Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
You remind me of a penny. Two-faced and not worth much.
—Sage’s secret thoughts
Sage
It’d been three days, and a lot had happened.
A judge gave temporary custody of Dean to Gentry.
The judge denied Brooke and Nadine bail.
Nadine and Brooke both tried to contact someone in Arkansas. Whether that someone was Dario or not, we didn’t know.
Apollo hijacked both phone calls and redirected them to his own voicemail. Both voicemails said the same thing. “We need help. She’s here.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that ‘she’ was me.
They must’ve known enough about who I was to that family to know that they’d want to know where I was and any information they could provide.
Apollo was still working on who they’d called, but since it was a burner phone, it was taking him some time to get that information.
Work was, sadly, very crazy.
I hadn’t talked to Gentry much at all in the last week.
I saw him, sure.
But in the time that I’d been working, he’d gotten Dean registered at school. Taken him in to the police station to give his official statement—which sadly wasn’t much because the little boy was too scared to talk—and had several more cases thrown into his lap along with the missing little boys.
The man was busy.
But above all else, he was consistent.
He was there every day to pick Dean up from school—even though the boy had no idea that Gentry was related to him. He cooked him dinner every night.
And he asked for space.
Space that I’d provided for him without complaint.
Who we needed to think about right then was Dean.
He was the top priority.
And I wasn’t going to insert myself into their new reality until it was best to do so.
Hence why I was at a car dealership, trading in a car that I’d had for only a few months.
The man who sold me the car was smiling, but it was one of those fake smiles that were plastered on a man’s face when he was trying to placate an overreacting woman.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t take your trade,” he apologized.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because we won’t have any resale for it here.” He practically patted me on the head. “Those kinds of cars don’t do well in Montana.”
I nearly keeled over. “You were the one to sell me this car and tell me that it’d be perfectly fine in Montana. It was something I specifically asked you.”
A motorcycle roared up, and I turned to look behind me to see an older man with a hell of a beard coming to a stop by the window.
The salesman that had just told me he couldn’t take my car as trade left me like a hot potato.
I stiffened my spine and walked toward the man who was now helping the biker.
“…to buy a truck that will get me home. Needs to be able to pull…” the biker was saying.
I walked right into the middle of their conversation and said, “I would highly recommend that you don’t buy a single thing from this crooked dealership.”
The salesman stiffened. “Ma’am…”
“That man,” I ignored the salesman’s discomfort.
“Sold me this car only a few months ago and told me that it would be great in Montana winter. Let me tell you something. It’s not.
It’s awful. It’s a great car, but it’s not something that I can use here when it snows.
It’s unsafe. And this man was the one that made me buy it. ”
The biker looked from me to the salesman. “Is that right?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I was going to buy a truck in cash, but seeing as you don’t have any integrity, I guess I’ll head on down the road to the next dealership.”
My smug smile had the salesman narrowing his eyes.
The biker walked back to his bike, and I walked to my car. “You come back here, and you’ll have the cops called on you for trespassing.”
I whirled around. “Seeing as I’m married to a cop, he might be really interested to know that you’re a slimeball that sold me a car knowing damn well and good that it wouldn’t do well in Montana.”
If I could call Gentry my husband. Or even a boyfriend at this point. I had no clue what we were.
Technically he was my husband. But he hadn’t seen, nor spoken to me, in days.
“Yeah, I’m sure that your ‘husband’ would’ve let you come all the way over here without accompanying you.
” The salesman snorted. “Next you’re going to tell me that he’s a Dixie Warden and he’ll come kick my ass.
” The salesman rolled his eyes as if he couldn’t find that any more annoying.
“Because you know, it’s only the corrupt Wardens that work for the sheriff’s department in this county. ”
The old man, who’d been in the process of getting onto his bike, froze.
He turned around and leveled a look on the salesman. “What about Dixie Wardens?”
The salesman froze. “Uhhh…”
The biker picked up his phone and dialed someone.
He grinned when whomever it was picked up and said, “Denver. Might want to meet me down at the Ford place in town.”
Denver…
Oh, boy.
Thirty minutes later, the entire freakin’ parking lot was full of “corrupt Wardens” and I was right smack dab in the middle of it.
Denver parked his bike, along with the newly minted Dixie Wardens, Bells and Thumper.
Bells was a cool-eyed man who looked like he had his head on his shoulder. Thumper struck me as the exact opposite.
More of a Martin Riggs kind of man. Crazy with a side of crazy.
His eyes weren’t cool, but wired, and focused entirely on me.
Well, on the salesman who was standing next to me cursing himself to oblivion.
“I didn’t mean anything by it!” the salesman threw up his hands.
“No?” the older gentleman biker said. “I’m thinking you meant every word.
The way you curled your lip up let me know that you harbor a deep-seated anger toward the Dixie Wardens, and as the national president of the Dixie Wardens, I’d love to hear the explanation as to why.
From what I know, this entire chapter is in good standing.
So, now that both the club president and I are here… tell us what’s up.”
The salesman opened and closed his mouth.
“Bells,” Denver drawled. “Why don’t you give Sage a ride home? She looks like she’s freezing.”
I immediately shook my head. “I’m not freakin’ leaving until he takes my trade in! That’s all I wanted! He sold me the car, telling me it’d be perfect in the winter! I can’t even drive it with a small amount of snow on the ground. It’s not perfect!”
Thumper arrived at my side and I blinked, surprised to find him just…there.
He held out the keys. “How about you give me those keys, and get a ride home with Bells.”
I again shook my head. “No offense, Bells.” I smiled and waved. “But it’s freezing out. I’m not sure I would survive a ride home on a bike.”
Bells jerked his chin.
I pointed at the doctor’s office. “I’m just going to go over there while y’all…work something out.”
Denver grunted. “Bells.”
Bells fell into step with me, not saying a word.
He walked with me over to the office and pulled out his own set of keys to unlock the door. He barely had the door open when Odin popped out of the other side.
The medical examiner’s side.
“What’s up?” he asked, looking at Bells then at me.
He had gore-covered gloves on his hands.
Gross.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just waiting for them to resolve a few issues. I figured I’d get some file reading done since I seem to have some free time on my hands.”
Odin looked across the street at the small car dealership that I really should’ve known better than to get a car from. “Those files you pulled on the missing kids?”
I nodded.
I’m not surprised he knew I’d pulled them.
Odin missed nothing.
Plus, they’d been sitting on my desk for two days now since we’d been going nonstop.
I’d never been more happy that today was Saturday and I got the full day off.
After talking to Bernice and Odin, until we got more staff, it wouldn’t be open.
It’d stay closed until we had enough people we trusted to help, then Bernice would take over half the week, and Odin the other half. Giving them both those days off.
I’d be working with both as the ‘charge nurse’ and working however and wherever I was needed.
“Got it.”
Bells stopped to talk to Odin while I went inside and got started on the files that I’d been neglecting.
I was halfway through the first file when the emergency contact on the file caught my attention.
Paola Marren.
Why was that so familiar?
I wrote the name down and kept reading.
It took me ten minutes to get through the first file.
It took me five to get through the second when I saw it.
The same emergency contact. Paola Marren.
Out of the five files that I had of the missing little boys, four of them had Paola Marren listed as the emergency contact.
I texted Gentry, hoping that he would have time for a chat, but he didn’t call back.
Where had I heard that name before?
I got onto social media and started what I did best. Internet stalking.
I searched for the name Paola Marren.
Seven popped up in our area.
But there was one very specific one that caught my eye.
And she was listed in several area groups as none other than the parkour teacher.
The woman that’d been on maternity leave, then bereavement leave, for going on two months now.
A woman that lived in the mountains with her dogs.
A woman that had no husband or boyfriend. A woman that had no pregnancy photos of herself. A woman that had been in contact with all nine missing little boys.
I’d found a mom that’d tagged several of the little boys’ moms at a parkour outing in the park a couple of towns over. Though the others weren’t tagged, I saw their little faces in the group photo.
I searched more and more and more until my heart was pounding.
This.
This was it.
My gut was practically singing.
This woman was behind these kidnappings.
I just knew it.
I got out of my office chair, pushed through the door that led into the medical examiner’s office, and hurried up to Odin.
He stopped what he was doing—he was weighing what looked like a spleen—and stared.
I knew no one had just walked into his office before like I’d just done, and he wasn’t sure what to do.
“I think I found them!” I declared.