Fuck.
Deanna wasn’t hard but she was strong and she was one of the most together women he’d ever met. She wouldn’t break down in any situation.
Except this one.
He shoved the phone in his back pocket and dug his keys out of the front.
“Johnny!” Toby shouted from close at his back.
He stopped at his truck door and turned back to his brother. “Tell Ray we’re closing down the bay. The Meyers aren’t getting their car today. Then close down the bay, get in your truck and meet me at the daycare center.”
Toby’s face, already alert, blanked as he prepared to get shitty news.
“Brooks okay?” he asked.
“Brooks is missing.”
That was when he watched Toby’s face get hard.
Johnny didn’t hesitate longer.
He hauled open his door, knifed into his truck, started it up and took off.
Addie raced to him the minute she saw him enter the front doors of the daycare center, crying an agonized, “Johnny!”
When she made it to him, she hit him so hard he nearly went down and to stop it had to step back on a foot.
He put his arms around her, hers were around him, but she yanked them free and latched onto his neck so tight, her nails dug into the flesh. She snapped her head back and the first close look at her face cut through him like a blade.
“Someone took my baby,” she whispered.
“Okay, m?uschen,” he murmured. “I got ya. Hang tight.”
“I should have . . . I should have let Margot watch him,” she said.
“This is not your fault,” he returned firmly.
“I didn’t want to take advantage.”
“Addie, this is not your fault.”
“I didn’t . . . things were going so great with you and Iz, I didn’t want your family to think I was a freeloader.”’
Christ, the Forrester Girls.
“Adeline, listen to me,” he demanded. “It is not your fault.”
“They said, the staff said . . . they think he came in and hid. Waited for his chance.”
Shit.
“See, sweetheart, not your fault,” he told her. He lifted his eyes to the cops who came his way. “What’s happening?” he asked.
“This your girl, Johnny?” Cary, one of the cops and someone Johnny had known and liked since high school, asked with surprise in his voice, but also something deeper.
“Her sister,” he clipped. “Now what’s happening?”
Cary nodded. “Okay, just to assure you, we have men out looking.”
“Looking for what?” Johnny demanded.
“A man was seen entering the daycare. The way he did, the woman who saw him thought he was a dad. Though interviewing the staff, no one recognized his description. Also interviewing the staff, no one saw him. Not anywhere. But this woman, a lady that lives across the street, she hangs out on her porch. She saw him come in, and about twenty minutes later, she says he exited with a little boy. A baby. She thought it was peculiar because he didn’t have, well . . .” his gaze flicked to Addie, “a baby seat in his car.”
Addie’s nails dug in deeper and ice filled Johnny’s veins at the thought of Brooks unrestrained in a car.
“And this man? What’s he look like?” Johnny asked but didn’t wait for the answer. He looked down at Addie. “Did you tell them about Perry?”
She nodded.
“Kent?” he asked.
She blinked. “Kent?”
“Izzy’s ex.”
“Oh my God,” she breathed, brightened, took her hands from him and turned to the cops, babbling, “Kent. Kent’s crazy. Kent’s got a restraining order. Kent’s my sister’s ex. He’s tall. Not as tall as Johnny. Blond. Dark blond, not light. Like, almost red but not red. Blond. Mostly. And . . . and . . .”
“Text your sister, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Get her to send a picture of Kent.”
She nodded and dug her phone out of her pocket.
“The guy was redheaded,” Zach, the other cop, muttered. He was a man Johnny knew from having the occasional beer with him at Home but he was younger, younger than Toby, so he didn’t know him well.
Jesus, Izzy’s creepy ex kidnapped her fucking nephew.
Jesus, now he had to stop himself from murdering Izzy’s crazy fucking ex who had kidnapped Brooks.
“Johnny, can I have a sec?” Cary asked.
Johnny looked at him and did it closely.
What he saw made him turn back to Addie. “Gonna have a chat, sweetheart. You get that text, you show this man, yeah? I’ll be right back.”
She nodded again.
He curled his fingers around the back of her neck, gave it a squeeze, and hoped to Christ Toby was quick with closing that bay so someone would be with her that wasn’t a cop.
Then he followed Cary down a hall under the gaze of hovering staff members of the daycare center, most of their eyes red, all of them terrified.
When they were out of earshot, Cary stopped and turned to Johnny in a way that Johnny didn’t like because he had his back to Addie.
Cary didn’t fuck around.
“Because of her concern about the car seat, the lady took note of the make and model of the car and she got a partial plate. We ran what she got and the car that popped up was reported stolen in Missouri two weeks ago.”
Shit.
Was Izzy’s creepy ex that crazy?
“Also, Johnny,” Cary continued, “the description of the man given describes Stu.”
Johnny felt his gut drop, his heart constrict, his throat close and his hands form into fists.
Even though he couldn’t see most of it, Cary didn’t miss any of this.
“Keep it tight, Johnny,” he warned.
Stu.
Stuart.
Stuart Bray.
Shandra’s brother.
“You hear from him?” Cary asked.
“No,” Johnny forced out.
“Seen him?” Cary went on.
“No,” Johnny repeated tightly.
“Shandra?” Cary continued.
Johnny gave his head a short shake.
“Guy’s always been trouble,” Cary noted.
“Ransom,” he pushed out and saw Cary perk up.
“Say again?”
“He knows I got money. More than once Shandra came to me to get his ass out of a sling. I didn’t see him but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t out there, watching me. Half the time, before you step on it, you don’t see the snake in the grass. It’s only when you get too close does the copperhead give you warning.”
“That’s your girl’s sister. Her son—”
“Her son’s gonna grow up my nephew,” Johnny cut him off to say. “So yeah, he means something to me. He’s family. That would be hard to miss. We all go out together. We were out at JerryJack’s Diner for burgers just this last Thursday, me, Tobe, Iz, Addie and Brooks.”
They were.
Toby had Brooks most the time so Addie could eat.
But Johnny and Izzy had had him too.
He wasn’t passed around, as such. He crawled around because he could get away with that because he was a baby with four adults who thought he turned the world.
Cary’s eyes had wandered and Johnny twisted at the waist to see Toby was there and had Addie tucked tight to his body, her face buried in his chest.
“I see,” Cary muttered, and Johnny twisted back.
“She needs to get home and we need to get out there looking for him,” Johnny stated, and Cary’s gaze cut back to him.