The Baby's Guardian. Delores Fossen

in the first place?

      Maybe.

      But for now, her focus had to be on survival. The cops were no doubt following them, and she had to believe they would launch a rescue. She also had to believe they would succeed. Sabrina couldn’t even consider an alterative, not with her baby’s safety at stake.

      She looked up at the street signs, trying to memorize them just in case she got the opportunity to tell someone where she was, but the gunman must have noticed what she was doing because he shoved her down onto the seat.

      “Curiosity killed the cat,” he snarled. He stank of sweat, onion chips from the hospital vending machine and the peppermint breath mints that he’d sucked on throughout the standoff.

      Sabrina would remember that sickening scent. That raspy voice. Those dull brown eyes that were flat, like a man on the job rather than one on a personal mission.

      He was almost certainly a hired killer.

      And when this was over, she would make sure he and his partner were punished for this havoc they had caused. All those women and babies had been put through a nightmare, and it wasn’t over. Not for her, not for them. They would have to deal with the terrifying memories forever.

      Something that Sabrina already knew too much about.

      “We lost the cops,” the driver announced.

      That didn’t help with the fear or the dread. But he could be wrong. He had to be wrong.

      The driver slowed to a crawl, and several seconds later, the car came to a stop. In a dark alley.

      Oh, God.

      Sabrina tried not to think of what could happen here. She didn’t think these men had rape or assault on their minds, but they wouldn’t hesitate to use her as a human shield when the cops arrived.

      “Move fast,” the gunman ordered, and he threw open the door and pushed her out into the alley.

      “Right,” she grumbled. Fast wasn’t possible for her these days.

      She didn’t see any other cars or people. Definitely no cops. And her heartbeat grew significantly harder and faster. God. Had the driver been right about SAPD not being able to follow her? Had the gunmen made a clean getaway?

      The gunman latched on to her arm and dragged her into the adjacent building. It was dark, musky and hot. No AC. Not even a trickle of fresh air. No furniture, either. From what Sabrina could see in the shadows, it was an abandoned office building, and judging from the distance they’d driven, they were somewhere in the downtown area of San Antonio. Not a good part, either.

      “Lock the door,” the gunman told his partner. “I’ll tie her up. But don’t make the call until you’re out of her earshot. No sense broadcasting what’s going on.”

      The man didn’t take her to a room near the door but to one about midway down the long tiled corridor. He shoved his gun into the back waist of his pants so he could use both hands to snag her wrists.

      Sabrina knew what was coming.

      She’d already seen him tie up members of the hospital staff and some of the patients. He took two thin plastic handcuffs from his pocket and looped one around her wrists. The other, he hooked through the first so that it chained her to the doorknob. The plastic cuffs might be cheap, but they were extremely effective. They would hold her in place until … but Sabrina didn’t want to think beyond that.

      She would get out of this before they managed to take her out of the city and to God knows where. She needed a miracle.

      The man reached down and pulled off her sandals. “In case you figure out how to get out of those cuffs, there’s broken glass on the floor. It’ll slice your feet to shreds,” he snarled and went down the hall with her shoes dangling in his hand.

      Being shoeless wouldn’t stop her, either. Sabrina looked around the dark room, praying there was something she could use to cut the tough plastic. Maybe a piece of the glass he’d mentioned. It was there, all right. Beer bottles had been shattered, but none of the pieces was close enough for her to reach.

      There were only threads of light coming from the single window on the center wall. The glass panes were coated with grime and taped yellowing newspapers that practically blocked off illumination from the nearby streetlights. But it allowed her to see just enough to realize there was nothing she could use as a cutter. With the exception of the broken glass and some trash on the floor, the room was empty.

      Inside her, the baby began to kick, hard. Probably to protest her cramped sitting position. Sabrina shifted, trying to get more comfortable, but that was impossible on a hard tile floor.

      Up the hall, she heard the peppermint-popping gunman say something, and she wiggled closer to the doorway in the hopes that she could hear and see what was going on. The men had apparently stepped into one of the other rooms because they were nowhere in sight, but she did get bits and pieces of their softly spoken conversation.

      “Tolbert,” one of them said.

      That grabbed her attention. They were talking about Shaw. Sabrina tried to wriggle even closer though the plastic cuffs were digging into her wrists.

      “It’ll work.” That was from the gunman who’d driven them away from the hospital. He was whispering as if he wanted to ensure she didn’t hear what he was saying, but the empty building carried the sound. “We can use her to get Tolbert to cooperate in case something else turns up.”

      Oh, God. They were going to use her to force Shaw to do something. But cooperate with what?

      All of this had to be connected to the hostage mess that’d just gone on in the hospital, but Sabrina was clueless as to why she and the others had been terrorized all those hours.

      What did any of this have to do with Shaw?

      The men didn’t know she was carrying Shaw’s child. Or did they? It certainly wasn’t in her medical records, but they had seen that she had listed Shaw as the person to contact in case there was an emergency. Maybe the men thought she and Shaw were lovers.

       As if.

      Shaw hated her with a passion. And this situation was only going to make him hate her more. Once again, she’d brought danger to someone he loved. This time, the danger was aimed at his unborn child. He would never forgive her for placing the baby at risk.

      Of course, Sabrina wouldn’t forgive herself, either.

      Had that call she’d received all been a hoax? Something designed to get her into the hospital?

      If so, then her abduction wasn’t a spur of the minute thing as she’d originally believed. She might have been their target all along, and she hadn’t even questioned the call. She’d blindly responded to the request and had walked right into a hornet’s nest.

      The minute she’d stepped off that fourth floor elevator, one of the men had aimed a gun at her and then corralled her into the hall where they were already holding several dozen hostages. Sabrina wouldn’t forget their faces. The fear. The overwhelming feeling of doom.

      “The car’ll be here in ten minutes,” she heard one of her captors say. “Go ahead, give her back the shoes. I want us to be ready to roll.”

      Ten minutes. Not much time at all. And judging from their other conversation, they’d be taking her with them. If that happened, they might kill her once they had what they wanted. Because of the ski masks, she hadn’t seen their faces, but she did know details about them. She was a loose end and a dangerous one.

      The man appeared again, his ski mask still in place, and he carefully placed the shoes on the floor beside her. When she didn’t move to slip them on, he cursed at her, shoved them on her feet and walked away.

      She waited until he was out of sight before she fought with the plastic cuffs again. No luck. So, she decided to try to chew her way through them, though she knew that would be next to impossible. The