Looking For Trouble (39 page)

"Me too..." he said not adding, he hoped
that bastard was taking care of her, feeding her, changing her
diaper, because he didn't want to make Jess worry more. Wade wasn't
kidding with his threat to kill that bastard if one hair on Angel's
head was harmed. It would become his sole reason for living.

Jess closed her eyes and rested her head on
his shoulder, and Wade hoped she'd fall asleep for a little while,
so she didn't fret so bad. He was doing enough of that for both of
them, as the time dragged on and the agent didn't come back to tell
them anything. Sitting here on his ass, while that asshole had his
little girl, didn't do much to alleviate his stress either.

It was just shy of three hours later when
the front door opened and the agent they'd been working with
stepped through the door, and Wade's heart stopped at the
seriousness in his expression. Wade pushed Jess off his lap, then
launched up to his feet, and shouted, "What the hell
happened?"

The man held up a hand and said, "It's
good...they found Bonnie Richards and Angel at the apartment
there...but Ray Turner wasn't there, and she had no idea where he
was."

Jess wailed then let out a big shuddering
sigh, and collapsed on the sofa. "I don't fucking care about Ray
Turner...where can we go pick up our baby?" he demanded with so
much relief pouring through him, his legs almost gave out too.

"Agents have her with them and they'll be
heading this way shortly, but it's a ten hour drive, so..."

"Fuck that...tell them to hold tight, we're
flying to Nashville, call and tell them," he said then grabbed
Jess's arm and pulled her up from the couch, then dragged her
toward the front door.

He opened the passenger door of his truck,
and helped Jess inside, then ran around to the driver's side and
got in. Suddenly, he realized he'd almost ran from the condo to the
truck and he hadn't used his cane. Wade smiled, then shoved the key
into the ignition and roared out of the parking lot toward the
airport. He tossed his phone to Jess and told her, "Call the
airport and get us a flight," he told her then pulled out his
wallet and tossed her his credit card. "And I don't give a damn how
much it costs...just get us on a flight."

"Yes, sir," she said with a salute and a
grin, then dialed the phone.

She paid through the nose for first class
seats on a direct flight leaving from Dallas Ft. Worth airport,
just an hour after they parked in the short term lot. They got out
of the truck and he took her hand and walked swiftly toward the
terminal building.

Wade tapped his toe the whole time they were
on the flight, and when they landed, he wanted to plow down the
flight attendant blocking the door to get off the plane. He and
Jess didn't have luggage, so when the attendant opened the cabin
door, they shot through it, and headed for the escalator. Once they
stepped outside the terminal, he pulled out his phone and called
the agent to get an address where they could meet the other agents
to pick up Angel.

Wade could hardly breathe, and his heart was
racing by the time a taxi dropped them off in front of the federal
building in Nashville. He was sure Jess was in the same shape,
because he saw her chest heaving and her face was pale.

"Let's go get our daughter, darlin'," he
said then opened the taxi door and slid out, then helped Jess out.
He started to walk toward the entrance, then remembered he hadn't
paid the driver, and told her to go ahead inside, so he could take
care of that tiny detail.

The driver was on the phone with his
dispatch when Wade walked back up to the car and handed him a
hundred dollar bill. The look on the man's face told Wade he
thought they had intended to stiff him on the fare.

"I'm sorry about that, I've got a lot on my
mind," Wade told him, and the man started making change, but Wade
held up a hand and told him, "Keep the change, thank you for
getting us here," then he turned and walked toward the intimidating
building.

After he went through a metal detector, he
went to the elevator and up to the third floor, then looked for the
room number the agent had given him. Two men in dark suits were
standing on either side of the door and he walked between them and
grabbed for the door knob, and they grabbed him and shoved him into
the wall, then one of them put his forearm on Wade's neck. "Who the
hell are you?" the guy grated near his ear.

"I'm Wade Roberts...um, Angel's father," he
said in a muffled voice, because his jaw was being held flush to
the wall. He couldn't identify what he was with Jess, because they
hadn't defined their relationship. She was his girlfriend, but
somehow that sounded tawdry, with Angel involved, so he wasn't
going to say that...she wasn't his fiancé or his wife, either, so
he just aligned himself with Angel, and left it at that.

They really needed to talk about that...he
needed to decide what the next step in their relationship was going
to be...what he wanted it to be. He knew he didn't want to live
without Jess or Angel,
ever
, but he didn't know if they were
at the engagement, marriage point either. He didn't know what Jess
thought of the idea either.

"Do you have some kind of identification?"
the second man, who was now leaning against the wall with his arms
folded over his chest, asked him.

"Wallet is in my pocket," he said then
added, "This is ridiculous...I'm here to pick up my daughter."

"Her mother has already picked her up," the
man informed him, as he felt the other guy pull his wallet out.

"I'm here with her mother, Jess Sparks...we
flew here together...rode here from the airport. I went back to pay
the taxi fare."

"Jess Sparks?" the man asked in confusion.
"Her mother is Bonnie Richards, who is Jess Sparks?"

Wade got a sick feeling in his gut, and
pushed with all he had against the agent holding him against the
wall, then yelled, "Jess Sparks is Angel's mother! Have you seen
her? Tall blond, beautiful?"

The man snickered, "Nah, I'd have remember,
if I'd seen a beautiful blond...that's my type...only one I've seen
is a short brunette, Ms. Richards, when she came to pick up the
baby."

"That woman is supposed to be in jail for
kidnapping my daughter!
How the hell could she have picked her
up?!?!
"

"An upline agent called and told us it was
all a misunderstanding, and that we were to give the baby to
her."

"Did you check
her
I.D.? Or double
check with your boss to make sure the call wasn't bogus?" Wade
asked him sarcastically.

The blond agent's face flushed and his jaw
worked, then he said, "No...we did what we were told to do."

"How long ago did she pick her up?" Wade
asked him with narrowed eyes.

"Ten, fifteen minutes ago," the man
replied.

"We've been in here ten minutes, and came
through the front door. Lock the building down and find
her--
now
!" Wade demanded, then turned when heard heels
clicking down the hall and turned to see Jess walking toward him
with a smile on her face.

"Hey, sugar, have you seen Angel?" she asked
him then said, "I had to stop by the ladies room."

He saw the men stiffen beside him, and he
looked at one then the other and said angrily, "This, is Angel's
mother...now why don't you tell her what you just told me?" then he
walked off to call the guy in Dallas and ream him out.

Angel was in danger again, and nobody knew
where the hell she was...or even if it was actually Bonnie Richards
who had her. Wade flinched when he heard Jess wail behind him, then
turned and saw her pounding on one of the agent's chests with her
fists and screaming at him. The other man was on the phone and
waving his hand wildly. Wade heard an alarm go off, and then people
scrambled out of doors along the hall, and headed toward the
exit.

He ran back over to the two agents and
asked, "What the hell is that?"

"Fire alarm...must be a drill or something,"
the big dumb one by Jess told him.

"No, it's probably a distraction, so she can
get the baby out of the building. She must've seen us...tell
someone! Lock the doors, don't let anyone out!"

"We can't do that by law if the fire alarm
is going off..." the brighter of the two agents told him.

"Well, shut the fucking alarm off!" Wade
yelled then started down the hall, and added, "And then lock the
fucking doors!" The elevators probably weren't working, because of
the fire alarm, Wade thought, so he headed for the stairs. His back
wasn't going to like going down three flights of stairs, but he
didn't give a damn, he'd crawl if he had to.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Jess stood still in the hallway outside the
door where they were supposed to have picked up her baby, just
watching in a daze as the loud alarm buzzed in her ears, and people
moved past her to evacuate the building. They shoved her to and fro
like a ship in a storm. That's how she felt inside too, like she
had no mooring, was just drifting in the middle of nowhere,
fighting the waves of panic that had frozen her to the spot, as she
realized she wasn't going to get her daughter back...the woman
she'd
trusted as a nanny had stolen her again...so she could
bring her to Ray. And there wasn't a damned thing she could do
about it.

Suddenly, someone shoved something very
sharp into her back, and said in a low lethal tone near her ear,
"Hello, Jess...we're going to take a little walk, and you are going
to keep you fucking mouth shut, or I'll slice you from asshole to
appetite...and that brat of yours too," Ray told her then shoved
her forward into the moving stream of people.

"Where's my daughter, Ray...I want my
daughter," Jess told him in a voice that vibrated with her
fury.

"And I want my money, but that's not going
to happen now is it?" he said angrily, then shoved the point of
whatever he had at her back into her skin. "Maybe your boyfriend
will give me that money he won at the rodeo though, so I can get
out of the country."

"Let me go Ray, I have money, I'll give you
all of it, if you let me and Angel go."

"You called the feds, Jess...why the hell
would I trust you,
or
let you go? They don't have shit if
you're not around."

"They have a lot, whether or not I testify,
Ray...your best bet
is
to leave the country."

He snorted, "I don't need you to tell me
that, but they froze all my accounts and I need money...and your
boyfriend is going to give it to me, then I'm going to put
you
out of
my
misery."

Jess thought about screaming at the top of
her lungs, he was going to kill her anyway, he just told her that,
but then decided against it. He was going to take her to her
daughter, and then maybe there would be an opportunity for her to
get away from him, or at least get her baby out of danger. Going
with him was the only way she could be sure she'd see Angel again,
so she kept quiet.

Her eyes darted around looking for Wade,
hoping she'd see him. She knew he went looking for
Tamara--Bonnie--and Angel. Maybe he'd gotten through to those two
FBI guys in the hall earlier, and they locked the doors down. If
they had, Ray wasn't going to get her out of here either. The fire
alarm was still going off, so that probably hadn't happened, based
on what the guy said about the law.

Ray pushed her to the stairwell where
everyone else was headed down, and she grabbed the rail to steady
her shaky legs, then took one step at a time. He kept very close to
her back, and still held the knife at her side, and his other arm
was around her waist. When they reached the landing at the bottom,
the fire alarm stopped, and the people on the stairs stopped and
started talking and laughing, which caused a traffic jam at the
door. Slowly, they filed out the door and into the lobby, and Jess
took a deep breath once they were out of the claustrophobic
landing.

She scanned the lobby and didn't see Wade,
but she heard Ray curse behind her, then he shoved her to the left
and down a hall. Looking back over her shoulder, she spotted Wade
then by the front door with Angel in his arms, standing with
several agents, who had a brunette, that wasn't Bonnie, between
them.

A loud wail of relief surged from Jess's
lips and she tried to yank away from Ray to run over there, but he
pulled her back against him, and moved the knife to her throat.
Wade spotted her and started running over there, then he stopped in
his tracks and looked down at Angel, then back into her eyes. Jess
saw the war he was waging inside as to what to do, come save her,
or make sure their daughter was safe. Finally, he narrowed his eyes
and started forward again.

Jess shook her head and decided to take the
choice away from him, because she didn't want him to do what he was
about to do, and put Angel in danger, or get himself hurt again.
She bent her knee then planted the heel of her high-heeled boot in
Ray's instep, and shoved her elbow into his gut.

Ray grunted, but didn't let her go, he moved
the knife to the side of her throat and there was a sharp sting
when he sliced it across her skin. Warm blood flowed down her neck,
and she spun around, then planted her fist in his eye socket,
putting all her weight behind it, and his head hit the wall hard.
Suddenly a group of people rushed them, and she was slammed into
the wall, then her head hit the hard marble, and it sounded like
someone rang a gong by her ear as pain exploded in her head, before
she slid down the wall and darkness overcame her.