Nash brushed a thumb across her cheek. “Don’t go there.”
“Are you going to try to pull some strings to test Lanier’s DNA against Wyatt’s? Because you know the official route will take forever even with a missing baby at stake.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Denali is going crazy in here. Let’s go inside before the pizza beats us.”
When Nash got out of the truck, he had his gun at his waist. Emily strapped her purse across her body ready to be his backup, or his sidekick. Did she want to be more? Was she confusing her feelings for the baby with her feelings for the man who would adopt him?
Nash let Denali have free rein to sniff the porch and the front door as an early warning system. The dog just seemed anxious to get inside.
Nash shoved open the door and stood back, his head held to one side. “I think we’re good. Denali’s instincts are right on, and right now he just wants to run out back. I’ve also been checking my security cameras and all has been quiet.”
Despite his words, Nash went through the house and kept his gun with him. Satisfied, he slid open the back door for Denali. “Go for it, boy.”
Denali scampered out back for a run and Emily collapsed in a deep chair, grabbing the remote for the TV. She clicked it on and immediately regretted it as a picture of Wyatt stared back at her from the local news.
She called to Nash, “They put out an Amber Alert.”
“I knew they were going to do that.” He took the remote from her stiff fingers. “Let’s turn that off and put our heads together. The other possibility we didn’t discuss in the car is if Lanier kidnapped the baby and he’s the father. Why would he do that?”
A whisper of fear feathered across the back of her neck. “That’s the worst possible scenario, Nash. If Lanier’s the father and he killed Jaycee and kidnapped Wyatt, it could only be to stop this blackmail attempt. And what better way to stop it than to get rid of the evidence?”
“If that’s the case, why not dispose of the evidence right away, at the same time he took care of Alice?”
“If he killed Wyatt right there in his car seat—” she stopped and pressed a hand against her galloping heart “—he’d be leaving the evidence, wouldn’t he? Nobody but Jaycee and maybe Brett know Wyatt’s true parentage at this point. Espinoza’s going to want to find out who Wyatt’s father is. If Lanier leaves Wyatt in the car and the detectives find out Lanier is the baby’s father, he’ll have a lot to answer for.”
“Good point, but just because he’s the father, it doesn’t mean he’d want to kill the baby.” Nash moved into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
Emily snapped her fingers. “He also wouldn’t want his wife to know.”
“Is that what he told you when he hired you?” Nash held up two bottles of beer in the kitchen. “Beer?”
“Please.”
“Glass?”
“No, thanks.”
He handed her the bottle and she took a swig before continuing. “When Lanier hired me, he was all concerned parent. Jaycee had told him he might be the father and he wanted to protect Wyatt from her if that were the case. He told me he was hiring an attorney and arranging for a paternity test.”
“Touching.” Nash raised his bottle and chugged back a few gulps.
“What if that’s true, Nash? What if everything Lanier told me is true? What if Brett is lying about the blackmail scheme?”
“If Lanier was being honest, we have one less person to worry about. But that doesn’t explain why Brett kidnapped the baby. The only use Wyatt is to Brett is as a bargaining chip, and he wouldn’t be much of a chip if Lanier were the happy father.”
Emily folded her hands around the bottle. “I wish we would’ve been more insistent about protection for Wyatt.”
The knock on the door saved her from Nash’s retort. He snapped his mouth shut and held up his hand. “Food.”
Nash returned to the room balancing a pizza box on his palm. “Let’s eat and strategize.”
She hopped up from the chair and followed him into the kitchen. “Plates?”
He swiped some paper plates from the top of the pizza box. “I had them include the plates and napkins. All we have to do is eat and throw away the trash.”
“That’s my kind of meal.” She pinned a plate to the counter with her index finger as he dropped two slices of pizza piled with meat and veggies onto it. She carried the plate back to her chair and tore the slices apart.
Nash joined her, taking the couch and plopping his plate on the coffee table. “Brett’s not going back to the apartment he shared with Jaycee in Phoenix. He knows the cops are after him now to question him about Jaycee’s murder and Wyatt’s disappearance. Where would he go?”
“I’m trying to think.” She pulled a string of cheese from the top of her slice and sucked it into her mouth. “When the two cartel guys came looking for him at the apartment, Jaycee pretended they’d split up. He’d been gone a few days by the time those men showed up, so he probably knew they were looking for him.”
“You were bugging the apartment prior to that, right? While Brett was still there?”
“I was.”
“Video?”
“Video and sound.”
“You saved it?”
“I have it on my phone. I can download it to your laptop.” She licked her fingers, although she hadn’t yet managed a bite of pizza. Nervous excitement now fizzed through her veins. “He could’ve mentioned some place, right? A place where he was going to hide.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. It worked so well the first
