Her Stolen Past. Lynette Eason

could sit and let the adrenaline ebb. He cupped her elbow and started to lead her away. She resisted. “No, I want to watch them.”

      Finally, one of the EMTs looked up, caught Sonya’s eye and nodded. They moved the woman to the gurney and slid her in the back of the ambulance. The female paramedic looked back and gave a thumbs-up.

      Sonya blew out a breath and leaned back against the bench.

      An officer approached them. “Has anyone talked to you two yet?”

      “No,” Brandon said. “I heard the shots from my office window across the street and ran over to see if I could help.”

      Sonya looked up, then pointed to the hole in the bench. “That’s the bullet that had my name on it.”

      * * *

      Two hours later, after giving her statement and reliving the nightmare, Sonya was exhausted. Brandon had disappeared about an hour ago to offer his services to the investigation even though she knew he wasn’t officially on the clock.

      The officer next to her flicked a glance behind her and she turned to see Brandon approaching. He touched her arm and she shivered. “Are you all finished?”

      “Yes, I believe so.”

      “Why don’t we go over to my office so you—we—can decompress?”

      She nodded, noticing the sparks his touch set off. In spite of the terrifying situation they’d just lived through, she was still aware of everything about him. From the moment she’d walked into Finding the Lost last week, every time she was in his presence, her attraction meter spiked. So far she’d been able to ignore it, telling herself she didn’t have the time or energy for a relationship.

      Especially not with someone she couldn’t read.

      Brandon’s green eyes hadn’t revealed anything to her and she hadn’t figured out how to discern his moods or thoughts. That threw her off kilter. Of course, she’d known the man only a week. “Are you finished helping here?”

      “For now.”

      They walked across the park toward the office buildings. Sonya averted her gaze from the blood still staining the jogging path. “How long will they keep the park closed?”

      “Until a crime-scene cleanup crew gets here and removes all traces of the tragedy.”

      She nodded, grateful for his easy manner and unhurried gait. “You hear about these kinds of things on the news almost every day, it seems,” she said. “But you never really expect it to happen to you, to find yourself fighting to survive in the midst of something so awful.”

      She wondered if the shooter was gone. Or if he’d managed to avoid detection so he could linger and watch. She wondered if he was reveling in the chaos he’d created. A shiver slithered up her spine and she offered up a silent prayer that he’d be found and unable to hurt anyone else.

      Brandon put an arm around her shoulders and she looked up, startled. He dropped his arm. “Sorry. You looked like you needed a friend.”

      His gruff voice and averted gaze grabbed her. She touched his arm and gave him a smile. “I do need a friend. Thank you.”

      He nodded but kept his distance. Regret filled her and she wished she’d just leaned into him and accepted the comfort he’d been offering. She had a feeling he didn’t do that very often.

      “How’s the job going?” he asked as he opened the glass door for her.

      She stepped inside the cool interior of the lobby. “It’s going fine.” She’d been at Spartanburg Regional for only three weeks.

      “And your mother’s house?”

      “Coming along.” Her mother had died a month ago. Sonya had moved to South Carolina to settle her mother’s affairs. She took a seat. She understood what he was doing. Talking about nothing to get her mind off the shooting. She wished it would work. “Did you find anything about the birth certificate?”

      In the process of cleaning out her mother’s house, she’d come across a box of baby items. Including a birth certificate for a Heather Bradley.

      He nodded. “I did. Interesting enough, Heather Bradley, daughter to Don and Ann Bradley, was kidnapped from a church nursery twenty-eight years ago.”

      Sonya processed that bit of information and swallowed hard. “Why would my mother have the birth certificate of a kidnapped baby?”

      Brandon leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. “That’s a very good question. What do you think?”

      She reached up and rubbed her forehead, trying to hold the headache at bay. “I don’t know. Maybe she found it. She was a yard-sale junkie and something of a hoarder. What if she bought the box, stashed it and never thought about it again?” It had been known to happen. Hadn’t it?

      “It’s possible.” He looked doubtful.

      “Are you saying you think my parents kidnapped a child?” she scoffed. She pictured her gentle father. A pastor with compassionate eyes and warm bear hugs. Before cancer had stolen his physical body. Cancer had robbed her of both of her parents. A lump formed in her throat. The illness may have taken his body, but his spirit had stayed strong to the end. “No way.”

      “I’m not saying that at all, but it does raise questions for sure.” He paused. “Did anyone live in the house before your family?”

      “Yes. The house was a parsonage. My father was a pastor for the church next door. When the church hit some hard times financially, my father decided to buy the house to help them out.”

      Brandon frowned. “How could he afford to do that if the church was having a tough time?”

      Sonya blinked. “I don’t know. I never really thought about it. I was only a child. Maybe ten or eleven when it happened.”

      Brandon tapped his chin and sighed. “Hmm. Well, I’ll keep digging.”

      “Was Heather Bradley ever found?”

      “No.”

      “Oh.” Her stomach twisted into a knot.

      “But I did locate her family. They actually live about thirty minutes from here, practically across town.”

      “How was Heather taken? Why would her birth certificate be in her diaper bag? Don’t people usually keep those in a safe place?”

      He gave her a slow smile that made her heart trip all over itself. His eyes crinkled at the corners. “What?”

      “You ask good questions,” he said. “I’m impressed. According to Mr. Bradley, his wife had decided to go shopping Saturday afternoon. She checked the mail, and the birth certificate had arrived. She slipped it into the diaper bag so she wouldn’t lose it. She said she forgot about it until after Heather was taken.”

      “Which was the next day. So the kidnapper took the baby and the diaper bag?”

      “Right out of the church nursery.”

      She nodded. “Right. So how did that happen? Where was security? Wouldn’t someone see the person taking the child and stop him or her?”

      He held up a hand at her rapid-fire questions. “Let me explain. Mrs. Bradley said there were two rooms in the nursery. A room that held cribs for sleeping babies and a monitor. The door was shut so the other children could play without waking the ones sleeping. There was a window in the door, but...” He shrugged. “You have to remember this was almost thirty years ago. Security in church nurseries was nothing like it is today. If they even had security.”

      “So no one knew Heather was missing until a worker went in the room to check on the other babies.”

      “Exactly.”

      “And I found the diaper bag with the birth certificate in my mother’s closet.” She paused,