Chapter One

      Being a freelance private investigator was exciting. Being a freelance private investigator was challenging.

      Being a freelance private investigator was boring! Especially when you didn’t have a case.

      Jayne Bateman stopped her mental grumbling, set down her camera and reached for her soda. In the process, her purse slid to the car floor on the passenger’s side, dumping its contents on the mat.

      “Great. Just great.” At least it hadn’t been the soda.

      So far her stakeout had been a total bust. Four days of watching in the hope that she might see something important. And all she’d seen so far was more people than she would have thought even lived in the county. What had seemed like a heaven-sent chance was now looking like an exercise in futility.

      She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but when her brother the cop had told her brother the judge that his tiny police force would have a problem staking out two locations every day for the next couple of weeks on the off chance a black-market baby ring might select Bitterwater for its next exchange, Jayne had been certain this was her big break.

      Lily Garrett had told her all about the organized baby-selling ring operating in Texas. The enviably tall, dynamic woman had sparked new interest in Jayne’s chosen profession when they met at a seminar a week ago.

      Lily Garrett was everything Jayne thought a private investigator should be. Intelligent, forceful, determined. She also happened to be strikingly attractive, yet people took her seriously. Lily and her brother Dylan had opened an investigative agency called Finders Keepers in Trueblood, Texas, just outside of San Antonio. She told Jayne their father had converted a big part of his two-story house for them to use as an office. And since Dylan had worked undercover for the police department for several years, his contacts gave them a huge edge.

      Unfortunately, Dylan had been called back to work to assist the police in some sort of sting operation against the very mob that was selling black-market babies. Lily expected to be bogged down with work if she took on a couple more cases. She asked if Jayne would be interested in doing some freelance work for her from time to time.

      Jayne was thrilled by the possibility. The Garretts were doing positive things with their agency by reuniting families. Jayne liked the sound of that and she liked Lily as well.

      Jayne pushed aside a spill of pale-blond hair and surveyed the quiet shopping center over the tip of her straw. Few people ever took Jayne seriously. Okay, so she looked several years younger than her mature, twenty-four years—and she did slightly resemble the famous fashion doll because of her ash-blond hair and her petite stature. She was barely five feet tall if one counted high heels—and she always did. But what people overlooked was the fact that she’d grown up on a working ranch with three brothers. That meant she’d learned to compete at an early age.

      The police academy hadn’t worked out for her. Her brother the cop had made police work sound a lot more interesting than it actually was. Besides, there were entirely too many rules. Jayne never had been very good at taking orders. She’d left with no animosity and some knowledge and helpful skills.

      In her mind, the next logical step was private investigative work where she could use her training and set her own rules. No way could she envision her life in some stuffy office or crowded city. And while she really enjoyed working with horses, her youngest brother already filled that slot in her family. He worked with their father training cutting horses. Jayne needed to carve out her own niche.

      Unfortunately, if she didn’t get a break soon, she’d be in real danger of starving to death first. She had quickly learned she was not cut out for spying on cheating husbands or running boring background checks, yet those were the only sorts of cases coming her way.

      This baby-kidnapping ring, however, now that was something she could sink her teeth into. Lily had freely discussed what she knew about the mob-run black-market baby ring over lunch the day they met. Jayne had absorbed the information with rapt attention, wondering how any woman could sell off her own child. Jayne had overheard her brothers discussing that very subject in her father’s barn a few nights ago.

      Even Lily hadn’t known that the police suspected the exchanges were made in small-town shopping centers. Nor had Lily known that a new exchange was about to go down any day now. Armed with this inside information, Jayne knew all she had to do was be in the right place at the right time and her career would get the boost it needed. Even her brothers would take her seriously if she came up with a videotape of the exchange and a list of license plates to go with it. The police would then be able to nail everyone involved.

      Lily Garrett might even offer her a permanent job. Maybe Jayne could open a branch of Finders Keepers right here in Bitterwater.

      “Now if the baby-nappers would just cooperate…preferably before I get arrested for loitering and talking to myself.”

      But as morning slipped into late afternoon, their cooperation was looking less and less likely. Too bad her brother the judge hadn’t known a time or the exact spot. With Jayne’s luck, her brother the cop would nail the guys at Bitterwater’s only other shopping center while she was sitting here getting fat eating junk food in her car.

      Jayne was debating about going into the grocery store to use the bathroom again when a blue sedan pulled into the lot and parked several yards away from her car. A middle-aged couple sat inside animatedly talking together for several minutes before they finally stepped from the car. She had never seen either of them before.

      Admittedly, Jayne didn’t know every single person who shopped here in Bitterwater, but she did know people who looked nervous and out of their element. The woman was dressed in an expensive red sheath far more appropriate for San Antonio. The same could be said for her fancy hairstyle. Jayne brushed absently at her own long, straight hair and continued her assessment. The woman’s dress was nice enough, but the color was all wrong for her complexion. Even from this distance, Jayne would take bets all that gold and glitter coming from the chains and bracelets the woman wore wasn’t costume jewelry. The woman was as out of place as a gelding in a breeding stall.

      The man with her wore a tailored business suit that didn’t come off a discount rack, either. He carried a shiny black briefcase that he gripped a little too tightly. His gaze darted about the parking area, nervously expectant.

      And his tie was red. The red clashed with the different red shade of the woman’s dress. Not significant surely, yet Jayne’s brain wouldn’t leave it alone.

      Wouldn’t that make a great identification signal? Nearly everyone owned something red, yet it was a color that would stand out without looking out of place. Jayne could almost hear the baby-nappers telling the buyers to come to the meeting wearing something red. The more she toyed with that thought the more she liked it. She watched the two of them closely, and dutifully wrote down their license plate number.

      They were a mature couple, obviously not hurting for money based on their expensive car alone. And they made it clear they were waiting for someone. That didn’t make them baby buyers. More than likely they were Realtors or something, here to use the small business center located a couple of doors down from the grocery store. Except they weren’t paying the stores any attention at all. They scanned the parking lot as avidly as Jayne herself had been doing. She scrunched down a bit so they wouldn’t notice her and tamped down a rising excitement.

      She’d already been surprised by how many strangers actually used this shopping center. Especially at this hour of the afternoon. Still, these two people definitely stood out.

      Jayne reached for her camera and snapped off