“While I need a room large enough to set up a few keyboards,” Em added.
Dwain raised his hand like a magician preparing the audience for a grand reveal. He picked up the walkie-talkie on his desk. “Baumgartner, have the girls from Block A sent to the cafeteria and the girls from Block B sent to the auxiliary room.”
Within seconds, a scratchy sounding Baumgartner confirmed the order.
“Can I just say,” Monica said, feigning admiration, “you are very commanding.”
“Very commanding,” Em echoed as the man beamed.
Monica adjusted the straps of her apron. “There is one problem.”
Dwain’s face fell. “You forgot the raisins?”
“No, I’ve got the raisins.” She dimmed the wattage on her grin. “But as you can see, Dwain, we’re short one assistant. I’m going to need my own personal assistant. Someone to stay right next to me the entire time I’m baking and never leave my side.”
Zoe resisted the impulse to roll her eyes. Like a trained dog, Dwain Q. Leonard perked up.
“I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I’d say I’m an excellent baker.”
“Dwain, would you assist me today?” Monica asked as if she was recruiting the man for a top-secret CIA operation.
“It would be an honor,” he said with an equal measure of drama.
The walkie-talkie beeped. “Sir, the girls are in place.”
Dwain clapped his hands. “Excellent!”
Em and Monica stood and headed toward the door.
“Not that door, ladies,” Dwain said with a twinkle in his eye. “This door.” He opened the bookshelf behind him to reveal a narrow hallway.
“A secret passageway! How exciting!” Monica said.
Em glanced back, and Zoe caught her friend’s gaze. This place kept getting weirder.
“What’s the passageway for?” Em asked.
The director paused. “Safety measures.”
Monica gestured to the boxes of cupcakes. “Don’t forget those.”
Dwain picked up the boxes and set off down the hall. Em and Monica were right behind him with Zoe at the rear. When they reached the end of the hall, Dwain balanced the boxes in one hand, removed a keycard from his pocket and waved it across a sensor. The door clicked open.
“Let me help you,” Monica said, holding the door.
The group exited the passageway into a hallway, but just before the door closed, Monica dropped the dishtowel she’d had in her pocket. Zoe, last to exit, kicked the towel into the doorway. She pulled the door almost closed, allowing the towel to keep it from clicking shut.
Charlie’s Angeling at its finest.
If she could get back here alone, this could be her chance to search the director’s office.
They followed Dwain down a hallway toward two guards.
The director glanced between the men. “Baumgartner, you come with me. Foley, you escort Miss MacCaslin to the auxiliary room.”
“Sir, did you want the girls from Block C?” Foley asked.
Dwain narrowed his gaze. “No, only A and B.”
“Why not the girls from the C block?” Monica asked.
“They’re delicate. Medically fragile,” Dwain replied then nodded toward the cafeteria. “Shall we?”
Monica turned to Em. “Have a lovely time! I’ll see you in a little bit.”
This was it.
“Ma’am, this way,” Foley said, gesturing the opposite way down the hall.
Em nodded and followed a step behind the guard.
It was quiet, deathly quiet for a “rehabilitation” center full of teenage girls. The halls were painted dishwater gray. The harsh scent of cleaning products gave the facility an antiseptic, lab-like quality.
Foley opened the door—no keycard needed—and they walked into a large room. A set of risers on the far wall contained three rows of teenage girls dressed in worn gray sweatpants and matching sweatshirts—all of them with their eyes trained on the ground.
Jesus! What was happening to these girls? A teen who looked to be around thirteen or fourteen sat, knee bouncing up and down. Another girl reached over, patted her back, and the movement stopped. You could smell the fear, palpable and pungent. These girls were under orders to behave.
Em met her gaze. “My violin case, please.”
Zoe carefully removed Em’s Paul Bailly violin. Made of gleaming Swill chalet pine, she handed the instrument to her friend. Em went to address the girls. The guard, satisfied Em’s case carried only her violin, turned his attention to the girls. Quickly, Zoe reached into a slim pocket inside the case and retrieved her phone, sliding it into her jeans.
Without a word, Em raised the violin to her chin. She didn’t start with Chopin or Shostakovich. No, Em gauged her audience and began with a violin rendition of Taylor Swift hits. The girls’ heads whipped up, hearing the familiar tunes. Even Foley tapped his foot.
While Em played, Zoe unpacked the keyboards. They’d planned to divide the girls into groups, assign them to a keyboard, and teach them the basics. Em had done community outreach engagements like this at several area schools and had a system that would give them one-on-one time with each girl.
Em played the last notes of “Shake It Off,” and the girls smiled and clapped.
“That’s better,” Em said, addressing the group.
All the girls except for one focused on her.
Foley took a step forward. “Dina, eyes forward!”
The girl continued looking at her shoes.
“She can’t hear you, sir,” a young girl said, tapping this Dina on her shoulder. The girl turned their way, a hearing aid in her ear.
“She has a hearing aid. It must not be working. Don’t you have fresh batteries?” Em asked the guard.
“They’ve been ordered,” he shot back. No more toe-tapping or smiling.
Em turned to the girl. “Do you sign?” she asked signing the words as she spoke.
The teen’s eyes lit up, and she signed back.
“Okay,” Em said and signed, smiling warmly at the teen.
As a girl, Em had learned to sign with her deaf grandmother and had also worked at a school for hearing impaired children for nearly a decade. Speaking while also signing, she introduced herself to the group and explained that they’d be learning some basic piano skills. She sent the girls to the keyboards and instructed them on finding middle C and practicing simple chords as Foley leaned against the wall, uninterested.
Zoe made her way over to Em. The sound of teens banging away on eight keyboards provided good cover.
She glanced over her shoulder. “We need to try and talk to one of them before the guard intervenes.”
Em nodded. “Let’s see if Dina will talk.”
“But she can’t hear.”
“She can sign, Z. That’s even better. I’m betting Taylor Swift’s number one fan over there doesn’t know a lick of sign language. Dina’s our best option.”
Zoe nodded, and they worked their way over to Dina’s group.
“You don’t have to bother with her,” Foley said, pointing to Dina. “She can’t hear it.”
“She can feel the vibrations. We’ll work with her one-on-one for a little bit,” Em answered then assigned the girls to join other keyboard groups.
Dina’s gaze bounced between them.
“It’s okay. You can talk to us. We want to help you,” Em signed, whispering the translation as her hands moved rapidly.
Dina signed quickly then touched a key on the keyboard.
Good. This girl understood they needed to keep up the music lesson ruse.
“She doesn’t want to get in trouble,” Em translated.
“Tell her she won’t. Tell her I’m Zoe Stein. I think some of the girls know my name here. Tell her I’m a friend of Maggie and TJ’s.”
Em nodded and went to work, fingers flying.
“Maggie?” Dina whispered and then started signing.
Em turned to her. “She knows who you are.
Maggie was able to get a message to one of the other girls here. Anyone who’s able to run away is supposed to try and contact you. They’ve been told you want to help them.”
“I do,” Zoe answered and squeezed the girl’s hand.
Em started signing. “Let me ask her how long her hearing aid hasn’t been working.”
The girl signed back, and Em smiled.
“What?” Zoe asked.
“She hasn’t been able to hear for a few weeks now, but she reads lips. They have her cleaning Leonard’s office, thinking she can’t understand them.”
Zoe swallowed hard and glanced at the guard. He’d left the wall and started walking the perimeter of the room. “We don’t have a lot of time. Ask her about Tessa and any pregnant girls.”
Em and Dina went back and forth, rapidly signing. Then Em’s face fell.
“What?” Zoe asked.
“The pregnant girls are separated from everyone else. There’s a tunnel that goes from the detention center to the farm. That’s how they move the girls back and forth. That’s where they’re taken when they go into labor. But they never come back.”
Zoe froze and remembered the bracelet she’d found in the field. Could that have come from a pregnant teen being moved to the farmhouse? She turned to Em. She needed to make sure they were talking about the same place. “Make sure it’s the farm next door. Ask her if it’s the farm east of the detention center.”
The girl nodded before Em had a chance to sign. She’d read her lips.
“And what do you mean, they don’t come back?” Zoe asked.
Dina signed with Em.
“Oh my god!” Em said on a tight exhale.
“What?”
“She said, no one has ever come back after having a baby. They’re just gone.”
Zoe met Dina’s gaze. “Is Tessa still here? You might know her as TJ?”
The girl nodded.
Foley was getting closer, and Zoe’s mind was racing. “Ask her about abuse. Ask her if girls are being hurt here.”
Again, Em didn’t need to sign. Dina understood and nodded.
“Have you been hurt?” Zoe asked.
The girl pulled up her sleeve to reveal the S-shape indentations around her wrist from the restraints.
“She’s fine. She just can’t—” Foley began, but a sharp beeping sound cut him off.
“What’s that?” Em asked.
Foley looked around. “Shit!”
“If that’s a fire alarm and my violin sustains any smoke damage, I’m holding you and this facility at fault.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing. It happens all the time,” he huffed.
“Willing to bet a one-hundred-thousand-dollar violin on it?” she asked, diva mode on. “This wood is Swiss chalet pine. Even the hint of smoke could render it worthless.”
Foley stood, slack-jawed.
Em gestured to the door. “I’m sending my assistant to bring my violin outside.”
“Um,” the man said.
Em met her gaze. Her friend loved her violin, but the fire in her eyes said she wanted to bring this place down even more. She handed her the violin. “Go!”
20
Zoe grabbed the violin case, secured the instrument, then headed out the door, leaving a frustrated Foley yelling at the girls to line up. The hall was empty, but she still moved quickly, eyes darting left and right. The adrenaline kicked in, and a tidal wave of determination and euphoria surged through her.
Their plan worked!
She’d have one minute, two tops in the director’s office before someone noticed she wasn’t outside with the violin or some guard got the bright idea to check the director’s office. She found the door leading to the passageway. Gripping the handle, she closed her eyes. “Om, Buddha, universe, help me out,” she whispered as the door opened, the lock disengaged due to the dishtowel.
O sixty-nine! Bingo!
Zoe grabbed the towel then ran down the narrow corridor, her pulse kicking up a notch with each step until she was at the secret door. Carefully, she cracked it open a fraction and peeked into the room.
Empty!
She set the violin case on the desk and went straight for the folder marked due dates. She pulled out her phone from where she’d tucked it into her pants and pressed the camera icon.
“It’s picture day, you child abusing twinkle-dicks,” she said under her breath, flipping open the file.
Inside, she found a bus schedule and a one-way ticket to Oklahoma City. Beneath that, she found a spreadsheet. The first column looked like initials. The second column, dates. The third column, more dates. But these dates were close to the second column’s dates. The fourth column boasted cash amounts ranging anywhere from twenty to forty thousand dollars.
Zoe ran her finger down the list of initials then froze.
T.J.
“Tessa Jackson! It has to be!”
The first column’s date was tomorrow. The next column was blank. But the fourth column, where there were dollar amounts in every other listing, had more letters.
CL/JR
“C, L and J, R,” she murmured, trying to work out what that could mean.
She shook her head, held up her phone, and took a picture. Now wasn’t the time to try and analyze. This was the equivalent of a smash and grab. She looked through the director’s desk, carefully pushing past envelopes and office supplies.
“Dammit! There has to be more.”
She pulled out the bottom drawer, leaned over, and knocked a stapler to the ground.
“Shit!”
She bent down to retrieve it when she noticed the desk had a second compartment hidden behind it. She pulled out the drawer and discovered a binder.
“Let’s see what you have to say.”
She opened to the first page.
NLR Holdings. Master Billing Records.
No company on the up and up kept their billing records in a hidden compartment. Nope, that was saved for gangsters, bookies, and white-collar criminals. Her eyes moved across the page. The Garrett Grove Rehabilitation Center for Juvenile Girls was double billing for a range of services using what looked like NLR Holdings as the go-between.
Zoe worked fast, photographing each page. “The government doesn’t like fraud, and you bastards have been double dipping.”
Mental health services. Medical services. GED training. Pricy furnishings. A boatload of money for what looked like gardening products. Zoe knew from her conversations with Maggie, none of these things were being provided at the facility. These greedy bastards were lining their pockets with taxpayer funds that were supposed to be helping young, vulnerable girls.
And then there were the abuse claims.
She slid the binder back into its hiding place and closed the drawer. “Personnel,” she said, glancing at the bookshelf. She needed the names of the guards.
Boom! A binder marked Current Employees sat wedged between a trendy looking furniture catalog and a phonebook. The way her luck was going, she should buy a damn lottery ticket on the way home.
She looked over the first couple of pages and saw each guard’s original application form along with a photograph and a background check report. She flipped through the pages. They’d done this for everyone. She skimmed several reports. Assault and battery. Driving while intoxicated. Weapons violations. Disorderly conduct. More felons worked here than were locked up inside! She tasted bile, but she held back the anger, held back the emotion. Overeagerness had tainted her reporting the last time. This time, the evidence would speak for itself. She picked up her phone. Click! Click! Click! Page after page, she documented gross negligence. Gross incompetence. Child endangerment.
She closed the binder and slid it back on the shelf just as the beeping stopped.
“Hey!” came a voice from outside the office. “Where’s the lady?”
That was Foley.
“What lady?”
And there was Baumgartner.
“The assistant who’s supposed to
be outside with the three trillion-dollar violin,” Foley continued.
She tucked her phone into her pants and sat in one of the chairs on the opposite side of the desk. “Hello! I’m in here! There was nobody here to buzz me out, so I thought the safest place for Ms. MacCaslin’s violin was in the director’s office.”
Zoe crossed her fingers and her toes.
Come on lady luck!
She didn’t know if that was true—the damned front door could have been wide open—but it was the best bullshit line she could come up with.
“You aren’t allowed to be in here,” Baumgartner said, eyes darting around the room.
She picked up the violin and walked out into the reception area. “I didn’t know what else to do. Is everything all right?”
He nodded warily. “They burned something during that baking demonstration.”
“We certainly did,” came Monica’s voice from down the hall. Em was next to her with the director struggling to keep up behind them.
“My violin?” Em asked, managing to manufacture a few tears. “Is it ruined?”
Zoe shook her head. “I’m not sure. I wasn’t able to get outside, so I went into the director’s office. I don’t think any smoke got to it.”
“But you don’t know for sure!” Em belted out like a soap opera actress.
Director Leonard wrung his hands. “Ms. MacCaslin, I’m sure your violin is fine. There was only a minimal amount of smoke—most of it in the cafeteria.”
Monica pressed her hand to her chest. “I thought I set the oven to three-twenty-five. Turns out, it was at five-twenty-five.”
“At least the cupcakes you brought are fine,” Dwain offered.
Em ignored the director, still rocking the daytime TV drama. “We need to leave immediately!”
“Of course, we do,” Monica said, rubbing Em’s back.
“Yes, absolutely!” Dwain seconded then looked to the guard. “Baumgartner, please return the ladies’ phones.”
The guard sauntered behind the counter and set a tub containing their smartphones on the table.
Still playing the part of the assistant, Zoe followed him in. She reached for the phones, but Baumgartner pulled the container back.
He narrowed his cold hazel gaze. “Something’s off.”
The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5) Page 128