The Wolf Code Forever (The Wolf Code Trilogy Book 3)

by Angela Foxxe

  “How did he get your number?”

  “I’d imagine he knows more about me than I care to think about.”

  “I guess. So, what’s the plan?”

  “We’re the plan. They’re at a loss. They don’t know what to do with this woman, and they have no idea where she could have gone.”

  “That’s easy,” Senora said. “She’s going home to get Evie.”

  “That’s what I thought, but Evie is at daycare today, and she hasn’t shown up there.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know that Evie is there today. She’s going to show up at the house at some point, because she can’t just let him have Evie. Even if she doesn’t know who she is, her love for that little girl has been enough to sustain her this entire time.”

  “That’s why they need you,” Ty said. “You’re the only one that gets her, and you’re the only one that has a chance of finding her and bringing her in before something awful happens.”

  “Do they have men stationed in the likely places?”

  “They do. They also have men looking for Matt Baker.”

  “Looking for him?”

  “He dropped Evie off at daycare today, but he didn’t show up for work.”

  “Do you think she has him already?”

  “I don’t think so, but with Naomi, we can’t be too sure. Every time we’ve let our guard down with her, she’s gotten away. You should see what she did to Michael and the other two men.”

  “Can you blame her? She doesn’t know who she can trust, and she doesn’t understand what’s going on. This has got to be like living in a nightmare for her. I wouldn’t trust anyone if I were her either.”

  “You’re right. I just feel awful for Michael. He took two full shots to the face, one when he was already down. It’s exponentially stronger than pepper spray, and I only had it in case I had to bring in a less than cooperative shifter that I couldn’t get close enough to give a shot to.”

  Senora let her head fall back and groan.

  “Of course,” she said. “It was in the backpack she took.”

  “Yep.”

  Senora looked at him, his tone setting off alarm bells that she couldn’t quiet.

  “Why did you say it like that? What else has she got in that bag?”

  “My gun.”

  Senora couldn’t believe what he’d said, but she didn’t ask him to repeat it. Naomi had a gun. She was in the middle of a psychotic break brought on by WereBears who were unbrainwashing her, if there was such a thing, and trying to restore the person she once was. It sounded insane to Senora; she couldn’t imagine how Naomi felt. Naomi, who still thought that she was the late Jessica Baker, and who believed with all her heart that a monster had her little girl and that she was the only one who could save Evie.

  They were screwed.

  “I’ll get my keys,” she said, looking longingly at her bags and back at Ty.

  “I was going to go,” she said.

  “It looks like you woke up bright and early to pack,” he said. “Don’t worry; the islands aren’t going anywhere.”

  “But our plane is.”

  “There’ll be other planes,” he said, kissing her quickly, then walking past her and grabbing her car keys off the hook.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, but she already knew.

  “I need you looking for Naomi,” he lied with a grin on his face. “Which means that I’ll have to drive.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “That must be such a sacrifice for you.”

  “A terrible one,” he laughed, then followed her out into the garage.

  “Wait,” Senora said, running back into the house and returning a minute later. “You can take this one; I have extra.”

  “How many guns do you have in this house?” he asked.

  “Eleven,” she said sheepishly. “It’s my job.”

  Ty laughed and shook his head, then got into the driver’s seat and pulled out of the garage carefully.

  “We should start at the Baker house,” Senora said. “Is someone picking up Evie?”

  “Not right now. They’re watching to see if Baker shows up. If he does, they’re going to pick him up on attempted murder charges and a laundry list of other charges and keep him from picking up their daughter.”

  “What about his mother?”

  “His mother?”

  “What if she picks up Evie instead?”

  “Terry Baker died before Evie was born,” Ty said. “The only family Matt Baker has is Evie and Naomi when she believed she was his dead wife.”

  “Someone else had Evie when Naomi was picked up. We need to find out who that woman is and keep an eye out for her.”

  Ty handed Senora his phone as he drove the Audi skillfully around the tight corners, taking them a little faster than Senora would like, but the car held the turns as if they were creeping around the corner instead.

  “Call Michael and let him know about this woman. They’ll check her out and see if they can get info on her. Evie is still in daycare, and if five rolls around and Baker hasn’t come to get her, they’ll take Evie then.”

  Senora nodded. When Michael answered the phone, his voice was hoarse and he sounded like breathing was still horribly painful. She didn’t mince words, explaining the situation quickly, then hanging up when she was certain that Michael understood. She couldn’t tell with his voice sounding like that, but she was sure that he was as concerned with the child’s safety as Senora was, and that made her feel a little better. She didn’t need to be worrying about the child when she had an armed woman and a would-be killer missing in the city. There was already enough that could go wrong, and she didn’t want any more on her plate than necessary.

  “He’s got it,” Senora told Ty. “Now, we just have to find Naomi and hope that she’s not falling apart somewhere.”

  “That’s one of the things that I was worried about. Reprogramming is hard on most people, but it seems like Naomi’s brain fights it more than most. She’s strong, and in this case, that’s working against her. Naomi was already starting to break through when she was waking up, and now that she’s on the run, there’s no telling what she’s remembered and what she thinks she’s remembering.”

  “She told me that she was being kept in a dog kennel in a dark room with other women when she escaped.”

  “The Campus is nothing like that,” Ty said.

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Only once, but it’s like a spa. There are individual rooms, and each room is decorated with the patient’s favorite colors and textures. There’s no television because the simplest thing can jog a memory, and they can’t risk that during the treatments.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they go in steps so that the mind doesn’t break. HUB has gotten brainwashing its insta-wives down to the tiniest detail, and fixing that takes time. Naomi was only about halfway done. Whatever set her off and made her remember something from one of her pasts created a crack and sent her running. They have to fix that, then gradually put what made Naomi, Naomi, back together.”

  “How do they do that? It’s not like they have people’s brains backed up on a flash drive somewhere. Do they?”

  Ty burst out laughing, and Senora immediately felt foolish.

  “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t laugh. I’m just not used to you jumping on the conspiracy train and leaving the station that quickly.”

  “Being around you has taught me that this world is crazier than I ever imagined.”

  “They don’t have people’s brains backed up on flash drives, but they do have a map of Naomi’s brain.”

  “Isn’t it just a map of her new identity?”

  “Nope. The computer scans new pathways and pulls those out of the map from the newest back, monitoring the memory to make sure that they don’t go too far back.”

  “They can see the memories?”

  “The computer reads the impulse and is able to generate an estimation of what that memory e
ntails. It’s not an exact science, but I’ve hooked up to the machine for fun, and the memories it recovered were of people I remembered but events that I didn’t for whatever reason. It was a strange experience, and now I remember this one time I went swimming when I was three, even though I’m thirty now. Since I remembered it in the past five years, it’s as fresh as it was when I was eight or nine.”

  “That is weird,” Senora said, then went quiet.

  Ty glanced in her direction, took one look at her face and shook his head.

  “No. That’s not a good idea.”

  “Don’t you wonder what happened to me before I was found?”

  “Senora, you know what happens to people like you when they’re kidnapped. Do you really want to relive that?”

  “Do I have to relive it to get to the memories from before?”

  “I don’t know,” Ty said. “But if you do, I don’t think it would be worth it. It’s much too risky.”

  “They did it to Naomi.”

  “They did it for Naomi, to reverse what was done to her to turn her into someone she’s not.”

  “What about the other women?”

  “All the victims of Heartsong United Believers that have been rescued so far have benefitted from this treatment.”

  “It sounds like a church: Heartsong United Believers. It sounds like a place that is welcoming and loving.”

  “It’s a cult. We call it HUB for short. They recruit people through a dating app on smart phones.”

  “Are you serious? How does that even work?”

  “People sign up and take a long quiz that asks them for answers to questions that they would never answer otherwise. They’re weeded out, and they’re matched with a potential mate. That person is a headhunter, and they date potential victims to make sure they’re good candidates.”

  “Who ever thought Naomi was a good candidate? She doesn’t appear to be the ideal victim.”

  “That’s true, but Naomi was handpicked for Matt Baker. Baker is higher up in the cult, and when his wife died in childbirth, the community wasn’t told. Because Baker is one of the mystics, and if he couldn’t stop his wife from dying in childbirth, then people might stop believing.”

  “Matt Baker is one of the mystics? Are you saying that he has the charisma to convince people to give up everything and join a cult?”

  “Did you see how big New Edmonton is?”

  “The entire neighborhood?”

  “Yes. They’re all members.”

  “Are all the women-”

  “No. Many of them are there because they chose to be. The app is used to trap men and women, and a believer is gifted their soulmate, hand-chosen by David, the supreme leader, himself.”

  “Don’t tell me that’s Matt?”

  “It’s not.”

  “So, why Naomi?”

  “Because she looks exactly like Jessica Baker. They could almost be twins.”

  “That’s sick,” Senora said with disgust. “Had he no respect for his dead wife?”

  “He did, but part of the illusion requires him to hold up a certain façade.”

  “This is so crazy. How does this sort of thing happen here?”

  It just does. People have to find new and creative ways to trick people into joining their cult. As people learn about the other cults that have failed or where members have committed mass suicides, they get smarter. They learn to spot the warning signs. So, groups like HUB change their methods, and they gain followers. For every trick that’s exposed to the public, there are hundreds more tricks. They’re always three steps ahead, and part of what the Campus does is help the victims break free from the manipulation.”

  “So, they don’t all need these crazy brain scans and these insane treatments like Naomi?”

  “No. This group actually uses machines and a medical expert to turn the victims into the people they need to be to help the flock grow. But for the most part, the cults that are operating in this country use the standard power of suggestion, peer pressure and gaslighting to force their members into doing things they wouldn’t otherwise do. Most of those people can return home within a week or two without any lasting effects.”

  “How long was Naomi at the Campus?”

  “Almost a month, and she was just over halfway through. She’s one tough nut to crack, and I think that’s what made her turn on Matt. He wasn’t prepared for that, and his carefully constructed lie came crashing down.”

  “So, he had her kidnapped?”

  “No,” Ty shook his head. “He hired someone to kidnap and kill her and make it look like human trafficking.”

  “But he actually hired the bears?”

  “Exactly. They had eyes on Naomi and Baker, waiting for a good time to swoop in. When they fought and Matt left the house in a huff, we put someone undercover to offer him a way out that would save face. He bought it without a second thought.”

  “Poor Naomi.”

  “We’ll find her, Senora. And she’ll get the help she needs to go back to her old life.”

  “But the program? Won’t it erase the memories from New Edmonton?”

  “Yes and no. She’ll remember it, but the feelings that are attached to the memories will be gone. It’s like watching a movie you don’t care about. She’ll see things that happened, though her brain will block the uncomfortable parts out. She’ll know about most of it, but she’ll be indifferent.”

  “And Evie will have no one left in this world that loves her as fiercely as Jessica did.” Senora swiped at a tear that escaped when the realization hit her. She wished she hadn’t said it out loud, but it was too late. “What’s going to happen to her?”

  “She’ll go into the system, and she’ll be adopted out of this area. We don’t have enough to take the entire cult down, and unless Matt starts talking, there won’t be enough. We can’t risk Evie being adopted by one of them.”

  “But aren’t they everywhere? They found Naomi in Spokane.”

  “They’re based here. The headhunters are doing a sick kind of mission to recruit more people. When they stop being effective, they’re brought in, and the next wave is sent out.”

  Ty turned down the road that led to the neighborhood where Matt Baker and the other believers lived, completely separate from the rest of the world. Senora’s stomach turned as people passing by waved at her. Their community was so big that they assumed anyone on these streets belonged, which somehow made it worse. It was like being surrounded by insanity, and Senora was the only one that knew the truth.

  She would never look at the world in the same way again after this.

  They pulled up and stopped in front of Baker’s house. Senora didn’t have to look hard to spot the surveillance team that was watching the house, but she didn’t acknowledge them out of habit. She checked her gun and put it back in her holster, then she took a deep breath before she got out of the car. The house looked empty, but that didn’t mean anything. They were walking in blind, and Naomi could be anywhere.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Did you pack a bag for Evie?”

  “No, Mom.”

  “You’ll need to get out of the habit of calling me Mom. We’re not going to get out of this without drawing attention to ourselves that way. No one is going to believe I’m old enough to be your mother.”

  “The flock did.”

  She scoffed.

  “The flock is full of imbeciles, fools, and people who have been programmed so many times that their brains are mush.”

  “What do you want me to call you?” Matt shot back. “The supreme doctor? The lord of the lunatics?”

  “Chelsea will work,” she quipped. “I’m a little tired of hearing ‘Mrs. Baker’ and having to respond. What a wretched name you chose this time.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?” he asked, packing money into a brief case, then setting it down when it was full and picking up the next bag. “Where are we going this time?”

  “I was thinking about Canada. We haven’t hi
t there yet.”

  “What about David?”

  “What about David?”

  “We’re just going to leave him here without anyone to prompt him?”

  “David believes he’s a supreme being and has for almost a year now. He’s long past the point of the power of suggestion, and the tapes aren’t working anymore.”

  “Shouldn’t you figure out why?”

  “There will be other Davids. This one can stay behind and lead the flock into the flames. I have a feeling your little mistake is going to expose the community to the government soon enough.”

  “My mistake? It was your idea to snag that woman and turn her into Jessica. I was happy to raise my daughter alone and move on.”

  “And how would we continue the charade if they knew that your wife, the wife of one of the elite, died in childbirth? We promised these people a life free of health complications and a peaceful death and abundant afterlife. There’s nothing peaceful about what happened to Jessica. The con would have been over four years ago. All because you let her convince you to start a family.”

  “It was my idea.”

  “And look what happened,” Chelsea shot back. “You needed a duplicate, and the only one available was her own twin. I don’t know why I let you convince me that it would work out.”

  “Just hurry up. I want to get out of here and go get Evie.”

  “Why are you in such a hurry? Naomi is dead in the woods somewhere, and it’s fall. If the bears haven’t snacked on her to fatten themselves up for winter, the buzzards have. No one is going to find her.”

  “I don’t want to be here when they do.”

  “You’re ridiculously paranoid.”

  “It saved us last time. We got out before the shit hit the fan, and we’re going to get out now too.”

  Chelsea shook her head, grumbling to herself as she packed up only what would fit in her minivan. Matt had already stowed all the seats in the floor storage areas except for the one Evie would sit in. That left the entire back of the minivan and the area beside Evie to pack what they needed in it.

  They could fit more if they left the child, but Matt was completely against it even though it made so much more sense. With a child in tow, it would be harder to run, but they would be more trustworthy. They would be that awkwardly sweet couple with the adorable little girl that drew people in. Maybe it would work, and maybe the next con would be the one they could retire on.