Chapter Twenty-Seven – Eme Araña #2
We spend the rest of the week together. Now I understand why we got a full week of heat leave from the garrison, even though heats only last two or three days. It would be unthinkable to leave Jo right after.
Even when the weekend comes and we’re expected back on duty Monday, it’s barely manageable. Ten times harder to be apart from her than it ever was before.
On Sunday, we clean the house together. I’m in charge of the bathrooms, Shane handles the kitchen, Jay’s vacuuming, and Jo’s doing laundry. Still, we stop now and then, just to touch her. A kiss. A hand on her arm. Anything to feel her.
I’m scrubbing her tub in the upstairs bathroom when she walks in. She kisses me as she passes, then stops in front of the hamper and starts sorting clothes. When she grabs one of my pants, a folded piece of paper slips from the pocket and falls to the floor.
She picks it up, brows already pulling together, and I rise to see what it is.
Eme Arana.
My heart skips. I’d forgotten completely. Her heat banished it from my mind.
“It’s from the frostbite investigation,” I explain. “I think I know this doctor, but I can’t remember from where.”
She squints at the paper. “A doctor’s name?”
I nod.
She tilts her head. “It looks like... M. Aranya. Like the letter M, not ‘E-M-E.’ And it’s spelled with a Y, not that Spanish n.”
My pulse kicks hard. “You know that name?”
She glances up at me. “I know an M. Aranya. Doctor Miles Aranya. Total douchebag psychiatrist who claims to specialize in women’s mental health. He gave a guest lecture to my class during my last year of med school.” She grimaces. “He’s the biggest sexist pig I’ve ever seen in my life.”
The memory slams into me, and my chest locks up. I can’t breathe. Can’t speak.
It can’t be the same person. It just can’t.
I don’t know how long I stay frozen, but it’s long enough for her to notice.
“Babe?” she says.
I still can’t answer. The impossibility of what I’m thinking knocks the air out of me.
It just can’t be.
“Talk to me,” she says again, firmer now.
Shane’s at the bathroom door a moment later, Jay right behind him. With our senses this sharp, they must’ve heard everything clear as a bell; it didn’t matter where in the house they were.
Shane steps forward, grabs my arm, and turns me toward him. His eyes lock on mine. “What is it, Kory?”
Jay stands just behind him, scanning the room like there’s a threat I haven’t named yet.
I swallow hard and force the words out. “M. Aranya. Doctor Miles Aranya. That was the psychiatrist my mom was seeing.”
Shane frowns. “The one she was with when she went missing?”
I nod. The memory hits fast and sharp, like a door opening inside my mind.
I’d been acting out that morning, more than usual, and Lydia lost her patience. My mom never fought with her, except when it came to me. They ended up arguing in the kitchen, and it turned into a full-blown fight.
My mother had a session with Doctor Aranya in the afternoon. She had never taken me with her before, but that day she didn’t want to leave me in the house with Lydia.
My dads came home on their lunch break to drive us.
Her appointment wasn’t until three, and Gavin’s only about thirty minutes from Chicago, where the doctor’s office was, but they wouldn’t be able to leave work again later.
So they dropped us off early, and we waited in the office until it was time.
It wasn’t a hospital. Just an old three-story office building with square windows.
I remember the fancy chairs in the waiting room of the doctor’s office.
We waited for over two hours. My mom took a magazine from the basket and read, but I faced the name printed on the glass door the whole time: Doctor M. Aranya, Psychiatrist.
When they called her in, I stayed behind, watching the door close after her. We were supposed to wait until my dads came back to pick us up after the session, but when she came out, she took my hand and led me around the block to an ice cream shop.
She bought a chocolate sundae for me and a strawberry sundae for herself.
After we ate, we walked back to the office and sat on the sidewalk in front of the building to wait.
When my dads finally showed up, they scolded her for waiting outside.
She was supposed to stay inside the building until they arrived.
The next month, she had another appointment, but she didn’t take me with her that time.
I never saw her again.
I always thought that if I had gone with her, she wouldn’t have gone missing.
I would’ve protected her from whatever happened.
Even now, as an adult, I still think the same thing.
Whoever took her, if she’d had a kid with her, maybe they wouldn’t have done it.
Maybe they would’ve been afraid of the kid screaming, or it would’ve been too much trouble to take two people instead of one woman alone.
If I’d been there, she would’ve come back home with me.
If Doctor M. Aranya is the same man as “Doc” Eme Arana, then he’s not just involved in women trafficking, he’s been doing it for nearly two decades. And he’s the reason my mother never came home.
“It can’t be the same,” I say. “My mother’s doctor worked in Chicago. This ‘doc’ is operating around Port Newark.”
Jo’s face tightens, something between sadness and dread. “He gave my class a guest lecture last year,” she says softly. “His office was in New Jersey. At some point between treating your mother and now, he moved east.”
I push past Shane and Jay, out of the bathroom, and head straight to our room. They all follow me like a silent wall of worry.
I grab my phone from the nightstand and start searching.
The first link that pops up is Dr. M. Aranya, M.D.
Women’s Mental Health Institute, Short Hills, New Jersey.
The website is clean, with soft-focus images of trees and a woman staring out a window.
At the bottom of the page, his photo makes my stomach turn.
He’s late fifties, maybe early sixties. Pale skin, almost gray. Slick black hair, too dark for his age. Thin mouth, narrow nose and brown eyes. I don’t recognize him. I never saw the man back then. A woman called my mom in, maybe a nurse. The door closed, and that was it.
His bio is short. No mention of Chicago. Just a list of elite schools and some bullshit quote about trauma as transformation.
Jay’s behind me now, reading over my shoulder. “We need more than internet hits,” he says. “We need to run him.”
He’s right. I still don’t believe this guy is Eme Arana, but it’s too much of a coincidence not to check every fucking thing about his life.
I sit on the edge of the nest and do something I’ve never done in my life: I ask for help from someone outside my pack. If there’s anyone who can dig into a man’s past and rip it out by the roots, it’s the FBI.
Will Harris picks up on the first ring. I don’t sugarcoat it. I give him the name and my mother’s story. I expect to have to push, to convince him it’s worth looking into, but he doesn’t hesitate.
“We’re on it,” he says. “My brothers and I will dig.”
Tuesday afternoon, right after sensory drills, David Solomon finds us in the hallway and jerks his head. “Command room. Now.”
When we walk in, Josh and Samuel are already inside. The Harris pack stands near the front, flanking the screen like they’ve been waiting.
We sit.
Will Harris steps forward, holding a remote in one hand and a folder in the other.
“This is what we’ve got in forty-eight hours,” he says.
Click.
A name appears on the screen.
Miles Aranya
M.D., Psychiatry — Women’s Mental Health
Current practice: Short Hills, NJ
“Clean license. No complaints and no flags,” Will says. “High-end clinic. Private clients. All female.”
He clicks again, and a U.S. map fades in with seven red pins: Chicago, Santa Fe, Miami, Wilmington, El Paso, Philadelphia and Short Hills.
“Every two to three years, he relocates,” Will says. “New state and new business name on the lease. Nothing illegal, you wouldn’t notice the pattern unless you were looking for it.”
He clicks again. “In two thousand seven, Aranya was running a private psychiatric office in Chicago. Records clean, clinic legally registered, no flagged patients, no complaints. But one month after Kory’s mother disappeared, the clinic shut down. The lease was terminated and staff was dismissed. ”
My pulse spikes. I remember every word of my mother’s case file from when I tried to reopen it six years ago.
They questioned Aranya back then. He confirmed she showed up for her appointment, left calmly afterward.
Internal cameras from the building backed it up; she exited alone. No one ever suspected the doctor.
I’ve been sure for a long time now that she’s dead, and nothing I can do will change that.
But I owe it to her, and to myself, to at least find out what happened.
Six years ago, I tried, but came up empty.
I thought I’d done all I could, that the trail was cold, and that it was impossible.
But now I’m starting to think that maybe, just maybe, I can finally do it.
Will moves on. “Two thousand ten, Santa Fe. Two Mexican women rescued from a parlor house. They’d been brought in with job promises, then locked up and forced into prostitution.
They told the local police that a doctor regularly sedated them, and they woke up with no memory and signs of assault they couldn’t explain.
They described being moved between two locations.
One was raided, but the other was already cleared by the time police got there.
Same week, Aranya’s practice in Santa Fe shuts down. Office emptied. Gone.”
Josh Solomon’s jaw flexes. His brothers lean in.
“Two thousand thirteen, Miami,” Will continues.
“An undercover operation led to the discovery of multiple brothels tied to international trafficking. Women from Colombia, Venezuela, Thailand, all held under tight surveillance. Aranya was practicing five miles from the central site. He’s not mentioned in the case, but a week after the first raid, he shut down again. ”
“He doesn’t run when they find him; he runs when they get close,” Jay mutters.
Will nods. “Same pattern in Wilmington. Then El Paso. Then Philly. Every time a trafficking ring gets exposed, even if he’s never officially linked, he vanishes.”
Click.
Short Hills, NJ
Office opened: 8 months ago
Status: Closed
“After your report flagging the Frostbite operation reached the federal database, Aranya shut down his clinic. Same pattern: phones cut, lease pulled and staff gone.”
Will clicks again, and one name appears on the screen: Life Circle Biotech Group, LLC.
“This is where it gets interesting,” he continues. “The lease for Aranya’s clinic on Short Hills was in the name of this LLC. We traced it, and it owns a warehouse outside Port Newark, fifteen minutes from the TGH truck yard. No signage, no registered employees, but regular deliveries.”
The screen changes to shipping logs and freight records. Will continues: “ Saline kits. IV sedatives. Portable thermal units. CO? scrubbers.”
Shane leans forward. “That’s the prep clinic.”
Will nods. “That’s what we believe, but we can’t touch it. We drafted a search warrant, and DOJ legal flagged it. Said we don’t have probable cause. No judge is going to approve a federal raid on the warehouse, because the LLC isn’t tied to the Frostbite investigation. Not yet.”
He sets down the remote. “We also filed for medical subpoenas, but got stonewalled. Privacy laws, red tape, all the usual walls. But this time, the resistance felt... coordinated.”
Jordan Harris glances at Will, then at me. “This guy’s not just slippery. He’s protected.”
“Whoever he is, he’s not alone,” Will confirms. “Someone’s shielding him. Multiple someones. With money and reach enough to keep federal eyes off him.”
Now I believe it. Miles Aranya was the one who took my mother. He walked away untouched, and all these years later he’s still making women disappear.
Jay puts a hand on my shoulder. Doesn’t speak, just keeps it there.
I break the silence. “So what now?”
Will looks at me. “We keep going. Tracking his shell companies, watching for financial movement, trying to flip a TGH driver. Someone who can name him directly so we can tie him to the investigation. One person, one signature, that’s all we need to break this open."
He looks back at the screen. “But until then, we sit on our hands. Push too soon, and we torch the investigation, and ourselves.”
So, I have to hold back. Wait for us, or someone else, to find a breach big enough to bring him down.
A wave of soothing pheromones rolls off my brothers.
I breathe it in, deep and slow, trying to anchor myself.
Trying not to stand up and lose control.
Or worse, cry in front of every aegis in this goddamn room.
I must be wearing it on my face, because when I finally raise my head, every Solomon and Harris in the room is looking at me the same way.
Sympathy.
I hate it. I hate the way they pity me.
“Go to the gym,” Josh says. “Run. Then go home. Let your nyra take care of you.”
I stand without a word, my brothers silently rising with me.
We head for the gym. An hour later, I’m drenched in sweat, my lungs burn, but I’m more in control and ready to go home.
When Shane parks the Bronco in our garage, my plan is to head straight for a shower, but Jo’s in the living room. As soon as she sees me, her face crumples with worry. “What happened, Kory?”
I stop in my tracks. For a second, I think I’ll keep walking, get to the bathroom and lock the door.
But I don’t. Instead, I turn toward her, cross the room and fold myself into her arms like I’m sinking.
I cry, rage and grief tearing through me, stronger than the shame of falling apart in front of her.
A minute later, Jay and Shane step in, each taking one of my arms under the shoulder, steadying me. I think they’re afraid I’ll collapse on top of Jo.
They guide me to the couch, and she sits, pulling me down with her and guiding my head into her lap. She runs her fingers through my hair while I sob, and my brothers start to tell her everything we now know about Miles Aranya.