Searching for Cate (8 page)

The next minute, she was gone.

“Y
ou know, we have a saying—physician, heal thyself.”

Christian looked up from his plate and smiled at his mother. She had purposely delayed dinner until he walked through the door. Uncle Henry and John fairly pounced on their meals the second he did.

As for him, he had to concentrate to work up even a ghost of an appetite. Food didn't interest him, even the traditional meals that his mother made, not for more than three years now.

A faint smile touched his lips. “I don't think that's a Navajo saying, Mom.”

Juanita looked unfazed by her son's correction. “It could be. It's wise enough for one.” She eased an ear of corn onto his plate. There was hardly anything on it
besides that. “Now, the question is, my fine young son, are you wise?”

He was wise enough to see through one of his mother's webs. But because he loved her, he tolerated her burrowing into his life. “What are you driving at, Mother?”

She spooned out a serving of grilled chicken tenders onto his plate, then passed the bowl to her uncle. “Well, a wise man—like my grandfather was—knows that each man has something to add to the sum total of the community. You, like your brother, are a wonderful doctor. The people are grateful for you, for your frequent trips back to the reservation to care for them when you could just as easily turn your back on life here.”

She was setting up for her argument. It was like watching a craftswoman. He knew from experience that it could take a while and today his patience wasn't the best. “The point, Mother, where's the point?”

“At the top of your head, it would seem.” She nodded at his plate. He was pushing food around with his fork, wearing out the beans in their circular travel. “You don't eat enough to keep a bird healthy.”

She'd slipped up, Christian thought. “You're the one who knows that birds eat twice their weight in food. If I did that—”

The sound of muffled laughter had Juanita looking sharply to her left. Toward John, the boy she had taken into her home when his parents were killed in a car accident. To show his gratitude, when he wasn't going to school, John helped Uncle Henry at the gym.

Right now, the seventeen-year-old was working
hard trying to hide the laughter that had bubbled up. Despite his efforts, a small noise had managed to eke through. His eyes on his plate, John pretended to be involved with his meal.

“All right,” Juanita conceded. “Then eat like a human being.” She waved a disparaging hand at his plate. “A healthy human being. Or you are going to become ill,” she warned with the voice she used whenever she made one of her “vision” prophesies. “And then who will treat these people?”

Normally, he'd let it pass. But tonight, he had an answer ready for her. A certain perverseness, utterly foreign to him, urged it out. “Lukas and the other doctors who donate their time—”

Juanita was quick to cut him off. “Lukas has a wife, a practice and a life. We can't expect him to sacrifice himself and do without any sleep at all. The others are in the same position. They're married, they come when they can…”

A blind person could see where this was going. Food had only been her starting point. They were going to the field where they always went. To duel without weapons, armed only with love.

“But I have no wife or life, so I'm here more often,” Christian concluded.

She looked at him for a long moment. He couldn't tell if she was annoyed because he had seen through her, or because he'd interrupted her.

“That really wasn't where I wanted the conversation to go,” Juanita informed him quietly. She looked accusingly at her older brother and John. “You two, don't just sit there like grazing cattle, help me.”

Henry raised his eyes to his nephew. “Eat something,” he said, then focused back on his meal.

A hint of exasperation echoed in Juanita's voice as she watched him incredulously. “That's it?”

Henry raised his eyes again, this time to look at the woman he referred to as his baby sister, but only in private. The stoic expression on his face never changed. “That's what you want him to do, isn't it?”

Juanita sighed and shook her head. One look at John told her that he wasn't even about to try. She knew the boy idolized Christian. Left without soldiers, Juanita attempted to use diversion, hoping that Christian might wind up eating without realizing it. She really did worry about him. “How did it go with that girl I sent you? Lily?”

Christian noticed that at the mention of the girl's name, John seemed to snap to attention despite the fact that he continued staring at his plate.

“I can see where you'd have your hands filled with that one,” Christian commented.

“Did you talk to her?” Juanita pressed.

Christian broke a bit of bread and dipped it into bowl of hot sauce his mother had prepared. “I talk to all my patients.”

Juanita snorted, although she was pleased to see him eating something without prompting. She felt a small surge of victory. Christian had a weakness for her bread and the hot sauce she liked to make.

“If I had wanted you to be a lawyer, Christian, I would have sent you to law school.” Her eyes narrowed. “Stop sounding like one.”

He wiped his fingers on the napkin beside his plate.
“Mother, you know I can't talk about my patients.” He saw impatience crease her unlined brow. He told her as much as he could. “But I gave her all the information someone in her position needs.”

“Her position?” The question came from John. Three sets of eyes turned his way. Even Henry's deeply hooded eyes took on a smattering of interest. “I know her,” John explained evasively. “I was just curious what you meant, that's all.”

Christian hadn't thought about that. About the fact that John might have interacted with Lily. He was too busy thinking of him as the younger brother he'd never had. Of course, it stood to reason that Lily would invite his advances. John was extremely good-looking. Tall, slender, with sensitive eyes.

It stunned him as he recalled that those very words had once been applied to him. By Alma.

He watched the young man pointedly. “If you know her, you undoubtedly know that she gets around.” He saw John's jaw harden. The boy was getting defensive. On Lily's behalf? Or his own? “This day and age you can't be too careful.” Christian paused, letting the words sink in. Knowing that John didn't want him to get into any kind of detailed explanation. “That goes for guys, too.”

“The good thing about our skin color,” Henry commented, talking to the string beans on his plate, “is that you can't tell when one of us is blushing.”

It was getting too uncomfortable for her men. Juanita decided that it was a good time to change the subject. “Will you be staying the whole weekend?” she asked her son lightly.

Christian nodded. “Same as usual. Except that I'll be going home Sunday night instead of Monday morning.”

Never a greedy woman, Juanita took what she could get.

 

“What's bothering you, Christian?”

The question came out of the blue, as Juanita and her younger son stood in the kitchen, doing the dishes later that evening. She'd let the dishes slide for a while, preferring to partake of the company of her men. But then she'd slipped away after John had gone to bed and Henry had dozed off in front of the television set. Christian followed her into the next room, silently taking up his post at her side the way he'd done so many times while growing up.

He knew better than to look into his mother's eyes. He glanced at the rack instead as he took out another dish to dry. “What makes you think there's something bothering me?”

She smiled in triumph. “You didn't deny it, for one,” she pointed out. “And, I'm your mother. Some mothers, the ones who have a connection to their children, can tell these kinds of things.” She paused for a moment—for effect he was certain—before adding, “Besides, I had a dream….”

And how many times had he heard that before? He couldn't begin to count. Every time his mother had wanted to make a point, she'd claimed she'd had a dream, underscoring what she was about to say.

“You had a dream.”

She knew he meant no disrespect, but still, she was
required to reprimand him. “Don't humor me, Christian. I come from a long line of shamans and seekers, you know that. Sometimes spirits whisper in our ear when we are asleep.”

He teased her, but he knew that there were people like his mother among his kind. And they were revered. He didn't doubt that his mother was a seer. He just doubted that she “saw” as often as she said she did. At least, he doubted the dreams she claimed to have had about him. “And what was this dream of yours?”

Facing him, Juanita grew very grave. “That someone would come into your life. That no matter how much you resist, she would make you happy again.”

He humored her for a minute. “And why would I resist being made happy?”

Juanita was deadly serious when she answered him. “Because you don't think you deserve it. But you do, you know. No one I know deserves it more.” She paused, drying her hands for a moment to cup his cheek. “You were always my happy one. I always used to think if only Lukas was like you…” Her voice trailed off, almost wistful for the old days.

He knew what it was that she wasn't saying. He'd been her son far too long not to. “And now you think, ‘If only Christian was like Lukas.'”

Juanita pressed her lips together, wishing she could do something to change things around. She hadn't fabricated the dream. She'd had it. But even in her sleep, she'd felt Christian's resistance. He truly didn't believe he deserved another chance at life and what it had to offer.

“I want you to be happy, Christian.”

“I am, Mother.” He'd found a peace of sorts, a pur
pose. He no longer thought about oblivion and joining his wife and child. Too many people needed him here. “As much as I can be.”

“It's been three years, Christian. Time to let go of the past and move on.” Juanita sighed, folding the dish towel. “I seem to be saying that a lot to you. But I have hope that if I say these words in just the right way, you'll listen.” A fond smile enhanced her features, making her look young again. “You always used to listen to me when you were a boy.”

When he was that boy she was talking about, he'd thought his mother the wisest woman in the world. He still deferred to her, but he knew that she was human and, as such, fallible. Especially in her beliefs that he would someday find someone. How could you find someone if you weren't looking for them?

“Things are more complicated now.”

“No, we are still the same people inside, here,” she said, tapping his chest. “The young boy who found that he could love everyone and everything is still there. Just let him out.”

But to let that boy out meant to subject himself to pain. Because love ended in pain. Only his brother seemed to have escaped that fate. His mother hadn't; from the little he knew, Uncle Henry hadn't. And heaven only knew, he hadn't.

But for his mother's sake, he smiled. “Well, if your dream is right, someone will be along to do that.” Draping the dish towel he'd used on the side of the sink, he headed for the front door.

Juanita made no move to follow, but her voice called him back. “Where are you going?”

At the front door, Christian paused to look at his mother over his shoulder. He didn't answer. He didn't have to. The look in his eyes told her that she already knew where he was going.

She could only nod. A mother couldn't live her children's lives for them or take on their pain no matter how much she wanted to.

“Be careful where you walk,” she cautioned, “we've been having trouble with coyotes lately. Sabrina Cool Water lost her little dog the other week.”

He imagined that some of the neighbors probably saw that as a blessing. Sabrina's pet had been a yappy little mongrel, barking from sunup to way past sundown. Still, he didn't like thinking that it had made a meal for some coyote, no matter how hungry the animal had been.

“I'll be careful, Mom,” he promised, shutting the door behind him.

Maybe that was just the problem, Juanita thought, walking to her own small bedroom. Christian was being too careful. Afraid to live life again, afraid of being hurt. She hoped that the woman she had seen in her vision would come soon.

Even if she wasn't one of the People.

D
ays went by.

Cate felt as if she were on the brink, waiting for something to happen, to break wide open.

She also felt as if she was being eaten up alive by frustration.

She refused to believe that was the end of it. That she had managed to successfully track down Joan Haywood from her early home in San Francisco through several residences across the state down to her present home in Bedford, and that after one brief, unsatisfactory meeting, that was that.

There was going to be more. There
had
to be more.

Just not immediately, no matter how impatient she felt. Cate grudgingly acknowledged that perhaps both she and the woman who had turned out to be her mother needed a breather. That Joan Cunningham
needed time to come to grips with the fact that her past had suddenly, without warning, come up to invade her present, just as her doctor had suggested.

And Joan also needed time to deal with her diagnosis. Through careful maneuvering, Cate had found her way into her birth mother's medical records and followed what was happening, knowing things as soon as Joan did. Maybe sooner.

And on the small chance that her mother's doctor had been right in his suggestion that perhaps she'd made a mistake in thinking that Joan was her mother, Cate had checked her facts over again.

There was no mistake. Joan Cunningham née Haywood
was
her mother. She just needed to find a way for the woman to accept that and acknowledge her. What would happen after that, she didn't know. Maybe she could move on. She'd know once the time came.

Right now, she had a case to concentrate on. The task force she'd been assigned to had been in existence for more than six months, but things were beginning to finally move and fall into place. On her first day, she'd familiarized herself with as much of the background as time permitted.

The child-prostitution/white-slavery ring had come to light like so many other cases, by accident. A routine complaint about too much noise called in by neighbors in the area led police to an apartment that was supposed to be empty. Two underage girls were found chained to beds in the trashed quarters. The people who had been their captors had just managed to flee the premises a few minutes before the police arrived.

The girls, frightened, bruised and abused, were al
most incoherent. Neither could give an adequate description of their jailers even after they had sufficiently calmed down. Both girls had claimed to have been kidnapped, although one had turned out to be a runaway. The runaway had told them that she'd been taken to a place with more girls like her. Many of the girls didn't speak English and their native tongue didn't sound as if it was Spanish. More than that, the girl couldn't tell them, except that every so often—she had no way of knowing if it was days or weeks—they were transported in a truck to another location.

That was when the FBI had been called in and the task force set up. Thanks to another tip, they managed to conduct another raid a couple of months later. But the information had come too late and no one was found. The only thing that had been discovered was a video accidentally left behind. It seemed to have been dubbed from a master tape, undoubtedly for sales. The operation was expanding.

It was obvious that Lydia Graywolf was living and breathing the case, dedicated to bringing down the people behind this ring. Cate discovered she got along well with the woman. They had a great deal in common, including the fact that they both had fathers in law enforcement who had been brought down in the line of duty. It was because of her father that Lydia had become a special agent. When Cate told her that she had felt the same way, a silent bond was formed between them.

Traffic was heavier than usual this morning. An overturned big rig had reduced the flow of vehicles down to a trickle and had turned a fifteen-minute drive
into an hour-and-a-half ordeal. She called into the office twice, once to say she was going to be late, once to follow up, saying she was still trying to get to the office. Side streets had become unbearable as well.

Not in the cheeriest of moods when she finally walked into the room, Cate tried to head straight for the coffee in the common room. She'd only made it halfway across the floor when Lydia popped to her feet, hanging up the phone she'd just been on.

The look on Lydia's face was positively vibrant as she made eye contact with her. “Okay, people, let's look alive. We've got ourselves another hot tip.”

“That mean we're going to the track?” Santiago pretended to guess even as he donned his jacket. “Because I could sure use a little money.”

“Then here's your chance to earn it,” Lydia cracked. She looked at the others who'd gathered around her desk. “Just got a call from an officer responding to a domestic dispute. Wife went crazy when her husband came home after being out all night, partying. The story she beat out of her husband—”

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Hawkins muttered under his breath as he jammed his arms through the sleeves of his jacket.

Lydia ignored him. “—was that he and his buddy went to an old office-supplies warehouse and got more than just a box of pencils.”

“Paper cuts in unmentionable places?” Santiago hazarded a guess.

“Little women,” Lydia replied grimly. It was the term she used to refer to the underage pawns within the floating prostitution ring. She nodded at Cate, indicat
ing the door as she began to hurry out. “Let's hope they haven't pulled up stakes yet.”

“Here.”

Cate looked down and realized that Santiago was pushing a lidded, foam cup into her hand. Despite the foam, the contents felt hot.

She raised a quizzical brow as she looked at him. “What's this?”

He grinned broadly at her, never missing a step. “Coffee.”

Cate smiled to herself. Funny how people here had picked up on her habits so quickly. It was almost like having a surrogate family. She wasn't worth a damn without a heavy dose of caffeine to kick-start her morning. Because her own coffee-making skills lacked a little something, she usually got her first real cup first thing in the office.

Returning his grin, she gave Santiago a little salute. Though she wanted that first long sip badly, she knew better than to attempt it on the run. And to stop moving long enough to take a drink would be tantamount to asking to get run over.

Coffee was going to have to wait until she was in the car. Every second that went by might be
the
second they needed to make the bust.

Lengthening her stride, Cate fell into place behind Lydia as they all hurried to get out of the building and to the warehouse in time.

 

The smell of rain was once more in the air. The atmosphere was pregnant with promise. Taking a full breath was a challenge as they hurried into cars and
vans. A haze accompanied them all the way there, making it a thoroughly unpleasant morning.

They got there in record time.

As they approached the edge of the warehouse, a bead of perspiration trickled down Cate's back. She was uncomfortably aware of the vest she was wearing beneath her lightweight jacket. The latter proclaimed her to be a member of the FBI, white letters on a deep navy-blue fabric. The former was there so that she could remain a member. A standard-issue bulletproof vest—a heavy and constant reminder that her career of choice was dangerous and often came down to a situation where it was “them” against “her.”

Not to mention the fact that there were enough crazies out there willing to take her down just for the sport of it.

Cate looked around the perimeter of the warehouse. It was surrounded by more than a dozen members of the SWAT team. There was a lot of manpower here.

Her weapon already drawn, she held it up as she leaned her head toward Lydia. “You sure about this?”

Lydia nodded. “The officer calling it in said the wife was very adamant, very specific and sick to her stomach that she'd been married to a guy like this without a clue.”

“And she beat it out of him?” Cate asked incredulously. Most men wouldn't have admitted to that, no matter how badly things went against them. And she also couldn't see any man volunteering the kind of information this woman's husband had, especially since the way the ring operated was in strict secrecy.

Lydia released the safety on her weapon, then held
it aloft—ready and poised. They inched forward until they were next to the warehouse's front entrance. “The officer said it had something to do with the sharp end of a boning knife.”

“Oh.” That would explain it, Cate thought. A knife could be a great equalizer, just like a gun.

They stepped to the side, allowing the SWAT team to position themselves ahead of them. One of the men held a battering ram, ready to swing into action at the first sign from Lydia.

The battering ram turned out to be unnecessary. An old-fashioned padlock hung on the outside of the door.

“Talk about cheap,” Lydia muttered. She beckoned forward another one of the team. The officer held bull cutters. One quick movement of the wrists and the lock fell to the ground.

Cate held her breath as she entered the warehouse. The doors were wide enough for more than two of them to enter at a time. They still went in single file, just in case.

Her senses were on heightened alert. Adrenaline coursed double-time through her veins as her eyes swept over everything, trying to take it all in at once. The darkness and the light intermingled, making the officers indistinguishable from one another. Turning everything into a murky brown.

The warehouse looked empty.

Cate felt an acute sense of disappointment warring with the energy throbbing through her body. They fanned out, checking every corner, every abandoned aisle.

And then Santiago called out, “Lydia, back here!”

The others moved quickly, converging at the back of the warehouse. There were several tiny, makeshift rooms lining the rear wall, separated by planks of wood meant to act as partitions. Each makeshift room had a door. At first glance they looked like storage rooms within a storage facility.

Except that these storage rooms were outfitted with beds.

Cate and the others opened door after door, all with the same results. There was no one there. The only indication that there ever had been someone there were the chains found in a couple of the rooms. Chains that were undoubtedly used to hold the young girls captive.

Lydia swallowed a curse as she holstered her weapon. “We're too late, damn it. Someone tipped them off again.” They had been playing musical residences now for the last month and she had yet to get ahead of the game.

There was one more slim door located off to the side. Too small to be a room, it might have been a bathroom of sorts. Finding it, Cate tried to open the door. It was stuck. She tried the doorknob again, but it wouldn't budge. Was it locked? Why?

The logical answer was that someone had to be in there.

“I need a shoulder here,” she called out.

Santiago came up behind her and moved her aside. “If I dislocate this, you're picking up the excess medical tab,” he warned.

Bracing himself, the heavyset man applied his full weight against the door. It gave easily, the rusted hinges separating from the wall on the other end like so
much cardboard. They opened the door on the side of the defunct hinges. Santiago moved it out of the way just as Lydia came up behind Cate.

Inside the bathroom, chained to the pipes and slumped on the floor, was a crumpled figure. A girl. There was a pool of blood all around her. She was no more than fourteen, if that much.

“Son of a bitch, they killed her,” Lydia cried.

Cate was on her knees beside the body, her fingers pressed against the girl's neck. The girl's blood began to soak into her skirt.

“I got a pulse!” she cried. “It's faint, but there's a definite beat.”

Lydia was already on her cell phone, calling for an ambulance. “I need a wagon here, now! We've got a live one, but just barely.” She rattled off the location and then snapped the phone shut.

For just a second, the girl's eyes fluttered open. Terror came into them less than a second later. She looked as if she was trying to shrink into herself, whimpering. Cate heard Santiago curse behind her.

“Hang on, honey, we're the good guys,” Cate told the girl.

The girl's head jerked in her direction. The next moment, the girl had slipped out of consciousness again.