Kade Read Online Free PDF Page B

her head and got a strange look in her eyes.
    “I have to keep watch,” she insisted. Bree moved back across the seat and glanced at the mirror. Her breathing got faster again. “There’s a black sedan behind us.”
    “Yeah.” Kade was fully aware of that. “But I don’t think it’s following us. It just exited onto this road.” To prove his point, he made another turn, and the car didn’t follow.
    That didn’t settle Bree’s breathing much. She started to chew on her bottom lip. “You told Coop that your brother was helping us. He’s a cop?”
    Kade nodded. “San Antonio PD. All four of my brothers are in law enforcement. We’ve been working to find you ever since someone abandoned Leah at the hospital.”
    “Leah,” Bree repeated, and she slid her hand over her stomach. “We didn’t have sex,” she tossed out there.
    “No. But someone in the fertility clinic obviously inseminated you.”
    “Hector McClendon,” Bree said, and it wasn’t exactly a question.
    Kade suspected the man, as well. Hector McClendon had been head of the Fulbright Fertility Clinic and was the main target of their undercover investigation that had started all of this.
    “McClendon said he wasn’t aware of the illegal activity going on at his own clinic,” Kade reminded her.
    “Right,” she mumbled, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Stored embryos were being sold without the owners’ permission or knowledge. Illegal immigrants were being used as surrogates and kept in deplorable conditions. Babies were being auctioned to the highest bidder. We were pretty sure McClendon knew what was going on.” Bree looked at Kade. “Please tell me he’s behind bars.”
    Kade hated to be the bearer of more bad news. “No. None of the evidence we got from the clinic implicated McClendon in any of the serious crimes.”
    And it hadn’t been for Kade or the FBI’s lack of trying.
    “But McClendon ordered those two security guards to kill us,” Bree pointed out.
    “No proof of that, either. The guards are in custody, but they’re insisting they acted alone, because they thought we were a threat to the other patients. They claim they had no idea we were agents.”
    “Right,” she repeated.
    Kade had to agree with that, too. But the guards weren’t spilling anything, probably because they knew it would be impossible to prove their intent to murder without corroboration from someone else. So far, that hadn’t happened, and Kade suspected the guards would ultimately accept a plea deal for much lesser charges.
    “The only two people arrested so far have been McClendon’s son, Anthony, who was a doctor at the clinic and a nurse named Jamie Greer,” he explained. “They’re both out on bond, awaiting trial.”
    Bree repeated the names. “Just because there’s no evidence, it doesn’t mean McClendon’s innocent of kidnapping and doing God knows what to me.”
    Kade tried to keep his voice calm. “True, but if he did it, he’s not confessing. Still, he has the money and the resources to have held you all this time.”
    She shook her head. “But why?”
    Now it was Kade’s turn to shake his head. “I don’t know. There were no ransom demands for you. Leah wasn’t hurt. In fact, she was dropped off at the hospital probably less than a day after she was born.”
    She shuddered, maybe at the thought of her kidnapping. Maybe at the way Leah had been abandoned.
    “And if McClendon had wanted me dead,” Bree finished, “then why not kill me after the C-section? Heck, why not just kill me after taking me from my apartment?”
    This is where Kade’s theory came to an end. “I was hoping you’d have those answers.”
    Bree groaned. “I don’t! I don’t remember any of that.”
    He reached over and touched her arm. Rubbed lightly. Hoping it would soothe her. “But you can with help. That’s why I’m taking you to the hospital.”
    She opened her mouth, probably to repeat that she didn’t want to go, but she stopped.