“We lost them,” Adler replied. “We found the SUV abandoned on Highway 1, but they’re gone. We’re staking out his house in Brush Park as well as the one in Bloomfield Hills. He hasn’t reported in with the DPD either. We’re still looking. His cell phone has been silent. We identified the other people through facial recognition. They go by Joel and Chloe Beechen.”
“Joel and Chloe? I believe they’re banished members of the Northern Light. I don’t understand how they’re still alive.” I turned toward my handler. “If they were informed of our impending raid on that house, it means that someone from The Light or the Shadows somehow tipped them off. It means there’s someone or multiple people within the FBI.”
Special Agent Adler’s lips pressed together. “Up until the raids, this task force was very small. I know it was secure. If it hadn’t been . . . well, you would have been discovered. But with the raids, all the acquisitions, and then the explosion in Bloomfield Heights, the number of agents has increased dramatically. We’ll begin an internal investigation, but first we need to be sure all of our witnesses are secure.”
I ran my hand through my hair.
Shit, I need a shower.
As we pulled up to the airport, my eyes widened. Being ushered from an airplane to a waiting van was a line of men, all ones I recognized, all with their hands cuffed behind their backs. I reached for the door handle and Adler reached for my arm.
“Protocol. You don’t want to ruin three years of work by saying the wrong thing. Let it go until you have Sara back.”
My neck stiffened and my eyes narrowed. Getting out of the SUV, I moved so that I’d be in plain view of each Commissioner and Assemblyman, and especially in view of Father Gabriel.
I waited as each person passed, each member of the chosen.
Perhaps the Commission and Father Gabriel thought Abraham had killed me; maybe they hadn’t given it much thought. When I saw the suit and the silk shirt, I knew.
I couldn’t speak. Nevertheless I took another step forward.
My movement must have caught his attention. When our eyes met, the look Gabriel Clark gave me was classic and unforgettable. At first it was as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His dark eyes widened in question. It was as his gaze scanned my body and lingered on the badge hanging from a lanyard around my neck that I smiled. In his glare I witnessed unadulterated hatred. I knew the look, because if I hadn’t known that Sara was safe, I would have been giving him the same expression. The next second an officer pulled Clark’s elbow and he looked away.
My smile had been more of a Cheshire grin, and I didn’t shine it just on Gabriel Clark. No, I maintained it with my cheeks high as Timothy passed by, his beady eyes narrowing in disbelief. It was only with Daniel and Luke that I found myself wanting to offer to help. I told myself I would, but first I wanted to get to Sara.
My sleep-deprived mind was a blur as I pushed my way through Henry Ford Hospital. As soon as we landed, I received an update. Stella Montgomery was in stable condition. After we left Anchorage she had undergone a minor medical procedure commonly referred to as a D & C.
I told myself to concentrate on the first sentence. She was safe and in stable condition. That didn’t mean that I could ignore the rest of the update. I was an FBI agent. My job was dangerous. Hell, I’d almost been killed in the past twenty-four hours, and because of me, so had Stella. I’d never considered children, never wanted them. Until now.
There was a special security detail outside Stella’s room. With the news of the Shadows, the FBI was taking every precaution. Although my face-off with Gabriel Clark had been gratifying, it was also stupid. Now I was a target. And if I was, so was Stella.
As I approached Stella’s room, I struggled with what I’d find. Mostly I worried about how she’d take the news about the baby. That was, if she remembered—if they’d disconnected the memory suppressant before it had time to do its job. No one, except Brother Raphael, knew exactly how it worked or how much of the drug it would take to destroy her memory. She’d already had it in her system. Would even a small amount take her back to a blank canvas? The last messages had said she hadn’t awakened, though the anesthesia from the procedure was wearing off.
“You’re her husband?” the doctor asked, just outside her door.
“Yes,” I said. Despite everything we’d been through, seeing her, even from a distance, made me smile. That was, until I noticed the bandages. “Why are her eyes still covered?”
“We thought maybe you could tell us. We didn’t want to remove the bandages if there was a previous trauma.”
I shook my weary head. “No, there’s no trauma. The D & C?”
“Agent McAlister, from Stella’s HCG levels, it’s difficult to say if she was ever pregnant. However, due to the trauma she endured to her torso and the heaviness of her menstrual bleeding, the D & C was completed as a safety precaution.”
“Trauma? What happened?”
“It appears as though blunt force was delivered directly to her uterus.”