Katie aimed an accusing stare at J.J. across the tops of her glasses when he walked through the door. “What happened, Grizzly? I thought you were going to shave all that stuff off your face.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been kind of busy.” He took off his hat and sailed it across to his own desk.

Katie held the stare for another beat, then broke out in a grin. “Well, congratulations, anyway.” She pulled a cigar out of where she’d been hiding it behind her computer screen and lobbed it at him.

He snagged it and grunted his thanks, as Daryl Fisher, another one of his deputies, pushed off from his desk and tipped his chair back.

“First baby, J.J.?”

J.J. snorted. “Yeah, it was. How many have you brought into the world?” Daryl was fresh out of police academy and liked to think he knew everything. And maybe he did-everything that could be learned out of a book, anyway, which in J.J.’s opinion wasn’t much.

Daryl made a scoffing noise and went back to his computer.

“He’s just jealous,” Katie said comfortingly.

“Yeah, right.” J.J. was wondering why he felt so damn crabby. Shouldn’t a little euphoria be in order? He nodded toward the computer monitor on Katie’s desk. “Anything on that name I gave you?”

Katie gave a little gasp. “Oh-my gosh. Sorry-kind of got caught up in the celebration.” She bit her lower lip to hold back what appeared to be sheer glee. “Hold on to that cigar, J.J., because you’re not going to believe this. Rachel Malone Delacorte-I’m guessing that’s the new mom?”

“That’s what I’m guessing.”

“Well, if it’s the same one, she’s married to Nicholas Delacorte-or was.” She waited a beat, and when J.J. just looked at her, gave an impatient huff. “Only son of Carlos Delacorte? Head of the biggest crime family in the entire southwest, if not the country? Plus Central America?”

J.J. swore under his breath. No wonder the name had seemed familiar to him.

“The reason I said was,” Katie went on, still full of herself. “Remember that shootout in the alley behind the Hollywood Bistro last year? The one where those two feds got killed? Well, you might remember, there was another casualty that night-none other than Carlos Delacorte’s little boy, Nicky. At the time, it was thought he might have just gotten caught in the crossfire, since no weapons were found on him. Meanwhile, the shooters, whoever they were, got clean away.”

“That case is still open,” J.J. said, frowning. It was coming back to him, now. “Didn’t witnesses say Delacorte was in the Bistro that night, with a woman?”

Katie nodded. “Presumably his wife, Rachel Delacorte. Supposedly she left the Bistro with her husband, but after the shootout she was nowhere to be found.” She turned the monitor so J.J. could see the screen. “So…is this her? Is this your new baby-mama?”

J.J. stared at the screen, and felt his vision field shrink and the world fall away. All sound seemed to be muffled, even his own voice. “That’s her,” he said.

The photo had been taken at some formal event, maybe a charity ball or premier, the couple posed the way celebrities do for the photographers on the red carpet. And they were as beautiful a couple as any J.J. had ever seen on any red carpet, he dashing in his tux, dark hair wavy to his collar and slicked back on the top and sides, she slender and elegant in a gown made of something shimmery that clung to every curve and left her shoulders, the tops of her breasts and most of her back bare. Her head barely topped her husband’s shoulder, even with her hair piled high on her head. Jewels-diamonds, most likely real ones-twinkled in the coils of her shiny black hair and at her ears and throat.

A far cry, he thought, from the woman in the borrowed nun’s habit, nine months pregnant and her hair wet and stringy with sweat. But there was no mistaking that heart-shaped face. Those eyes.

Katie was saying something. With an effort, he pulled his gaze away from the image of the woman on the computer screen and focused on her. “What?”

Her eyes were grave as they met his. “J.J., if that woman is Rachel Delacorte, then that means…”

“I just delivered Carlos Delacorte’s grandson.” He let his breath out in a gust.

Even before he said the words, their implications had rumbled over him like a landslide. Everything-Rachel, missing from the scene after the shootout that killed her husband, now turning up pregnant, alone in the desert in a borrowed car and nun’s habit, her face wearing the evidence of a brutal beating, afraid to trust anyone, even an officer of the law-it all made sense now. It was pretty obvious the woman had been held prisoner-virtual if not actual-by her father-in-law, notorious crime family kingpin, and had just made a desperate attempt to escape.

Why?

The possibilities turned his blood cold. Witnesses at the Bistro the night of the shootout said Nicholas Delacorte had been with a woman. Although witnesses wouldn’t confirm it, and no surveillance cameras could prove it, that woman would almost certainly have been his wife, Rachel. J.J. wasn’t familiar with the details of the case, but the wife of one of the victims would almost certainly have been questioned, along with everyone in the Delacorte camp, immediately after the shooting. Nothing had ever come of it, apparently, but if Carlos had been keeping his daughter-in-law under wraps, it would almost certainly have been because she knew too much, was possibly even an eyewitness to the shooting of her husband and two federal agents.

Why not just kill her?

Because she was pregnant, carrying Nicholas’s child, the only grandchild Carlos Delacorte would ever have.

And once the child was born…what then? The bruises seemed to indicate there was no love lost between Carlos and his son’s wife. Once the baby was safely delivered, he’d have no reason to keep a potential eyewitness to the shooting of two federal lawmen alive.

No wonder Rachel had lit out for parts unknown, even nine months pregnant and probably already in early labor. She’d been running for her life.

J.J. swore, blaspheming in a way that would have made his mother weep. Even Katie, who’d probably heard a whole lot worse in her lifetime, was staring at him openmouthed. He didn’t stop to apologize.

“Get Ridgecrest Hospital on the phone,” he snapped at her, at the same time he was taking his backup piece out of the desk drawer he’d put it in when he’d first arrived at the Lost Mine Sheriff’s Station five months ago. He checked it over, then shoved it inside his boot. It was the first time he’d carried it since he’d left Homicide Division. “Tell them to put extra security on Rachel Delacorte and her baby.”

His sense of urgency was like an electric current pulsing through his body. He had to figure Delacorte would be desperate to find his daughter-in-law and get his grandchild back. His organization was huge and far-reaching; he probably had people in every city, county, state and federal law enforcement agency in Southern California. They’d be monitoring every radio call, patrolling every possible escape route, land, sea or air. Carlos could not afford to let Rachel get away, and he’d move heaven and earth to find her.

And his only grandchild.

How many hours had it been since that call had gone out about a nun wandering in the desert? How long would it take Delacorte to put two and two together and pick up the trail?

J.J. snatched up his hat and jammed it on his head. He tossed the keys to his trailer to Deputy Daryl.

“Take care of my dog,” he growled on his way out the door.


Rachel woke from a light sleep, alerted by something she couldn’t immediately identify: faint sounds, scuffles, breathing…small things that told her she wasn’t alone. She opened her eyes-a fraction of a second before they were covered by something soft and white.

She screamed, but the sound collided with the thick softness that covered her mouth. She tried to suck in air, and sucked in cloth instead. In desperation now, she struck out with both hands, clutching, scratching, clawing viciously at whatever she could reach. The screams she couldn’t utter tore at her throat as her body arched and bucked with all the strength she had left.

Not enough.

She heard voices, muffled voices, low, guttural voices. Brutal, strong hands pressed down on her shoulders. In one final desperate burst of strength, she lashed out with both arms and legs, and heard a growl of pain as her nails raked skin, maybe even drew blood. Then…the loud crash of something being overturned, the sharp thwack of heavy plastic hitting the vinyl tile floor. It was a sound that sent horror ricocheting through her brain, because she knew exactly what it was: The bassinet and cart her newborn son slept in, close beside her bed.

My baby! Jethro-help!

It was her last thought before the darkness came.


J.J. had never driven so fast in his life. Not so fast as to be out of control, though; after nearly going airborne through a dip, he had to keep reminding himself that he was no good to anybody dead, or spun out and stuck in a sandy gully somewhere. He drove with full lights and siren, heart thumping, eyes glued to the road ahead, hands glued to the wheel, ears tuned in to any reports that came in over his radio. No reports of any disturbances at Ridgecrest Hospital, though. So far, so good. Maybe he’d get there in time.

He had to slow down coming into the town of Ridgecrest, what with traffic and stoplights, and drivers who evidently had no clue they were supposed to pull over to the curb for emergency vehicles with flashing lights and sirens. It was as he was approaching an intersection with the traffic signal against him, slowing to make his way around bewildered drivers who had stopped in the middle of whatever lane they happened to be in, that he saw, coming along the cross street, a whole line of cop cars, both city and county, lights flashing and sirens blaring, slowing now to make the turn. Heading, evidently, in the same direction he was.

His heart rate kicked up several notches. He waited, swearing vehemently and aloud, for the posse to pass, then threaded his own way through the intersection and gunned it, following hot on their trail.

He had a bad feeling about this. A cold sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

The feeling got a whole lot worse when he turned into the hospital parking lot and nearly collided with a black SUV with tinted windows as it came lurching out of the lot, made the turn with squealing tires and sped away down the street in the direction he’d just come from. Something-call it instinct, call it gut, or maybe just a lot of years chasing down bad guys-zapped through J.J. like a jolt of electricity, and he almost-almost-hung a U-turn and went in pursuit of the black SUV. Instead, he drove on in the wake of the other law enforcement vehicles, but with an increasing heaviness around his heart.

Too late, he thought. Dammit. Too late.

Chapter 5

Rachel came back to awareness and an overwhelming sense of grief and terror. She tried to cry out, but something cold and hard was covering her face. She clawed at it, and then at the hands that tried to stop her from doing so. She was crying, sobbing uncontrollably. And there were voices, voices saying words that made no sense to her. Soothing words, nevertheless, and the voices, some of them, were women’s.

“It’s okay…you’re safe now…it’s just a little oxygen. It’ll help you feel better. It’s all right…”

But Rachel was inconsolable. “They…took him. They took…”

“No, no, dear-he’s fine. Your baby is fine. He’s in the nursery. We took him for tests, so you could sleep…”

They were lying, of course. Telling her that just to calm her. She knew, because she had heard them-heard the bassinet fall. It had happened, just as she’d known it would. Carlos had sent his men to kill her, and they had taken away her baby.


The hospital appeared outwardly calm. Sure, there were cop cars drawn up before every entrance, but nobody was shouting, running or shooting at anybody. Nobody was being evacuated, which meant probably nobody was being held hostage. All of which only confirmed J.J.’s suspicion that the perpetrators, whoever they were and whatever they’d been up to, had already fled the scene, most likely in the black SUV he’d nearly collided with on his way in.

I shouldn’t have left her, he told himself. Dammit, should never have left her alone.

You didn’t know who she was at the time, his reasoning self told him. How could you have known?