Chapter Ten

Zimmer.

Of all the people who she thought might try to contact them, he wasn’t one of them. Not unless he wanted to taunt them about the attack. But even if that was Zimmer’s intentions, this was a call they had to take.

“Use the landline in the interview room,” Duncan offered, glancing back at his office. “And I’ll try to have the call traced.”

Allie was still in the chair and had moved on to biting her nails instead of just scraping off polish. Just the sight of her made Gracelyn’s stomach twist. She would never forgive Allie for trying to sell Abigail. But she’d have to deal with her sister later. For now, she wanted to hear what Zimmer had to say, so Ruston and she headed back to the interview room.

This particular landline had a recording function on it, and Ruston turned that on in the same moment that he answered the call on speaker.

“I’m listening,” Ruston said in lieu of a greeting.

“How about Gracelyn?” the man fired back.

Gracelyn didn’t think she’d ever heard that voice before. Not a Texas drawl but a quick clip pace that seemed to be void of any accent.

“Gracelyn will especially want to hear what I have to say,” the caller insisted.

Ruston motioned for her to stay quiet. And she did. She couldn’t think of a good reason to let a murder suspect know her location. It was possible, though, that Woodrow had already done that, but Gracelyn had no intention of confirming it.

“I’ll pass along anything you tell me to Gracelyn,” Ruston said. “Or you can just turn yourself in, and the three of us can have a face-to-face chat.”

Zimmer didn’t react to that. “I’m guessing she’s there with you,” he commented several moments later. “So, I’ll just go ahead and direct this to her. And by the way, don’t bother with the trace I’m sure you’re doing. I’m using a burner.”

Gracelyn figured that, but sometimes it was possible to trace the location of a burner. Of course, Zimmer would know that, so he could be either driving around or else planned on leaving the scene as soon as he was done with this call.

“I believe your sister was set up, Gracelyn,” Zimmer went on to say. “And, yeah, I know what she tried to do. She wanted to sell her baby. But everything else is a setup.”

That could be true. Could be. However, the attempt to sell her child and commissioning a double kidnapping wouldn’t just end up a slap on the wrist. Allie would be going to jail.

“Did you set Allie up?” Ruston came out and asked.

“No.” And there seemed to be genuine frustration in his voice. Zimmer didn’t add anything to that, though.

“Then who did?” Ruston demanded.

“I’m not sure. That’s the truth,” he snapped when Ruston huffed. “At first, I thought it was Marty. I thought maybe he wanted a way out of paying Allie the ten grand he promised her. And maybe it was him and someone then pulled a double cross and put a bullet in his head.”

Marty hadn’t died from a gunshot to the head but rather to the chest. But Ruston didn’t correct Zimmer. It was possible Zimmer already knew that and had doled out some false information so that Ruston and she wouldn’t think he was guilty.

Gracelyn didn’t buy it, not for a second, and judging from Ruston’s expression, neither did he.

“Are you also going to tell me you didn’t have any part in trying to kidnap Gracelyn and the baby?” Ruston asked.

Zimmer muttered something she didn’t catch. “It’s not what you think.”

“Then tell me what the hell it was,” Ruston snarled.

Gracelyn totally understood the surge of anger in Ruston’s voice. The anger raced through her, too, at the thought of how close they had come to dying. And this scumbag was no doubt responsible.

“I’ve been investigating the baby farm,” Zimmer said after a long pause. “Not officially, but I’ve still got enough cop in me that it doesn’t sit well when someone buys and sells babies as if they were merchandise.”

“You were working at the baby farm,” Ruston pointed out.

“Yeah, so I could dig around and find out who was responsible. I wanted to bring him or her down. I wanted to put an end to it.”

Ruston didn’t appear ready to tamp down his anger or the sarcasm that went along with it. “You seem awfully dedicated to justice, considering you’re a disgraced former cop. Or do you have an excuse for that, too? Maybe someone set you up?”

“No. I used excessive force, and I resigned.” There was some anger in his tone now, too. “And I’m dedicated to justice in this particular matter because when I was a baby, I was sold to a couple in a private adoption. A couple who shouldn’t have been given a pet rock, much less a kid.”

Ruston used his cell to open the site where records of former police officers could be accessed. He used his password to access it and then handed Gracelyn his phone so she could check and see if there was anything in Zimmer’s background to indicate there was a shred of truth in what he was saying.

“Because I wanted to find the person running the baby farm, I managed to get hired as a security guard,” Zimmer went on. “Just like Gracelyn and you did.”

Oh, that reminder didn’t help ease any of Ruston’s anger. Nor hers. “Were you the one who tried to kill Gracelyn and me that night, just like you did when you attempted to kidnap the baby and her?”

“No.” Zimmer paused and repeated that through what sounded to be clenched teeth. “I don’t know who shot at you at the baby farm. And I didn’t shoot at you during the kidnapping attempt either. Yes, I fired shots, but I purposely aimed away from you. That was to convince the thug who was with me that he and I were on the same side. If he’d thought I had my own reasons for being there, he would have killed me.”

Ruston paused a moment, probably to try to wrap his mind around all of that and figure out if it was true. While he did that, Gracelyn showed him what she’d accessed on Zimmer. There were no accounts of any childhood abuse. No reported accounts, anyway, but Zimmer was a former elementary school counselor, and when he’d been on the force, he’d routinely volunteered to work with troubled kids who’d ended up in juvie.

Another thing stood out, though.

The excessive-force charge had involved a couple who had gotten off child-abuse charges because of a botched investigation. Zimmer had been the investigator.

All of that presented a package of a man who seemed to want to help kids and get them away from scumbag parents. But that didn’t mean Zimmer hadn’t crossed some very big lines and turned criminal.

“Give me the name of the thug who was with you when you attacked Gracelyn and me,” Ruston ordered.

“He used the name Buddy Bradley,” Zimmer answered without hesitation. “Marty said Buddy had worked for him for years. I’m guessing the CSIs found his blood in the truck and sent it to the lab. If you don’t have confirmation already, you’ll soon get it and learn his real name was Robert Radley and that he had a record a mile long.”

“Was? Had?” Ruston questioned as Gracelyn started looking for any info on him.

“He’s dead. And, no, I didn’t kill him,” Zimmer insisted. “You did. Or maybe it was Gracelyn. Whoever fired that shot at him through the door. The bullet must have nicked an artery or something, because by the time I got him in the backup vehicle we’d left on one of those ranch trails, he’d bled out.”

Gracelyn held up his phone so he could see the quick run she’d just done on Robert Radley. The man was forty-two and did indeed have a long criminal history that included B and E, assault and drug charges. He’d been in and out of jail since he was sixteen.

“I’d never met Buddy before Marty paired us up to do the kidnapping,” Zimmer went on. “But it took me about a half of a second to realize he was a dangerous hothead.”

“And yet you went through with the job,” Ruston reminded him.

Zimmer was quick to answer that, too. “If I hadn’t, Marty would have just hired someone else. I figured if I was there, I could keep Buddy in check. Obviously, I failed at that.”

“Yeah, you did,” Ruston agreed. “Now, tell me why the hell Marty hired you and the hothead when he had already arranged for someone else to kidnap Gracelyn and the baby.”

That was the big question, and Gracelyn automatically moved closer to the landline because she didn’t want to miss a word of this.

“You,” Zimmer said. “Marty hired you to do the kidnapping.” He groaned. “I was at Marty’s when he called you over. Marty asked that I stay out of sight in a little room he has off his office. He wanted me to listen to the conversation and make sure there were no red flags in anything you were saying. He wasn’t sure he could trust you.”

The muscles in Ruston’s jaw turned to iron. “Did you recognize me?”

“I did,” Zimmer admitted. “I’d gotten copies of the reports on the baby-farm attack, and I knew you were there. Gracelyn, too.”

“Did your friend Charla get you those copies?” Ruston asked.

“No. I, uh, hired someone for that.” Zimmer’s voice lowered to a murmur. “A hacker. Simon Milbrath, and yeah, I know it looks bad that he was murdered, but I didn’t kill him.”

Gracelyn saw the mountain of skepticism in Ruston’s expression. She was right there with him. So far, Zimmer had what was called the categorical trinity . Means, motive and opportunity. Zimmer could have killed both Marty and Simon to eliminate anyone who could have ratted him out. And since Zimmer had already admitted to hiring a hacker, that same hacker could have been keeping tabs on anything connected to the baby-farm investigation. The call Archie made to Tony might have fallen into that category.

“You told Marty I was a cop,” Ruston said.

“I told him I thought you were an informant for the cops,” Zimmer corrected as if that were a good thing. “And I did that, hoping that Marty would pull you off the assignment.”

“Why? Because you knew I’d kill you for coming after Gracelyn and the baby?” Ruston’s voice was pure ice now.

“No. I did it because I could tell Marty was suspicious of you. Why else have me listen in on the conversation? Marty didn’t fully trust you, and I figured it was safer for you to be pulled off the job rather than risk Marty having you killed.”

“That’s generous of you,” Ruston countered. “And why was Marty suspicious of me? Because of something you told him?”

“I think Allie must have said something about you, like maybe you could have helped Gracelyn go into hiding. If Allie had mentioned you, Marty would have looked you up. Hell, Marty had hackers on his payroll, and he could have discovered you were a cop and set you up to die. Marty didn’t come out and say that to me, but Buddy was awfully fast on the trigger.”

Ruston and she locked gazes, no doubt so he could see what her take was on this. Gracelyn had to shake her head. Like Allie, Zimmer wasn’t innocent. He was a criminal, but maybe he hadn’t gone to her place with the intention of killing anyone.

“Did Marty break into my apartment?” Ruston asked Zimmer.

“I’m not sure. When I showed up to do the job, Buddy had your wallet, and he said Marty had told him to leave it at Gracelyn’s.”

“And my badge?” Ruston added.

“I don’t know about that,” Zimmer answered. “If Marty or Buddy had it, they didn’t share that info with me.”

Again, Gracelyn had no idea if that was the truth. She was betting Ruston didn’t either.

“Someone fired shots at an SAPD cruiser,” Ruston said. “Was that you?”

Zimmer muttered some profanity. “It was,” he verified and then paused. “After Marty was murdered, I got a call from a guy who said he was Marty’s partner and that he had one last job for me. No, I don’t have a name. He wouldn’t say, but he told me he had photos and recordings of me with Marty from when I agreed to kidnap Gracelyn and the baby. He said he’d turn that over to the cops if I didn’t do one last job.”

“The job of trying to shoot the two police officers in that cruiser,” Ruston snapped.

“No, the job of firing shots at the cruiser. The man told me to miss. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”

Ruston’s gaze met hers. “Was Marty’s partner your old friend Tony?” he asked Zimmer.

“No,” the man repeated. “That wasn’t him on the phone. I think I would have recognized his voice.”

“Think?” Ruston challenged.

Zimmer stayed quiet for a while. “I don’t believe it was him.” Then he stopped and cursed. “Maybe it was. Anyway, I agreed to go through with it with one stipulation. That the so-called partner meet me in person afterward and hand over those photos and recordings. I had to figure the guy would keep copies and would continue trying to use them as leverage for future jobs, but I wanted that meeting to know who I was dealing with.”

“And?” Ruston prompted when Zimmer fell silent.

“He didn’t show for the meeting. And he hasn’t contacted me since.”

The partner could be Tony. Or Charla, for that matter, if she’d gotten a man to make that call for her. Devin could have done it as well.

“What is it you want me to do with what you’ve just told me?” Ruston continued a moment later.

“I want you to find out who killed Marty, Simon and the retired cop,” Zimmer was quick to say. “And it wasn’t Allie. Find out who it was, and I’ll turn myself in. If I do that now, I’ll end up dead. Find the killer,” he insisted a split second before he ended the call.

Ruston ended the recording, and he immediately called Duncan. “Were you able to get a trace?” he asked.

“No,” Gracelyn heard Duncan say.

And then she heard something else. Something that sent her stomach to her knees.

A woman screamed.

“Allie,” Gracelyn said, her sister’s name rushing out with her breath.

Ruston threw open the interview room door. In the same motion, he put away his phone and started running toward Duncan’s office. Gracelyn was right behind him. They raced into the squad room.

And into chaos.

Allie was still in Duncan’s office. Still screaming. Gracelyn soon saw why. There were two uniformed officers, and both had their weapons drawn. One of them, a beefy black-haired man, had Deputy Carmen Gonzales in a choke hold, and his Glock was pointed at her head. The other man, a lanky blond guy, was aiming at Allie.

He fired.

Just as Duncan tackled Allie and knocked her to the ground. The shot crashed through the office window, causing the glass to explode, but Gracelyn couldn’t tell if the bullet had hit her sister. Or Duncan.

Ruston drew his gun. So did Gracelyn. Just as the lanky blond man turned his weapon toward them. Ruston dragged her to the floor as he fired.

There was the howl of some kind of alarm, loud and blaring, and Gracelyn saw Woodrow beneath his desk, where he’d taken cover. Either Duncan or he must have activated a security alert, and she hoped that brought officers responding to the scene. They might not get there in time.

Another shot came their way, blasting into the wall mere inches above their heads.

Mercy, what was happening? Gracelyn didn’t have a full answer to that, but one thing was for certain. These weren’t good cops. They might not even be cops at all, and they had probably used their uniforms and badges to gain access to the building.

And Allie, Ruston and she were their targets.

She cursed the call that’d just come from Zimmer. He’d phoned the landline, maybe to make sure they were there so he could send in these goons. If so, it’d been beyond gutsy to have hired guns come into a police station.

Gutsy and maybe extremely effective.

Ruston and she had a small amount of cover since there was a desk in front of them, but if the blond shooter came closer, he’d basically have them pinned down. That was probably why Ruston maneuvered himself in front of her. Shielding her. And in doing so, he was putting himself in the direct line of fire.

Gracelyn didn’t want Ruston sacrificing himself for her, but this wasn’t the time for her to question what he was doing. And what he was doing was getting himself into a better position to fire if he got a clean shot. At the moment, he didn’t have one since both gunmen were using Carmen as their shield.

“Stop them,” Allie yelled. “They’re going to kill all of us.”

Her sister might be right. If these fake cops had come here to eliminate Ruston, Allie and her, then they weren’t likely to leave Duncan, Carmen or Woodrow alive either.

“They’ve locked the front door,” Ruston whispered to her.

That didn’t help her tamp down the wild surge of adrenaline. It meant no responders would be coming in that way. But there were other doors to the sheriff’s office, and she doubted they’d managed to lock them all.

Around the squad room, phones began to ring, the sounds blending with the loud, pulsing alarm. Responders were probably trying to find out what was going on, but no one answered any of the phones. Well, maybe Duncan did. Gracelyn couldn’t see Allie or him.

“If you want to save some lives, step out and let’s finish this,” the bulky gunman growled.

Gracelyn didn’t have any doubts about what he meant. He wanted Ruston, Allie and her to sacrifice themselves. And she might have considered it. Might. But she went back to her original idea. These gunmen had no intentions of letting any of them live.

“Keep watch behind us,” Ruston muttered.

That slammed her with more adrenaline, but she turned so she was essentially back-to-back with him. And got the mother lode of flashbacks. To survive the attack at the baby farm, they’d had to do this. They’d had to sit there with the threat of being gunned down and dying.

Gracelyn shook her head, forcing back those images. Forcing back the gut-wrenching emotions that went along with them. She couldn’t let those flashbacks play into what was happening now. She just couldn’t. Because it could get a whole lot of people killed.

“Five seconds,” the gunman warned them. “That’s how long you’ve got before we start shooting the hell out of this place. We won’t kill Deputy Gonzales right off, but we’ll make her wish she was dead.”

Gracelyn couldn’t see Carmen’s face, but she knew the woman had to be terrified as the gunman started the countdown.

“Five...”

Ruston inched closer to the side of the desk. From Duncan’s office, Allie quit screaming, making Gracelyn wonder if she had been hit after all. Or maybe Duncan had just figured out a way to silence her.

“Four...”

Gracelyn kept watch of the hall and the sides of the room, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Woodrow move as well. Like Ruston, he was adjusting his position, preparing for an attack.

“Three... Time’s running out,” the gunman added as a threat.

Woodrow looked in their direction, and even though Gracelyn couldn’t see Ruston’s face, he nodded. Woodrow and he had made some kind of silent pact. Maybe to leave cover and try to get that clean shot.

Gracelyn decided to help with that.

“Two,” the gunman barked out.

She took off one of her shoes, holding it for a split second in Ruston’s line of sight so he’d know what she was doing. Then she hurled it over the desk and in the direction of Carmen and the gunmen.

All hell broke loose.

There were scuffling sounds, and shots rang out. So many shots. With the alarms and the blasts, she couldn’t tell what direction the gunfire was coming from, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

And maybe it was.

She caught a glimpse of Duncan crouched down in the doorway. Ruston and Woodrow had left cover and were both firing. Gracelyn continued to keep watch behind them, but she scrambled around to the side of the desk and saw Carmen on the floor. The deputy didn’t appear to have been shot, but she was crawling toward Gracelyn.

The blond gunman pivoted to shoot Carmen, but he didn’t get the chance. Gracelyn fired, but she was pretty sure that Woodrow and Ruston did as well. Maybe even Duncan. Multiple shots hit the gunman in the chest, and he dropped like a stone, his weapon clattering to the floor.

The beefy gunman dropped, too, but he wasn’t shot. He was coming after Carmen, no doubt to get back his human shield.

He failed.

There was another round of gunfire. Gracelyn couldn’t get in on this one because Carmen was in front of her, but her shot wasn’t necessary. Bullets slammed into the gunman, and he used his last breath to snarl out some profanity. Gracelyn figured he was dead before he even hit the floor.

Gracelyn continued to hold her breath. Continued to watch for another attacker. Someone, maybe Woodrow, shut off the alarm, but around the office, the phones continued to ring.

“Is anyone hurt?” Duncan called out.

“I’m okay,” Carmen answered.

Gracelyn didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because she couldn’t unclamp her throat enough to speak. She just wanted to hear Ruston’s voice. She needed to know he was okay.

“I’m fine.” That came from Woodrow. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Duncan confirmed.

“I’m okay,” Ruston finally said. “Gracelyn?”

“Okay,” she finally managed. The relief came. Well, relief about Ruston and the others, anyway.

“Allie, were you hit?” Gracelyn called out.

Nothing.

No response.

Not for a couple of seconds, anyway, and then she heard Duncan curse. “Allie’s not here.”

Alarmed, Gracelyn stood, her gaze zooming to Duncan’s office. Since the glass was now gone, she had no trouble seeing directly inside. And what she saw was the open side door that her sister had almost certainly used to escape.