Stockyard Snatching by Barb Han Read Free Book Online Page A

frowned.
    So, someone took her laptop?
    “Are you sure it was on your desk the last time you saw it?” Tommy asked.
    “Certain. Why? Is it gone?”
    He nodded. “The cable is still there.”
    That same look of fear and disbelief filled her blue eyes.
    “Can you think of anything on your hard drive someone would want?” Tommy asked. He also asked about work files, but Dallas figured whoever broke into her house wasn’t going after those. This had to be personal, especially after the failed kidnapping attempt.
    If someone was trying to scare her, then he was doing a great job of it, based on her expression.
    “No. Nothing. I keep all my work stuff at the office. I vowed not to work at home ever again once I left the corporate scene. I have a manila file folder in the drawer, right-hand side, about Jackson’s adoption,” she added, holding tighter to her baby. “Is it missing?”
    Once again Tommy relayed the information and then waited. “There’s nothing labeled Safe Haven or Adoption,” he said at last.
    “Then that’s it,” she murmured, almost too quietly to hear.
    Tommy thanked his deputy and ended the call. “How did you get connected with Safe Haven?”
    “Through my lawyer. He was the one who arranged everything,” she said, and based on her expression, Dallas figured her brain was most likely clicking through possibilities.
    He made a mental note that they needed to speak to her brother, and the rest of her family, as well. Dallas didn’t like to think that her family wouldn’t be 100 percent supportive of her choices, but he wasn’t stupid. He couldn’t fathom it, but if her mother was really against the adoption, then she could be trying to interfere by shaking Kate up. Maybe even hoping that she’d realize she’d made a mistake.
    If that were true, then Kate’s mother hadn’t seen the woman holding Jackson.
    A family intervention, albeit misguided, would be so much better than the other options Kate faced. Such as an employee’s fixation or the fact that this could’ve been a shady adoption gone bad for Safe Haven.
    * * *
    K ATE HELD ON to Jackson as if he’d drop off a canyon wall if she let go. She’d walked away from the only life she’d ever known to have a chance at a family. Her husband, Robert Bass, had filed for divorce within weeks of learning that she had a 4 percent chance of ever getting pregnant. Four percent.
    Half the reason she’d worked so hard at the start-up was so she could sell her interests when she became pregnant and be home with the baby. And then suddenly that wasn’t going to be an option, ever.
    At thirty-three, she’d had everything she thought she wanted, a nice house, a Suburban and a husband. She’d believed she was on the track to happiness, and it was easy to ignore shortcomings in her marriage to Robert considering how much time she spent at the office. He worked all the time, too.
    Within weeks of learning the devastating news, her entire life had turned upside down, and all she could do was kick herself for not seeing it coming earlier. All those times Robert had decided to stay late at the office even when she’d made special arrangements to leave early… And she’d been too busy to really notice how frequent his ski trips had become—ski trips she later realized hadn’t been with his best friend, but with his coworker Olivia Gail.
    In fact, he’d been on the road more than he was home and Kate felt like an idiot for thinking he was working hard to secure a future for their family, too.
    Whatever love had been between them had died long before she’d been willing to acknowledge it. Or had she kept herself too busy to notice? Too busy to face the reality of the loneliness that had become her life?
    She’d been trapped with a husband who cared for her but didn’t love her. And the worst part was that she’d kept convincing herself that they’d be able to get back what they’d had in the early days of their relationship as soon as she