the hospital employees, including Michael Frost, the person who phoned you about the emergency meeting,” Shaw continued. “We’ve also gathered all the hostages’ cell phones we can find. They’d been tossed behind the desk in the nurses’ station.”

“Yes. The gunmen took them from us within the first few minutes of the standoff.”

“I figured they had. We’ll check to see if the gunmen used any of them.”

“They had their own phones,” she remembered. “I don’t think they used any of ours. And they didn’t use the hospital phones, either.”

He nodded. “Is it possible one of the hostages was able to use their cell to take a picture of either of the men?”

Sabrina thought about that a moment, forcing herself to mentally return to the chaos that’d happened on that fourth floor. “It’s possible, but I didn’t see it happen. Besides, they wore ski masks the entire time.”

He opened his mouth, no doubt to continue this coplike questioning, but he stopped when his phone buzzed again. No call this time, but a text message. When he read it, Shaw cursed and scrubbed his hand over his face.

Despite the wobbly legs, Sabrina stood. “What’s wrong?”

Shaw put the phone away, and his grip tightened on the doorjamb. “Another of the hostages died—a woman who’d given birth. And one of the newborns is missing. We just issued an Amber Alert.”

“Missing? How? There were only two gunmen, and when they took me from the hospital and to that other building, they didn’t have a baby with them.”

“Maybe they moved the child before they took you. Maybe the baby was already in the vehicle.” The briefing was over, and the raw emotion was coming through his voice. “We don’t have any suspects in custody, and we don’t even have a motive for the crime.”

Maybe it was his stark frustration or maybe it was her exhaustion, but Sabrina was sorry she’d stood. She nearly lost her balance and caught on to the desk to steady herself.

That got Shaw moving. He hurried to her, took her by the arm and put her back in the chair. But he did more than that. He put his hand on her arm, much as he’d done to Bo. And then he looked down at her. However, he didn’t get much further than that look.

There was a knock at the door, and Shaw spun around, obviously grateful for the interruption. Sabrina suddenly felt grateful as well because it was her OB, Dr. Claire Nicholson.

“Sabrina,” the doctor greeted. “I came as quickly as I could.”

“I need to make some calls,” Shaw volunteered, and he headed out after giving the doctor a brief nod.

Dr. Nicholson watched Shaw leave and then eased the door shut. While she opened her medical bag, she studied Sabrina’s face.

“He’s the baby’s father,” the doctor commented. Dr. Nicholson knew that, of course, because she had also been the one to implant the embryos in Sabrina. “He’s worried about you.”

Sabrina nearly laughed. “He’s worried about the baby, that’s all.”

“At this point, it’s nearly impossible to separate mom from the baby. He’s worried about you,” the doctor confirmed and took out the fetoscope, something Sabrina was familiar with. It was a modified stethoscope used to listen to the baby’s heartbeat. The doctor positioned it on her own forehead and motioned for Sabrina to lift her top.

“Any contractions or spotting? “ the doctor asked.

“No. Just some Braxton Hicks.” Thank God. Other than the practice contractions and being jittery and exhausted, she truly was okay. Now, mentally, well, that was a different story.

Sabrina winced a little when the cool plastic-coated metal touched her belly. The doctor moved it around, paused several moments and then smiled.

“That’s a good strong heartbeat.” She pulled off the fetoscope and put it back into the bag. “Of course, I’d like to do an ultrasound, but that can wait a day or two.” She took out a manual blood pressure kit and used it on Sabrina’s arm. “It’s slightly high but considering the circumstances, I’m not surprised. Do you have someone to stay with tonight?”

No. She didn’t. But Sabrina nodded anyway. “I’ll be fine.” It was her standard response, one she’d been saying her entire life, she realized.

Tonight it wasn’t true. She wouldn’t be fine because those gunmen were still out there.

There was a quick knock at the door, and it opened, slowly. Shaw peeked inside. “Everything okay?” Shaw’s attention went right to her and stayed there.

The doctor looked at Sabrina before she answered. “Sabrina and the baby are both fine. In about four weeks, you’ll both have a healthy newborn. But for now, Sabrina needs rest. You can make sure that happens?”

Sabrina got to her feet, to protest Dr. Nicholson dumping this on Shaw, but that’s when she noticed why Shaw was staring at her. Her top was still bunched up, and her pregnant belly was bare. She quickly righted her top.

“Rest,” the doctor ordered Sabrina, and she stepped around Shaw so she could leave.

“You don’t need to keep checking on me,” Sabrina insisted.

“I’ve already arranged a hotel room for you,” Shaw let her know. He glanced again at her now-covered belly and swallowed hard. “Does it hurt?”

Sabrina shook her head. “Does what hurt?”

“The baby, when it kicks.”

“Oh. No. Not really.” She shrugged, puzzled by the abrupt change of subject. “Well, unless she connects with my kidney or something.”

Shaw’s left eyebrow shot up. “She?”

Sabrina shook her head even harder. “I don’t know the baby’s sex. I wanted to keep it a surprise. She just sounds better than it.”

“Right.” He stepped to the side. “Come on. I’ll get you to the hotel.”

Since this was already more than awkward, Sabrina didn’t argue, but as soon as Shaw had her stashed away at the hotel, she would insist that he leave. If he felt forced to spend time with her, it would only make him hate her more.

“Thank you,” she told him. She walked out of the office ahead of him, but there was someone waiting outside the door. It was a lanky built cop wearing a crisp blue uniform.

Shaw groaned softly, probably because there was a look of concern on the man’s face. “More bad news, Officer Newell?”

He handed Shaw several sheets of paper that had been stapled together. “That’s the preliminary background checks you asked for on the hospital employees. Oh, and a guy keeps calling here, asking to speak to Ms. Carr. He said his name is Gavin Cunningham.”

Shaw looked up from the papers he’d just received and turned to Sabrina, obviously wanting an explanation. Was it her imagination or did he seem a little jealous that another man would be phoning her? But she rethought that.

Shaw could never be jealous of her.

“Gavin Cunningham’s a client,” she explained to the other officer. “And yes, he’s persistent. I’m head of an organization called Rootsfind that helps adopted and foster kids locate their biological families, and he wants me to help him find his father. Please tell him I’ll call him in a day or two.”

“I already told him you weren’t available, but he said it was a matter of life or death.”

Sabrina and Shaw had already started to walk away, but that stopped them. Shaw stared at her, apparently waiting for an answer.

But Sabrina didn’t have one. “Gavin called yesterday and sounded frantic and stressed. He said that he needed me to find his father immediately. He wanted to meet with me right then, but I had other appointments. I told him I’d see him today. That obviously didn’t happen because I was taken hostage.”

“Well, he asked me to give you his number, just in case you’d forgotten it.” The officer reached in his pocket and extracted a notepad-sized piece of paper with the number on it.

“Thanks. I’ll call him on the way to the hotel.”

“You think it’s that critical to call him back tonight? Because it can wait,” Shaw added, not giving her a chance to answer. He nudged her to get her moving and continued to read the papers the officer had given him. “Unless you think it’s possible this client is suicidal?”

Sabrina gave that some thought. “I didn’t see any warning signs that he’s contemplating suicide.”

“Right,” he mumbled.

She didn’t miss the accusing tone. Shaw seemed to be saying—as if you’d recognize those warning signs. She certainly hadn’t with Fay. “He’s just a little more obsessed than most about finding his father.”

Sabrina knew something about that, as well. Since she’d been adopted at birth, she’d spent most of her life looking for her biological parents. She’d failed. And it was the reason she had created Rootsfind. Sometimes, the desire to find those DNA roots just burned hotter in some people.

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