Wild Stallion (16 page)

Yes, they would.

“Leave the laptop,” he told her.

He wanted their hands free so they could use their weapons if it became necessary. But Jackson hoped they wouldn’t have to be long without another computer tied to the surveillance system. The security feed could be transferred to his phone, and he could do that as soon as he got Bailey out of there. Then, he could keep an eye on Steven and whatever was going on at the back of the estate. He could also monitor his two men, who were no doubt trying to provide some sort of backup.

Plus, there was the sheriff. The gate was closed, but the sheriff had the security codes to open it. Still, Jackson wanted to make sure where everyone was at any given moment.

Jackson helped Bailey get into a crouching position. There were no other shots. No other sounds to indicate the location of the shooter.

“Now,” Jackson instructed.

He maneuvered himself so that he was behind Bailey. It was a risk because it meant she would go first into the hall. But since the bullets had come through the window, he didn’t want her in the direct line of fire either.

Jackson nudged her forward, trying to hurry. The first step was to get out of the nursery and to the back stairs. From there they could reach the library, and then the panic room. Once they were there, he would force Bailey inside where she’d be safe, so he could deal with this armed SOB.

This ended tonight.

He wasn’t going to allow Bailey or Caden to be in danger any longer.

“Stay down,” he reminded Bailey. After all, there were windows at the front of the hall. “And once you’re out there, go to the left.”

She nodded and gave him one last glance over her shoulder before she darted into the hall. Jackson was right behind her. But they only made two steps before there was a sound that Jackson didn’t want to hear.

A shot.

It was a loud deafening blast.

But it hadn’t come from the nursery window, and there’d been no sounds of breaking glass.

None.

And Jackson knew why.

The shooter was inside the house.

Chapter Seventeen

Bailey dropped down and flattened her body on the floor in the hall.

Oh, God.

Things had just gone from bad to worse. The shot had come from inside. How the devil had this person gotten in and brought the danger so close?

She tried to keep her gun ready, but she also pulled Jackson to the floor with her.

He didn’t go willingly.

Jackson was obviously looking for the shooter so he could return fire. She knew that was necessary, but Bailey didn’t want him risking his life like this. No. There had to be another way. They needed to find a place to take cover so they could try to decide how to get out of this situation.

If there was a way out.

She suddenly had a terrifying thought. Or rather several of them. What if there were more than two intruders? What if they’d already neutralized Steven and his men? And what if the sheriff couldn’t get onto the grounds?

Bailey was pretty sure someone would have to open the gate for Sheriff Gentry, and without computer access there was no way Jackson or she could do that.

“The shooter’s in the foyer,” Jackson mumbled under his breath.

Bailey’s heart dropped.

The foyer was just below them.

She lifted her head slightly. Bad idea. A bullet went slamming into the wall directly above them.

Jackson cursed and rolled her to the side until he was in front of her. He was protecting her again, and in doing so he was placing himself in grave danger.

He levered himself up and sent a single shot down into the foyer.

Bailey looked down the hall in the direction of the back stairs. She couldn’t actually see the stairs from her location, but she knew they were just on the other side of the wall. Probably a good forty feet away. Of course, once they got out of the open area where they were now, the hall might actually provide them some cover.

First though, they would have to move a couple of yards, out in the open, where the shooter would easily be able to see them.

Her heart was pounding in her ears, and her hand started to shake. Bailey thought of her precious son, and she fixed Caden’s face in her head. She used that to fight off the fear. She would protect him because the alternative was unthinkable. She’d lost him for four months, and she didn’t intend to lose him again.

She was about to suggest to Jackson that they just make a run for the covered part of the hall.

But then she heard a different sound.

Not a shot this time, but it was a sound that tore through her worse than any bullet ever could.

She heard a baby crying.

Bailey tried to get to her feet, but Jackson jerked her back down.

“Just listen,” he whispered, his voice strained and hard as the grip he had on her.

She tried to do that. Bailey tried to latch onto any information that would help them. But the only thing she could think of was getting to Caden. Her baby was in danger.

“Caden’s in the panic room,” Jackson reminded her.

Was he? Tracy had certainly intended to take him there, but maybe they hadn’t made it. Maybe an intruder had managed to stop them and was now holding them hostage.

“It’s probably a trick,” Jackson added.

Before Bailey could wrap her mind around that, another bullet slammed into the wall just a few feet away. Then another. However, over the thick blasts, she could still hear the baby crying.

Bailey struggled to get up again, and she batted away Jackson’s hand. He didn’t give up. He grabbed her gown and dragged her back to the floor.

“That’s not Caden,” he insisted.

Maybe because she could see the certainty in his eyes and on his face, Bailey forced herself to listen harder. Yes, it was a baby crying all right, but she had heard Caden cry.

Those sobs didn’t belong to her son.

“It’s a recording,” Jackson told her. “A loop. It’s the same sound being played over and over.”

He was right. It was a recording. And not of Caden. This was indeed a trick, and it had come very close to working. She had nearly left what little cover they had so she could race downstairs and get to the source of those baby sobs.

The relief instantly flooded through her, even as the bullets continued to come their way. But in between the shots and the recorded sounds of a baby crying, Bailey heard something else.

Footsteps.

Jackson must have heard them, too, because his gaze whipped in that direction. Not to the steps in front of them, but to the nursery behind him. My God. Had someone used a ladder to climb up and get into the room? There wasn’t a way to access it from another point in the house.

The relief that Bailey had felt just seconds earlier evaporated.

In addition to the dark-clothed intruder they’d seen on the monitor, there was a gunman in the foyer and now another, perhaps in the nursery right behind them. Three of them. Unless it was one of Jackson’s guards or a servant who hadn’t made it to the panic rooms. One thing was for certain. They couldn’t just lie there and wait to see who might be coming out of the nursery. If it was another shooter, they’d be sitting ducks.

Jackson reached up and slapped off the hall lights. It didn’t plunge them into total darkness, because there were lights on below in the foyer, but hopefully it wasn’t illuminated enough for the shooter to see them clearly.

The bullets continued to tear through the walls and the stair railings, each of them robbing Bailey of what little breath she had left.

“We need to get to the back stairs,” Jackson mouthed.

Yes. Away from the foyer and away from the nursery. It would also get them closer to reaching Caden. Of course, they couldn’t go in the panic room, not with the threat of danger so close. But Bailey wanted to be directly in front of that panic room door so she could be a last line of defense, if it came down to it.

“Now,” Jackson whispered. “Run and don’t look back.”

“What are you going to do?” she demanded.

“Go now!” he demanded.

Jackson levered himself up, and in the same motion, he slammed the nursery door shut. It certainly wouldn’t stop bullets, but it might slow down the person they’d heard inside the room.

Bailey stayed in a crouching position, and while she tried to keep her gun ready to fire, she started down the hall.

She didn’t get far.

The barrage of shots came right at them, and she dropped back down. But not Jackson. He took aim at the person in the foyer.

And fired.

The sound seemed to echo through the entire estate, but just like that, the shots stopped.

“I think I got him,” Jackson said, reaching for her.

But before Jackson could take hold of her, someone opened the nursery door. It happened in a flash. Too soon for Bailey to move out of the way.

She felt someone grab her from behind and jerk her into the dark nursery.

And then that someone jammed a gun against her head.

Everything seemed to happen at once.

Jackson saw the gunman in the foyer drop, his weapons clattering to the floor. He caught a glimpse of two of his own guards who were making their way up the back steps. He also heard a siren, probably from Sheriff Gentry’s vehicle.

But all of those details melted away when he saw Bailey.

There was just a flash of movement from behind her, and then she seemed to vanish. Someone had pulled Bailey into the nursery. Jackson thought it was too much to hope that it was one of his own men.

Keeping his gun lifted and aimed, Jackson bracketed his right wrist with his left hand. He walked toward the open doorway of the nursery where Bailey had disappeared.

He saw her, right in the middle of the darkness and the cold. Her pale skin gleamed like a beacon.

So did the gun.

Not hers. Bailey’s weapon was on the floor.

The one that grabbed every bit of Jackson’s attention was jammed right against Bailey’s temple.

“The gunman’s dead,” one of Jackson’s guards shouted from the foyer. “We’re coming up.”

But Jackson shook his head, hoping they would see his response and back off. He didn’t want anything prompting Bailey’s captor to pull that trigger.

“It’s over,” Jackson said to both Bailey and the armed person hiding in the shadows behind her. “The sheriff’s here. So are my men. Your partner is dead, and my guards have the other one cornered on the grounds.”

He hoped.

Jackson had to take a deep breath to keep his voice steady. “Put down your gun and we can talk.”

Though talking was the last thing Jackson wanted to do. Right now, he just wanted Bailey safe and in his arms. That meant he first had to get her away from that armed SOB who was likely responsible for all the hell that’d been happening over the past few days.

Jackson inched closer. “Put down the gun,” he repeated.

“Don’t move,” the gunman ordered.

And Jackson knew exactly who’d given that order.

“Evan,” Jackson growled, and he fought hard to stop himself from cursing. Even though he wanted to throttle Evan for putting the gun to Bailey’s head, he couldn’t antagonize the man. “There’s nothing you can gain from holding Bailey. Let her go.”

“Oh, there’s something.” Evan tried to laugh, but the sound was broken and hollow.

Hell. Evan was in way over his head here, and if he decided to fight so he could escape, Bailey could be shot. Evan’s gun was literally point-blank against Bailey’s temple. She wouldn’t survive a shot fired at that range.

“I need a car,” Evan demanded. “And some cash.”

Jackson moved a fraction of an inch closer, all the while keeping watch on Evan’s trigger finger. “What happened to the million dollars you got from selling Caden?”

“Most of it’s gone. I had to use most of it to cover up what I did.”

“And what exactly did you do?” Jackson asked, fighting to keep his voice and body calm. He didn’t have a clean shot because Evan had ducked down behind Bailey.

“Robin got in touch with me when she heard you were looking to adopt a baby. She was scared and thought she would be arrested, that no one would believe she was just trying to save Bailey and her son. After all, she’d been having an affair with one of the gunmen.”

“So, you convinced her to turn the baby over to you.” Jackson wanted to keep Evan talking so he could hopefully distract him. If Evan moved just a little to either side, he would have a clean shot.

A shot he
would
take.

He would do anything to save Bailey.

“I gave Robin money,” Evan continued. “Part of the money you forked over for the adoption.”

“You sold my baby.” Bailey shook her head, and that caused Evan to jam the gun even harder against her skin. Bailey winced in pain.

Every muscle in Jackson’s body reacted to that wince.
How dare this SOB hurt Bailey.

“Yes, I sold him,” Evan admitted. “But it had nothing to do with you or your son. This was the way I could get back at Jackson and punish him.”

Bailey swallowed hard. “Why punish Jackson? He wasn’t responsible for Sybil’s death.”

“To hell he wasn’t.” Evan was frantic now, and sounded on the verge of losing it completely. “It was because of Jackson she was on that plane. If he hadn’t been trying to do another hostile takeover of a company, it would have never happened. Never.”

“You’re right,” Bailey said, her voice broken but somehow calm. “Jackson walked away from that crash. It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

Good. Bailey was playing along and trying to keep Evan from going completely berserk.

“That’s why I’ll go with you,” Bailey continued. “We’ll get the money and the car, and you can hold me hostage until you’re away from the estate.”

Jackson cursed despite his attempt to stop it. “No, Bailey. Don’t do this.”

“I have to do it. We owe Evan that much. And besides, he doesn’t want to fire any more shots, because someone could get hurt.”

“You can’t let Evan take you from here,” Jackson said through clenched teeth.

Bailey winked at him.

Jackson tried not to show any relief, but he felt a ton of it. Bailey and he were on the same page here, thank God. Pretend to cooperate but look for the first opportunity to stop this madman.

“If you hate me so much,” Jackson said to him, “then why fake the DNA results?”

“Simple. I had to make you keep trusting me. What better way than for you to believe I would lie for you.”

Yeah. It was a good plan. “And if all of this blew up in your face, then you could lie to the cops and tell them that I faked the DNA results.”

“Good plan, huh?” Evan said with some amusement.

Right. A good plan. The plan of a sick mind. “What about the threatening letters that Robin left for me?”

“Just another layer to make you miserable. Like I am. But I’m tired of talking about this. Tired of trying to justify myself to you. Call down to your men,” Evan ordered. “Tell them to get that car and the cash. And tell them to hurry. My patience is wearing thin.”

Jackson didn’t move and didn’t look back, but he relayed the demand from over his shoulder. He asked them to take the cash that they kept in Steven’s office. His men would do as they were told, which meant within minutes Evan would have what he wanted.

And within minutes, Jackson would be ready to take him down when he tried to get out of the house. It was a long way down those stairs. Longer still for Evan to reach the car that would be brought to the driveway. If by some miracle the man did make it to the vehicle, it had a GPS tracking device.

“I had to make you feel how much it hurts to lose someone you love,” Evan snarled, his words angry again. “That’s why I let you have Caden all this time. I wanted you to love him, and I want your heart ripped to pieces when you lose him.”

“Then why take Bailey?” Jackson challenged. He took another step closer. “She had nothing to do with that plane crash. You hurt, and are continuing to hurt, an innocent woman. Let her go.”

“No. I can’t. She’s collateral damage since she gave birth to Caden. I’ve been following her, you know, and making sure she didn’t come to you too soon.”

Jackson kept trying. “Too soon?”

“I wanted to drag this out longer. I wanted you to be with Caden a few more months, but then Bailey decided to come here, and that moved up all my plans.”