Chapter Twelve #3
Allie stood still for a moment, her face strained, before she shook her head. “I don’t have anything other than the nurse’s money and her keys,” she admitted, voice low. “I came here wearing one of those hospital gowns. It’s in the trash.”
“I’ll want all of that bagged and sent to the lab,” Brody directed.
He opened the door to Harlan and Jolene, and Allie had to grip the dog’s collar again to settle him. Yes, definitely a protector.
“Get her to a safe house,” Brody instructed his deputies. “And send a CSI team out here to bag the keys, money and a hospital gown in the trash. A car’s nearby, too. A Jeep. I want it examined, too.”
He’d just finished doling out those instructions when his phone sounded with a text. “It’s from Reese,” he said, turning the phone so Remi could see. “He’s got a few possible locations for the clinic.”
Brody swiped through the photos Reese had sent, and he held them up for Allie to see. “Is one of these the clinic where you gave birth?”
Allie leaned in, looked at the first image and shook her head. She had the same reaction to the second and third. But on the fourth, her eyes widened, and she pointed at the image. “Yes. That’s the place.”
Remi nodded and released a long, pent-up breath. Finally, they might get the answers they needed. And Allie had been right. The clinic was on the south side of San Antonio.
“We need to check it out,” Brody told Allie. “Just stay with Harlan and Jolene, all right? They’ll get you to safety.”
Allie nodded, though her eyes were filled with fear. “Thank you,” she muttered. “I hope you find your son.”
“Yeah” was all Brody said, but that one word was drenched with emotion.
They hurried out to the cruiser, and the moment Brody had plugged the address into the GPS, he took off. Fast. The clock was ticking, and every second felt like it could be their last chance to find his son.
The sudden ringing of Brody’s phone broke through the silence, and Remi saw Deputy Mary Sadler’s name pop up on the dash screen. He glanced at the screen, then tapped the Speaker button.
“Give me good news, Mary,” Brody said by way of greeting.
“Not sure if it’s good or not, but I had two county deputies check out the cabin where Allie stayed during her pregnancy. The county folks were much closer than we are, and I knew they could get there within minutes. And they did. But the place is empty.”
So, not good news. Well, not yet anyway.
“Get a search warrant, Mary,” Brody instructed. “I want a CSI team in there right away.”
“Will do, boss. Oh, I’m still trying to figure out who owns the place,” Mary added. “It’s under a company name. Offshore.”
Brody cursed under his breath. “Find out everything you can, and get back to me. I need that information fast.”
The line went silent as Brody ended the call, his frustration clearly mounting. “Offshore,” he muttered to himself. “Just like Tarrant’s account.”
“True, but Tarrant wasn’t involved in the twins being born,” she said, but then stopped. “Was he?”
Remi had to groan. And Brody spelled out the long shot that was going through her head.
“In some twisted way, Tarrant might be using this to get to his enemies. To Christina and Eloise. Hell, even Langley. Maybe Tarrant thought he could draw them out into the open so he could kill them. Or have them arrested for orchestrating this.” He stopped, shook his head.
“No. There are easier ways for Tarrant to do that than to set a sheriff and a PI on his trail.”
Maybe. But the idea still gnawed away at Remi. She wanted to know who, and what, they were dealing with. It sickened her to think that a monster like Tarrant was the one who had Brody’s other son.
Because he was driving in bat-out-of-hell mode, Brody shaved nearly a full five minutes off the estimated time of arrival, and they pulled into what had once been the Meadowbrook Clinic. The place was just as Allie described—in a rundown section of town, with vacant buildings looming around it.
Remi scanned the side of the clinic. And there it was. The dumpster with the unmistakable mermaid graffiti scrawled on its side. That odd, out-of-place detail Allie had mentioned.
Drawing his gun, Brody barreled out of the cruiser with Remi right behind him. He went to the front door and tried the knob. Locked. So they hurried around to the back.
And got lucky.
The back door was slightly ajar. She and Brody exchanged a glance, readied their weapons and slipped inside. As they moved, the sound of their footsteps thudded on the worn tiles, but Remi couldn’t hear anything else.
They maneuvered through an empty supply room, the musty air thick with the scent of old cleaning supplies. Brody led the way, checking each corner before he opened the door to the next room.
The stench hit Remi like a punch to the gut.
Remi cupped her left hand over her nose, and her heart beat faster as she took in the sterile setting. Everything was exactly as Allie had described it. This was a makeshift delivery room.
But then, she saw it.
A figure lay motionless on the floor in front of them. A woman in a nurse’s uniform.
And she was very much dead.