Tonya’s only reaction was to shrug as the doc hastily exited the room. She heard hushed voices in the hallway. These office trailers they used for clinics these days weren’t designed for confidentiality and discretion. In a few minutes, the door opened again and a woman came into the room, a fake smile plastered across her face. She was well-dressed, with lots of makeup and her hair done.
Still, Tonya could see behind the curtain the woman held up. The clothes and makeup were a costume. This woman wasn’t entirely what she appeared to be. She might be a counselor but there was something in her that Tonya recognized. Something that couldn’t be covered up with perfume or dusted over with makeup. No amount of soap would scrub it off.
“My name is Karen,” the woman said, crossing her arms and leaning back against the counter. “I’m the counselor here. It looks like you left our doctor a little rattled.”
“He seems a mite skittish,” Tonya remarked.
“He’s just not used to dealing with the counseling end of the business. Doctors are used to everything happening a certain way. They like things to be neat.”
“Like I told him, I’m pregnant and I ain’t sure I can take care of a baby.”
“Giving up a child is a big step,” the counselor said.
Tonya shrugged. “Ain’t my first.”
Karen raised an eyebrow. “Not your first child or not the first you’ve given up?”
“Both. You see I had some charges in the past. Legal problems, you know. Court got involved. Lost custody. All that bullshit.”
Karen gave an understanding nod. “It happens. Doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”
“Hell no, it doesn’t. I try to do good. I swear to God that I try to be a good person.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Anyway, I had my kids taken away before. The details don't really matter, but with my history I have to keep a low profile. I wasn't supposed to get pregnant again. Court didn’t want me having any more children. They had me put on birth control but I reckon it quit working or something. Now, if social services finds out...”
Karen quirked a brow, a picture of Tonya’s situation beginning to crystalize. “Are you on probation now?”
Tonya nodded.
“And your probation officer isn’t aware of your pregnancy?”
“I was able to hide it with a hoodie last time. Now I can’t hide it no more so I missed our last few appointments.”
Karen let out a sigh. “That puts you in a bit of a predicament, doesn’t it? You probably have warrants.”
Tonya gave a deferential twitch of her body. “I might have warrants, but I got something valuable too. I don’t think you’d be in here talking to me right now if you weren’t interested. I got a baby growing in me that nobody knows anything about. There ain’t a single record of this pregnancy anywhere. Baby like that has to be worth a little money.”
“In other words, you’ve received no prenatal care? You haven’t even had a pregnancy test at a medical facility?”
Tonya grinned and shook her head. “Do I look like I need a pregnancy test? Look at me. Only ones that know about this baby is me and a couple of friends. I guess you and the doc know now, too. Word on the street is that you all pay good money for children that mothers can’t take care of. I hear you find families willing to pay for private adoptions and that’s exactly what I’m looking for.”
Karen gave her a shrewd look. “I don’t know when that baby is due, but there’s no guarantee you'll reach the delivery date without getting in trouble with the law. The least little screwup and you’re going to be in jail, then everybody is going to be up in your business. Social services will be on your case and they’ll take that baby. How about I give you a business card. You call me in a few months and we’ll talk.” Karen removed a card from her pocket and extended it in Tonya’s direction, pinched between two fingers.
Tonya didn’t take it. Her eyes narrowed and her voice lowered to a seductive whisper. “How often does a child come along with no record? No blood sample, no DNA, no fingerprints? Hell, not even a name? That’s got to be a rare thing.”
“What’s your point?”
“Imagine what some rich family might pay for a baby like that? A baby they could give their own name to and never have to tell anyone that they adopted it? They wouldn’t have to admit they couldn’t have kids. No one would ever know. Baby like that ought to be worth a lot of money. Ought to be worth protecting.”
Karen’s professional demeanor was slipping just a bit. “Okay, Tonya, cut the bullshit and tell me what you’re proposing.”
“Tell me what you’ll give me for this baby. And it better include hiding me out until it’s born.”
Karen considered this, looking away as she processed Tonya’s proposal. She extended the business card to Tonya again. “You call me tomorrow at the number on this card. Don’t come back to the clinic. Matter of fact, don’t go anywhere. Don’t leave your house. Wherever you’re staying, just stay there until we talk again.”
Tonya seemed to get some satisfaction from this, as if she’d finally been able to communicate a challenging concept. She knew what she had was valuable and now she and this woman were finally speaking the same language. “There’s just one thing.”
Karen looked at her with mild irritation, as if Tonya were pushing her luck. “What’s that?”
“There were no records on this baby until today. That nurse and doctor were doing a lot of pecking on those little computers of theirs. A person should probably delete whatever got put in there if they want to keep this visit a secret.”
Karen understood. “I’ll take care of that immediately. Anything else?”
Tonya smiled. “Not a thing.”
Karen walked to the door and held it open for Tonya. She escorted Tonya to the lobby.
“When are we seeing you next?” the receptionist asked.
Tonya didn’t slow, didn’t make eye contact. She walked straight through the lobby and out the front door.
“I don’t think she’ll be back,” Karen said. “Not everyone is ready for treatment.”
The receptionist didn’t comment. A pissed-off patient was nothing new. It was the nature of their business and the type of clientele they served.
Karen went to the kitchen for a Diet Coke, then retreated to her office. She shut the door behind her, opening her drink and then her laptop. She unlocked her phone and opened the photo album. Flipping through the images she found a picture of a list of passwords. Technically she wasn’t supposed to have these passwords but Harrison had provided them to her just for situations like this one. Since the passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA, access to medical records was strictly controlled. Even viewing a health record within the clinic’s computer system left an audit trail recording who had looked at the record and whether they’d made any changes or not.
Unless you had the right password.
One of the passwords on her list made her a ghost. She could enter the system through a back door, view records, and even make changes without her activities being logged. She brought up the login screen and entered her ghost password. All of the clinics owned by Harrison Prescott were part of the same record system so Karen was already familiar with navigating her way through it. It only took her a few clicks to access Tonya Terry’s record. There she was able to review the nurse’s social assessment and the doctor’s notes.
Karen backed out of the clinical view and clicked on an administrative module that provided a different view of the data. This was one of the screens a clinician couldn’t access without a special password, like the one that Karen had. She brought up Tonya’s record through this new interface and entered a series of keystrokes that gave her an option not available on any of the visible menus. It allowed her to completely delete all traces of a person from the system.
The system asked her to confirm her decision, then prompted her to reenter her password. Karen did as she was asked a
nd poof, any record of Tonya Terry’s visit to the clinic was erased. Within an hour the record would be erased from any system backups and any redundant cloud storage. Within an hour there would be no evidence that Tonya had ever stepped foot in the clinic.
When she was done, Karen shut down the system and closed her laptop. She sagged in her chair and took a sip of her Diet Coke. Deciding that she needed to go ahead and make the call, she left her office and went out the back door to the employee parking lot. She retrieved her key from her pocket, clicked the fob, and heard her Cadillac Escalade unlock.
When she reached her vehicle she fumbled in her purse for a cigarette and a lighter. She never took her purse inside the clinic. Nearly every patient they treated was some kind of larcenous lowlife and she didn’t want her stuff stolen. She lit her cigarette and tossed the lighter in her purse. She climbed into the driver’s seat and sat there smoking with the door open, her feet dangling out.
While she smoked she studied the scene around her. Across the street was a vacant lot covered in weeds and young trees. In the distance she could see a tire shop located in an old gas station, the pumps rusted and idle under an orange awning. Further down the road there was a feed store, the town’s only fast food place, and a bank that was smaller than her living room. God, she hated these little towns and they were all the same. Harrison had a stable of these clinics and every one was located in a God-forsaken town just like this.
One day she’d have enough money put away to where she didn’t have to do this anymore. When that day came, she’d never enter a one-horse country town like this again. She’d move somewhere tropical where there was no kudzu, no white trash, and people preferred rum to Jack Daniels.
Contempt for her surroundings evident on her face, she fished her phone from her pocket and scrolled through her contacts. Finding the one she was looking for, she tapped the icon by Harrison’s name and held the phone to her ear.
After a few rings, a voice answered. “Hello?”
“Harrison, it’s Karen.”
“Hey, Karen, what’s up?”
“I think I got something valuable—a unicorn—but of course there are complications.” Unicorn was the term they used to describe an undocumented pregnancy, a baby with no birth record. “Do you have a moment?”
“I do. I’m on my way to purchase a property that I got an exceptional deal on, but I have a few minutes.”
Karen knew Harrison had his finger in a lot of pies, all of them highly lucrative. He had properties around the world, a yacht, and a private jet. He had multiple companies besides the suboxone clinics and sold luxury real estate. The private adoptions he brokered were only one of Harrison’s business interests and she had no idea how much money they made for him. Apparently it was enough to keep his interest. This one could be valuable, though. Unicorns were a diamond among gems. This was the first Karen had seen since starting work at the Glade Spring clinic.
“A lady came in here today with no interest in treatment. She'd heard on the street that we were looking for adoptable children and she wanted to sell. She says there are no records of her pregnancy and she’s received no prenatal care at all.”
“You think she’s telling the truth?”
“About the pregnancy? No doubt. She’s showing big time. She’s probably due within a few weeks. As far as there being no documentation of it, I don’t have any way to prove that.”
“What did you tell her?”
“She’s on probation so she’s having to duck her probation officer. She says she needs a place to lay low until we can do the deal. I told her I might be able to set something up but she’d have to call me tomorrow.”
“We can do that,” Harrison replied. “Did you erase her from the medical record?”
“Just before I called you.”
“Excellent. Give me an hour or two to set something up and I’ll call you back.”
Harrison ended the call without a good-bye, but Karen was used to his abrupt manner. It was a result of his focus, his drive to constantly make more money. She tucked the phone back in her bra, took a last pull off the cigarette, and flipped it into the parking lot. As much as she didn’t want to go back into the antiseptic smelling building, the day wasn't over yet.
15
Abingdon, Virginia
Ty spent two hours at the gym. He jumped on boxes, flipped tires, and climbed ropes. He lifted, tossed, and dragged sandbags. He pounded out reps until his body was on fire and the heat of his exertion burned away everything non-essential in his life. Only when his head was clear did he dry off and call it a day. He exited out the front door into the hot afternoon with his gym towel draped around his neck, giving the parking lot a cursory scan. There was no activity at all save for a young woman putting on makeup behind the wheel of her car.
He threw open the door of his truck and noticed the sour smell was only getting worse. He was going to have to do something about it. Besides washing the seat covers he might need to replace the useless air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. The thing was probably full of bad juju anyway, a remnant of the old Petro Panda truck stop where he’d worked as a security guard.
He started the truck and sat with the air conditioner running, door still open, waiting for cold air to begin blowing. While he waited, he scanned his phone. He had three text messages.
Deena: Just wanted to make sure you remembered dinner.
She was always babying him. Her heart was in the right place but she seemed to think he was constantly on the verge of crumbling. Maybe he had been at one time but he didn’t feel that way now. He felt as solid as he’d felt at any time since leaving the service.
Aiden: You’re a butthead, dude.
That one brought a smile to his face.
Cliff Mathis: Do you have time for a phone call?
Ty replied to each message in turn.
To Deena: I remember. See you tonight.
To Aiden: I know you’re a butthead but what am I?
The air conditioner was now blowing cold air into Ty’s face and he shut the door, relishing the sensation of being totally on top of things at the moment. He’d gotten in two workouts and some range-time. He’d also responded to all his messages. He didn’t know if it was due to the adjustment to his meds or the changes in his life but he felt on-task. He touched the icon for Cliff’s number.
The phone rang three times before a voice answered, “Cliff Mathis.”
“Afternoon, boss, it’s Ty. What’s up?”
“Hey, I turned the information you sent me over to Kel. You met her right?”
“I did.”
Kel was the lead Forensic Computer Analyst for DKI, a blue-haired goth-girl who could perform an FBI-level breakdown of the data on a suspect computer as easily as she could navigate the back-channels of the dark web in search of trafficking crumbs. Cliff described her as one of the finest white hat hackers he'd ever met.
“I pulled her off what she was doing and asked her to give me a one-hour scrape of what she could find on that clinic you asked me about. She didn’t find anything specifically incriminating, but she did find that the corporate entities behind the clinic are structured in a way that’s consistent with obfuscation.”
Ty thought he knew where this was going, but he wasn’t sure. “Can you dumb that down to grunt-level?”
Cliff laughed. “The company that owns that clinic has taken deliberate steps to obscure the chain of ownership. That’s not consistent with other clinics of this type but it is consistent with people who have something to hide. It’s probably worth a deeper look.”
“I’m with you. What do you need me to do?”
“Can you set up a meeting for tomorrow with Whitt and the FBI agent? Maybe around 9 or 10 AM?”
“Roger that. Anything else?”
“Yeah, can I crash at your place tonight? A couch is fine.”
Ty was surprised. “You’re coming here?”
“I have a flight from DC to Guatemala tomorrow ni
ght. I’m going to fly into Tri-Cities around 10 PM tonight. I’ll get a car and drive on to DC after we’re done tomorrow.”
“Damn, Cliff, you get around.”
“You got no idea, my friend. I’ll text when you when I’m wheels down.”
“Sure thing. Safe travels.”
Ty headed home. He had some crusty dishes to hide in the oven before he headed over to Deena’s.
16
Mobile, Alabama
Harrison Prescott was preparing for an afternoon of golf at the country club he frequented. He was meeting some acquaintances whom he hoped might become investors in an island resort he wanted to open in the Caribbean. He’d been working on this project for two years and was confident that all of the pieces were about to fall in place.
He’d already secured the island on which he intended to open the resort. He’d purchased it for two million off an associate who'd recently paid five million for it. The associate was willing to sell the island to Harrison at a discount because of some potentially devastating video that Harrison had obtained. Blackmail may be an ugly business, but it was a lucrative one.
Harrison was holding the property in a shell company until he had investors lined up for the resort project. Once he had everyone on board and had their checks in hand, he’d form a new company to build the resort, making those investors partners. This new company would then buy the island from the shell company in which Harrison was already holding the island. In that transaction, the island for which he'd paid two million dollars would be sold to the resort company for ten million, netting Harrison a hefty eight million dollar profit that none of the other investors would ever know about.
However, despite these big deals Harrison set up, there were a multitude of little deals that constantly required his attention. The call from Karen was one of them. He needed to arrange a safe haven for the pregnant patient until the baby unicorn was born. He opened the contacts on his phone and selected the icon for Sand Creek Farms.
The phone rang several times before a gruff voice answered. “Hello?”
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