I grimaced. “She wouldn’t just stop. I don’t think she can. So where is she hiding?”
Looking extremely disappointed, JT shook his head. “If only I’d been wearing a cup that day.”
“It’s not your fault. She was much stronger than I’d expected. She caught us both off guard.”
“I’ve got Hough watching her cell phone and credit cards. If she makes a call or spends money, we’ll know. In the meantime, I think I’ll tail Lucas Dale again today. I have a feeling he knows where she’s gone. He’s protecting her.”
“I wish he’d believe us, if we told him how dangerous she is.”
“It’s like she has the guy caught under a spell.” JT stood. “I guess I’ll head out.”
“Later.”
JT left, which meant I was in the office by myself. Hough, evidently back from medical leave, was locked in her Cave of Wonders. I could hear her keyboard
tap, tap, tapping.
With no clue what to do next, I powered up my loaner laptop and stared at the welcome screen.
What did we know about Onora Dale?
We knew she worked as a contract medical biller.
We knew she had been married but wasn’t any longer.
We knew her age, her Social Security number, where she banked, and that she had a clean driving record and no criminal record.
But that was about it.
Oh, and we strongly suspected she turned into a blackbird-like creature after dark and drained the blood from pregnant women.
She’d need access to medical files to locate her victims. Thus, I felt it was safe to assume she’d probably look for the same kind of work she’d done in Baltimore, no matter where she lived. Taking that assumption further, I figured she’d probably held a similar job before moving to the Baltimore area. Maybe in Ohio. And Michigan.
I knocked on Hough’s door.
“
Entrez-vous!”
she called.
I entered.
“What’s up?” Hough asked while still staring at one of her monitors. White numbers flashed on a black screen.
“How much digging have you done into Onora Dale’s personal life?”
“Not a whole lot. I’m watching her credit cards and have run her Social and her driver’s license. Other than that, I think JT’s been focused on finding her through her ex-husband.”
“Can you do me a favor, then, and see what you can find out about her?”
“Sure,” she said, her attention still focused on the screen. “Just give me an hour or so.”
“Will do. Thanks.”
“By the way”—Hough stopped working and looked at me—“about JT. If you think I’m interested in him as more than a friend, you’re wrong.”
I back-stepped toward the door. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Sure it does. Why wouldn’t it? He cares about you. Like genuinely
cares.”
I really didn’t like talking about this here, at work. Especially with Hough.
I said, “First, how can he ‘care’ about me when we’ve only known each other for such a short time? And second, like I said, it doesn’t matter. We can’t get involved. It would look bad for both of us.”
Hough leaned closer. In a soft voice, she said, “Do you really think there aren’t other agents sleeping with each other, here in the bureau? It happens all the time. As long as you keep it out of work, you’re fine. Hell, I can name three couples that have gotten married in the past two years. None of them have faced any disciplinary action.”
“But I’m an intern. I’m not even an agent yet. I would hate to lose my chance at being accepted at the FBI Academy because of something silly, like an affair.”
Hough dismissed my concern with a hand flop. “Honestly, the FBI isn’t going to let you go. You’re too smart. Too good. You could probably sleep with half the bureau and you’d still get in.” She went back to staring at her computer monitor. “Anyway, I felt I needed to clear the air between us.”
“Thanks.”
I left her lair feeling a lot less floaty than when I’d first walked into the office.
I slumped into my chair, poked around on the Internet, doing my best to dig up some background information on Onora Dale. My cell phone rang about a half hour later.
Damen Sylver.
I answered, “Hello?”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“At work.”
“Any chance you can get away for lunch?”
I glanced at Hough’s door, then checked the time. “Shouldn’t be a problem, but I’m on the clock. I can’t go anywhere too exotic, like Fiji. I only get an hour.”
“Well, damn. There goes that plan.”
“Wait, were you really ... ?”
There was that glorious, rumbling chuckle again, warm and adorable. I couldn’t help smiling to myself.
“No, I was just kidding,” he said. “I reserve trips to Fiji for special occasions, like one-week anniversaries.”
“Sheesh, what do you do for a one-month anniversary?”
“You’ll just have to wait to find out. Can I pick you up in twenty?”
“I’ll have to meet you. Unless you have a military ID and can get on base. My office is in Quantico.”
“Not a problem. See you then.” He ended the call.
I stared at my computer for about thirty seconds, then raced to the bathroom to see how bad my hair really looked.
When I came out ten minutes or so later, makeup touched up, hair fluffed, there was a pile of papers sitting on my desk. And JT was leafing through them.
“I thought you were tailing Lucas Dale.”
“Baltimore’s got a man on him. I thought I’d come back and see what other angle we could take with the case. I see you’ve been busy.” He gave me an up-and-down look. “Going somewhere?”
“Well, actually, I made plans for—”
Damen Sylver picked just that moment to come strolling into the unit. While I floundered a little, he headed straight toward me, his beaming smile in place.
“Sloan, I’m a little early. Would you like me to wait outside?”
JT visibly sized up the prince. Something flashed over his face.
The prince offered a hand to JT. “Damen Sylver. I’m a friend of Sloan’s.”
“This is Special Agent Jordan Thomas,” I said. “We’re going to lunch.”
JT gave the prince’s hand a quick shake before turning to me. “I’ll see you after lunch.”
“Okay.” I grabbed my purse and started toward the door. Damen set his hand on the small of my back and fell into step beside me.
I could feel JT’s stare drilling into my back as we left.
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.
28
“Is there something going on between you and Agent Thomas?” Damen hadn’t even waited until we’d gotten out of the building before asking me that question.
But I was determined to wait until after we were outside to answer it. “I’ve been told he cares for me.” I strolled out the main exit into a blazingly bright afternoon.
“That much is obvious,” he said as he escorted me to the limo idling in front of the building. “But that’s not why I asked. It was more you. I get the sense that you have feelings for him.”
The limo’s driver got out, hustling to open the passenger door for us.
I didn’t get in the vehicle. “Well ...” How to handle this one? Here I was, about to go on a date with an incredible man—a man who wasn’t an FBI agent; who wouldn’t put my career in jeopardy. We had only gone on one date. He didn’t have a right to dig into my personal life, any more than I had a right to dig into his.
Still, I felt he deserved an honest answer. “We went out once. But then, before things got carried away, I decided it would be a bad idea. I’m an intern. He’s an agent. And I’d like to get a permanent position with the FBI, once I graduate. Getting a reputation for sleeping with senior agents doesn’t seem the best idea.”
At Damen’s tip of the head, I climbed inside, found a comfy seat, and waited for him to make himself comfortable too. “Now that I’ve answered your question, how about you answer mine?”
“Sure.” Sitting next to me, he set an arm on the back of the seat and crossed an ankle over a knee.
“How is it you were able to stroll right into the FBI Academy? You’re not military. You told me that at dinner. Is it the prince thing? I assumed that was kept hush-hush.”
“It is kept quiet. Nobody in Quantico knows anything about my royal status. I can’t tell you more, but suffice it to say, there are quite a few places I can access that the normal Joe Civilian can’t.”
“Are you an agent too? FBI? CIA?” The car started rolling. “I mean, if you’re an FBI agent, I shouldn’t be going to lunch with you. It would be a conflict of interest, like with JT.”
“Don’t worry, your reputation won’t suffer.”
Little warning bells rang in my head. Whenever anyone said the words “Don’t worry,” I did exactly that—I worried.
I made a point to return to work exactly one hour later. My lunch with Damen was nice. He knew exactly how to distract a girl. He’d arranged everything. Flowers were waiting for me at our table, which just happened to be tucked in a private banquet room. He’d ordered everything ahead of time, so our waiter paid us regular, but discreet, visits to deliver drinks, then salads, hors d’oeuvres, the main course, and finally dessert. The food was amazing, the service outstanding, and the conversation—after a bumpy start—great.
But it was over. And it was back to reality. Back to JT.
Feeling a little uncomfortable, I strolled into the unit with the flowers kind of hidden in my folded arms. I saw JT working in his cubicle as I hurried to mine.
No sooner had I tucked the flowers into the corner of my cubby than he was knocking on my partition wall.
“How was lunch?” he asked, with his eyes glued to the flowers.
“Good, thanks.”
“While you were gone, Hough and I did some digging. I found out Onora Dale has connections to an adoption agency in Columbia.”
Adoption agency? That made sense.
I asked, “Are you thinking that she’s funneling the stolen infants through the agency?”
“I’m hoping.”
So was I.
But there were some problems with his theory. “First, how is she delivering them without leaving any traces of blood? How is she removing them from the scene if she’s not even entering the premises? And, assuming she was somehow taking the children, how would she explain having so many?” I asked. “If she’s feeding three times a week, that’s over one hundred fifty children a year. You’d think that would trigger some suspicion.”
JT shrugged. “I put in a call to the agency’s director. She’s agreed to meet with me in an hour and a half. Do you want to come with me?”
“Sure.” As much as I dreaded the thought of being cooped up in a car with JT for hours—the drive was over an hour, one way—I needed to set our personal issues aside and keep working with him, just like I had been doing, up to that point.
He thumbed over his shoulder, in the general direction of his cubicle. “I’m just going to shut down my laptop and pack up. Then we’ll leave.”
“Okay.” I did the same, leaving everything but my purse in my cubicle.
Now that we were no longer staying at the rental, I’d be driving my own car home later. I’d grab my stuff before going home.
We were on I-95, heading north, ten minutes later. From the moment we left, JT didn’t speak a single word to me. To ease the uncomfortable silence, I turned on the radio and tuned it to a news station.
Twenty minutes later, he broke the awkward silence. “I know your personal life is none of my business, but I thought I should tell you. Damen Sylver is with the bureau. He’s out of the WFO, the Washington Field Office.”
I bit back an expletive and said, “Thank you.”
“I thought you’d want to know.”
“I do.”
I spent the rest of the drive trying to decide how to handle Damen Sylver. I basically had two options: ignore his calls and end it now, or confront him about the lie. By the time we’d pulled up in front of the adoption agency’s humble brick-faced building, I’d determined I wasn’t the blow-him-off type. I didn’t enjoy confrontation, but I was hurt and angry, and I wanted to let him know.
Oh, yes,
Agent
Sylver would hear from me soon.
That settled, I cleared my head, took a deep breath, and headed inside with JT. We needed to stop Onora Dale. That was where I needed to focus.
Men are trouble, Sloan. All of them. You should know that by now.
A smiling young woman sitting at a reception desk greeted us as we came in. We told her we had an appointment with the director, and she asked us to take a seat in the waiting area, which was currently empty.
Two minutes later, a middle-aged woman dressed in a conservative suit and pumps stepped into the waiting area and introduced herself.
JT and I stood.
JT offered a hand. “I’m Jordan Thomas. This is Sloan Skye. Thank you for meeting with us on such short notice.”
“It’s not a problem. I’d been planning on working late, anyway. Fran O’Donnell. How can I help you, Agents?”
JT cleared his throat, then said in a low voice, “We’d like to ask about one of your volunteers, Onora Dale.”
“What would you like to know?” Glancing over her shoulder at the receptionist, who appeared to be busy, Fran O’Donnell said, “Why don’t we talk in my office?”
She escorted us through a door into a small but tidy and nicely furnished office. She invited us to sit in the chairs facing her desk.
“Can you tell us what kind of work she does for your agency?” JT asked, once we’d all gotten settled.
“Ms. Dale assists in many different capacities, and has been volunteering with us for quite some time. Why? Is something wrong?”
“Does she, by chance, bring a lot of infants to you?” I asked.
Fran O’Donnell’s eyebrow twitched. “Well, yes, of course. She runs several homes for expectant teen mothers, after all.” Looking nervous, she glanced at me, then JT, then back at me. “What is this all about?”
Neither of us had heard about any homes for teen mothers. Had we missed something? We exchanged glances.
“I’m assuming you’re required to complete certain paperwork on every child you place in foster care or adoption, correct?” JT asked.
The woman’s lips thinned. “Of course.”
“And Onora Dale has provided that paperwork for all the children she’s brought to you?” JT pressed.
Fran O’Donnell nodded. “Yes. Absolutely. Every one.”
“May we see your files?”
Something flashed in the woman’s eyes. “No. Not without a court order. Those records are private. We share them with nobody, not even FBI agents. Now, if you’d please tell me what this is regarding ... ?”
“One final question, if you please,” JT said, again ignoring her question. “Do you know, or can you estimate, how many children Onora Dale has placed through your agency?”
“I’d estimate about fifty this year.” Fran O’Donnell stood. “Now, I’m sorry, but I have a lot of work to do.” She went to the door, opened it, and made it plainly clear she was done answering our questions.
We both thanked her, then headed outside.
In the car, I said, “At least we know some of the children are probably still alive, if Onora Dale is our unsub. Maybe there’s more. Perhaps she’s using another agency to avoid raising any red flags? I don’t know how many expectant mothers your average group home houses, but I’m thinking more than fifty deliveries a year would probably raise some eyebrows.”
“Could be. We need to see if Hough can locate which group homes Dale’s affiliated with.”
I glanced at the clock. It was a little after three in the afternoon. It had been several nights since the unsub’s last victim had been reported. Would she hunt tonight? Would an innocent woman die before we could make the pieces of this puzzle fit?
“Now what?” I asked JT.
He let his head fall back and closed his eyes. Gone was the flirty, goofy, carefree man I was used to seeing. Beside me now was a guy who appeared defeated. “I don’t know. We’ve done everything we can.”
“Have we taken all our evidence to the prosecutor, including Onora Dale’s tie to the adoption agency, to see if we can at least get a search warrant?”
“I think McGrane has.”
“Maybe we should make sure.”
JT studied me for a few moments, then nodded. “Okay. I’ll put in a call to him. In the meantime, I say we call it a day and get some rest.”
I was sort of okay with that plan.
“A new day. A new hope,” I said, trying to cheer him up.