Ultimate Surrender: The Surrender Series, Book 2 (15 page)

“Really is and shows up on time. For somebody his age I expected to have issues out of him but I just haven’t. Then we have Tony and April.”

“People in the lab? Older?”

“That’s them. They do all the blood work. Sonograms, etcetera.”

“Yeah. I’ve met everybody then. Interviewed them all but the two in the lab. They even worked through lunch. Talk about busy. I’m definitely gonna need a flow chart.” His smile should be outlawed in a tri-state area.

“Oh and Debbie. She’s out front and helps with the kids while their mothers are in their appointments.”

“Why don’t the kids just go back with their mothers?”

“Trust me, doctor appointments are stressful enough without a toddler running around getting into everything while you’re trying to talk about your new bundle of joy. Then add stress on top of it with just general life getting in the way. Debbie is a godsend here.”

“I stand corrected then.” He glanced around the reception area they were standing in. “What about client records? How accurate are they?”

She made a face.

“That accurate, huh?”

“Because of the nature of the clinic, full info isn’t required. A name and phone number is all we absolutely need.”

“And each name you get is real?” Skepticism bled from his question.

“No. Take the mother who came in earlier with the little girl. The mother said her name was Wren and the little girl’s name is Hazel. I think Hazel is right because she answers to it, but when the nurse calls Wren’s name she has to call it at least twice, sometimes three times before she realizes it’s her she’s talking to.”

“Well, even though I don’t think it’s going to produce a whole hell of a lot of info, I’d still like to look through the records.”

“Can’t because of Privacy Act laws in place for records.”

“What would you need for me to look into them?”

“Court order requiring me to make them available to law enforcement.” She made air quotes.

“Then I’ll have Wyatt get—”

“Already on it. I spoke with him this morning about it. As soon as it’s in place he’s going to have another officer run it down here.”

“And you were going to tell me this when? Since it’s completely relevant to the ongoing investigation?”

“Right now.” She barely kept the smile in check at him being growly.

“Uh huh. You’d better be glad I’m on my best behavior.”

She bit her lip and he growled really low.

Maria walked past them and she almost jumped back from Campbell. A glowing sign must be pointing to them together. She probably just couldn’t see it.

“And while you’re at it, will you get me copies of the fire report from the fire before?”

“The one caused by bad wiring?”

“That’s the one.”

“Why? It was deemed an accident.”

“So was your first suspected hit-and-run. I’m not taking any chances.”

“Touché.”

“Oh and one more question. What about the babies?” he asked.

“What about them?”

“Well, you said some of these women put their babies up for adoption. Others obviously take them home or whatever home is. What about CPS and foster care? I’m sure you’ve had to deal with it before.”

Reality hit her like a ton of bricks. “Ugh.” She held her head in her hands.

“Ugh, what?”

She looked up at him. “You can’t stay with me.”

“I thought we already covered this.”

“No, I mean, I want you to. Well, kinda. Anyways. I’m an approved foster parent. Remember the nursery? I can keep foster children until they can be placed with a permanent family. With you there I can’t keep kids, even in an emergency basis.”

“Then I’ll get approved.”

Frozen didn’t adequately describe how still she got. “Huh?”

“I’ll get approved. Can’t be much more than what they already had to have in place for the security license for C&C. Background and criminal checks already done and fingerprinting. How often does it happen?”

“Uhh. Every few months normally. Sometimes more often depending. And placement can be very quickly needed. There’s some training that you’d have to do.”

“I’m already CPR and first aid certified, and anything additional should be fine. We’ll make it work. I have some friends in the state department who owe me a favor. Let me see what I can do. And we’ll probably need to file something additional for you as well since I’m living there. I’ll get it all done. If something comes up before then, we’ll figure out what we need to do. Okay?”

Just that easy he fixed it.

He didn’t bitch and moan about the inconvenience. Didn’t act offended and pissed off. He just fixed it.

Just like that.

“Wren?” Maria called for probably the second or third time.

“Oh, sorry. That’s me.” Wren pushed herself up and held her hand out to the little girl. “Come with mummy.”

“But I’m playing. Can’t I stay and play? I’ll be super quiet.” The little girl whispered the last part.

“You know I don’t like to be separated from you. Why don’t you come with now and I’ll let you play for a few minutes before we leave?”

“Okay.” The little girl sighed but got up and took her mother’s hand.

“You have some extra stuff to do before we’re ready to go for the night?” Campbell asked and it took her a minute to remember what else she had to do.

“Yes, a few things. Lots of email still to get through so I’m not drowning in it tomorrow.”

“Perfect.” As Wren and Hazel walked by, he said, “Miss?”

Wren looked around and then glanced up at Campbell. “Y-yes?”

“I was really looking forward to doing the wall activity out there but it seems all of the experts have already gone home for the day. Unless…” He mushed his mouth to the side and looked down at Hazel. “Unless you might be willing to show me the ins and outs of the awesomeness?”

The little girl giggled behind her hand and then looked up at her mom. “Can I, Mama? I’m an esspert now.”

Wren brushed a hand over her cheek and then looked at Campbell and then over to Natalie.

“He has my complete stamp of approval, Ms. Wren. There are no better hands little Hazel will be in. I assure you.”

Glancing at Campbell one more time, she smiled just a little. “Are you sure it won’t be too much trouble?”

“She’ll be doing me a huge favor and I promise not to be any trouble.”

Boy, Natalie didn’t believe that for a second.

Maria left the door open and waited with a sweet smile tilting her lips up. She waggled her eyebrows at Natalie, which she completely wouldn’t acknowledge.

The mother bent down and kissed the little girl on the head. Campbell held a hand out to her and she gladly took it. “I’m Campbell, nice to meet you,” he said to the little girl as she led him back through the door and over to the toy area.

“I’m Hazel and I’m free.” She held up two fingers and then stared at them as if they’d done something wrong. “Hep,” she told him and held her hand out to him.

He lifted another one of her fingers for her.

“See, free.” As if that settled it she started chattering away about the awesomeness that was the wall activities.

After he got settled on the floor, he winked at Natalie before Maria closed the door between them and took Wren down the hall to check her vitals.

Work. She had work to do and she needed to keep her priorities straight.

Campbell made her feel all soft and warm inside, so she threw some more steel up around the walls protecting her heart to keep him out. She never expected to be worried he might already be inside them.

Chapter Twelve

Campbell

Five o’clock on the dot Campbell made sure the doors were locked and the rest of the staff were settled in finishing things up before going back to Natalie’s office to collect her.

He already knew she was going to be difficult to rustle out of her office chair, but her safety was his number one priority.

Walking into a torrent of f-bombs was not exactly what he expected.

“What the fuck pictures are you talking about, you ass-hat? There isn’t anything here.” She clicked a few more things with her mouse, which Campbell was pretty sure she was two seconds away from throwing.

“Natalie?”

She stood so fast she nearly fell over and shoved her chair back so hard it crashed into the far wall. “Oh, you. Sorry.” She went and grabbed the chair, dragged it in front of her computer, and sat back in it again.

“What’s the problem?”

“I got an email from my resident jackass extraordinaire talking about pictures on my computer. But I’ve been checking for almost ten minutes and there’s nothing here.”

Campbell was behind the desk and beside her in about two seconds. “Do you have another computer they could be talking about? One at home?” He read the email over her shoulder and then she proceeded to angrily push buttons again.

“No, this is it. I have a tablet at home but I only use it as an e-reader. No pictures at all since I always have my cell with me.”

“Let me sit down and take a look. I’ll see if I can figure out what he’s alluding to.”

“Fine.” She threw up her hands, clearly seething with pissed off and nowhere to aim it.

It didn’t take long for him to sit in her place and read the email fully. It called her all sorts of horrible names, alluded to some awful pictures that would get her shut down for good, threatened her and the clinic, and told her she didn’t deserve anything she had for who she was.

“Have you sent this to Wyatt yet?”

“No. I was about to when you walked in.”

“And of course you were about to come get me when I walked in. Since this is exactly why you hired me.” He glanced up at her and then back down. Yeah, he was upset she hadn’t called him in immediately.

“Actually no. At that exact moment I was thinking about chucking the computer in the hall and smashing it to bits. I’m sick and fucking tired of this guy invading my life.”

“I get that. But you don’t want to destroy evidence.”

“Duh.”

“And you’re not alone on this anymore, Natalie. Get it through your head this is not the bad guy against you anymore. You have a whole team of people fighting for you now.” As he spoke with her, he pulled the pics up on her computer and nothing greeted him that was outwardly bad. Honestly there wasn’t much there at all.

She watched over his shoulder, seething, as she paced back and forth in a five-foot area. “See, there’s nothing there.”

“Or at least nothing that hasn’t already been deleted.”

“If it’s already been deleted, it’s not there anyway. Duh. Didn’t they teach you that in spy school?”

He pushed a few buttons, and then a few more, and a few more. Then hundreds of pics started populating onto the screen.

Awful pics. Murder porn. Bestiality. Child porn. “Damaging pics” was putting it mildly.

“What the holy fuck?” Natalie asked from behind him. “I didn’t put those there. I didn’t. I—”

“I know, Natalie.”

“But… Where did they come from?”

“That’s what we have to find out.”

“But they’re right there on the screen now. Where did you find them? How did you even know where to look?”

“They teach you in spy school.”

She stared at him with daggers in her eyes, eyebrows pulled low. And such a glare.

“Tough crowd.” More daggers came his way so he pointed at the screen to get her laser beams focused on something else. “When you delete something, or a lot of somethings, they go to your recycle bin.”

“I know that but I always delete the crap in my recycle bin.”

“But if you didn’t know they were there you wouldn’t know to delete them. Most people don’t even know that much. But then you also have hidden files.”

“Hidden as in how hidden?”

“Say you put a thousand pics of Debbie does the donkey on your hard drive here.”

“Ugh, don’t use the name Debbie, I’m already traumatized enough.” She wiped a hand down her face and left her cheek propped on her palm with her other arm across her abdomen.

“Sorry. Bad call on my part. How about Samantha does…” he glanced again, “the football team.”

“Point made. Continue.”

“Okay, so you can put hundreds and thousands of the most horrible pictures ever onto your system. Put them in a folder and then hide the entire folder. You won’t see them until you get in the properties of the system and tell it to show all hidden files. It can be useful.” He gestured toward the screen. “Or not.”

A knock on the door drew both of their attentions.

Jay stood in the doorway with a backpack on. “Hey. Sorry to interrupt. We’re all done for the day. You want me to lock up?”

“No, don’t worry about it,” Campbell answered, and he could feel Natalie glaring at him. “A few NYC detectives are going to be showing up in a little while.”

“Oh, that sounds less than awesome.”

“Tell me about it,” Natalie added.

“You guys need me to stick around for anything?”

“No,” Natalie answered.

“Yes,” Campbell said at the same time.

“I’m not exactly sure which of those I need to listen to.”

“Just a couple questions on PC safety around here.” Campbell didn’t wait for him to say anything or Natalie to cut him off. He just kept on talking. “Do you guys keep the PC passwords written down anywhere here?”

“No,” Natalie answered.

“Yes,” Jay countered.

“Huh?” Natalie asked.

“You remember after the fire when the investigators were trying to get into one of the files because they suspected that ex-employee of being involved?”

“They needed to get into his computer and we didn’t have the passwords to any of the laptops because why would we.”

“Exactly. So we have the password envelope in the safe.”

“Is it still there?” Campbell wanted to know.

Jay shrugged. “That I know of. We haven’t needed it so it should still be sealed in there. Really wish I would have remembered it the other day when Greta had trouble getting into her system last week. I had to run through the names of each of her six hundred cats to get into the system when she couldn’t remember the password after her vacation. Remembered the list right after I got in. Lot of good it did me.”

“Natalie, why don’t you go with Jay and see what you can find while I call Wyatt and get him and one of his geek squad people down here. Bring the password list in here if it’s opened or not. Don’t touch it though.” He pulled out his wallet, extracting a pair of tweezers from it. “Use these, and grab a baggie from the break room and put it in there.”

“You have tweezers. In your wallet.” Natalie took them from him and eyed him sideways.

“Doesn’t everybody? And Natalie?” He stopped her halfway to her door. “You’re going to need a new password.”

“Why? Why all the talk about passwords? I know what my password is.”

“As does someone else, I’d say.” Campbell said so she could bounce it around in her brain. “One of the things I just checked was the log of attempted and successful logins. The only ones here for the last two weeks have been yours.”

“Couldn’t they have planted the pictures earlier than that?”

“Sure,” he conceded. “Except all of the dates on the shit-ton of pictures are from twelve days ago.”

“Ugh.”

“What pictures?” Jay asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Hey, Jay? Since you did it recently, where do I go to change her password?”

He closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the ceiling. “Control panel, user accounts, and then change password.”

Campbell got right to the spot and left it open. “It’ll be ready for you when you get back in here with your new password,” he called to Natalie as they moved down the hall.

The volume of her answers grew quieter the farther away they walked. “Fine. And don’t think I don’t notice how you’re just doing stuff and we’re not discussing it.”

“That’s true but you know I’m right so you can’t exactly argue.”

“I’m a girl. Sure I can. Logic normally doesn’t make a big difference in that argument.”

“Isn’t that the truth. Chicks can argue about anything.”

“You’re totally wrong.”

Campbell paused. “Are you just being argumentative now to be funny?”

“No comment.”

He smiled and picked up his cell to call Wyatt.

* * * * *

Hours later, Wyatt and one of his IT people named Eric were still hard at it, trying to find anything definitive about the pictures and who could have put them on there. Natalie had crashed on one of the couches in the next office, her adrenaline finally dropping out, leaving her exhausted. He probably had a bit to do with her state as well since he hadn’t let her sleep much the night before.

Campbell hung up his cell after being on a call with Clay to fill him in on what had been going on. He didn’t really have much to share, which was pissing him the fuck off.

“Clay’s up to speed.”

“Which isn’t saying much,” Wyatt added as he watched over Eric’s shoulder. “We’re probably going to have to take the laptop. We’re not finding anything much that could help us.”

Campbell wiped a hand down his face, exhaustion settling into his bones. “That’s gonna go over well with Natalie.”

“I know.”

“Have you found anything that could help? Anything at all?”

“Nothing much. Several layers deep we found one name attached to the properties of one of the pictures, but it means nothing to me. We’ll run forensics on all of the images and see what else we can come up with.”

“And what about the name?”

“We’ll put it through all seventeen of our identification databases and see if we get a match anywhere. It’s a long shot but it’s all we have to go on right now, which is more than we had this morning.”

“What’s the name so I can run it through my avenues, too?”

“Braden Currings.”

A gasp from the doorway filled Campbell’s stomach with acid. Natalie stood there, frozen with a hand over her mouth. Pale.

“Who is that, Natalie?”

She swallowed several times, and Campbell wondered if she were trying not to puke. “The father of my baby.”

“What baby?” Campbell asked her, but she didn’t answer. She looked lost somewhere in the past where he couldn’t reach her. Moving off the chair he sat in, he approached her and cupped her cheek, bringing her face around to look at him. “What baby?” He knew there was a whole hell of a lot more to her story than the simple pared-down version he’d gotten earlier.

“The one they forced me to give up for adoption.”

“Who’s they?”

“My parents.”