Chapter Eight #2
“I got a couple of glimpses,” Judson corrected. “And, yes, it could have been Elijah, Shane, Trevor or, hell, even Yvette. The only person it couldn’t have been is Jennifer. She was at the police station at the time of the attack.”
True. Jennifer had an airtight alibi, but that didn’t mean Elijah hadn’t been acting on her behalf.
“Elijah was furious when he left the station,” she pointed out. “He could have fired those shots to get back at us for not letting him see Jennifer. Or he could have done this to try to make it seem as if she’s innocent, that we’re looking at the wrong person for Courtney’s murder.”
“Yes, he could have done it for either of those reasons, and trust me, Grace will be talking to him about that. To Shane and Trevor, too, when they come in for interviews in the morning.” He paused. “You’ll hear this soon enough, but all of our suspects have had firearms training.”
Sweet heaven. It twisted at her to think of how easy it would be for one of them to try to come after them again.
“I don’t want to leave the ranch,” Addie said. “I want to be with the babies, but I want them to be safe.”
Judson sighed and moved closer to her again. Not hugging her, but he did take her hand. “This all started with someone abducting the twins. The shooting today could have been another attempt to do that.”
Oh, God. She hadn’t even considered that. Those shots had been aimed at Judson and her, so Addie had assumed this was some sort of retaliation. But it could have been to eliminate them.
“We’re beefing up security around here,” he spelled out, obviously noticing the fresh round of fear in her eyes.
“It’s too risky to bring in someone from a security company right now, since we can’t be sure our attacker won’t use that as a chance to sneak onto the grounds.
But the ranch hands will continue to patrol, and we’ll keep all windows and doors locked. ”
She shook her head. “Is that enough—”
“And I’m sleeping in the room with you and the twins tonight,” Judson interrupted.
“All right,” she said, noticing his tone and body language. The muscles in his jaw were having a battle with each other. “You don’t sound especially pleased.”
Judson opened his mouth, closed it. Then sighed and cursed. “I’m doing it. I want to stay here and protect all three of you.” He paused. “But I’ll admit that it won’t be easy.”
She knew what he meant. What he felt. Because she was feeling the same exact things. All this close contact was testing those barriers again. It was tearing the pact to shreds. But at the moment she was having a hard time remembering why that would be such a bad thing.
And that’s why she leaned in and kissed him.
She immediately felt the jolt. A sizzle of heat like electricity firing through her. It was always this way with Judson. So intense.
So hot.
But somehow it also managed to feel both wrong and right at the same time. Damn pact. They’d made that pact for good reasons, but those reasons and pretty much all logic went out the window whenever they kissed.
For now, Addie just settled on the part that felt right. The heat. The pleasure of his mouth and taste that set her on fire. Judging from the moan that came from deep within his throat, he was feeling the same thing.
He didn’t throttle back. Didn’t try to cut the kiss short. Just the opposite. The kiss became hotter, and he slid his hand to her waist. Definitely what her body wanted. His touch coupled with the kiss. And that’s what she got.
Judson kept his hand in place for a couple of heartbeats before he hooked his arm around her back and drew her to him. So close. With a lot of him touching a lot of her.
That amped up the heat even more, and Addie felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into that fire.
She wanted to give in to it. Give in to Judson.
She wanted to drag him off to bed. But thankfully there was just a sliver of reasoning coming through in her foggy brain, and that reasoning started to tick off why sex couldn’t happen.
And it had nothing to do with the pact.
The house was full of cops, and there was an intense search going on. Even if they could be sure they’d have some uninterrupted time to sneak off to a bed, or the floor, it wouldn’t be right. They needed to be helping with the investigation so they could stop any further threats.
Judson must have remembered that, too, because he tore his mouth from hers and stepped back. What he didn’t do was curse or show any signs that the kiss had been a huge mistake.
Just the opposite.
Addie thought he might be on the verge of saying something about putting this on hold, but he didn’t get a chance to actually voice that. Or anything else, for that matter. Because his phone rang.
“It’s dispatch,” he relayed to her, and he put the call on speaker.
Addie appreciated that. She didn’t want to be kept in the dark about anything, but she tried to steel herself up since any contact from the dispatcher or his fellow cops could be another round of bad news.
“Judson, I’ve got someone on the line who wants to talk to you,” the dispatcher said.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“She won’t say, but she insists she had to talk to you. I can try to push her on giving me her name. Or I can have her contact Grace. You know we always get crackpot calls when there’s any kind of investigation going on.”
Judson made a sound of agreement, and his forehead bunched up while he no doubt considered what to do. “Put the call through,” he finally said.
It took only a couple of seconds for the dispatcher to do that, and before Judson could get out a greeting, the woman’s frantic voice poured through the room. “I tried to save those babies. I swear, I tried to save them.”
Addie’s chest went tight. But then she made herself remember that this could be a hoax.
“Who is this?” Judson demanded.
“Yvette Cates,” the woman blurted.
Judson and Addie exchanged a glance, and his was tinged with some skepticism. “There’s an APB out on Yvette Cates, and there are a lot of details about her on social media—”
“I’m Yvette,” she insisted. And she began to rattle off details like her birth date and those of her two kids. Then she added, “My kids’ names are Jennifer Alise and Shane David.”
That seemed to convince Judson that she was telling the truth.
And it caused the tightness in Addie’s chest to increase.
They were talking to the woman who had kidnapped the twins.
Before Addie could blurt out a demand as to why Yvette had taken those precious babies, Judson voiced a demand of his own.
“Where the hell are you?” he snapped while he hit the record function on his phone. He also sent a text to dispatch to try to have the call traced.
“I’m not sure, but as soon as I can, I’ll get to a police station so I can give them my statement. Just promise me I won’t be arrested.”
Judson huffed. “I’m not promising that. You kidnapped two infants and endangered them—”
“No, I was trying to stop them from being hurt,” Yvette insisted.
The woman was sobbing now. And whispering. Was she doing that so she wouldn’t be overheard? If so, why?
Addie listened for any background noise. For any signs of a possible threat. But no one was shouting at Yvette or firing shots at her.
“The only person who put the twins in danger was you,” Judson argued. “Now, tell me where you are.”
Yvette did more sobbing before she spoke again. “Someone was going to take them,” she said as if choosing her words carefully. “So, I took them first. I tried to get them to safety.”
The skepticism skyrocketed big-time in Judson’s eyes. “Who was going to kidnap them?”
“I… I can’t say. Just believe me when I tell you that I was doing what I thought best. Are they all right?”
Judson seemed to debate his answer, or else he was stalling with the hopes of getting the call traced. “I can give you an update about them when I see you. Where are you?” he repeated.
Yvette didn’t answer. Not with words anyway. But seconds later, there was a sound.
A bloodcurdling scream.
And the line went dead.