Blake stood up, whipped her hair back into its no-nonsense ponytail. “Do it. Go talk to the girl. You’re onto something here, I can feel it. We’ll handle Rachel—now that we have a suspect, and a photograph for the media, this is going to move quickly. You go work this angle.”
“All right.” He stood up, stretched his shoulders to release some of the tension. Blake started walking away, then turned and gave him a blinding grin he felt right to his core.
He responded with a smile of his own. “Hey, Special Agent? Damn fine work.”
Chapter
43
Georgetown
SAM WATCHED KAYLIE working the map with Baldwin, giving him as much information to go on as she could. Doug had been careful over the years to keep an eye on the whereabouts of the cult through the other missing girls, but he hadn’t been very forthcoming with Kaylie about anything, thinking the less she knew, the better.
They finally decided to take a break. Baldwin went to call in, and Sam brought Kaylie a warm slice of lemon cake and a cup of tea. Her face lit up at the cake, a child’s response to sweets, and she closed her eyes in bliss while she ate it.
Sam waited for the girl to get to the end of her treat. When she’d licked the last of the icing from her fingers, Sam approached her gently. “I have a question about Doug. Several, in fact.”
“Mmm-hmm?”
“Why didn’t he ever go to the authorities? You guys were out there in the woods alone for years. All he had to do was call, and they would have come running. Why did he try to brazen it out, all by himself? And if he knew all these things were happening to the girls, the abuse and the rape and the fear, why didn’t he pull the plug on it? He knew what happened to you. How could he let that happen to another girl?”
Kaylie set the plate down on the coffee table. Her shoulders hunched in. “Oh. I see. You’re blaming him for all of the bad things that happened in Eden.”
“No, I’m not. I’m curious why a man with his background—military, FBI, saving you—wouldn’t try to save everyone there. He seems like an honorable man. But to know the things that were happening and not report them? It seems very out of character.”
Kaylie’s face contorted, and tears shone in her eyes. “They abandoned him.”
“Who’s they?”
“The people he worked for. You don’t understand how hard it was for him to do what he did. Adrian was a good friend of Doug’s well before he brought him into the fold. And betrayal to Eden is the most terrible thing a person can do. But Doug did it, anyway—for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was religious about his check-ins. But no one ever responded.”
“His check-ins? Kaylie, I’m confused.”
Xander came over and sat in the overstuffed chair facing the fireplace. Kaylie gave him a long look, as if she was trying to decide if he was going to attack, and when he did nothing but sit quietly, hands on his knees, she relaxed and nodded.
“Doug didn’t tell me everything about it, but he tried to talk to them for a year and no one ever responded. He knew how much trouble he was in. He figured they’d cut him loose. I think he thought about it a lot. Whether enough time had passed, whether he could trust them not to throw him in jail. He needed to wait until I was strong enough to take care of myself and then, when they didn’t respond, he decided to go it alone.”
“Everything about what?”
“He called it Sigint. I didn’t know what it meant.”
Xander sat up quickly, making her flinch. “Sorry. SIGINT. Signal intelligence. It’s a way of capturing messages sent across electronic mediums. Clandestinely. Kaylie, how did he send the messages?”
“A computer.”
“Did he leave the cabin to do it?”
“Yes, every time. He’d never compromise our position.”
“Did you ever go with him?”
She was watching him cautiously, clearly afraid of him. “Once. He was sick with a fever and wanted to be sure he sent the message correctly.”
“What means was he using to send the messages?”
“I don’t know. Email, I think. The time I went with him, we drove to Charleston, West Virginia. He told me he always sent his messages from different places so Adrian couldn’t track us down. But no one ever responded, so he finally stopped. Is that important?”
Xander gave Sam a quick nod.
“Yes, it is. Kaylie, thank you,” Sam said. “I’m going to go tell Baldwin. Do you want to get some rest now? We have a guest bedroom. You can sleep there for a bit. I know you don’t want to go into the FBI building, but they’re going to insist before long.”
“I don’t want to go there.”
“Why don’t you rest now, and we’ll talk about it when you get up?”
She stared at Sam for a long moment, then flung herself across the living room, gave her a rib-cracking hug and said, “Okay.”
*
Sam got Kaylie squared away while Xander told Baldwin what they’d learned. Sam was glad she’d asked about Doug’s situation. It just didn’t make sense to her that a man so dedicated to the safety of Kaylie Rousch wouldn’t at least try to save the rest of the girls.
If he’d known about it, that is.