Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Friday night, Kadie said she needed to make a quick trip to Cheyenne to buy some baby formula. Conor was asleep and she assured Rylan that she would be back before the baby woke up.
Reluctantly, he agreed.
A quick kiss on the cheek, and Kadie was gone.
Saintcrow blew out a sigh as he settled on the sofa and toed off his boots.
Opening a notebook, he jotted down a few of the things that needed replacing or repairing in the hotel: one of the faucets was broken in Room 16, there was a large hole in the carpet behind the hotel reservation desk, the TV in Room 9 didn’t work, neither did the one in Room 14.
He laid the notebook aside, thinking Kadie had been gone longer than she should have been when his cell phone rang. He picked it up, expecting to hear Kadie apologize. Instead, he heard a deep, masculine voice.
“Is this Saintcrow?”
“Who’s this?”
“The man who has your wife.”
“Who the hell are you and what do you want?” Fighting down his fear and his anger, Saintcrow opened his senses, searching for his link to Kadie.
“Trelaine. Ever heard of me?”
“Can’t say as I have.” Where the hell was she? Something had cut the link between them. He had a pretty good idea that it was dark magic blocking his link to Kadie.
“Maybe you remember Elowynne?”
Shit! She had mentioned a lover. At the time, he and Izabela had assumed the witch had made him up. “Where’s Kadie?”
“She’s safe. For now.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“No.”
“Let’s cut to the chase. What do you want?”
“I’ll let you know, in time. You’ll be more agreeable after you’ve had a few days to think about it.”
“Dammit, tell me now!”
But there was no answer. Rising, Saintcrow paced the floor, his mind in turmoil. Once again, Kadie’s life was in danger because of him. He didn’t know how long the kid had been crying before the noise penetrated his mind.
Muttering an oath, he went into the kitchen. He found a bottle in the fridge, warmed it with a glance and carried it up to the nursery. The boy lay on his back, arms and legs flailing, his face red.
Striving for patience, Saintcrow lifted the kid from the crib, sat in the rocker, and shoved the bottle in the kid’s mouth. “I don’t have time for this,” he growled. “Dammit, I need to be looking for Kadie, not sitting here with you.”
The baby looked up at him, blue eyes wide, as if he understood every word.
Saintcrow tapped his fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair, willing the boy to drink faster, relieved when he finally fell asleep. He placed the baby back in the crib, covered him with a blanket. A clean diaper would have to wait.
Going downstairs, he grabbed his phone and called Kincaid.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“I need a favor.”
“Sure what is it?”
“I need a babysitter.”
“What?”
“Elowynne’s boyfriend has kidnapped Kadie. I don’t know what he wants, but I don’t have time to mess with the kid. Do you think one of the Ravenwoods would agree to take him in until I find Kadie?”
“Let me ask Rosa.”
Saintcrow paced the floor while he waited for an answer.
“Rosa says she thinks her sister, Angela, will take him. She’s talking to her now.”
“Thanks.”
After what seemed like forever, Jake said, “Angela said she’d be happy to have a baby in the house again. Gather up the kid’s things and we’ll come get him.”
“Thanks, Jake.”
Ten minutes later, Kincaid and Rosa were at the door. “I had no idea the witch had a boyfriend,” Jake said.
“Yeah. We thought she’d made him up.” Saintcrow turned toward Rosa. “The kid’s upstairs in the crib.” To Jake, he said, “His things are in that bag by the door.”
Jake nodded. “What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know. I can’t find her. I think this guy is a witch, too. He’s worked some kind of spell to shield Kadie from me. Elowynne said he was a vampire, but if he is, he isn’t as old as she claimed.”
“We’re ready,” Rosa said, coming down the stairs. She had wrapped the baby in a furry blanket. “Don’t worry about him. Angela will take good care of him.”
“As far as I’m concerned, if something’s happened to Kadie, your sister can keep him,” Saintcrow said curtly.
Because his life wasn’t worth living without her.
~ * ~
Saintcrow tracked Kadie to the store in Cheyenne.
Her scent, though faint, lingered in the air.
He followed it down the street. A deep breath carried another scent, a male.
He followed Kadie’s scent another block.
He found her phone in the gutter, along with a bag of baby formula and a few other items. He picked up the phone and tossed the sack in a nearby trash can.
He muttered an oath as he recognized the strange scent on Kadie’s phone.
It was the same as the one that he’d caught earlier in front of the store.
He walked slowly down the sidewalk, his senses probing for the kidnapper’s scent but it ended where he’d found the phone. Standing on the corner, he wondered what his next move should be.
He was about to return home when Kincaid materialized beside him.
“The baby’s in good hands. Angela says she’ll keep him as long as necessary.”
“I don’t give a damn about the brat,” Saintcrow muttered. “Nothing matters but Kadie.”
“Hey! Calm down. We found Luca, didn’t we? We’ll find Kadie.”
Saintcrow didn’t want to be calm. Muttering an oath, he ripped the copper band from his wrist and shoved it in his pocket.
After taking several deep breaths, he said, “Kadie’s wearing Izabela’s bracelet.
No one can remove it except Izabela. If it’s working the way it should, whoever has Kadie can’t conjure any dark magic to use against her. ”
“Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t mean he can’t kill her,” Saintcrow growled, his hands clenching at his sides. “Just that he can’t use dark magic to do it.”
Kincaid grunted softly. “What do you think this guy is after?”
“Revenge, I would imagine. I killed his lover. He’s taken Kadie. A life for a life.”
“Maybe. But if he just wanted to kill her, he’d do it and send her to you in a body bag. I think there’s more to it than that.”
“What else could he want?”
“Beats me,” Kincaid said. “Unless he wanted you to know he has her so you’ll worry and fret, all the while imagining a hundred kinds of terrible things he could do to her first.”
“Yeah, well, if that’s his goal,” Saintcrow muttered. “It’s working.” The hell of it was, Trelaine held all the cards as long as Kadie was in danger and they both knew it.