The moment Charlotte saw him, she stopped pacing and demanded, “You arrested Brand?”
“Yes and no. He was supposed to be brought in only for questioning. Please sit down,” he said as he closed the door and calmly stepped past her to take his chair behind his desk.
“I demand to know—”
“Please sit down,” he repeated. He was in no mood for her demands. “Brand is fine. He’s cooling his heels in a cell right now while you and I talk.” When she finally sat, it was on the edge of a chair as if she wasn’t staying long. “As I told you on the phone, Holly Jo is missing. It appears she’s been kidnapped. We need to find her as quickly as possible.”
Charlotte looked shocked and even more upset.
“And you think Brand had something to do with it?” the attorney asked.
“The kidnapper isn’t demanding money. He or she is asking for the truth.”
Charlotte frowned, still clearly impatient with all of this. “What truth?”
“Possibly this.” He leaned across his desk to hand her a copy of the DNA report. “It was left for Holden.”
Charlotte barely looked at it. “What is this?”
“It shows that Brand shares some of the same genes as Holden’s son Cooper. In other words, the DNA indicates that they are half brothers.”
She blinked, then shook her head. He watched her swallow and look away as she sat back in the chair, gripping her purse, knuckles white against the leather.
“Were you aware that Brand is your son with Holden McKenna?” Her lips moved but no words came out. “If Brand kidnapped Holly Jo to force his father to acknowledge him—”
“That’s ridiculous,” she snapped as Drake advised her not to speak. “Kidnap a child?”
“It would appear that Brand wants to be acknowledged or he wouldn’t have left the DNA results in Holden’s mailbox, the same mailbox that also held the kidnapper’s first demand,” the sheriff said.
Her cheeks had reddened with anger, shock or embarrassment. He couldn’t tell which, but the news had shaken her.
“I was with Holden when he read the results,” Stuart said. “He hadn’t known Brand was his son. But I assume you did. Or at least suspected.”
“Holden knows?” Panic flickered across her face as she paled. She quickly looked away. “What do you plan to do with this information?” she asked, her voice cracking.
“Find out if Brand took Holly Jo to force his father to admit his parentage. If so, then hopefully find out where he’s keeping her, get her home safely and arrest him for kidnapping.”
“He didn’t do it,” Charlotte said firmly. Drake tried again to get her to remain silent and failed. “Not Brand. You have the wrong man. He definitely wouldn’t take that little girl. He’s not like...” She didn’t finish, but Stuart knew she was going to say CJ, her son who was in a jail cell in Billings awaiting a criminal trial.
He looked at Drake and figured he too remembered when Charlotte had professed CJ’s innocence, and look how that had turned out.
“I’m surprised Brand even left Holden the DNA results,” she said. “Or that he went to the trouble to find out in the first place. He’s never said anything.”
Stuart watched her struggle with the DNA news before he asked, “How about you? Is there a reason you might have wanted Holden to admit the affair and acknowledge Brand?”
She stared at him before her words came as if shot from a cannon. “Me? You think I kidnapped the girl to force Holden to admit that Brand was his?”
Again, Drake tried to intervene, but again, Charlotte overrode his concerns.
“I never wanted him to know,” she spit out. “Never! I never wanted anyone to know, especially my children.” She shook her head. “I should have known once Oakley got her DNA results, the others would, too.”
“You don’t think Brand suspected?”
She snapped her lips shut for a moment. “I don’t want you talking to Brand without my lawyer present.”
Stuart nodded. “If you want to see your son—”
She shook her head and shoved the copy of the DNA results at Drake as she stood. “My attorney will handle it.”
“I really think we should talk, Charlotte,” Drake said as he rose as well.
“I don’t need a lawyer. My son Brand does.”
As they both watched her leave, the lawyer said, “I need to talk to my client alone first.”
The sheriff’s phone rang. “You can talk to Brand down at his cell. I’m short-staffed today with all my deputies looking for Holly Jo.” As the attorney left to meet with his client, Stuart glanced at the clock on the wall. It had been hours since Holly Jo had headed for the bus stop—the last time anyone but her kidnapper had seen her. Stuart didn’t want to think what could have happened to her in all that time—if she was still alive.
His phone rang again. He quickly picked up, hoping this time it would be good news.
“There is a young woman insisting that she has to talk to you,” the dispatcher told him. “She says it’s about Brand Stafford. Her name is Birdie Malone.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
HOLLY JO FLOATED in and out of sleep. When she’d finally forced her eyes open again, she let out a sob at the sight of the small dark room. Before she’d awakened, she’d been riding Honey, her horse, the wind in her hair, the sun on her face, laughing as she did the new riding trick Pickett had taught her.
Now she looked around, not wanting to cry anymore, but afraid she would never get out of this room. She would never see her horse, or Pickett or Cooper or Elaine or even HH, again. She would never become the greatest woman trick rider in history.
Earlier, she’d drunk all of her juice. She felt so tired that she’d fallen back to sleep not long after. But she was now thirsty again. She’d hoped on waking that she would discover all of this was just a bad dream.
