The Marshal's Justice (Appaloosa Pass Ranch 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

shoot Jax if she had two guns trained on her.
    He craned his neck to try to get a look at the interior of the car, but with the tinted windows, he couldn’t see much of anything. The engine was running, the windows all up, and since the woman was between them and the car, Chase figured he wasn’t going to get a better look inside until he dealt with the situation right in front of him.
    “What do you want from us?” Chase asked her.
    “Money, a getaway vehicle,” Jax provided. “And any information about Quentin’s whereabouts.”
    “The last one is especially important,” the woman said, tears springing to her eyes. “I have to find him.” She slid her left hand over her belly. “He has to know he’s about to be a father.”
    Good grief. So, she was connected to Quentin? And clearly this woman wasn’t just any ordinary nanny.
    “I’m Quentin’s sister,” April said, taking a step toward her. “He wouldn’t want you to hurt his niece. He wouldn’t want any of this to be happening.”
    That was probably true. Quentin could be scum, but to the best of Chase’s knowledge, the man had never endangered a baby.
    “Quentin would want me protected. He wants to be with me and our baby, but he can’t be because of him.” The woman pointed at Chase. “You’re the marshal who put him in WITSEC. You’re the one who took Quentin away from me.”
    Obviously, she had a skewed idea of what’d happened six months ago. “I did that for his own safety.”
    “Then you can put me there with him! Quentin loves me and wants to be with me.”
    Since Quentin hadn’t requested that and since this was the first Chase was hearing about the man having a pregnant girlfriend, he glanced at April to see if she’d known.
    April shook her head. “I’ve never met her. But maybe Quentin mentioned your name,” she added to the woman.
    “I’m Renée Edmunds,” she volunteered.
    “Quentin didn’t always tell me the details of his personal life,” April mumbled. “He certainly didn’t tell me he was about to become a father.”
    “Because he doesn’t trust you, that’s why,” Renée snapped. “He said I wasn’t to trust you because you betrayed him by spying on him. You became a criminal informant to save your own skin.”
    April nodded, readily admitting that. “Quentin was involved in some bad things then. With a very bad man. I did what I had to do to put an end to it.”
    That was the sanitized version anyway, and that very bad man was none other than Tony Crossman. April had uncovered her brother’s illegal activity but had sat on it for a while. Long enough for someone to get killed. Only afterward had April turned CI to help arrest Crossman.
    “Were you doing what you had to do when you slept with Quentin’s enemy, Marshal Crockett?” Renée asked.
    Quentin would indeed consider him his enemy. Chase felt the same way about him.
    “Is that why you took our daughter, because you thought it would help you find Quentin?” April went another step closer to Renée.
    “I didn’t take her.” A hoarse sob tore from Renée’s mouth, and she repeated her denial. “But when I got the call to be involved in this, I didn’t say no. I’d do anything to see Quentin again.”
    Anything, including putting an innocent baby in danger. It didn’t matter if Renée had or hadn’t been the person who kidnapped Bailey, she certainly hadn’t turned the baby over to the authorities. And she darn sure wasn’t cooperating now.
    Somehow, he had to get that gun out of her shaky hands.
    “Who hired you?” Chase asked her, and he made sure he sounded like the lawman that he was. Maybe he could intimidate her into surrendering the weapon.
    “I don’t know,” Renée said.
    Chase huffed, already tired of this ordeal. He wanted it to end so he could find his daughter and deal with the aftermath of everything else going on here.
    “Who hired you ?” he tried again.
    “I don’t know!” Renée’s answer was louder this