Free The Baby's Guardian by Delores Fossen Page B

this hotel?”
    Newell stood and shrugged. “I’m not sure, sir, but it was probably someone in Special Investigations. They’re handling the security detail for the hostages.”
    “Find out who put us in this hotel,” Shaw ordered. “I want to know the names of any officers who would have had access or direct knowledge of that information.”
    Newell stayed quiet a moment. “You think we have a leak or a mole in the department?” But his tone wasn’t that of a question. Newell didn’t believe that a breach in security was possible.
    “Burney Monroe knew we were here somehow,” Shaw countered. It was obvious from his expression that he didn’t want to believe it, either.
    Newell stooped again and patted his hands over the dead man’s black windbreaker. He was looking for something, maybe a proverbial smoking gun such as written instructions from the person who had hired him and sent him here.
    The person who might also be a cop.
    Suddenly, being at SAPD headquarters didn’t seem as appealing as it had just minutes earlier. The baby must have sensed her apprehension because she started to kick like crazy, and the muscles in Sabrina’s stomach contracted. It was slightly painful, nothing she hadn’t felt before, but it wasn’t a good time for a bout of Braxton Hicks contractions.
    Another round of contractions hit her, and Sabrina stopped so she could place her hand over her belly. She gave her baby some hopefully reassuring rubs.
    Shaw cursed again, but he wasn’t looking at the dead body. He was looking around the room. “Someone might have planted a bug in here. That’s how the gunman could have known that it’d be a good time to strike while I was in the bathroom.”
    Sabrina started to search as well, but she had no idea what to look for. It sickened her to think that the second gunman could still be listening to all of this. Heck, he might have even heard of Shaw’s plan to take her to headquarters.
    “What’s wrong?” she heard Shaw ask. But he didn’t just ask. He hurried to her.
    Sabrina realized then that she had her hand splayed over her belly. The pain was no longer mild. The contractions were harder.
    “I’m not sure,” she answered. She wanted to dismiss it, to say it would all go away. But she couldn’t. Oh, God.
    Was there something wrong with her baby?
    There couldn’t be. This couldn’t be happening. Not after all they’d managed to survive.
    “Hold on,” Shaw warned her a split second before he scooped her up in his arms and stormed toward the door. What he didn’t do was holster his gun. He kept it gripped in his hand as if he expected there might be another attack.
    “Get me a cruiser, a car, anything!” Shaw ordered the uniformed officer. “And back me up because I’m taking Sabrina to the hospital.”

Chapter Seven
    This nightmare just wouldn’t end.
    Shaw scrubbed his hand over his face and mumbled another prayer. The baby had to be okay.
    So far, everything had gone well at the clinic where the doctor had told Shaw to bring Sabrina when he’d made a frantic call to her after carrying Sabrina out of the hotel. But they were far from out of the woods.
    “You know the drill,” Dr. Claire Nicholson said to Sabrina as the doctor helped her onto the small padded bed next to the ultrasound machine. This particular room was just up the hall from the doctor’s office, so they hadn’t had to leave the building to have the procedure done. Thankfully, Sabrina had even managed to get a bite to eat while they were waiting for the room to be prepared.
    Sabrina apparently did know the drill. She used a drab green cotton sheet to cover the lower part of her body, and she lifted her gown to expose her belly. Dr. Nicholson took a bottle of some kind of clear goo and smeared it over the exposed skin.
    “Should I leave?” Shaw asked, hitching his thumbto the door where the doctor had entered just seconds earlier.
    The doctor looked at Sabrina for the answer.
    “Stay,”