“Em,” he said, thoughts racing. “Did you learn anything about what was happening to the pregnant teens at the facility? Do you think if Tessa were in labor, they’d take her to the hospital in Garrett?”
“I don’t think so, Sam. The girl we spoke to at the detention center told us that the pregnant teens were usually taken to the farm. That’s where they supposedly got prenatal care. It seems like the detention center wanted to keep the pregnancies a secret. I can only guess that’s where Tessa might be.”
“At the farm?”
“Yeah, but there’s more about that place. Did Zoe tell you about the guy who married you?”
He paced the road. “No, it was a short conversation. She said you guys had found evidence of criminal activity and that Tessa texted her she was in labor. Then she got off abruptly.”
Em sighed. “There’s way more. Michael did some digging. The farm and the detention facility are both associated with some company called NLR Holdings.”
“Did he find anything else?”
“Yeah, one weird coincidence. You know that Bud guy who married you and Zoe?”
“Sure. Bud Roberts.”
“His real name is Robert Riggs, and Zoe’s editor back when she worked at Zipline had the same last name.”
He stopped pacing. “Zipline?”
Zoe was fired from Zipline Media for her investigation into a girls’ juvenile detention facility near D.C., and now one of the key players in that decision may be related to a man living next door to another girls’ juvenile facility. Something like that didn’t just happen by chance. The pieces were there. He tried putting them together, but something was missing.
“Yeah,” Em said, breaking into his train of thought. “We didn’t know what to make of it. It could be a coincidence. But I don’t like that you can’t reach her.”
“I don’t like it either,” he answered.
“Sam, you need to get to that diner. You need to find Zoe.”
“I will. I’m leaving now, but I’m a good twenty minutes away. Can you do me a favor, Em?”
“Anything.”
“Call Michael back. Ask him to get ahold of Gabe, Nick, and Ben. Let them know I may need them in Garrett.”
“Do you think she’s in danger?”
“I don’t know. But I want to be ready.”
He ended the call with Em and turned to find Conrad watching him, hands on his hips.
“What the hell’s going on with your wife?”
Sam looked down at his phone. He had a new email from Zoe. “Let me try her one more time.” He pressed the icon of Zoe’s smiling face. “Pick up, Z,” he whispered like a prayer.
But his prayer went to fucking voicemail.
He pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Conrad, we need to leave your truck and get to the diner.”
“Why?”
“I can’t get ahold of Zoe.”
Just as he spoke those words, his phone buzzed an incoming text.
Thank Christ! It was a text from her. He checked the time stamp then cursed under his breath. The damned thing was sent almost thirty minutes ago. She must have texted him right after she’d hung up.
Change of plan. Meet me at Garrett police station. Going with FBI Agent Tobin. He’s been working with Garrett police investigating detention center.
“It’s my wife,” he said. “We need to head to the Garrett police station.”
“The station? I thought she was at the diner?”
“It looks like she’d met up with an FBI agent who’s been investigating the detention center, too.”
“What FBI agent in Garrett?”
Sam held out the phone for Conrad to read the message.
The man shook his head. “Sam, the Garrett Police Department is not coordinating with the FBI. I’d be the first to tell you if we were. I don’t know who the hell this Tobin guy is.”
Sam gritted his teeth. He knew from the second the text came in from the burner phone, things had gone sideways. Zoe had stumbled onto something big. Something that went beyond abuse claims at a juvenile detention center in the middle of nowhere Kansas.
“Conrad, I’m going to need your help. I don’t know who’s taken my wife, but I have a good idea of where they’re headed.”
22
Zoe twisted her wrists, trying to loosen the handcuffs. She wanted to scream. She should have inspected the badge more closely. She should have known something was wrong when she’d asked to see it again and Agent Tobin or whoever the hell he was glossed over her request.
Dammit!
Baumgartner sat next to her in the backseat of the car while Tobin drove. The guard glanced over at her. Even though it was now dark, she could sense the cold, hazel eyes void of warmth boring into her.
The man barked out a laugh. “How stupid do you think we are? Do you think we don’t have cameras in the director’s office?”
She lifted her chin and stared out the window at the beams of light projected onto the empty country road. She hadn’t thought about that at all. In the reception area, sure, there would be cameras. In the hallways, of course. But she’d assumed the director’s office received some level of privacy.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You don’t recognize the drive, Miss Stein? Or should I say, Mrs. Sinclair?” Tobin replied.
A chill ran down her spine as the headlights illuminated the sign for the Intimacy Now retreat. Her pulse quickened. Tessa could be there. She could help her. She would figure something out. Zoe cleared her throat. “I demand you let me go. This doesn’t have to end badly for anyone.”
Baumgartner leaned into her. “You demand?” He pulled a taser from his belt and pulled the trigger. The device crackled, hot and electric, illuminating the backseat in a flash of blue light.
Zoe screamed and turned away from the man.
Then the crackling sound stopped, and Baumgartner released a cruel chuckle.
Her body trembled, but she forced herself to breathe. He hadn’t deployed it. She could still move. She was okay…for now.
“Stop playing around,” Tobin called from the front seat. “You know what we need to do.”
Zoe swallowed past the lump in her throat as they pulled up to the gate leading to the farm. The driver entered a code, and a grinding motor hummed as the gate opened, and they continued toward the farmhouse.
She needed a plan. Sam would know she was missing by now. But he’d been with Conrad, and if the cop was in on it, her husband could be in danger, too.
Think, Zoe! Think!
Bud and Harmony were connected to the facility. There was a possibility Bud and her old boss Jack Riggs were related. But it wasn’t adding up. Jack Riggs was a respected editor. He fought for justice. He pushed to uncover the truth.
Or did he?
She’d run that story at Zipline without his direct approval.
The meeting in his office was all about damage control.
Could he be connected to NLR Holdings, too?
The car stopped, and she looked out at the courtyard—the place where she’d married Sam. The place where they’d let go of the past and decided to build a future. Sam’s face flashed before her eyes. He had to be okay. He was strong. He was bigger than Conrad. But Conrad would be armed.
Stop!
She couldn’t let her mind go there. She had one objective. Escape. If Tessa were in labor, she’d need to get out of there and contact the real FBI. If Tessa wasn’t in labor and the call was a ruse, the plan would be the same.
Get away.
Get help.
“Get out!” came Baumgartner’s voice.
Zoe startled as the guard grabbed her by the cuffs and pulled her out of the car. It was a cool November evening. The day had been relatively warm for this time of year. At least if she got the chance to run, she wouldn’t freeze to death. Baumgartner flung her against the car, her body slamming against the side.
“Jason, there’s no need for that.”
B
ud stood on the front porch in medical scrubs.
“Bring our guest in,” he added and headed inside the house.
Baumgartner grabbed her by the hair, twisted the locks, and pulled her through the door.
The expensive furniture in the kitchen and living room sat pushed against the walls, covered with plastic sheeting. Now, it looked like a make-shift hospital room equipped with monitors, a table with medical implements and in the center of the room, a bed containing a restrained and very pregnant Tessa Jackson. Her head lolled to the side, eyes closed, mouth gaping open.
Zoe gasped.
She tried to go to the girl, but Baumgartner held her back.
Zoe twisted against the guard’s hold. “Is she dead?”
Bud’s brow furrowed. “Heavens no! Harmony sedated her.”
“Sedated?”
Bud nodded like it was normal to have a comatose pregnant teenager laid out in his living room. “Yes, it’s much easier on the girls.”
Girls.
Zoe gritted her teeth. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Harmony entered the room also wearing scrubs. “I thought we did something about her aura. But no, it’s very dark, isn’t it, Bud?” she said, then raised a needle.
Zoe gasped. “What is that for?”
Harmony waved her off. “It’s only Pitocin. It makes the uterus contract so we can speed up the labor. This baby is a gift.”
“A gift?” Zoe echoed.
This place was like the Twilight Zone. Zoe pulled free of Baumgartner’s hold and looked from Bud to Harmony. “This girl needs to be at a hospital. She needs proper medical care.”
“She’s got proper care. Harmony’s a nurse,” Bud answered.
“And…” Harmony prompted.
Bud grinned. “And a practitioner of psychedelic medicine.”
Zoe turned to the woman. “Whatever you are, you should know this isn’t right. What you’re doing to these girls, what’s going on at the detention facility, it’s a gross injustice.”
Harmony added the Pitocin to Tessa’s IV.
The girl blinked slowly. “Zoe,” she said, on an airy exhale of breath.
“You know her?” Harmony asked.
Zoe ignored the woman and tried to catch Tessa’s woozy gaze. “It’s going to be okay, Tessa,” she replied, mind racing.
Like it or not, this baby was coming.
Bud turned to Baumgartner. “We can remove Zoe’s restraints, Jason. I can’t imagine she’d try and run. Plus, we’ve got a guard on the front door. Tobin’s still out there, right?”
With a sullen nod, the guard unlocked the cuffs.
Bud gestured to the kitchen table. “Have a seat, Zoe.”
She sat down, gaze trained on Tessa. The teen began to move in mini convulsions.
Harmony cocked her head to the side. “Oh dear! I may have gotten the psilocybin dosage wrong.”
Zoe’s mouth dropped open. “Psilocybin? Like shrooms? Like hallucinogenic drugs?”
Harmony smiled. “Yes, I’m working on a dosage regiment.”
“For pregnant women?” Zoe asked, dumbfounded.
“It’s science. I’m an herbalist,” Harmony replied.
“No, you’re not an herbalist. You’re cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs crazy!”
Harmony ignored her and turned to Baumgartner. “Jason, I’m going to need your help getting our patient’s legs into the stirrups.”
The guard took a step forward, but Harmony stopped him. “No guns. No tasers. I can’t have that energy around me as I work.”
Baumgartner blew out a breath, set his weapons on a nearby table, then maneuvered the teen’s limp body.
Harmony went to the end of the table. “The head is crowning!”
Zoe watched in horror as Harmony delivered Tessa’s baby. The teen barely moved, drugged, her wrist handcuffed to the sides of the bed, her legs bowed outward. She didn’t deserve this. No one did.
“I’m going out front with Tobin. I hate this shit,” Baumgartner said, grimacing as he left the house.
Barely a minute passed before Harmony was holding Tessa’s tiny baby boy. Bud went to Harmony and took the infant while she remained at the foot of the hospital bed tending to Tessa’s limp body.
“Birth is a beautiful thing,” Bud said as the unmistakable cries of a newborn cut through the air. He waved her over to a table with a water basin. “Come and see, Zoe. Come and see the service we do for others.”
Walking slowly, Zoe kept her gaze locked on Tessa. She glanced at the floor and saw a twisted ring of toilet paper near the side of the bed similar to the one she’d found in the field. She bent down and picked it up.
Harmony peeled off her disposable gloves. “Pay no mind to that. The girls like to make bracelets out of toilet paper.”
Zoe untwisted it. T, H, O, M, A, S. Thomas was written just as Laney had been written on the one she’d found. The girls had named their babies. They’d worn these bracelets as their only claim to their flesh and blood.
Zoe swallowed hard. This was not the time to lose it.
“Zoe,” Bud called. He’d cleaned off the baby’s body and had wrapped him in a blanket.
She gazed at the baby’s perfect pink cheeks and was hit by a wave of recognition. Weeks ago, in the kitchen not ten feet away, she’d seen this face in Sam’s eyes. She’d seen this child, this baby boy. It had shaken her to the core. Now, here she was looking down on the living, breathing embodiment of her vision.
She glanced back at Tessa. “Bud, you seem like a reasonable man. This needs to stop. All of this needs to be over. Whatever you’re involved in, it can’t get any better for you if something happens to Tessa or her baby.”
“This baby isn’t Tessa’s,” he said, placing the swaddled infant into a padded basket sitting on the kitchen table.
A chill spider-crawled down Zoe’s spine.
What were they going to do with Tessa’s baby?
Before she could ask, the front door slammed. Zoe glanced over to see an angry Jack Riggs coming toward her, and following a step behind, Cheryl Laughlin with a pinched expression.
The air caught in her throat. “Jack. Mr. Riggs, you’ve got to do something!”
He bypassed her, ignored the baby, and got nose to nose with Bud. “All you needed to do was watch over the detention facility. As a favor, I hired your idiot brother-in-law to run the place. I even turned a blind eye to the asinine couples retreat and your magic mushroom farm bullshit as long as everything ran according to plan.”
Plan? They were all in on it.
Bud took a step back. “Calm down, little brother. We’ve got the reporter. We’ll be fine. And the couples retreat and herbal medicine are not bullshit, Jack. It’s our divine calling.”
“Your divine calling?” Jack huffed. “You’re a washed-up high school chemistry teacher. She’s an opioid-popping nurse. And thanks to your last calling of trying to get rich off of meth, you’ve both lost your licenses. And now we’ve got this to deal with,” he said, pointing to Zoe.
She froze, gaze bouncing between the men.
They were brothers. Family tangled up in a web of illegal activity.
Bud raised his hands. “We didn’t know who she was when she came to the marriage retreat, Jack.”
“Well, thank Christ I’ve got smarter people than Dwain working for me. That idiot couldn’t connect two dots on a piece of paper without getting lost.”
“You know about all this? You’re okay with it?” Zoe asked.
There was still a chance Jack could help. He’d been a legend in the news world. He was one of the reasons she’d applied to work for Zipline Media.
Jack glared at her. “I should have kept an eye on you. I’d heard you were in Kansas City doing puff pieces for public radio. But I should have known the moment you got a whiff of another girls’ detention center you’d be on it like a dog to a bone.”
“But you’re a good man. You fight against injustices.”
Jack laughed, an
empty, soulless sound. “You want to know what I’ve learned trying to stand up for justice, Zoe? There is no right choice. There are no good guys or bad guys. This world has two kinds of people: winners and losers. You’re either at the top, or you’re shoveling their shit at the bottom. I’m done shoveling shit. And girls like that.” He pointed to Tessa. “Nobody cares about them. They’re nothing. I might as well make money off their drug-addicted, whoring asses.”
Anger burned hot in her chest. “You’re a bastard! You don’t get to decide that! You’re not God!”
Jack leaned in. “But you see, I do. You think you can save the world, Zoe. I was like you once. I worked my fingers to the bone. And for what? Shit pay and a pat on the back? Cheryl showed me what real power feels like. And guess what? It’s fucking fantastic to be on top. I can have anything I want whenever I want it. You want to be a saint, Zoe? You want to save everyone? I’ve got news for you. They’re not worth it.”
Zoe shook her head. “I know about NLR Holdings. I saw the books, Jack. It’s fraud. It’s all illegal. It’s—”
“It’s how you play the game, little girl,” he growled.
Cheryl tapped her toe against the hardwood. “I warned you this could happen, Jackie. You were the one who begged me to bring your brother into the business.”
Jack ran a hand through his hair. “Baby, I’ll get this under control.”
Jackie? Baby?
Zoe glanced at their hands. Neither had been married when she’d worked at Zipline. Now they each wore a wedding band. And if Jack wanted money and power, Cheryl was his best bet. Her family was powerful. They’d branded themselves as venture capitalists, but Zoe now would bet her life their fortune was built on fraud and the suffering of others.
Cheryl pressed her hand to Jack’s back. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. This nosy journalist already has a history of rogue reporting, and today, she gained access to a secure girls’ rehabilitation center under false pretenses. She’s obsessed. She’s out of control. What if she came back to the facility with a gun?”
Jack’s lips curved into a smile. “I could write the damned lead now. Armed, obsessed reporter with a grudge storms juvenile rehabilitation center. Guards had no choice but to shoot.”
The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5) Page 130