CHAPTER ONE
The cribs were empty.
That was the first thing Deputy Judson Docherty noticed when he hurried into the nursery of the Horseshoe Ranch. Even though he had been expecting the empty cribs because of the warning that he’d gotten during the phone call, it was still a jolt to realize the caller had been right.
Get here fast. The babies are missing.
That call had come ten minutes earlier, just as Judson had been heading home after a long shift at Renegade Canyon Sheriff’s Office, and the caller, Addie Jansen, hadn’t stayed on the line. After blurting out that dire announcement, she had hung up on him, no doubt to do a frantic search for the babies.
But where the hell was Addie now?
Judson hadn’t seen her when he’d driven up to the ranch. Nor when he’d bolted inside through the already-open door of the house. And she hadn’t responded the multiple times he’d called out for her.
Pushing aside that something really bad had happened to Addie and the babies, he raced through the sprawling house that was normally filled with the sounds of foster kids. Lots of them.
But tonight, there was nothing.
It was eerily quiet, and that was in part due to there being only two babies currently in care here, six-week-old twin girlsLily and Rose Alcott. But Addie and at least one of her helpers should have been around.
“Addie?” he called out again.
And this time, Judson thankfully got a response. It hadn’t come from Addie, though.
“Out here,” someone shouted, and silver-haired Etta Jean Milford stuck her head in through the back door.
Judson had known Etta Jean most of his life, since she had been the cook and caretaker way back when he’d been a foster kid at the ranch, nearly thirty years ago. And even though she was now in her late sixties, she was still going strong and usually looked as steady a proverbial rock. But not at the moment. Her face was tight with worry and barely controlled panic.
“The babies aren’t here,” the woman told him as she stepped into the kitchen, only to turn around and go to the back porch. Her breath was gusting, and she was wringing her hands. “I’ve looked through the whole house, every inch of it, and they’re gone.” Etta Jean’s voice cracked on that last word, and she began to sob.
Judson hated those tears, hated that the woman was an emotional wreck, but he couldn’t take the time to soothe her. That would have to wait for later.
“Where’s Addie?” he demanded.
Etta Jean pressed her fingers to her trembling mouth and shook her head. “I’m not sure. She thought she saw some tracks in the backyard, and she started following them out into the pasture. She told me to wait here until you showed up. We have to find them,” she tacked on.
Yeah, they did, and that was Judson’s main concern, but at the moment, so was Addie. If someone had taken the babies, he didn’t want her going after a kidnapper alone.
“Call the police station,” Judson instructed, already heading out the back door. “Have the sheriff send out more deputies and do an Amber Alert on the twins.”
That alert might have to be canceled within minutes if he found Addie and the babies right away, but in case that didn’t happen, putting out the word on the missing babies would get a lot of resources in motion to try to locate them.
He didn’t bother taking the steps. Judson jumped off the side of the porch and hurried through the yard, jogging and looking at the ground for any of those tracks that Addie had mentioned to Etta Jean. And he soon saw them.
Footprints in some mud.
It had rained just a couple of hours earlier, a good soaker that’d left the ground a soggy mess and had put a damp chill in the mid-October air. Not cold, exactly, but it sure as heck wasn’t ideal conditions for babies to be out in this unless they were wrapped in blankets.
Would a kidnapper have done that?
Judson had to push that concern aside and just focus on finding Addie. Then he’d know what they were dealing with.
Well, hopefully he would.
Sometimes birth parents came after their kids who had been removed from their care. But that didn’t apply in this case. The parents were dead, killed in a car accident shortly after the mother had been released from the hospital and the twins were still in a neonatal unit. The parents had been making a quick trip home to get a change of clothes and had ended up dying in a head-on collision caused by a drunk driver.
Lily and Rose had ended up here at the Horseshoe Ranch with Addie just two weeks ago while the courts were sorting out next-of-kin issues. But maybe the next of kin, whoever that was, had decided to take matters into their own hands andsnatch the girls. The odds were higher for that than abductions orchestrated by a stranger.
“Addie?” he shouted once he made it to the barn.
