The Baby's Guardian (15 page)

But no one seemed to notice them.

Probably because of the heavily tinted windows on the vehicle. Or maybe because they thought she and Shaw were merely evacuating the area as Lieutenant Rico has advised them to do. No one was running to help.

She and Shaw were on their own.

Sabrina turned slightly so she could keep watch behind them, hoping that the car would get someone’s attention.

And that’s when she saw her attacker’s sleeve.

She immediately recognized the shade of blue. And her heart sank even further.

The gunman was a cop.

Shaw considered a couple of options. None ideal. One was to slam on his brakes and hope the sudden stop would allow him to wrestle the gun away from their would-be kidnapper.

But the guy could still get off a shot.

A shot that could hurt Sabrina.

A second option was to hit another car, preferably a parked one. Or he could run a red light. Anything that would get the attention of his officers. But those weren’t risk free, either. Sabrina wasn’t wearing a seat belt, and God knew where or how she might land if there was even a light collision.

He couldn’t risk it.

And that left only one other option. Somehow, he had to reach over the back of the seat and just grab that gun away from the cop SOB who had it pointed right at Sabrina.

One of his own was responsible for this. Officer Newell was the likely candidate. Well, maybe.

The guy was wearing a uniform, but Shaw couldn’t
see his face because it was covered with a latex superhero mask. A fake face and maybe a fake uniform.

Or possibly a stolen one.

How the hell had this guy gotten all the way down the hall of police headquarters dressed like that?

He probably hadn’t put on the mask until he was out of sight from the other officers and until he’d gotten close enough to the flop room. And with that uniform, he had likely walked right past everyone. With all the commotion going on from the car bombings and the bathroom fire, no one would have noticed an officer in a hurry. Obviously no one had seen him and gotten suspicious.

“Where are we going?” Shaw asked.

He adjusted the rearview mirror so he could get a better look at Sabrina. Other than that scratch on her face, she seemed okay.
Seemed.
She had to be scared out of her mind. And Shaw would make this armed bastard pay for that scratch and for her fear.

“Just drive,” the guy growled.

Their captor was trying to disguise his voice, and it was working. Shaw couldn’t tell who the heck this was, and it didn’t help that their three major suspects were all about the same height and weight.

“Go right,” the guy suddenly barked.

Again, Shaw looked for some escape route or some diversion he could use, but unfortunately people were starting to head out for lunch breaks, and the sidewalks were filled with pedestrians. There were also plenty of cars on the street.

Shaw took the right turn a little faster than he normally would have, the tires squealing in protest at the
excessive speed, and he watched the gunman shift in the backseat. The mask slipped a little, only enough to see the guy’s neck. It certainly didn’t provide Shaw with an ID.

Right now, his best hope was that someone had found the wounded dispatch officer and had notified Rico that an unmarked car was missing. If that happened, the car could be tracked since it was equipped with GPS.

But that was a big if.

There was a lot going on at headquarters, and they were short on officers. It might take an hour or more for anyone to figure out what was going on. By then, they could be into the next county.

Or dead.

But Shaw rethought that.

If the gunman had wanted them dead, he would have just shot them in the hall at the headquarters. He wouldn’t have orchestrated a very risky kidnapping.

So, this went back to motive.

Someone intended to use Sabrina for leverage to get him to do something illegal. Probably something to do with that missing baby and the DNA that had been destroyed during the hostage standoff.

Of course, it could be something else.

Shaw thought of the false info that the police had leaked about the missing baby’s DNA from a pacifier. The leak had also revealed that the police would soon have the DNA extracted from it.

This guy probably thought the leak was real, and if so, he would want Shaw to destroy the so-called evidence. Shaw considered trying to tell him the truth, that
there was no pacifier, but the gunman likely wouldn’t believe him, and even if he did, then what?

At best, the gunman might just let them go because they hadn’t seen his face. But if that happened, it would mean not finding the location of the baby. Maybe it was because Shaw was so close to becoming a father that he knew that couldn’t happen. The baby had to be found, but the trick was to do that without endangering Sabrina and his own child.

“Let Sabrina go,” Shaw tried. “I’m the one who can help you with whatever this is all about. She’ll just be in the way.”

The gunman made a
yeah-right
sound that didn’t need clarification. Without Sabrina, the guy had nothing to make Shaw cooperate. She and the unborn child were the ultimate bargaining tools, and this bozo knew that.

“Go left,” the guy ordered.

Shaw did, and he immediately recognized the area. There was no traffic on this particular side street because most of the buildings were old and abandoned. Including the one at the end of the street. The one still roped off with ragged yellow crime scene tape.

It was the building where the gunmen had taken Sabrina after the hostage situation.

“Stop by the silver car,” the gunman added.

There was indeed a silver Ford parked at the side entrance, and Shaw pulled up next to it. He looked inside the vehicle, praying this guy didn’t have reinforcements, but the vehicle appeared to be empty.

The guy shoved open the door, and with the gun still pointed at her head, he dragged Sabrina out. Again, he
put her right in front of him and led her in the direction of the silver car. Shaw walked in that direction, as well.

“No!” the gunman ordered Shaw. “Get on your knees, hands behind your head.”

That put a knot in Shaw’s stomach, but he didn’t jump to any conclusions just yet. However, the conclusions came anyway when the man opened the car and pushed Sabrina onto the front passenger seat.

“On your knees!” the gunman repeated to Shaw.

Maybe he’d been wrong about the guy’s motive. Maybe he didn’t want Shaw to do anything illegal after all. Because it was possible the gunman intended to shoot him execution style, right in front of Sabrina. And that left Shaw with a question even more troubling than his possible murder.

What would happen to Sabrina and their baby if he was killed?

With this sick SOB behind the trigger, Shaw didn’t like any of the answers that came to mind.

And that’s why he had to do something now, before the gunman managed to get away with her.

Shaw put his hands behind his head. Slowly. While he calculated the distance between him and the gunman.

About ten feet.

Sabrina was in the car, certainly not out of the line of fire, but at least she wasn’t standing out in the open. However, she did have a gun pointed at her head, and the guy’s finger was definitely positioned on the trigger.

Shaw would have one chance to save her.

Just one.

Shaw took a deep breath and started to lower himself as if he were dropping to his knees. But he didn’t.

“Get down!” Shaw shouted to Sabrina.

He couldn’t risk waiting to see if she could manage to do that. There was no time. It was now or maybe never.

Shaw lowered his head and charged the gunman.

S
ABRINA HEARD
S
HAW SHOUT
for her to get down, but it took a split second for that to register. In that split second, she saw Shaw run head first toward the gunman.

The gunman fired.

And Sabrina screamed.

It couldn’t end this way. She couldn’t lose Shaw now, not after everything they’d managed to survive.

Shaw rammed his body into the gunman, and they landed against the car door. It slammed shut, and because she was already precariously perched on the seat, the momentum threw her off balance and her hip rammed into the gear shift.

She quickly tried to right herself so she could help, but the two were in a fierce battle for the gun. Shaw had clamped on to the gunman’s right wrist and had both his hand and gun smashed against the window.

Frantically, she looked for any sign of blood or injury, but she couldn’t tell if Shaw had been shot. And she wasn’t sure about the best way to help him.

She searched the car, shoving aside newspapers and a fast-food bag. No cell phone. No gun. Nothing she could use as a weapon. But she couldn’t just sit there, either, with Shaw in a fight for their lives.

Sabrina crawled over the gear shift and into the driver’s seat. No keys. But there was a horn, and she jammed her hand against it. The sound blared, and she didn’t let up. Maybe someone would hear the noise and call the police. Of course, this wasn’t the best area of the city so it was possible something like a car horn would be ignored.

There was a hard thump against the passenger-side window, and her breath froze. Because it sounded like another shot. She tried to pick through the tangle of the two bodies so she could determine what was happening.

The men were still locked in a fierce battle, and the weapon was still pointed upward, thanks to Shaw’s unrelenting grip. But the gunman was using his left fist to pound Shaw in his midsection. With each blow, the gunman’s elbow rammed into the glass. Neither was giving up.

But she wouldn’t, either.

“Run, Sabrina!” Shaw yelled. He wanted her to try to get away, but she didn’t want to leave him like this.

Still, she could try to go for help, especially since the horn didn’t seem to be drawing anyone’s attention. She threw open the door and climbed out.

Just as there was another shot.

She ducked down, putting her hands over her belly to protect the baby.

The shot went through the passenger window and into the front windshield, shattering both. If she’d stayed put inside the car, she would have almost certainly been hit.

That both terrified her and infuriated her.

She didn’t care what their kidnapper’s motives were, but she was sick and tired of his total disregard for Shaw’s life and the life she carried inside her.

The anger shot through her, and Sabrina looked around. Not for an escape route. But for a rock or a fallen tree limb, anything she could use to hit the guy.

Sabrina quickly spotted several small stones. They weren’t much bigger than silver dollars, but she gathered them up, drew back her hand and threw them with as much force as she could. They smacked the gunman in the back of the neck.

It wasn’t much of a blow, but it caused him to react by jerking his head to the side. Shaw took full advantage of that slight maneuver and bashed the gunman’s hand against the metal rim of the door.

The gun went flying.

And Sabrina didn’t waste any time running after it.

She made her way around the front of the car, all the while looking on the ground to see where the weapon had landed. She finally spotted it next to the unmarked car the gunman had used to kidnap them.

She raced toward it.

But didn’t get far.

The gunman made a loud, feral-sounding growl. And he shoved Shaw backward—right toward her.

Sabrina barely got out of the way in time.

Shaw fell to the ground, his back just a few inches from the weapon. Sabrina tried to tell him that, but she didn’t get the chance. The gunman dove at Shaw and landed on him with his full weight.

Sabrina heard Shaw gasp for breath, and she prayed he wasn’t injured. She still couldn’t see if he’d been shot,
but he did have blood on his face, possibly from a blow the gunman had managed to land.

She reached for the gun again, but the men shifted, rolling toward her, and trapping the gun beneath them.

The fight continued with the sounds of muscle and bone slamming against muscle and bone. Drops of blood and sweat spewed in every direction, some of them landing on her.

Sabrina maneuvered herself around them, hoping she’d have an opportunity to get that gun. Once she had it, she and Shaw could gain control of the situation.

Well, maybe.

And maybe the guy would force her to shoot him. She would. She would do whatever it took to get Shaw and their baby out of this alive.

The men rolled around, jockeying for position, and the fight continued, each of them slamming their fists into the other.

Finally, she saw the gun and reached for it. But the gunman must have seen what she was trying to do, because he threw out his fist, slamming it into her leg.

The pain shot through her, and she gave a loud groan, but she didn’t give up.

Neither did Shaw.

That punch the gunman had delivered to her leg seemed to give Shaw a new burst of adrenaline. The muscles in his face turned to iron, and he drew back his fist and slammed it, hard, into the gunman’s jaw.

Shaw didn’t stop there. He drew back his hand and delivered another punch. And another. Until the gunman dropped his head back on the ground. He appeared to
be unconscious. But maybe he was just pretending to be so that they’d let down their guard.

Sabrina wasn’t letting anything down. She grabbed the gun and tossed it to Shaw. His hands were cut and bleeding, but he snatched it in midair and jammed it right against the gunman’s throat.

“Move and you die,” Shaw growled, though she had no idea how he spoke with his teeth clenched that tightly. “Personally, I hope you choose to move.”

The threat was clear and real, and the gunman must have realized that because his hands dropped limply to his sides.

Shaw used his left hand to take out his cell phone, and he passed it to Sabrina. “Call for backup,” he instructed.

Her hand was shaking, but she took the phone and pressed in nine-one-one.

“What’s your emergency?” the dispatcher immediately answered.

Sabrina fought with her ragged breath so she could answer, so she could give the dispatcher enough information to get backup on the way.

She watched as Shaw reached for the guy’s latex mask, and he pulled it off with a fierce jerk.

And Sabrina finally saw the gunman’s face.