Marisela Morales 03 - Dirty Little Christmas - Julie Leto by Contemporary Romance

had ever committed—usually at Marisela’s urging—Aida Morales was forever kept safely and blissfully in the dark.
    Toni’s approval freed Lia’s tongue and she turned to Marisela with her full, though drugged attention. “He wanted her bag,” she said.
    “Who?”
    “The kidnapper. When he stopped for me, all he wanted was her bag.”
    “Did you see Belinda? In the truck, did you see her?”
    She nodded, but the movement cost her. She winced. “She was in the backseat. Only saw for her a second, but she didn’t look afraid. Just, I don’t know…desperate? Confused? He left the car door open when he got out. I heard her say, ‘I need my vitamins.’”
    Vitamins? Her sister had always been obsessed with healthy living, but enough to put Lia’s life in danger?
    “I don’t understand,” Marisela muttered.
    “Her prenatal vitamins,” Lia suggested. “I think she was worried about the baby.”
    Toni gasped. “Baby? What baby?”
    Marisela held up her hand, not out of rudeness, but expediency. Lia’s uninjured eye was fluttering closed. Her time to interrogate her one and only witness was running out.
    “Did you notice anything about the car? About the men inside?”
    Lia pulled in a deep breath. “Ford Expedition. Temporary tag. Dealership on Dale Mabry. They tried to scrape off the sticker, but I saw it. That’s the last thing I remember. I’m sorry. Find her. You have to…”
    She drifted back to sleep. Marisela kissed her softly on the forehead and then took a few seconds to brush her hair with her fingers so that it didn’t look quite so matted and flat. Lia had given her vital information—the least she could do was help her look presentable to the handsome doctors.
    She moved to leave, but Toni grabbed her wrist, holding on with a strength that only someone who didn’t know her would be surprised she possessed.
    “Belinda is pregnant?”
    “Yes,” Marisela answered. “We didn’t know until she got off the plane. And the kidnappers only had her for thirty seconds before they went for vitamins. It’s as if—”
    “—whoever took her cares about whether or not she and the baby stay healthy.”
    Toni had spoken from a place of experience and common sense, but without knowing, she’d given Marisela a direction to pursue. She hugged her before heading toward the door.
    “What do I tell the police?” she asked.
    Marisela paused. “Tell them the truth if you want to. Tell them nothing if you want to stay out of this. If the kidnapper cared about my sister’s pregnancy, then that means they cared about the baby. Maybe even about her. And it proves the attack wasn’t random. Lia wasn’t targeted—she’s just collateral damage.”
    “You make that sound like good news.”
    Marisela forced a melancholy smile. “She’ll be safe now.”
    Toni ran her hand over Lia’s arm, then looked up, her eyes brimming with the kind of rage that would send even the toughest wise-guys running for cover. “I can’t say the same for the kidnappers.”
    Marisela put her hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. “No, you can’t.”

Eight
    The moment of solidarity ended when a text from Frankie, who was keeping look out from the lobby, alerted her that the police detective she’d been avoiding, the Amazon named Flores, had entered the building. Marisela said a quick good-bye, took the staff elevator down to the lobby and then cut across to the emergency room, using her stolen access key.
    Lia’s information at least cleared one thing up—the kidnapping was about Belinda, not an offshoot of any of her cases for Titan. She wondered if she should still keep the cops in the dark, but no matter how their resources might help, involving law enforcement would mean frustrating delays and worse—and a layer of protection between her and the bastards who took her sister. Marisela didn’t give a damn about chains of evidence or fair trials. She only wanted Belinda back. She’d trust Lia and her mother to