Healed (The Found Book 3) (18 page)

The lights in the lab were suddenly turned on, the bright light causing Sarah to blink. When she looked around she saw a huge room that was empty except for the rudimentary items one might have in a lab. In the corner she saw a space that had been used as a quarantine area, and inside was an empty crib.

Over in another corner two men had Pheung trapped between them, and Nate was closing in. Pheung began to cower. “I don’t know anything.”

“You better think of something.” Sarah rested her head on the tall table, taking in the scene. “Where is the baby?”

“Simms was in charge.”

“That wasn’t what I asked, now was it?” The two soldiers jerked Pheung’s arms up behind his back, causing him to yell in pain. “I’ll have them break your arms, and not give a shit. Where is the baby?” Nate demanded again.

“She’s been gone for months.”

Maricel and Kota were now standing next to Nate, Maricel whimpered at Pheung’s answer.

“Not good enough.” The two men lifted Pheung off the ground and he screamed.

“Simms, she knows.” They lowered him back to the floor. Panting with pain he continued, “Stovers had Simms arrange for her to be taken somewhere. She didn’t tell me. I asked, but she said I didn’t want to know.”

“Address for Simms.”

“It’s in my phone,” he motioned to his pocket with his head. Nate snatched it and scrolled through the contacts.

“I want him and everyone else in this place tied up tight, and locked in this lab.”

****

Nate insisted Sarah head back with Randy and Cyrus to the temporary headquarters in Fort Mojave. Meanwhile there was no way Maricel was not going to be part of the questioning of Kathy Simms. Nate really wanted Kota to head back with Sarah, but he had demanded to stay with Maricel, saying she needed a familiar face. Nate guessed he was right.

Simms lived in an upscale neighborhood in Needles, and four men and a woman pouring out of a truck at six am was going to look suspicious. The good news was the property was large, and the houses were spread far apart. They circled back to the cul-de-sac behind and were able to work their way through her fence and yard. Her security was a joke. Nate easily slipped open the sliding glass door. The blender on the kitchen counter was half full, and there was a half cup of coffee beside it. He and Ken waited on either side of the kitchen entrance, and before long she entered.

“Good Morning Ms. Simms, don’t make a sound,” Nate had his gun trained on her. “We need a few questions answered.” Ken slipped out of the room to the front door, and letting Kota and Maricel into the house.

“Where is Almacita? You bitch.” Kota wrapped both arms around Maricel’s waist to keep her from running towards the woman. Kathy Simm’s said nothing, just stared at Maricel in stunned silence.

“Ms. Simms answer the question,” Nate lifted the gun higher, making her tremble.

“She’s alive and well. I swear it. Maricel, she’s safe.” She looked desperately at Maricel, looking for some kind of mercy.

“You puta. You took her from me and now she’s gone,” Maricel sobbed out the words. “She’s only safe with me. Tell me where she is.”

“She’s in Atlanta. I’ve seen her. She’s in a safe environment, I swear to you. She’s safe. She’s being well taken care of.” With every reassurance of the baby’s safety Nate felt more worried.

“I’ll ask you one more time. Where’s Alma?” Nate demanded.

“She’s in Atlanta. Stovers has a team working with her.”

“Where in Atlanta? We need an address.”

“I, I...” Nate could tell she was too shaken to answer.

“Tell him!” Maricel shrieked.

“That’s not helping,” Kota pulled her back as best he could.

“I really don’t know, you’ve got to believe me. Please don’t kill me.” Nate lowered his gun, looking at the woman in disgust. He pulled her over to the kitchen dinette set.

“Now, take it from the beginning. We want to hear from the very first moment it was decided to take Alma from the Needles facility.” Nate pulled out his phone to record what she had to say.

Chapter Twelve

One of her first questions was what happened to Amy and Jeremy.

Cyrus assured her they were safe and sound at Amy’s parent’s house.

“What about her husband Chris? He beat her Cyrus, I took pictures. I had proof before I was kidnapped.” Sarah clutched her brother, praying he would believe her.

“I know sweetheart. Ramone got your camera from the cabin. He’s been with her damn near the entire time since she left the Chattahoochee forest.”

“And Chris?” Cyrus paused.

“What? Tell me,” Sarah demanded.

“We’re pretty sure he’s dead.”

“I don’t understand.” How could Chris Jeffries be dead?

“He’s the one who told Lee Stovers where to find you. We really think when he wasn’t useful anymore they had him killed.” It was too much to take in. She stared at her brother.

“Poor Jeremy.”

“Are you kidding me? That fucking bastard almost got his wife and son killed, not to mention what happened to you. If he’s not dead, he will be.” Sarah’s eyes got huge as she looked at Cyrus and she shivered. He looked just as dangerous as every other member of the naval team. She’d never noticed it before.

“So Amy’s all right?”

“As well as can be expected. Now why don’t you get some sleep?”

“I’m not tired.”

“Try anyway, it’s going to be a while until Nate comes back from interrogating Kathy Simms.”

Sarah finally settled onto the couch under the blanket her brother had placed over her. When she woke up, Cyrus was gone. She’d expected it since Cyrus was the one with the police background. He’d be the best to go on site to help coordinate the explanations with Nevada authorities.

She lifted the blanket and sat up on the couch.

“Easy Angel,” Nate said as he came into the small room where she had been sleeping. “Don’t get up too fast. You’ve been through a lot.” Sarah’s foot got caught in the blanket as she tried to get up, but he was there in an instant, catching her before she could fall.

“Nate. I’ve been waiting for you.” He caught her so they were nose to nose. She smiled and he smiled back.

“Cyrus promised to make you go right to bed.”

“There was only a couch and I wanted you on it with me.” His grin grew bigger. So many emotions crossed his face she couldn’t keep up. He scooped her up, and sat down on the sofa, nuzzling the top of her head.

“You need to tell me what happened.” She picked at the dark green of his T-Shirt. “Are you asking as the Chief?”

“I’m asking as Nate, as your lover, as the man who didn’t save you and desperately needs to know what happened to you these last six days.”

“But you did save me,” Sarah protested. She tried to shift positions so she could look him in the face, but he wouldn’t allow it. He kept her tucked under his chin.

“I failed you, and now I need to know what happened. Please Angel, tell me.”

So she told him. She told him how she’d woken up without a memory and about the drugs they had given her.

“For fertility?”

“Both for fertility and to screw with my memory. The first couple of times I woke up I couldn’t remember who I was, it took me time. Then I would and they would administer the drugs again. Finally I figured out how to stop the loop from happening.”

“How?” he demanded. She could see how much pain all of this caused him.

“I would think back to the other universe and hold onto the fact if I could remember that time, I could keep
all
of my memories. It worked. It really wasn’t so bad,” she assured him.

“Bullshit,” he said as his body went rigid. “I was there when you almost died, when you were convulsing and keeping me out. You never do that again. Do you hear me?” He shook her by the shoulders but so gently it brought tears to her eyes. She could hear the anguish in his voice.

“I hear you, but you could have been really hurt if we joined.”

“That never matters. Never.”

“It was really serious, I could have had an aneurysm, what if that happened to you?” She wiggled free so she could finally look at him in the eye. Nate cupped the back of her head and played with a tendril of her hair.

“Sarah, what do you think I’m doing here?” His voice was mild, but his eyes glittered like prisms.

“I don’t want to presume…”

“Goddamit, you better well presume. We might have only had one official date, but you’re it for me.”

“That doesn’t matter, what matters is how damn pushy you are. You could have been killed. What happened if I died while we were connected?”

“Then I would have died. I love you Sarah, if my last moments on Earth were spent trying to save you, then I would die content.” How could he sound so relaxed? So committed?

“That’s too much to ask.” His words left her in shreds. How could she put the man she loved at risk? No. Never.

“And if healing me could have killed you and I denied you the opportunity?” His question was softly spoken. Her nails gripped through his T-Shirt to the flesh below and tears started.

“It was like that?” her voice was clogged with tears.

“Exactly like that. You’re a doctor, trained to heal. I’m a soldier, trained to protect. You denied me the thing that defines me.” She pressed her head against his chest, processing his words, finally hearing them in her mind and in her heart.

“I’m so sorry,” her tears came harder.

“Don’t be sorry, just promise me you’ll never do it again.”

“I promise.” Nate tipped her chin, and merged his mouth to hers, their kiss was flavored with salt, with absolution, and with love. She melted into him, his power and tenderness making her dizzy, unable to fathom all the flavors of this man. He nipped and sucked, and made her crazy before finally parting and planting butterfly kisses up her jaw towards her temple.

“Tell me the rest, Angel. What happened after I left you?”

She told him about Stovers visit, and how Maricel and Kota came to her room, and Kota ended up signaling them for a rescue.

“Tell me how you got hurt. Kota told me your wrist was broken.”

“It was only fractured.” Again he stared at her, waiting.

“They wanted Kota to heal it. He said he needed another
found
person to amplify the healing process, so they brought in Maricel to help.
She
ended up healing my fractured wrist. That’s how we found out about her and her daughter.”

“How did your wrist get broken, Angel?” There would be no peace until she told him, so she explained about the orderly. He gritted his teeth and nodded. She then went onto tell him about baby Alma and what they learned about her living conditions. “They were deplorable.”

“I know Sarah. We spoke to Simms.”

“Did you find out where she is?”

“She’s been taken to Atlanta. Stovers knows exactly where she’s being kept, but Simms doesn’t.”

Sarah wilted. She wanted the baby safe. “Then how can you be sure she’s in Atlanta?”

“Simms flew into the Atlanta-Hartsfield Airport and was taken to the Rixitron headquarters. She knows she was driven about an hour outside the city, she’s just not sure where. We have to question Stovers.”

“So we’re headed for Atlanta?” She couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. She wanted to see her parents.

“Yep, we’re going on a private jet. Max Lawrence set it up. Apparently he wants to get us there fast. I personally think he’s just sick of flying commercial.”

“Max? I don’t understand. Max is here?” That didn’t make any sense. “Why is Max here?”

“It’s a long story. He can explain it on the plane.”

****

Nate stifled a yawn. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. Thirty-six hours without sleep was getting to him. As soon as Max and this woman Gabriella filled them in on their reasons for being there, he was going to go sit next to Sarah and grab some shut-eye.

Now Maricel had seen Gabriella she no longer seemed to need Kota. Nate checked his friend to see how he was dealing with the loss. Kota sat slouched in his airline seat, his eyelids at half mast, watching the two women.

Max addressed everyone in the plane. “Gabriella has been looking for Maricel since she and her family disappeared.”

Maricel started speaking quickly in Spanish. “Slow down Maricel, not everybody here understands Spanish.” Gabriella held the young woman in her arms. Even though Gabriella didn’t look much older than Maricel, she had an aura of authority and comfort Maricel easily clung to.

“Si. My Mama, brother and I jumped the train in Honduras and rode on top of it through Latin America and Mexico to the USA border.”

“How in the hell did Rixitron ever find you?” Cyrus asked.

“We took the train because my Mama was promised a job in America. It was a good job. She was a very good seamstress. She would work in a good shop doing this work.” Maricel’s voice was filled with pride.

“When we got to Reynosa we were met by a coyote who helped us get into the US, we were very lucky. Nobody else had such help.”

“Oh yeah, you were lucky all right,” Cyrus mumbled.

“When we got across the border they took me away and threw my mother and brother out of the truck. I don’t know what happened to them. They took me on a long drive until I ended up in that awful place.” She stopped talking for long moments. Finally she turned back to Gabriella and started crying and speaking rapidly in Spanish again. Nate caught most of it. She explained how she’d been experimented on, and subjected to invasive fertility treatments and finally impregnated with Alma. Gabriella translated all of this for everyone.

“For a long time I remembered nothing of my time before. I didn’t remember my mother or my brother. I was so sick when I was pregnant, but it was so worth it when Almacita was born. She was always such a good baby. But then she got sick.” Maricel was tough to understand with her accent and her voice clogged with tears, but everyone leaned forward and managed to catch what she was saying.

“Dr. Simms worked hard to keep my baby warm and safe. In the beginning I could hold her and hum to her. Then they made me wear gowns and masks and gloves, but I still held her. But then…” She erupted into long sobs. Nate’s stomach clenched. It was heartbreaking. He was thankful Gabriella was there for her. He saw Max Lawrence watching the duo with compassion, but also as if he knew what was coming next. The man was scary.