Changed (Second Sight)

by Hunter, Hazel

Mac breathed a sigh of relief. She was clothed. As were the few women behind her. Daniel had become bolder over time. In college, he’d been content with a regular snapshot. Mac went back to the image of Isabelle. The dark background looked like it might be a restaurant. Isabelle was smiling, not looking at the camera, as though she were talking with someone. She’d hardly changed, her hair a bit shorter then. Mac had to smile at the look on her face. Off-guard, open, not yet worried about living as a psychic. Not yet knowing how future relationships would end.

  That won’t be us, he thought. We won’t be another failed relationship. Isabelle and I–we’ll figure it out.

  Slowly, he slotted the image back into place.

  He glanced at the unmade bed to his left.

  When they’d arrived, Daniel had been there, with a woman. Downstairs–Mac glanced at the doorway–Daniel had heard the door ring. He saw it was Isabelle, his old girlfriend, which was great until the FBI agent with her said that Kayla had the baby and thought he was dead. But he wasn’t really interested. Instead of seeing Kayla, he kidnapped the baby and took it to the Green Earth Commune.

  “There has to be agreement between character and action,” Mac muttered.

  It was a basic tenet of profiling. Somehow, what Daniel had done made complete sense. In his mind, the baby belonged there. Mac glanced back down at the photos. If Isabelle hadn’t intervened, Kayla’s son would have been born there, would have stayed there. And that’s how Daniel had wanted it.

  •••••

  Maurice swabbed the inside of the large, steel cooking pot. Though there were a few curious glances, no one questioned him. He’d learned long ago that the white lab coat carried authority with it. Add the latex gloves and a few tools and people would stand on their heads if you asked them.

  He moved to the next stove and the next pot as he pocketed the latest ‘sample.’ But the plastic tubes with extra long swabs weren’t sterile–far from it. They’d been preloaded.

  It’s like slight of hand.

  For a moment, a thrill raced through him and then, just as suddenly, a cold jolt of fear.

  Just act normally. You’re taking samples.

  But now his mouth was dry and the latex gloves were wet on the inside. He swabbed another deep stewpot. In a matter of only an hour or so, everything here would be full of food. The pots, the giant cook surfaces, the tea dispensers, the serving trays. Luckily, he didn’t need to coat each one.

  At the moment, most of the women were washing vegetables and chopping. Several of them were pregnant. They’d be the first to get sick–some of them as quick as tonight. Many of them would die.

  “Maurice. What are you doing?”

  Maurice nearly jumped out of his skin as the swab dropped from his grip. He spun to find Geoffrey just behind him.

  “Geoffrey!” he said. “What the–”

  All eyes had turned to them.

  “I think you dropped something,” Geoffrey said, looking over Maurice’s shoulder into the shiny cauldron. He stepped toward the stove.

  “Don’t touch it!” Maurice said quickly, holding out his hand. Geoffrey jerked to a stop mid-stride. “I mean,” Maurice said, trying to find a calmer sounding voice, “let me. I’m wearing gloves.”

  “Fine,” Geoffrey said, holding up his hands and backing up. “Fine.”

  Maurice quickly retrieved the dropped swab, jammed it into the plastic tube, and stuck it in his lab coat pocket. He wiped a little sweat from his upper lip using the back of his sleeve.

  “Stop sneaking around,” Maurice finally muttered under his breath.

  The chopping sounds resumed and most of the women pointedly looked away.

  “I’d hardly call it sneaking around,” Geoffrey said, looking at Maurice’s lab coat pocket. “You didn’t hear me?” Maurice glanced left and right. Had he been so absorbed that he hadn’t noticed someone saying his name? “I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” Geoffrey said. “So, what are you doing?”

  “I’m doing a few tests,” Maurice said.

  “For what?”

  Not that you would understand, but…

  “E. coli,” Maurice said.

  “E. coli!” Geoffrey said. “We have E. coli?”

  Suddenly, you could hear a pin drop.

  “No,” Maurice said quickly. “No.”

  That was all he needed–for people to be suspicious of the food.

  “Can we catch it?” Geoffrey said, sounding truly alarmed.

  “No,” Maurice said, annoyed now. “You don’t catch it. It’s just–” He stopped himself. He’d been about to give a real explanation of Escherichia coli to someone who couldn’t tell a petri dish from a nut bowl. He needed to put a stop to this and quickly. “Look. You don’t have it. No one here has it. I’m just running a routine test for the health department. That’s all.” He looked around the kitchen. “Just a routine test,” he said loudly. “If anything was wrong, you’d be the first to know.” Their faces were nervous. “Besides,” Maurice said, forcing a smile and clapping Geoffrey on the shoulder, “we eat here too!” He looked pointedly at Geoffrey. “Right, Geoffrey?” He squeezed his brother’s shoulder tightly. “Tell them.”

  Geoffrey glanced at the hand on his shoulder but immediately launched into one of his spiels.

  “The group that eats together, stays together,” he said in sing-song, flashing his smile. “The group that stays together, grows together. The group that grows together, grows stronger. We’re that group, and we’re changing the planet, one child at a time.”

  •••••

  Mac quickly knelt next to the office chair. Isabelle’s head lolled back, eyes shut, and her hands lay in her lap, one glove still off. She’d pushed too hard.

  “Isabelle?” he said quietly, putting a finger to her jugular.

  She inhaled sharply at the contact, as though he’d woken her up, but she didn’t move. He felt her heart beating wildly and saw that her breathing was shallow.

  “Mac?” she whispered as her eyes slowly fluttered open.

  “Right here,” he said, putting a hand on her arm. She tried to sit forward, staring at him. “Just take it easy,” he said.

  “The Coming Home group on Yahoo,” she said, holding on to his arm with her gloved hand, still breathless. “There were pictures of babies and parents everywhere. It’s an adoption group. Daniel was going to give up Little Gavin for adoption.”

  “Adoption?” Mac said, frowning.

  Isabelle nodded.

  “I saw it,” she said, pointing at the unconnected mouse.

  An adoption group for Daniel didn’t ring true. Character and action didn’t align. Mac took out his phone.

  “The Coming Home group?” he said, bringing up the browser. A quick search and a few clicks and he was there. Isabelle put her glove back on. It was a forum and there were several active threads. He clicked on one. As Isabelle had seen, there were all sorts of pictures: babies and parents, different houses and cribs. He clicked on another thread. Discussions were going back and forth but virtually all the posts were started by the moderator. This one mentioned re-homing. “Re-homing?” Mac muttered. He scrolled down. Isabelle looked over his shoulder. “This toddler is being re-homed,” he said.

  “Re-homed?” Isabelle said, her breathing almost normal. “It sounds like regifting,” she said. Something clicked. The pieces of the puzzle came together. Mac’s eyes defocused and he stood. “Mac?” Isabelle said.

  Character and action.

  At the Green Earth Commune, there were no children over, say, the age of five. The protected servers and Daniel’s computers held valuable secrets. The money the Cyber Crime unit knew was there but couldn’t be traced had to come from somewhere.

  The invisible means of support. Daniel taking his baby there. Daniel posting in a forum where children were ‘re-homed’.

  “They’re selling them,” Mac said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT WAS INSANELY and ruthlessly easy, thought Isabelle. Pu
t a sex-crazed man together with vulnerable women and then add a way to make profit.

  “We’re clear on this,” Mac said as he slowed the SUV. “Right?”

  He pulled over on the road that led to the commune, dappled late afternoon sun filtering through the branches of the oaks. He let the right side of the car angle downward into the gravel at the shoulder. The tires crunched to a stop and he turned off the engine.

  Mac was wearing one of the commune’s homemade shirts. He’d found it in Daniel’s wardrobe and though the long sleeves were too short, he’d rolled them up. Luckily, Daniel’s paunch had bumped him up a shirt size or two but, even so, the fabric stretched tight across Mac’s chest and around his biceps. He’d also exchanged his polished, lace-up shoes for some sandals with velcro closures.

  “We’re clear,” Isabelle said nodding. Rather than drive all the way back downtown to drop her off, she’d agreed to wait in the SUV. The last time she’d visited the commune against Mac’s wishes, she’d regretted it. “Very clear.”

  “This is the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for,” he said. “Because of you, we’ve got it.” He took her hand and looked her directly in the eye. “But that’s as far as it goes.”

  Isabelle nodded again.

  “I know, Mac,” she said. “I really do. I have no intention of leaving this car.”

  Sneak and peak, Mac had called it. Something about a federal crime and finding evidence for a search warrant. Mac had gone into profiling mode from the moment he’d made the connections between the commune, Daniel, and selling babies. And the building where they’d rescued Kayla and encountered Darren’s mom, who was also pregnant, seemed a natural.

  Isabelle couldn’t agree more and yet…that wasn’t the real problem.

  When she’d read Daniel, that’d been the furthest thing from his mind.

  “Isabelle,” Mac said, the warning tone clear.

  “I can’t get over that reading of Daniel,” she said quickly and shook her head. “But that’s it. Really.” She leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss. “Hurry back.”

  •••••

  Outside the kitchen, Geoffrey shook Maurice’s grip off his shoulder.

  What had that been about?

  In all their lives, Maurice had never so much as shook his hand.

  And when did the health department have anything to do with the commune?

  “It’s time for your shot,” Maurice said abruptly.

  Geoffrey shot him a glare and then quickly looked up and down the hallway.

  “For god’s sakes, not so loud,” he whispered harshly. He scowled at his brother. “What’s the matter with you today?”

  And was it time for his Botox shot? It seemed early.

  “You don’t want to fall behind,” Maurice hissed. “Do you?”

  “Of course not,” Geoffrey answered quickly.

  “Then I’ll see you upstairs,” Maurice said, turning away, and then he was gone.

  •••••

  Unlike the last time he’d been here, Mac simply walked up to the door of the medical clinic and opened it. Though all senses were on alert, he had strolled without hurry, dressed as though he might belong. But he couldn’t help but remember the last time he’d been here. He, Isabelle, and Kayla had retreated through the trees he’d just come through. Pursued by security people from the commune, they’d only narrowly escaped.

  No sooner was Mac through the door, though, than he knew something was wrong.

  It was dark.

  He stopped just inside the entrance as it slowly closed behind him.

  It was also completely silent.

  Instinctively, he crouched as he inched his way forward. He took out his cell phone and used it as a flashlight. He definitely recognized the place. He passed the storage area where he’d grabbed a gurney and Isabelle had found scrubs. But it was empty.

  “Damn,” he muttered, picking up the pace.

  Quickly, he trotted down the middle of the dark aisle, swinging the phone from right to left. He opened one of the patient rooms at random.

  Empty, not even a bed.

  He ran, down to the nurse’s station. The computers were gone. He yanked open one drawer after another. Completely cleaned out.

  Either the commune knew they’d been compromised or they’d expected someone to come.

  Mac froze.

  Isabelle.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ISABELLE INVOLUNTARILY YELPED at the loud knock on the driver’s window. After Mac had left, she’d switched to the driver’s seat to be ready when he got back. Despite her reaction, hand on her chest, she turned expecting to see him. But instead, what she saw made her want to scream.

  A security guard!

  Instantly she fumbled for the door lock but the man must have already gripped the handle because the door quickly opened. She nearly fell out as it whooshed away from her. The guard grabbed her arm and yanked her out the rest of the way.

  “No,” she tried to say but the word caught in her throat as she was shoved up against the back door, her left arm twisted painfully behind her. “Wait!” she said. “Stop!”

  There was no vehicle on the road that she could see. He had to have been on foot. As she tried to squirm away, even the smallest movement caused pain to radiate in her shoulder and elbow.

  “That hurts,” she tried, but the guard wasn’t paying attention to her.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I found someone on the road.” Isabelle tried to look at him but he renewed his press into her back, shoving her harder against the SUV. “Bring her in?”

  There was a hissing sound and a tiny beep.

  “On the road?” said a tinny voice.

  The guard had a radio.

  “Yeah, sitting in a big, black SUV parked at the side of the road, under the cover of trees.”

  “Where?” the voice said.

  Is that Maurice?

  “I’m not–” she tried, as the pain in her arm choked off the rest.

  There was a moment of static and then a beep.

  “Yes. Bring her in.”

  •••••

  Mac crashed through the thick grove of oaks and the underbrush. Though not pursued by shooters, he ran for everything in him. Not one week ago the medical clinic had been staffed, stocked, and operational. It’d also been guarded.

  But not today.

  Probably not since they’d rescued Kayla and it was not a coincidence.

  Mac leaped over a low hedge rather than go around. Then he leaped again over a jumble of large roots. He slipped in the damned sandals and nearly went down, but with his right hand on the ground, he pushed up like a runner from a starting block–and kept running.

  There was the SUV.

  “No,” he muttered.

  He could already see it was empty.

  With a quick look up and down the road as he crossed it, he flew to the driver’s door and yanked it open.

  Isabelle was gone.

  He pounded the roof with his fist.

  Damnit!

  He quickly ducked inside.

  No keys but–he reached to the floor in front of the passenger seat and grimaced as he lifted Isabelle’s purse.

  She would never leave this.

  He looked up the road to the commune.

  Not if she’d had a choice.

  CHAPTER TEN

  AS THE GUARD hauled her up to the house, Isabelle could barely keep up.

  “Just let me speak to Geoffrey,” she panted, but the man didn’t pause. “You’re hurting me.”

  But the door flew open and they were met with startled looks from a few women in the hallway. One of them moved a little boy out of harm’s way. Under the shock of red hair, Darren’s eyes got huge. Isabelle had a moment to see recognition in his face just before she was dragged up the stairs.

  Suddenly they were in the wide hallway with its endless doors as the security guard veered quickly left, keeping her off-balance. But as he threw the door open and pushed
her through, Isabelle tried desperately to put on the brakes.

  Oh no, no, no. Not here.

  Before she could even turn around, the door had slammed closed and she heard it lock. She made a frantic grab for the knob, twisting it back and forth but it wouldn’t move.

  She spun and put her back to the door, trying not to panic.

  “Oh god,” she muttered.

  On the wall next to the door were the wooden paddle, the rattan cane, a leather strap, a yardstick, and the shock wand. She cringed away from them, sliding along the wall to the opposite side of the small room, putting as much distance between them and her as possible. Her hands clung to each other as she stared at the wand.

  The pain it had inflicted had been excruciating–especially the readings of the children.

  She couldn’t go through that again.

  She put a hand over her pounding heart and another on the wall to steady herself.

  Stop, Isabelle. Think.

  But she couldn’t. Her mind was blanking.

  Suddenly, she heard the doorknob move.

  Oh god, no. Maurice had been quick!

  The knob twisted as she stared at it but, when the door opened, it wasn’t Maurice.

  “Geoffrey!” she breathed.

  “Hurry!” he said, reaching for her.

  She put her hand in his and he quickly reversed direction and tugged her after him.

  •••••

  Though he’d run from the SUV back to the medical clinic and from there to the commune itself, Mac forced himself to slow down. He’d be no help to Isabelle if he was caught.

  Though he’d dressed to blend in, he stood out anyway. There just weren’t that many guys and none of his height. As he made his way into the mansion, he tried to smile and nod. For all anyone knew, he was a new member. They might even recall him or Isabelle from when they’d toured the place.