by Susan Stoker
The noises coming from the other side of the door were increasing in intensity. She had no idea what time it was, having left her watch at home on the table beside her bed. She’d been jolted out of a deep sleep by her phone ringing. It had been Master Jeremiah. Christine had gone into labor and she was needed at the school.
Her normal hours were one to five, three days a week, but Milena knew she could be called at any time to attend one of her five pregnant charges at the school. The girls ranged in ages from fourteen to eighteen, and their pregnancies ranged from fifteen to thirty-six weeks.
She hadn’t hesitated when she’d heard Christine was in labor. She’d woken Sadie, who had reappeared in town a month ago. She’d claimed to be going through a rough patch, and Milena simply couldn’t turn her away. Besides, it was nice to have someone near her own age to talk to. She’d asked Master Jeremiah if Sadie could assist her with the girls on a voluntary basis, and he’d reluctantly allowed it. Currently, Sadie was sitting at Christine’s side, holding her hand and encouraging her quietly.
If Milena was honest with herself, she’d asked to have Sadie help her out at the school because being there by herself gave her the creeps. It wasn’t anything she could put her finger on, but something wasn’t right at the Bexar County School and Orphanage for Girls.
Christine grunted, and Milena shook her head and forced her attention back on what she was doing. “I can see the head!” she told the exhausted teenager. “Just a couple more pushes and you’ll be done.”
The crash of a door being kicked open sounded from somewhere near the closed entrance to the makeshift delivery room. Milena startled, but couldn’t stop what she was doing to investigate.
Her eyes met Sadie’s again in concern. She had no idea what was happening, but whatever it was, it didn’t sound good.
There were some muffled voices from outside the door, and Milena was about to send Sadie out to see what was going on when the door to the small room was suddenly thrown open.
Christine and Sadie both screamed in surprise, and Milena couldn’t stop the screech that left her own mouth at the intrusion.
Looking to her left, she stared incredulously at two armed men standing in the doorway. They were both wearing black from head to toe, including helmets with dark-tinted shields covering their faces.
Milena was scared out of her mind, but she tried to suppress her fear in front of Christine. The poor girl was having a hard enough time at the moment as it was. There was nothing Milena could do to protect herself or the other two women in the room, but she tried bravado to project a sense of control over the situation. “Get out! This is a sterile environment!”
When the men didn’t shoot her or otherwise act in any way aggressive toward them, Milena tried to calm her erratic heartbeat. They didn’t leave, but she figured if they were there to harm them, they would’ve fired their weapons by now.
With a loud scream, Christine gave one last push and a wet, squirmy baby slid out of her body into Milena’s waiting hands. She tried not to give the men another thought and turned her attention to the new life in her arms. She clamped the umbilical cord and cut it, her motions quick and efficient. Turning to the table she’d prepared earlier, Milena set the infant down on a fluffy towel and began sucking mucus and fluid out of his little nose and mouth. Within seconds, the boy opened his mouth and protested his not-so-gentle entry into the world.
Milena heard Sadie talking softly to the teenager, reassuring her, while she finished up with the baby. Gently wiping him clean, she picked him up and turned back to Christine. She noticed one of the men who’d stormed into the room was still standing there. He hadn’t come any closer to the table, but he also hadn’t left. His rifle was now pointed toward the ground instead of at them, but it didn’t make Milena feel any better.
She had no idea what was going on. Was the school being taken hostage? The children and all of the other inhabitants being held for ransom? She wanted so badly to ask what was going on, but she didn’t want to antagonize the man with the gun. She glanced over at Sadie and was reassured when her friend wasn’t panicking. Sadie used to work for a security company, and Milena figured if she wasn’t frantically trying to send her a nonverbal message about ducking for cover or something, they were probably okay for the moment.
Her fingers shaking with fear, Milena took a deep breath. She needed to let Christine bond with her baby, then deliver the afterbirth.
Trying to ignore the man’s presence, Milena brought Christine’s baby to her. “Hold out your arms,” she told the teenager.
Christine did as requested, and Milena put the tiny baby in her arms. “Meet your son, Christine.”
The teenager looked up at her with wide brown eyes. “A boy?”
Milena smiled nodded. Master Jeremiah’s rule was that the pregnant women weren’t allowed to find out the gender of their babies ahead of time. Milena didn’t know why, but wasn’t brave enough to go against his wishes. Besides, the girls didn’t seem to care one way or another. It was all very weird.
“Yes, a healthy seven-pound, three-ounce baby boy.”
“A boy,” Christine breathed, then her eyes filled with tears.
“Are you okay?” Milena asked.
The teenager nodded. “Yeah. I’m just so happy it’s a boy.”
Milena shook off the uneasy feeling in her gut and moved back down the bed to complete the birthing process.
Not too much later, Milena stood and stripped off the gloves she’d been wearing. Sadie had wrapped the infant in a blanket, and mom and son were quietly bonding.
Taking a deep breath, Milena turned to the man in the doorway.
Putting a hand on her hip, she asked rather belligerently, “Well?”
In her defense, she normally wouldn’t have been so abrupt or rude to a man with a gun, but she was tired, and more than a little uneasy about the appearance of the men. She had no idea what was going on, and desperately wanted to protect Sadie, Christine, and the newborn baby.
“What’s someone like you doing in a place like this?”
Milena blinked. It almost sounded like a pick-up line. Except they weren’t in a bar and the weapon in the man’s hands made it more than clear he wasn’t trying to impress her.
“I work here.”
He made a noise that sounded like a snort, but with the shield over his face, Milena couldn’t be sure. It annoyed her that she couldn’t see him. Generally, people tended to broadcast some of what they were thinking through their facial expressions, but she was flying blind here.
Milena had no idea if the man had planned on responding to her snarky answer to his question, because they were interrupted by another man appearing in the doorway.
“Milena Reinhardt?”
She nodded. “That’s me. What’s going on?”
“You and your friend need to come with me.”
Shaking, Milena crossed her arms over her chest and pretended to be braver than she was actually feeling. “I don’t know who you are or what you want. We’re not going anywhere with you.”
The man turned away, looking at her over his shoulder, and pointed to the letters on the back of the vest he was wearing. “FBI. As of right this moment, the Bexar County School and Orphanage for Girls is officially shut down. And as employees, there are some tough questions you’re both going to have to answer about exactly what’s been going on here for the last decade.”
Milena blanched, and she reached out to prop herself up on the bed next to her so she didn’t fall flat on her face. She turned to look at Sadie—who didn’t look nearly as shocked as Milena felt.
“Will I get to keep my baby?” Christine asked softly from the bed next to her. “Master Jeremiah took my last boy away and I never saw him again.”
This time, Milena gaped at the teenager.
Christine and the other girls in the pregnancy unit, as it was called, were typically shy and didn’t act like any teenagers Milena had ever known. They never spoke out of turn and were always pol
ite, especially to Master Jeremiah and the Misters. They never questioned authority, especially a man’s. So for Christine to speak up like she had, to an unknown male authority figure at that, was shocking.
The man who had observed while Milena helped Christine give birth spoke before the FBI agent could. His voice was low and rumbly…and something about it sounded familiar. “You’ll get to keep your baby.”
Too many thoughts were tumbling around Milena’s brain. She had no idea what was going on, but she had a feeling it was bad. She and Sadie had discussed their suspicions about the school, but that’s all they were—suspicions. They had no concrete proof of anything. Milena also knew her friend had talked to her uncle and some of his friends and relatives who owned a security company up in Dallas, but Sadie hadn’t been sure they could find out anything about the school.
Master Jeremiah was an upstanding member of San Antonio society. He’d received a commendation from the mayor for the work he was doing for the girls at Bexar. There was a steady stream of important men from the city who came to observe. Police officers, politicians, businessmen.
If all those authority figures had been there, and hadn’t found anything out of order, what could she and Sadie do?
Looked like they didn’t have to do anything. Whatever was happening was big. Especially if the FBI was involved.
“I need to get changed, and make sure Christine and her baby—”
The FBI agent interrupted her. “There are paramedics outside. They’ll take care of them.”
“Oh, but—”
The agent took a step toward her as he said, “Come along, Ms. Reinhardt. Stop stalling.”
“Alvarez,” the mystery man growled, as Milena almost tripped over her own feet trying to back away from the menacing agent reaching toward her.
The agent stopped in his tracks and dropped his hand. “There’s nothing more you can do here,” the man called Alvarez said, obviously trying to temper his impatience. “Please come with me now.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on. Where are the other girls? They’re pregnant. Stress isn’t good for them.” Milena thought she heard a snort from Christine, but ignored it, her gaze going from the FBI agent’s face to the other man still standing by the door.
“They’re fine. They’re being looked after. You’re wasting time,” Alvarez said, his impatience barely held in check.
Swallowing hard, Milena looked over at Sadie. The other woman was still standing by Christine’s side and had one hand on the teenager’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” Sadie said. “They just want to ask us questions.”
Milena narrowed her eyes at her friend. She sounded completely at ease and not at all freaked out.
When she’d shown up a month ago out of the blue, Milena had immediately invited her to stay with her at her parents’ house. Bob and Missy Reinhardt had welcomed the addition to the household without question. Then again, that was how they were. They didn’t judge, and had never made Milena feel bad about moving back in with them two and a half years ago. Besides, they’d loved Sadie when the girls were in high school, and seemed pleased to see her again.
Milena had a million questions, but instead of asking them, she merely nodded. She’d find out soon enough what was going on. Until then, she just had to play it smart and keep quiet. She’d figure out what to do as soon as she learned exactly what had happened at the school that night.
Straightening her shoulders, she walked out of the delivery room, refusing to look at either of the intimidating men as she passed.
Chapter 2
Thomas James “TJ” Rockwell stood at the window to the interrogation room and clenched his teeth. Hard.
Milena was sitting in a wooden chair, slumped over the cold metal table in front of her. She’d been there for an hour and was losing the battle to stay awake. Her blonde hair was in disarray and hung limply around her face. Her head would bob as she began to fall asleep, then she’d jerk awake and catch herself. This had happened several times over the five minutes TJ had been watching her.
She was still wearing the stained light blue scrubs she’d had on when she’d delivered the teenager’s baby. Every so often, she’d rub her hands up and down her arms and shiver in the obviously cold interrogation room.
Without turning to look at the man next to him, TJ said, “She’s not a part of this, Cruz.”
“I know,” his friend responded immediately.
At that, TJ finally looked at the other man. He’d known Cruz a while. His friend was taller than TJ’s own six feet by a few inches, but TJ knew if push came to shove, he could win in a hand-to-hand-combat situation against him. Not that they were going to come to blows there in the FBI field office, but TJ was on edge.
It had been three years, one month, and twelve days since he’d been as close to Milena Reinhardt as he was right now, and the only thing he wanted to do was bust into the small, cold room, gather her into his arms, and tell her that he was an idiot for leaving her—and he’d never let her go again.
But he couldn’t do that.
Because she was about to be interrogated by the FBI about her role in the revolting child-abuse ring at the school.
At one time, it was thought the school was some sort of cult. TJ almost would have preferred that over the sick exploitation of children they’d discovered. The only thing keeping him semi calm was the fact that his friend Cruz would be the one interrogating her.
“If she knew what was happening at that fucking place, she wouldn’t have stood for it. I know that for a fact,” he told Cruz.
“I know,” Cruz repeated. “But you know as well as I do that she has to be questioned. We have to play this by the book because of how high up the corruption has apparently gone. We need to figure out how she got involved with them in the first place. A lot of heads are going to roll, and the FBI wants to make sure they’ve got as much information as possible on every asshole who visited that depraved place to make sure they pay.”
TJ took a deep breath and turned back to the window to stare at the only woman he’d ever loved. The woman he’d screwed over, and who he had no doubt would never forgive him. Hell, he couldn’t forgive himself for what he’d done. “Any word on Jeremiah or his son?”
Cruz pressed his lips together and shook his head. “No. They’re in the wind. The SWAT team checked the school from top to bottom and couldn’t find them. They got a ton of evidence to put them in jail for the rest of their fucking lives, but those two assholes somehow slipped away.”
“Is Milena or her friend in danger? What about the girls who were at the school?” TJ asked urgently.
Cruz shrugged. “Honestly, it’s hard to say. I’d like to believe Jeremiah and his son have enough on their plates getting out of town and staying ahead of law enforcement, but the bottom line is that I just don’t know.”
“Fuck,” TJ said. “I want to be assigned to Milena.”
Cruz held up his hand. “The bureau isn’t taking that step yet. Until there’s proof the Joneses are still around or are targeting anyone, we can’t authorize any extra budget to go toward bodyguards.”
“You don’t need to pay me a dime. All I need is someone from the bureau to have a word with my supervisor so I can get the time off.”
Cruz stared at him for a long moment before nodding. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Appreciate it. I’m taking the next week off. Vacation. But after that, I need the official approval to stick close to her side.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Thanks.”
Cruz turned to go.
“Go easy on her, Cruz. She’s had a hard night,” TJ said softly.
Cruz nodded again, and clapped TJ on the shoulder before turning to leave the small observation room.
“Cruz?”
The other man stopped at the door and turned back.
TJ shrugged out of the brown leather jacket he’d been wearing and held it out to the other man. “Turn up the air
in there. You don’t need to use any fucking interrogation techniques on her, like making the temperature too cold or hot. She’s freezing. Cut her some slack.”
Cruz hesitated for a second, then grabbed the jacket TJ held out to him. Without a word, he slipped out of the room to question Milena.
TJ resumed his position in front of the mirror and fisted his hands in his pockets. He hated this. Loathed it. Wanted nothing more than to be in there with Milena himself. But this had quickly become the government’s operation. He’d been invited to participate in the raid only because he knew Cruz. TJ suspected that Chase Jackson, the Army Captain stationed up at Fort Hood, had something to do with his involvement in the raid as well.
Jackson had called and asked him to keep an eye on the comings and goings at the school. After learning Milena—his Milena—had been linked to the school, he’d spent every spare moment he had watching the property. It was only after talking to his friend, Cruz, that he’d discovered the school was already part of a low-priority FBI investigation.
Using the skills he’d learned in the Army as a Delta Force soldier, TJ had found a spot on a ridge about a mile away where he could watch over the school. He’d told Cruz about the location, and the two of them had spent the last month observing and taking notes—often together—on the comings and goings of every car. Repeat visits from some of San Antonio’s highest officials was enough to make them suspicious. They’d never seen the children playing on the expensive playground off to the side of the school, and in fact, rarely saw any glimpses of the kids at all.
Audio captured by a wired city councilman sent in by the FBI—in exchange for a lesser sentence on his recent embezzlement charge—instantly changed the case from low-priority to an extremely high-priority one.
He’d watched as Milena had driven onto the grounds promptly at twelve forty-five, three days a week, Sadie in the passenger seat of her red Subaru Forester. She’d always gone into one building, which sat some ways away from the large main building. When five o’clock came, she and Sadie exited the building, got back in her car, and drove away.