by Sharon Dunn
“They’ll bring the car in for evidence and fingerprints. They want you to come, too. They have to interview you and find out how much you know.”
“And then...”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what they’ll decide.”
So what did that mean? That he wouldn’t be able to go back to his old life if he knew too much? Would they put him in witness protection, too?
She stepped toward him. “I’m sorry that you have to go through this. All because you tried to help me.”
Perhaps he should’ve been angry at the possibility of losing everything he knew and loved, but that was not the primary emotion that rose to the surface. As he looked into Morgan’s wide brown eyes, he felt sympathy for what she must be going through. He could rebuild his life at The Stables. He had family and friends who cared about him. But she was completely alone in the world. All because she wanted to do the right thing and put some criminal in jail.
They were alike in that way, both of them trying to do the right thing. He was beginning to understand why she had been so secretive with him. Her true identity coming out could have ended her life. The anger he’d felt earlier had subsided. “If Jesus can die on a cross for the likes of me, I can forgive you for all that I’ve been through.”
Morgan gazed at him, unable to answer as some unnamed emotion played across her features.
The woman came into the living room holding two bowls. “I thought you two might be hungry. It’s nothing fancy, just some oatmeal with banana slices.”
Alex felt as though he’d been handed a steak-and-lobster dinner. He hadn’t eaten for at least sixteen hours.
They ate quickly. When they walked through the kitchen to return the bowls and thank the young mother, a second child, a girl of about five, had joined her sibling at the table.
“I appreciate your kindness so much,” said Morgan.
The woman took the bowls. “You’re welcome. I think it’s what any Christian would do, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Morgan, visibly shaken by what the woman had said. “That’s so true.”
They walked outside to the back of the house and across the field. Up ahead, he could see a road. “What that woman said upset you.”
Morgan stalked across the field. “It didn’t upset me. It struck me that there are kind people everywhere. People who love God and try to do the right thing even if their safety is at risk. I’ve seen the worst of humanity. It’s nice to be reminded of the other side.”
“All because of a bowl of oatmeal,” Alex said.
“Yes.” She stopped and turned to face him. “And because of you.” Her eyes glowed with affection. “Knowing you has been a faith builder.”
Her compliment was bittersweet because he knew in a few hours he might never see her again. “Glad it made a difference, Morgan.”
They waited for only a few minutes before a dust cloud stirred up by a car coming toward them became visible.
Alex tensed as he peered out the barn door. He drew closer to Morgan. He needed to make sure this wasn’t another ambush. He wasn’t taking any chances.
“That’s it. That’s the car Serena said they’d be driving.”
They came to a stop and a tall man and dark-haired woman got out of the car and ran toward them. Morgan hugged the woman.
The man turned toward Alex. “Sir, you’re going to need to come with us.”
Alex complied. He and Morgan got into the backseat. They drove through the countryside. Alex wondered what his fate would be. Could he go back to his old life, or would he become a prisoner like Morgan?
* * *
Gradually, the countryside disappeared, the houses grew closer together and Morgan could see the Des Moines skyline in the distance. Tension knotted the back of her neck as she thought about the uncertainty she faced.
Alex had fallen silent beside her in the backseat. Had he grown weary of the price he had to pay to be with her, to do the right thing? She knew with certainty that all he had done for her showed that he loved her. What did it matter, though? They couldn’t be together.
Morgan stared at the back of Serena and Josh’s heads. The events of the past twenty hours raged through her brain.
“Did Deputy O’Toole...” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Serena glanced at Josh and then turned to face Morgan. “He’s in pretty serious condition, but they think he’ll make it.”
The news may as well have been a sword through her heart. He had been seriously hurt trying to protect her.
“The local police did pick up one of the men you described—the man in the baseball hat.” Serena turned back toward the front of the car and continued to talk. “The FBI interrogated him all night. He’s a local thug hired by Josef Flores to make your death look like an accident.”
Morgan sat back in her seat. Considering Deputy O’Toole’s grave injury, capturing Beige Cap felt like a bitter victory.
She remembered what Josef had said about knowing that a plan had been made to move her. She leaned forward in the seat and spoke to Serena. “Josef knew that I had put in a request to be moved hours after I did it.”
Josh responded from the driver’s seat. “That’s suspicious. We’re starting to think there must be a leak in our office.”
Serena nodded. “How else could he get that information so fast? Plus we think someone in the office suppressed information that should have gotten to us sooner.”
Morgan leaned forward in her seat. “What are you talking about?”
“We had an FBI guy look into your car accident more closely. That drunk driver never got anywhere near the road you were run off of,” Serena said.
“The agent filed the report, but it never got to us.” Josh’s voice filled with anger.
Serena turned to face Morgan. “If that information had gotten to us sooner, we would have pulled you out faster.”
Josh and Serena proceeded to talk about the leak and what it meant in the front seat. Their voices faded when Alex leaned toward Morgan. “You were going to leave The Stables the day we went to the baseball game?”
She nodded. “Not that day. It would take a while to get things set up and I wanted time to say goodbye.”
“So you were going to leave, just like that.” She saw hurt in his eyes.
“I was afraid I was going to share everything with you because I...” She had to say it. “I wanted you to know who I really was because I’d fallen in love with you.”
Warmth pooled in his eyes, and he reached up to touch her cheek.
They neared a large brick building in downtown Des Moines. Josh pulled to the curb, then turned around and faced Alex. “This is where you’ll go for questioning. An agent will come out in a moment and escort you inside.”
Panic seized Morgan’s heart. “You mean we’re being separated?”
Serena made a phone call. A few seconds later, an older man in a dark suit pushed through the door and stalked toward them.
Serena turned so she could face Morgan. “We need to get you to a safe house as quickly as possible. We can’t risk you being out in the open.”
The man waited on the sidewalk while Alex pushed open the door. The look in his eyes made her want to fall into his arms. Would she ever see him again?
He shut the door with one more glance in her direction as the car edged back out onto the street.
“You’ll stay at the safe house until we can get your new identity in place,” Josh said. “First, we’ll need your help with some things related to this case.”
Morgan leaned back in the seat, giving in to the sorrow that swept over her. That was it then. They’d set her down somewhere in the world with a new name...alone.
“What’s going to happen to Alex?”
“The FBI needs to f
ind out how much he knows about your case,” Josh said. “He was aware that you were in the Witness Security Program, I assume?”
“Yes, he figured it out.” She stared out at the passing buildings.
They drove away from downtown toward a residential neighborhood where the houses were far apart. They slowed, and Serena hit the garage door opener and eased the car into the attached garage of a classic suburban home.
Morgan pushed the door open while Josh and Serena waited for her. They stepped into a house that could exist anywhere in America—wood floor, granite countertops and neutral paint colors. The only thing that indicated this was a safe house was the drawn blinds. Morgan plopped down on the couch.
“Are you hungry?” Serena asked.
“I guess I should eat.” She didn’t feel very hungry, though. Heartbreak over parting with Alex had zapped her appetite.
Josh and Serena spoke in hushed tones in the kitchen and then Josh entered the living room. “We need to talk to you about something.”
It took her a moment to pull herself free of the sadness about Alex. She could feel her anxiety increase as Josh craned his neck to see how much longer Serena was going to be with the food. Then he turned back toward her. “You’re a hot target right now.”
“What does that mean?”
Serena came and sat on the couch a few feet from Josh. She placed a sandwich on a plate on the coffee table between them. “It means that right now the people behind this adoption ring are actively looking for you.”
“Josef Flores is probably still looking for you,” Josh said. “If we can take him in, we can question him, find out who he’s working for.”
Morgan had a feeling where all this was leading. “So you want me to be bait.”
“A sting would serve two purposes. In addition to catching Flores and whoever is helping him, it would give us a chance to confirm that there is a leak. We will control the information so it doesn’t get outside of the St. Louis office. If Flores shows up, we will know someone in the department has been feeding him information.”
Serena leaned forward and touched Morgan’s knee. “The choice is yours. We’re asking a lot of you.”
She didn’t need to think about it. Although she knew there were other men behind all this, she would sleep better knowing that Josef was behind bars. “Of course I’ll do it.” This would not end unless she stepped up. And she would never be able to stop looking over her shoulder until all the people involved were caught.
“The narrative that will be leaked is that you were brought in, but that you gave us the slip, a believable scenario. It happens with witnesses who are tired of the rigid requirements of the program. The morning of the sting, word will go out that you’ve been spotted jogging in Gray’s Lake Park.”
Morgan absorbed what she had been told. “So Josef and maybe even the men who were helping him will be caught?”
Serena nodded.
Josh rose to his feet. “We’ll work out the details over the next twenty-four hours. In the meantime, Serena will stay with you at the safe house.”
Serena stood and followed Josh to the door. They spoke in whispers for a while longer.
Morgan picked up her sandwich. All of this felt so abrupt. She had told Alex her true feelings too late. She pressed a pillow against her stomach and lay down on the couch as sadness washed over her.
* * *
The FBI agent sitting across from Alex tapped his pen on the table and flipped through the three pages in front of him.
It had been five minutes since Alex was led into this interview room and the agent had only asked him his name before reviewing the report. The silence only served to reinforce the sense of loss he felt. Morgan was gone. He’d never see her again...and she loved him.
The agent was an older man with steel gray hair and knobby hands. He had a habit of pursing and unpursing his lips while he thought things through. He cleared his throat. “For the record, this interview will be recorded.”
“I understand,” said Alex.
“How do you know Morgan Smith?”
“She came to work for me at the horse stable I manage.”
“You had no contact with her prior to that?”
Alex shook his head. “No.”
“When did you become aware that she was part of the Witness Security Program?
“A day ago. Though I’d suspected it before that.”
“And did she divulge that information to you?”
“After I guessed it,” Alex said.
“What specifically did she say to you?”
“That her real name was Magdalena.”
The agent shifted in his chair. “Did she give you a last name?”
“No.”
“Did she explain to you why she was in the program?”
“She said that she was a witness to a crime. That she hadn’t committed any crime.”
“Was she specific about the case she was a witness in?”
Alex shook his head.
“Please give a verbal answer.”
Alex leaned forward. “No, she didn’t share any details.”
The older agent stared at him for a long moment. “Do you intend to get in touch with or seek Morgan Smith out anytime in the future?”
The question pierced his conscience. The agent was trying to figure out if there was a risk of his compromising Morgan’s new identity. But the question meant something entirely different to Alex. “I’d like to,” he said.
The agent drew his bushy eyebrows together. “Excuse me?”
“I’d like to see her again.”
The agent shuffled his papers. “That would be highly irregular.”
Alex took in a breath. “I really need to see her again.” He was having a hard time picturing his life without her, and she had said she loved him.
Seemingly flustered, the agent tapped his fingers on the table. “This is not a situation I’ve ever encountered in all my years at the bureau.”
“Please, can you pass the message on to her?”
“I can, but it’s up to her.”
Alex nodded. There was the possibility that she would say no. “I can accept that.”
NINETEEN
Serena sat across from Morgan, holding a file on her lap. A cell phone rested on top of the file. “Do you remember you told me when you were in the hospital about a Dylan McIntyre who processed the paperwork for the international adoptions on the American side of things?”
Morgan nodded.
“We’ve tracked him down. He’s a lawyer who works for a St Louis law firm.” She set the phone on the coffee table and pushed it toward Morgan. “We need you to call him. We have to make sure we have the right Dylan McIntyre. Do you think you’d remember his voice if you heard it?”
Morgan’s anxiety level rose with each question that Serena asked. Focus on the big picture, Morgan. This was about Baby C and Baby Kay and all the other children. “Yes, we had a pretty long conversation. That’s why I remembered him at all. So I just need to identify him as the Dylan that I spoke to?”
Serena shook her head. “We don’t know if he’s involved or not. He’s our next link in the chain. I need you to talk to him. Tell him what you know about the children being taken. I’ll be listening in to gauge his reaction.” Serena opened the file and pulled out a piece of paper that had a phone number and a list of questions written on it. “This is his work phone number. Make the conversation seem natural, but here are some possibilities for questions you can ask that might clue us in about how much he knows about the illegal adoptions.”
After looking over the questions, Morgan took a breath, said a prayer and dialed the number. Dylan picked up on the first ring.
“Hell-o.” Morgan gripped the phone a little tigh
ter.
“Yes, who is this?”
“I don’t know if you remember me. My name is Magdalena Chavez. I was the American who worked for an adoption agency in Mexico. We talked a couple of times.” Her throat had gone completely dry.
“Oh, yes. How are things going at your end? I haven’t heard from you folks in months,” Dylan said.
“Dylan, I have something to tell you. I have reason to believe that the agency I worked for was coercing and blackmailing mothers to give up their children, and they might have kidnapped some babies, too.”
There was a long, heavy silence on the other end of the line. Serena made a whirling motion with her hands that meant to keep him talking.
“The agency in Mexico closed. Weren’t you told that?”
“Nobody told me.” His voice was tinged with anger. “I assumed you had a slowdown in the adoptions or had taken your business elsewhere.”
Serena pointed to one of the questions on the page.
Morgan read where Serena pointed. “You processed a lot of adoptions for us. Didn’t it strike you as strange at how quickly the adoptions went through?”
“What are you saying?”
Morgan was afraid Dylan might hang up as she got closer and closer to accusing him of illegal activity. “Most international adoptions take years. How long were your adoptions taking?”
Again, there was a pause before he responded, as though he were absorbing the full impact of what she had told him. “The turnover was much faster than that. Look, I know where you’re heading with this, and as far as I know, these adoptions were legitimate. I would never participate in something as heinous as what you are suggesting. I have children of my own. I only want to protect children.” As he spoke, his voice grew louder and more intense.
“The babies were being taken over the border and given to the parents. That’s a violation of Mexican law. Did you know that?”
“I’m just the guy who handled the paperwork.” Dylan sounded extremely upset. “You’ll have to excuse me. I will look into this.” The line went dead.
Morgan set the phone back on the coffee table. “What did you think?”
