When the Bough Breaks (Rose Gardner Investigations #6) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,102

so dry I could barely speak.

“Did they capture her?” he asked in barely controlled rage.

“I don’t know. They were comin’ out when I took off, and I heard gunshots—”

Skeeter’s face turned dark, and I was sure I was facing the devil himself. “Did they shoot her?”

“I don’t kn—”

The sound of a gunshot filled my ears milliseconds before everything faded to dark, tossing me into the abyss of death.

I forced myself out of the vision and found myself staring into Vera’s pissed-off face. “Skeeter Malcolm’s gonna kill you.”

Her eyes flew wide and she gave another hard jerk, pulling herself free, and took off running through the trees in a different direction than we’d come from.

I took a second to digest what I’d seen as my contraction eased. Vera hadn’t brought me here at the behest of her boyfriend. James knew the Collards had the kids, and instead of going to save them, he’d had Vera—unstable, murderous Vera—bring me on a mile-long hike while I was thirty-eight weeks pregnant. Why? And what about the end of my vision? He’d killed her in cold blood. He hadn’t liked what she had to say, and so he’d killed her.

Jed and Sandra were both right. The man I’d loved was dead, and the part of him left behind was using me in some elaborate scheme. What was his endgame?

But I couldn’t think about James right now. I had to focus on freeing the kids, so I could get them back to civilization and have my baby. In my vision, Vera had said she’d heard gunshots, which meant someone was around to shoot at me. But they could only shoot at me if they knew I was there. Staying in the trees, I’d walk around to the back of the icehouse.

If the Collards were watching, they were probably listening too, so I had to be careful picking my way through the undergrowth and dead leaves, a difficult task given I couldn’t see where I was going. Still, I managed to make it to the rear of the structure, hidden in the trees, without setting off any obvious alarms. My heart was pounding in my chest, but I forced myself to wait. Given that my contractions were five minutes apart, I needed to time my dash to the icehouse between rounds.

Every nerve in my body was taut with expectation and fear as I waited, so when the next contraction hit, it felt twice as painful as the ones before. I tried hard to hold back the moan building in my throat, and I could hear Joe’s voice in my head, coaxing me through it, just like we’d done while practicing.

“That’s right darlin’, just breathe. You’ve got this.”

I started to cry, stuffing my fist in my mouth as a moan forced its way out anyway. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was supposed to be in the hospital with Joe holding my hand and feeding me ice chips. A doctor was supposed to deliver my baby and wrap him or her in a clean blanket. Joe and I were supposed to bask in our love for the baby. It was all supposed to be joyful.

Most of all, it was supposed to be safe.

Skeeter Malcolm had taken that from me too.

Holding on to a tree next to me, I bent forward, trying not to give in to my fear and my pain, trying to find relief, but the pressure continued to build.

“Breathe, Rose. Breathe,” Joe coaxed in my head.

I’m sorry, Joe. I’m so sorry.

“Just breathe, darlin’.”

Finally, the contraction reached its peak and started to ease.

A warm trickle flowed down my leg.

My water had just broken.

Panic filled my head, but I refused to give it power. If the kids were in that building, I was getting them out, and we were leaving together. Nothing else was acceptable.

Once I could walk, I crept toward the back of the structure and bent over, relieved when no one shot at me. Pressing my ear to the wall, I waited, hoping to hear something, anything, to tell me that they were indeed inside.

Nothing.

I probably only had about four minutes left before the next contraction hit, so I took a deep breath and hurried around the side of the building, stopping before I reached the front. Peering around the edge, I squatted, taking comfort in the fact that the entrance to the icehouse was already veiled in shadows. I looked for any signs of the Collards, but I realized they’d likely be hiding—and