His Baby Bonus

“Ms. Sherwood?” he called out, adrenaline pumping and body on full alert as a pathetically weak overhead bulb blinked on. “You all right?”

Nothing.

Not giving a damn what happened to the wine-glasses he’d been hauling for the petite, nearly eight months pregnant, proverbial Georgia peach, Beau dumped them clinking to his feet, then scrambled for the exit.

“Ms. Sherwood, talk to me!” Hand on the doorknob, shoulder bearing down on the door, Beau shoved with all his might, but it didn’t budge. Someone had to have deliberately blocked it. “Ms. Sherwood? Gracie?”

Still nothing.

Not even a frick-frackin’ mouse squeak.

And wouldn’t you know it, he’d left his handheld radio in the restaurant’s main dining room. Hadn’t even felt the need for his headset, seeing how the operation thus far had been smooth.

Now what?

Had Chef Gracie’s escapee ex-husband gotten to her? A couple of his hired guns? Was she sick? Passed out? She’d seemed fine just a second ago, but he knew from bitter experience pregnant women had issues.

Beau again rammed the door with his shoulder, but all he got for his efforts was crazy, red-hot pain.

“Okay, think, man. Think.” Hands braced on his hips, he’d kept his head for all of two seconds when he tried punching the door. The only thing that netted was hurt knuckles, so he switched to Plan B—which pretty much consisted of a helluva lot of hollering.

“Yo, Mason! Mulgrave! Wolcheck! Anyone out there?”

No response. He moved on to Plan C.

The building was in the heart of Fort McKenzie’s historic Gas Light District, meaning the restaurant occupied three older structures that used to be row houses in the trendy mountain town just an hour’s commute to Portland, Oregon. The result was a hodgepodge of too narrow rooms and passages that’d no doubt barely passed city inspections.

All closed up like the place was, the air on this uncharacteristically hot mid-August Tuesday morning was sticky. Smelled like the moldy sneakers he used for mowing his fixer-upper house’s lawn.

Eyeing a putty knife on a shelf lined with grimy tools, he used it to wedge up and under the door’s hinge pins. The top one popped right off. The second was rusty, but with teeth gritted, he worked that one free, as well. Beau managed to keep the heavy door steady long enough to lift it out of his way and lean it against the nearest shelves.

From his shoulder holster, he pulled his gun, readying it for whatever awaited behind the newly liberated door that, sure enough, someone had padlocked a steel bar in front of.

He ducked under it.

In the now dark hall, he wasn’t sure what to expect—sure as hell not a convenient bread crumb trail—but what he got was exactly squat. He made a quick sweep of the area but found not so much as a long, blond hair for a clue.

For all practical purposes, Gracie Sherwood had vanished.

Not only did that tick Beau off because he took his job of protecting witnesses very seriously, but also he’d taken an instant liking to Ms. Sherwood. She was sweet, brave, defenseless. Reminded him of his good friend and fellow marshal Chance Mulgrave’s wife who’d had it rough when her first husband had been killed right about the time she’d discovered she was pregnant.

With slumped shoulders, Beau made the long walk out to join the rest of his crew, radioing for the two guys patrolling the building’s side and rear to come up front.

“Don’t suppose any of you have seen Ms. Sherwood?” he asked once all were assembled.

Villetti chuckled. “You’re kidding, right?”

Jaw clenched, Beau sighed. “It look like I’m kidding? Mason, Wolcheck, do me a favor and check the garage down the street for her car.”

Five minutes later, the two guys were back.

Gracie Sherwood’s car wasn’t there.

What did it mean? Someone took her in her own vehicle?

Beau’s stomach clenched.

Sure, it was possible, but more likely, for whatever oddball reason, he’d been duped. She’d used her Southern charm and curls to lure him into the storage closet. She’d locked him in, then taken off. But why? What did she know that he didn’t that had her running? Was she joining her husband? Or running scared from him and thinking she’d be safer on her own?

“So what happened?” his younger brother Adam asked. “Hear signs of a struggle?”

“Not a peep.”

“What’re you gonna do?” Bug, Adam’s best bud and the only woman on the team, asked. “This was a mighty high profile case for the boss. He finds out you’re the one who misplaced her, well—” She finished her sentence with a low whistle that pretty much said it all.

No matter the cost, no matter where the hunt took him, Beau had to get Gracie Sherwood back—now. Not just for her, but himself. He’d already lost one pregnant woman. No way would he lose another.

FIFTEEN MINUTES after making her big escape, Gracie Sherwood—she’d long ago ditched her married name of Delgado in favor of her maiden surname—pulled her whale of a vintage pink Caddie convertible up to a convenience store gas pump. While her car guzzled gas, she counted money—or rather, her lack thereof: $184.32.

Not good, especially considering the cost of this one fill-up. Still, the $150 in the restaurant safe had been all she could get her hands on. The $34.32 all that was left of Vicente’s now frozen assets. Not that she’d even want to spend a dime more of his money, but in this case, it would’ve at least been nice to have the option.

Inside, she made a quick trek to the ladies’ room, paid for the fuel, a pack of mini powdered-sugar doughnuts, a banana and jug of OJ, then climbed back behind the wheel.

She tried finding a decent radio station, but this far out of Portland, got nothing but static. A week earlier, some punk had broken her car’s antennae. The final nail in the coffin of a particularly rotten year.

Finding out the sophisticated, articulate, Harvard-educated Bolivian she’d fallen wildly in love with had in fact been up to his neck in the kinds of dirty dealing she couldn’t even begin to comprehend had been hard to take. What’d happened after that nearly destroyed her.

Muggy, hot summer wind in her hair, she focused on the winding mountain road. Gracie ignored the latest lump in her throat and tightened her grip on the wheel.

With Vicente behind bars, she’d thought she’d been safe—at least until a month from now when her testimony would’ve forced her to face him at the trial. Lucky for her, she’d been the one to find his business log, onto the pages of which he’d meticulously recorded each illegitimate business dealing he’d been involved in. Everything from drug dealing to illegal importing to murder. All carefully documented in the event he’d ever needed to blackmail one of his associates. His ego was the size of Vermont, so knowing Vicente, he’d never even imagined it being found—let alone, used against him.

Although she was a week shy of eight months pregnant, she was now on her way to the Culinary Arts Invitational, held in just under two weeks in San Francisco. After she won the competition, Gracie planned on heading to her parents’ home in Deerwood, Georgia.

As a master chef, she’d worked her whole life for this. Before finding out about Vicente, the hundred grand in prize money would’ve merely been icing on the cake of what she’d mistakenly believed had been her already fantastic life. Now that the restaurant she’d nurtured into a lucrative business had been closed due to nonexistent profits, since news about Vicente’s dirty dealings had become public, the prize represented a second chance for her and her baby.

When she’d gotten the news Vicente had escaped, and that word on the street—according to Portland police—was that he was coming for her, at first she hadn’t believed it.

But then, why not? she thought with a bitter laugh. The man had already committed an unspeakable crime against her. Why not finish her off?

After narrowly avoiding being abducted at gunpoint one afternoon while walking her neighborhood park, Gracie had gone back to the police, who’d turned her over to the U.S. Marshals’ Witness Security Program.

She’d tried explaining to police about the competition soon to be held in San Francisco, how she had to be there, that it was the only way she’d ever get enough cash to start a new restaurant and life. But they’d said simply, no. She was too valuable a witness to let go.

A witness.

That’s all she was to these guys.

They didn’t see the pain she’d been through. The pain she was still working through. They didn’t see the innocent baby girl she’d have to diaper with newspapers if she didn’t win the top CAI prize. Yes, her parents would help best they could, but seeing how they were retired, it wasn’t like they had a money tree shading their backyard.