by G. K. Parks
“About what?”
He rolled his eyes. “The week old bruises on your back and side. Are those from the second attack?”
“They’re just bruises. They’re healing. It’s not like I have internal bleeding.” My flippant remark was lost on him, but it didn’t matter. “How long until we get the results on the drug test?”
“The standard test won’t take long,” the medic assured.
“I want a full drug screen and tox report,” Decker ordered. “The standard won’t cut it.” He narrowed his eyes at the laboratory equipment. “I’m guessing you’re going to find ketamine.”
“We’ll be thorough. In the meantime, Agent Parker, you might as well get comfortable. Now that we’ve run the test, it’d be best to flush this garbage out of your system as quickly as possible.” He spoke to someone else about getting fluids set up in the break room. “We should have answers by morning, but until we know what we’re dealing with, you shouldn’t be out in the field.” He turned to Jace. “It’s your call, sir.”
Again, Decker’s hand went through his hair, and I snickered. Someone needed to work on controlling their nervous tics, and for once, it wasn’t me. “Come on, Alex. I’ll show you to our team’s break room.”
Once I was settled into a bedroom that didn’t appear to have been touched since the original occupant owned the house, I made myself comfortable on the bed. Not wasting my breath to ask if anyone had bothered to change the sheets, I remained on top of the covers. After getting hooked up to an IV, I let my eyes close.
“I need to phone Tim,” Decker declared. “He’ll want to know your condition. I’m going to say that the doctor has admitted you to the nearest hospital for observation, but you’ll be released in the morning. Should he call the facility to ask about your condition, the call will be rerouted and one of our guys will reply accordingly.” He hesitated for a second and then took a seat beside me. “We need to talk.”
Opening my eyes, I didn’t like those words or that tone. “I don’t think I’m compromised, but it’s possible that my reaction might have set off some alarms. I wasn’t thinking too clearly. I just wanted to get as far away from Wilde as possible.”
Decker held up his hand to silence me. “We’ll go through an official debrief in the morning, but assuming that your cover remains intact, the safest thing to do is pull you.”
“You can’t afford that.” I searched his ice blue eyes for a solution, but I saw the pity and fear. “You can’t tell me that you didn’t learn more tonight than you’ve learned in the last nine months. You need me.”
“Dammit, Alex.” He broke eye contact, finding the fluid drip particularly fascinating. “If I had already gone back to my trailer… Do you realize…. Fuck.”
“Yes. Yes. And yes.” I snorted. “God, you could have just asked for a thank you instead of being so dramatic.” He looked at me, and I smirked. “Thanks for saving my ass.”
“It was luck. And that’s the problem.” Abruptly, he took to pacing the room. “We aren’t positioned to provide back-up. Even if we splice into the CCTV feed, our agents are outside the property lines. Crossing into what is considered a sanctuary due to the church status will not go over well, but more importantly, it’ll take time to get a team inside to get you out. Our communication sucks. Our surveillance sucks. And I can’t guarantee your safety.”
“No shit, Sherlock. That’s why it’s called deep cover. I don’t expect a rescue. However, I did appreciate it.”
“We need to come up with a better play.”
“It’s your op, Decker. Figure it out and tell me what you want to do.”
Before he could say anything else, the medic came into the room. “The assistant director wants a full screen on you too. It’s likely you might have both been exposed to the same substance.”
Decker nodded. “I’ll be right back. We aren’t through discussing this.”
“Take your time,” I retorted. “I need to make a call anyway.” I reached for the landline on the nightstand. “Is this secure?” As soon as I was given the affirmative, I picked it up. Mark would be pissed that I was calling this late, but if he arrived at the office in the morning to a copy of the incident report and drug test on his desk, he’d have my ass. Thankfully, the effects of whatever I’d been exposed to were fading fast. Now I just had to run damage control with my boss and Agent Decker and find some way of nailing Wilde to the wall. Perhaps I should add world peace to my wish list while I was at it.
Twenty
“Sir?” an unfamiliar voice asked, and a groan resonated from my left.
Decker had fallen asleep on the bed beside me. However, he’d kept a respectable foot and a half between us. I flipped over to see one of the lab geeks in the doorway. Carlo was passed out in a recliner, and Eve and Stella were curled up on different corners of the sofa. Ben was at the table with half a dozen empty energy drinks in front of him, working on his tablet. It looked like almost the whole gang was here.
“What is it?” Decker asked, sitting up and rubbing his face.
“The drug screen came back negative.”
“What about Alex’s report?” Decker asked.
“It was negative also.”
I sat up, feeling completely back to normal. “How the hell can that be?” I asked. If Wilde had used some kind of mental mojo to elicit that reaction, I’d kill him and start wearing a tin foil hat.
The lab guy flipped through the pages. “As you know, there are hundreds of substances that can cause various reactions and are practically undetectable. Based on the blood test we ran and some of the elevated markers we found in Agent Parker’s system upon her arrival last night compared to the test we ran again this morning, it appears she was poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Decker asked, pointing out the absurdity of the statement.
The tech nodded. “Certain plants and herbs can cause temporary paralysis, difficulty breathing, and the other symptoms with which Parker presented. The effects were temporary, but I imagine continued exposure could result in an accumulation and possibly death.”
“That doesn’t make me feel particularly warm and fuzzy,” I murmured. “So what kind of plants or herbs are we talking about?”
The tech shrugged. “There are hundreds. It’d be easier to narrow down that list if we knew what you encountered.”
Decker licked his lips. “Wilde grows a ton of herbs on the property. He could easily be growing something like this without anyone knowing.” The conversation had woken the rest of the team, and he turned to Stella. “Legally speaking, are we able to get samples of his crops to test against Alex’s labs in order to find the cause?”
“We’ll need a sneak and peek, just to be on the safe side. I’ll get on that right away.” She left the room, followed by the tech.
Decker turned to me. “Are you good?”
“Yep. A little thing like a failed poisoning can’t slow me down. Do you still want to pull me?”
He pressed his lips together, feeling everyone’s attention focused on our conversation. “We need a safer way of executing this op. I’ll be back. Stay here.” Without waiting for a response, he went out the door, closing it behind him.
Eve made a humming sound as she stretched, and Ben shook each of the cans, hoping to find one that wasn’t empty. From the amount of caffeine he’d ingested, it was a good thing that the DEA had a medical team on the payroll. Climbing out of bed, I stretched, glad to feel normal again.
“Don’t tell me that you all live here,” I said, breaking the silence.
Eve laughed. “Not even close. We got the 911 last night, spent several hours working on strategy, and then we crashed here. Typically, we rally together in crisis, and last night counted.”
“You’re one of us now,” Carlo volunteered. “You spent the night in this crazy converted bedroom. All you need now is to party in the hot tubs, and we’ll trade out that gold shield of yours for one of ours.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll pa
ss.”
“Suit yourself,” he said.
The next two hours flew by as we strategized our next plan of attack and ran through all the new possibilities regarding Wilde and his followers. Now that we had some idea of how Tim might be manipulating his new recruits into trusting him and agreeing to whatever he wanted, it brought us back to the main question. Was Tim involved in the drug trade? So far, Decker hadn’t found anything on the property. The dead drug mules had been part of Wilde’s following at one point, but at the time of their deaths, they were no longer part of his cult and hadn’t been for several months. However, the fact that Tim had orchestrated a hit on the first man that attacked me and set the second one up to be caught and imprisoned meant that he had some way of instilling loyalty and garnering enough trust to ensure that no one would rat on him. We just needed to figure out what that was.
A phone chimed, and Ben checked his message. “Eckhardt just texted. It appears that Anton Shrieves had an open warrant in Texas for murder. He got flagged when the local authorities ran his prints, and seeing that murder trumps assault, they’ve agreed to transport the prisoner back to Texas.”
“Who the hell is Shrieves?” Decker asked.
“The man arrested for the second assault on Agent Parker,” Ben replied. “Didn’t any of you read through the briefing notes I typed up?”
Decker rubbed at the scruff on his cheeks. He was tired and frustrated, making him easily annoyed and likely a bit short-tempered. “Not yet. Update our field office and have agents conduct an interrogation once he’s settled into his new digs.” He looked at the time. “Dammit, we have to get back. Stella, where are we on that warrant?”
She gave him a thumbs up. “We’re a go.”
“Okay.” He turned to me. “Let’s head out. I’ll update you on our new strategy on the drive back.”
As we made our way to the door, Carlo held out a stack of stapled forms. “Your hospital discharge papers, diagnosis, and recommended treatment.” He smirked. “And to think that my mother was disappointed that I didn’t go to medical school. She should see me now.”
“Thanks.” I took the pages, leafing through them as we went. The actual blood test was real, minus the drug screening. However, Doctor Carlo wrote it off as an unknown drug interaction and effectively declared it an allergy to the pain medication. At least Wilde couldn’t ask to see any new prescription bottles.
“Be careful,” Eve called to our retreating backs, and I cast a quick glance over my shoulder. She nodded slightly and went back to the computer. At least it was nice to know that Decker’s team didn’t spend their downtime eating junk food and discussing sports scores.
Once we were back on the road, Decker exhaled deeply. Visibly, I could see him shift from Jackson Decker to Jason Ellis. He went from a serious federal agent to a laidback drifter in the blink of the eye and a swipe of his hair. Damn, that was one hell of a party trick.
“Alex,” he drove with one hand on the wheel, and the other fidgeting with the gearshift, “I owe you an apology. We’ve basically paraded you in front of Tim like a piñata, daring him to strike. And I imagine he’ll continue to find ways of beating you down until he gets what he wants.” He didn’t take his eyes off the road, perhaps unable to say what needed to be said if he had to look at me. However, now wasn’t the time to mince words, and I didn’t need him to sugarcoat things. I wasn’t a fool. I knew what Wilde wanted.
“He’ll just keep hitting me with a stick until he gets to the sweet, gooey center,” I retorted, going along with the analogy. “He wants to fuck me.”
Decker nodded. “He also wants access to your trust fund once it becomes available. I don’t know which is his top priority. Logically speaking, it should be the money, but his play last night was incredibly uncharacteristic. It was the act of a desperate man that appears to be in a downward spiral.” He bit his bottom lip and mussed his hair. “Something has him off kilter. He’s becoming erratic. It’s not safe for you to be alone with him in that facility.”
I laughed. “Alone? There are twenty other women inside that building. It isn’t safe for them either.” I shook my head and stared out the window. “I’ll be fine. I’ll take extra precautions. We’ve been too lax.”
“It never occurred to me that he could be using the dining hall as a way to drug his followers. Those other women that he brought into his bedroom,” Decker swallowed, slipping back to his real persona, “I let it happen. I didn’t realize. Dammit.” He slammed his palm against the wheel, causing the horn to beep.
“I don’t know if it was consensual,” I admitted, “but from the way Sarah and Anika and the others have spoken about him, I think they’ve all been duped into believing he is their protector. Honestly, in some ways, he might be.”
Jace’s icy glare came to rest on me. “How can you say that?”
“Things aren’t black and white.” I let out a bittersweet laugh. “Didn’t you ask if I was capable of sympathizing with his followers? I guess you have your answer now.”
“Alex, I don’t have time for decrypting your thoughts. Just speak your mind.”
“These women have no family, no close ties, no real connections to the outside world. That isn’t Wilde’s doing. That’s their own doing, and it’s probably a safe bet that most of them did it for a reason. Abuse is the most likely cause. Addiction would be a close second.”
“You think they’re damaged in some way and that’s why they revere Wilde.”
“You have the fancy training. What do you think?”
“With the exception of a few DUIs or minor drug-related offenses, none of the women have a criminal past. No one ever reported abuse or filed anything related to it. There’s no record, which isn’t at all uncommon.” He glanced at me again. “But they don’t behave like victims.”
“Are you sure? You haven’t been looking at them. You’ve been focused on Wilde. He offers them sanctuary. He promises safety, but he can control them by simply reinforcing familiar patterns without ever having to resort to violence. They might do things willingly, but it’s because they want to keep him happy and make sure that he’s pleased with them. They don’t want to anger him and risk repercussions.”
“I did say it’s almost like Stockholm syndrome,” Jace defended. “I didn’t just pull that out of my ass.”
I laughed. “Yes, you did. Those big words are just psychobabble meant to make you feel smart.”
“Well, that didn’t last particularly long since I feel like a fucking moron. Thanks for pointing out the glaringly obvious fact that I’ve been overlooking.”
“Anytime.”
He scratched at his beard. “That changes everything.” He shook his head again. “Why didn’t anyone ever speak out about this in any of the hundreds of guided meditation and sharing sessions that I’ve attended? Wilde emphasizes openness. These are topics that should have been discussed. He always talks about rebuilding, breaking down a person, and then making them stronger from the foundation up. The only openness has been in his group rehab sessions.”
“Maybe the women have some classes that you weren’t invited to join. Or perhaps he tells them to keep it a secret. The other possibility is that I’m wrong, but Anika noticed some of my scars. She said her friend had similar ones, but I think she was talking about herself. And the way most of them behave, especially around Wilde, I bet I’m right.”
“I don’t doubt it. I could kick myself for not realizing this months ago.” He sighed heavily. “We can’t continue this play. Your cover doesn’t have the victim mentality. She’s scrappy, like you. We can’t change that now, and even if we could, it would be a bad idea.” He tore his gaze from the road and met my eyes. “I never intended to use you as bait. It’s making him unravel. The first thing we need to do is get Wilde back on an even keel.”
“How?”
“We need to get you out of the dorms and make it clear that you are not to become one of his playthings. Once that’s done, his attention will shif
t to the other women and using you solely for your bank account. With any luck, that’ll lead to busting open his drug emporium.”
“It’s an emporium now?”
Jace cocked his head to the side. “Maybe. It’s hard to say. I’ve been slow on the uptake.” He cleared his throat, getting back to business. He didn’t enjoy having his mistakes pointed out, but he wasn’t going to deny the validity of my suspicions for the sake of his ego. “Let’s get back to the facts for a moment. We know that several women who had been members of Wilde’s cult at some point in the past were found with their stomachs cut open and drugs in their blood. We have every indication that they were acting as drug mules. We also know that Wilde was arrested over a decade ago for possession with intent to distribute. Somewhere between then and now, he accumulated enough liquid assets to purchase the land and start his co-op. And roughly twelve hours ago, you were poisoned. Just to be clear, that does add up to drugs and drug trafficking, right?”
“With a side of sexual abuse, possibly multiple counts of rape, and a chance of sex trafficking.” I scowled. “Timothy Wilde is one nasty son of a bitch pretending he’s one of the good guys. Believe me, when the time comes, I’m going to enjoy putting his ass behind bars.”
“That makes two of us. But first things first. We’re getting you out of harm’s way.”
Twenty-one
“This is such a bad idea,” I mumbled, but Decker ignored me, which he had been doing a lot more often recently, and placed his breakfast on the table. “Wilde is going to excommunicate you or worse. He’ll never approve of me staying here.”
Jace rolled his eyes and sat down. I’d never spent much time in a travel trailer, and I was surprised how roomy it was. I imagined something more along the lines of what I’d seen in various comedy films. This was a much fancier model with a walled-in bedroom, a small galley kitchen, bathroom, and living room with a tiny dining area. Shit, it was probably half the size of my apartment back home.
