Page 42 of Her Baby, Her Badge

When Grace’s phone rang, Dutton was close enough to see Rory’s name on the screen, and she motioned for him to follow her. “Please make sure Wilson goes to the police station,” she said to her mother, and Grace added a hard look at Wilson, no doubt to convince him to comply.

Grace and Dutton went out and into a hall that led to the ER itself, and she didn’t answer the call until she was out of Wilson’searshot. She didn’t put the call on speaker but held it close to both of them so Dutton would be able to hear.

“Made it back to the station about five minutes ago, and the team is assembled,” Rory said, and he could hear the concern in his brother’s voice. “Livvy and me in one vehicle. Judson and Eden in another. We’re leaving now, so we should make it to the church ahead of you. What’s the next step?” he asked. “And please don’t say it’s you and Dutton going to the cemetery.”

“We’re going,” Grace confirmed. “But we’re not getting out of the cruiser until I’m sure we aren’t going to be gunned down. We’ll try to get a visual of Bailey, evaluate the situation and wait for the killer to contact us. In the meantime, I want you and the rest of the team to park on the dirt road behind the church. Obviously, stay out of sight and look for any signs of trouble.”

“There’ll be trouble,” Rory protested. “The cruisers are bullet-resistant, but Dutton and you can still be shot.”

“We’ll put on the Kevlar,” she said.“We,”she emphasized. “Dutton won’t refuse it this time.”

He wouldn’t. It was the smart thing to do in this situation, and Dutton also wanted to reduce any worry Grace had about him.

“Once the team is parked,” Grace went on, “try to get into a position to cover Dutton and me if it becomes necessary.”

“Of course,” Rory muttered. His brother said something Dutton didn’t catch. Profanity probably. “Just be careful.”

“You and the team do the same,” she said and then ended the call.

They started toward the exit where Grace had left the cruiser, but they didn’t just bolt outside. After all, this could be the plan, to kill them as they were hurrying from the hospital. They stopped at the sliding glass doors and glanced around the parking lot. Dutton didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t out there, waiting.

Grace looked at him, but not with the harsh expression she’d aimed at Wilson. This look was loaded with worry. With regret, too. “I hate that you’ve been pulled into things like this. I wanted the badge. You never did.”

“Never. I’m a cowboy to the core,” he agreed. “But you might have been pulled into this because of me,” he reminded her.

She certainly didn’t latch on to that. “Either way, just swear to me you’ll do everything humanly possible to stay safe.”

“I will if you promise me the same thing,” he countered.

Grace nodded, held his gaze a moment longer and then glanced around the parking lot again before she motioned for them to move. They did. Both of them drew their guns, hurrying to the cruiser, and they climbed inside as fast as they could.

Dutton had held his breath during the short dash to the vehicle, and he’d also braced himself for the sound of gunfire. But there was nothing. Apparently, the killer hadn’t planned for the showdown here but at the cemetery.

She started the engine but then reached across the back seat to retrieve the Kevlar vests she’d left there. They put them on before Grace drove away.

“My mom is buried at that cemetery, and I’ve been there many times,” Dutton told her as he kept watch of their surroundings. “There are plenty of places to hide.”

“Yes,” she muttered.

Like him, she had probably been there many times, too, and was probably trying to picture the place so she could calculate the best spot for the killer to lie in wait for them. The limestone exterior church was old, built over a hundred years ago, and wasn’t huge by any standards.

The grounds were a different matter, though.

The cemetery spread out over at least three acres. Not a wide-open space, either. There were massive trees mixed in amongthe tombstones and yet more trees and shrubs encircling it. That’s likely where the killer would be.

“Can you pull up a photo of Bailey on your phone?” Grace asked him. “There might be one on the SAPD website.”

While still volleying glances around him, Dutton typed in the woman’s name and almost immediately got a lot of hits. Since one of the top hits was an engagement announcement, he tapped on that one and saw a smiling Wilson with a tall willowy blonde who was sporting the same expression. It was strange to see Wilson like this, since the man was usually snarling, but the couple looked very much in love.

Looked.

Dutton hadn’t ruled out the possibility that Wilson was a cold-blooded killer who might harm female cops to get back at Grace. However, would Wilson actually murder his fiancée? Maybe. But then there were a lot of maybes in this investigation.

He showed her the photo, and Grace made several quick glances at it, as if committing the image to memory. The hope was they’d find Bailey looking pretty much the same as she was here. Almost certainly not smiling, but perhaps she hadn’t been harmed. Or worse.

Grace’s phone rang, and he saw Livvy’s name pop up on the dashboard screen. She took the call hands-free, and immediately the deputy’s voice began to sound through the cruiser.

“The church is supposed to be empty,” Livvy explained. “I called Reverend Michaels, and he said no one was scheduled to be there today, that he was working from home. They have a security system, and he insists it would have gotten an alert had anyone tried to get in.”

---