The Marshal's Justice. Delores Fossen
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And a .38 aimed at Jax.
His brother hadn’t been harmed. For now. That was something at least, but this was definitely a volatile situation.
Was this the nanny? The car description certainly fit. But the baby was nowhere in sight.
“Don’t come any closer,” the pregnant woman warned them. Her hands were shaking. Not a good sign since she had her index finger on the trigger, and the way she was holding the gun told Chase that she didn’t have a lot of experience with firearms. “I’ve already told the deputy here that if he shoots me, he won’t find the baby.”
April was trembling as well, and she lowered her gun to her side. “Where is she? Where’s Bailey?” The worry and fear practically drenched her voice.
“Safe, for now. Keep it that way and don’t come closer.”
Chase didn’t move, but unlike April he didn’t lower his gun. He couldn’t shoot a pregnant woman, but she might not be so anxious to shoot Jax if she had two guns trained on her.
He craned his neck to try to get a look at the interior of the car, but with the tinted windows, he couldn’t see much of anything. The engine was running, the windows all up, and since the woman was between them and the car, Chase figured he wasn’t going to get a better look inside until he dealt with the situation right in front of him.
“What do you want from us?” Chase asked her.
“Money, a getaway vehicle,” Jax provided. “And any information about Quentin’s whereabouts.”
“The last one is especially important,” the woman said, tears springing to her eyes. “I have to find him.” She slid her left hand over her belly. “He has to know he’s about to be a father.”
Good grief. So, she was connected to Quentin? And clearly this woman wasn’t just any ordinary nanny.
“I’m Quentin’s sister,” April said, taking a step toward her. “He wouldn’t want you to hurt his niece. He wouldn’t want any of this to be happening.”
That was probably true. Quentin could be scum, but to the best of Chase’s knowledge, the man had never endangered a baby.
“Quentin would want me protected. He wants to be with me and our baby, but he can’t be because of him.” The woman pointed at Chase. “You’re the marshal who put him in WITSEC. You’re the one who took Quentin away from me.”
Obviously, she had a skewed idea of what’d happened six months ago. “I did that for his own safety.”
“Then you can put me there with him! Quentin loves me and wants to be with me.”
Since Quentin hadn’t requested that and since this was the first Chase was hearing about the man having a pregnant girlfriend, he glanced at April to see if she’d known.
April shook her head. “I’ve never met her. But maybe Quentin mentioned your name,” she added to the woman.
“I’m Renée Edmunds,” she volunteered.
“Quentin didn’t always tell me the details of his personal life,” April mumbled. “He certainly didn’t tell me he was about to become a father.”
“Because he doesn’t trust you, that’s why,” Renée snapped. “He said I wasn’t to trust you because you betrayed him by spying on him. You became a criminal informant to save your own skin.”
April nodded, readily admitting that. “Quentin was involved in some bad things then. With a very bad man. I did what I had to do to put an end to it.”
That was the sanitized version anyway, and that very bad man was none other than Tony Crossman. April had uncovered her brother’s illegal activity but had sat on it for a while. Long enough for someone to get killed. Only afterward had April turned CI to help arrest Crossman.
“Were you doing what you had to do when you slept with Quentin’s enemy, Marshal Crockett?” Renée asked.
Quentin would indeed consider him his enemy. Chase felt the same way about him.
“Is that why you took our daughter, because you thought it would help you find Quentin?” April went another step closer to Renée.
“I didn’t take her.” A hoarse sob tore from Renée’s mouth, and she repeated her denial. “But when I got the call to be involved in this, I didn’t say no. I’d do anything to see Quentin again.”
Anything, including putting an innocent baby in danger. It didn’t matter if Renée had or hadn’t been the person who kidnapped Bailey, she certainly hadn’t turned the baby over to the authorities. And she darn sure wasn’t cooperating now.
Somehow, he had to get that gun out of her shaky hands.
“Who hired you?” Chase asked her, and he made sure he sounded like the lawman that he was. Maybe he could intimidate her into surrendering the weapon.
“I don’t know,” Renée said.
Chase huffed, already tired of this ordeal. He wanted it to end so he could find his daughter and deal with the aftermath of everything else going on here.
“Who hired you?” he tried again.
“I don’t know!” Renée’s answer was louder this time. “I got a call from a man who said Quentin was in danger and that if I wanted to find him then he’d help me.”
“Did this man have a name?” Jax asked. He, too, sounded like a lawman. A riled one. Probably because he was as fed up with Quentin and April as Chase was. Still, his brother would do whatever it took to get the baby back.
“His name is Jason Toth,” Renée finally answered. “He said he was Quentin’s friend.”
It wasn’t a name Chase recognized, and apparently neither did April or Jax. Of course, whoever had come up with this sick plan probably wouldn’t have used a real name.
“Do you know Tony Crossman?” Chase asked the woman.
She gave a shaky nod. “He’s the man Quentin helped send to jail. He wants to hurt Quentin.”
“Crossman wants to kill him,” Chase spelled out for her. “And he’d do anything—that includes using you—to find him.”
Chase didn’t add more. He just waited and let Renée fill in the blanks. It didn’t take her long.
“Toth might be working for Crossman,” Renée whispered, her mouth trembling now.
Bingo. “I don’t know Quentin’s location,” Chase continued, “but if I did and I told you, then Crossman could get to Quentin before you do. Let me guess, you’re wearing some kind of wire right now so Toth can hear whatever you’re saying?”
Renée’s gaze drifted down toward her stomach. And she nodded. It was a good thing Chase hadn’t known Quentin’s whereabouts and revealed it because assassins would have likely already been on their way to kill him.
April cursed and stormed toward Renée. “Where’s my baby?” she yelled to the person on the other end of that listening device.
April probably would have latched on to Renée as well, but Chase held her back. After all, Renée still had the gun, and the woman was past the point of just being panicked and upset. There was no telling what she would do in her state of mind.
“You need to come with us to the Appaloosa Pass sheriff’s office,” Chase told Renée. “We can figure out where the baby is. And just how much Crossman’s henchman has learned.” If anything. “You might be able to save Quentin from being hurt.”
Chase didn’t care a flying fig if Quentin got hurt. The only thing he wanted right now was the location of the baby. Once Bailey was safe, then he could deal with Crossman, his hired guns and anyone else who had a part in this.
“Oh,