Chapter 8
Ryan’s Last Bargain
Ryan smiled when Sarah entered the interview room.
It was the same smile he had worn in the alley before Marcus spoke.
Controlled.
Confident.
Almost charming.
Sarah understood now that the smile appeared when he wanted people to underestimate how frightened he was.
His wrists were cuffed to a metal ring on the table.
Ortiz sat beside Sarah.
Ryan’s attorney sat opposite them.
Ryan leaned back.
“So now you need me.”
Sarah said nothing.
He looked pleased.
“I knew that would happen.”
Ortiz placed a photograph of Gordon Pike on the table.
Seventy-two years old. Silver hair. Narrow face. Expensive suit.
“When did you last see him?” Ortiz asked.
Ryan looked at the photo and smiled.
“I want a deal.”
His attorney put one hand on his arm.
Ryan ignored him.
“I want federal protection. Reduced charges. No attempted murder count for the alley.”
Sarah stared at him.
“You left Emma to be crushed in a garbage truck.”
Ryan looked at her. “And she wasn’t.”
“Because Marcus was early.”
“And because you found her.”
He smiled slightly.
“You should be thanking me. Look how important you are now.”
Ortiz’s hand tightened around her pen.
Sarah felt oddly calm.
Ryan wanted anger.
He wanted control.
She refused to give him either.
“Where’s Gordon Pike?”
Ryan leaned back farther.
“Deal first.”
Ortiz said, “You’re not in a position to dictate charges.”
“Then enjoy looking for him.”
Sarah studied Ryan.
A thought came to her.
“You’re scared of Pike.”
His smile changed.
Barely.
Enough.
Sarah continued. “That’s why you ran.”
“I ran because police showed up.”
“No. You had passports packed before the alley.”
Ryan stared.
“You were already leaving.”
Ortiz glanced at Sarah.
She had not considered that angle.
Sarah leaned closer.
“You weren’t escaping police. You were escaping him.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
“Vanessa thought the money was for a new life. It wasn’t. It was emergency cash.”
“Careful,” his attorney said.
Ryan ignored him again.
Sarah kept going.
“You stole from Pike. Then you learned Emma wasn’t yours. You decided you could use her against Cole. But Pike changed the plan.”
Ryan’s eyes flickered.
“He told you to walk away from Emma because he wanted the evidence gone and you gone with it.”
Ryan’s expression hardened.
Sarah saw she was close.
“And if Emma died, Vanessa became easier to control.”
“Stop talking.”
“Pike was cleaning up loose ends.”
Ryan pulled against the cuffs.
His attorney said, “Ryan, do not respond.”
Sarah leaned back.
“You weren’t his partner.”
Ryan stared at her.
“You were his next loose end.”
Silence.
Ortiz waited.
Ryan looked at Pike’s photograph.
The confidence drained from his face.
Finally he said, “He has a property in Michigan.”
His attorney closed his eyes.
Ortiz remained still. “Where?”
“Outside Detroit. Farmhouse registered through a company called North Lake Holdings.”
“Address?”
“I don’t know the number.”
“Then how do you know the property?”
“I’ve been there.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“Why?”
Ryan swallowed.
“To move records.”
“What records?”
“Old placements. Original documents. Birth certificates. Hospital logs.”
Sarah’s pulse quickened.
“Children?”
Ryan looked at her.
“What?”
“Did you ever see children there?”
His expression changed again.
Sarah caught it.
“You did.”
Ryan looked at his attorney.
“Answer carefully,” the lawyer warned.
Ryan looked down.
“One.”
Sarah’s heart kicked.
“What child?”
“A boy.”
“How old?”
“Adult now. Maybe twenty.”
Sarah went completely still.
Ortiz asked, “Name?”
“Pike called him Nate.”
Sarah thought of Noah.
Twenty-one years since his disappearance.
Six months old then.
An adult now.
“Did he live there?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What did he look like?”
“Dark hair. Tall. Scar near his eyebrow.”
“Did Pike say who he was?”
“No.”
Sarah’s hands shook.
Ortiz asked, “Why do you think he matters?”
Ryan looked at Sarah.
“Because Pike told him to leave the room when I mentioned Marianne Wells.”
Sarah stopped breathing.
“Did Nate react?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He looked at Pike like he wanted to ask something.”
Sarah stood.
“Take us there.”
Ryan laughed without humor. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You want protection?” Ortiz said. “Start earning it.”
Federal agents identified North Lake Holdings within an hour.
The company owned a farmhouse outside Ann Arbor, not far from Detroit.
The raid happened before dawn.
Sarah was not allowed anywhere near it.
She waited at the station with Marcus, Cole, and eventually Daniel Harper, who had brought Grace back to Colorado after the emergency hearing.
Grace had insisted on calling Sarah that night.
“Are you okay?” she asked through video chat.
Sarah smiled. “I’m okay.”
“Mom says you might have a brother.”
Sarah glanced at Rebecca, who was visible behind Grace.
News traveled fast in their strange new family.
“Maybe.”
“That means I might have an uncle.”
“Maybe.”
Grace grinned. “This family keeps getting weird.”
Sarah laughed.
“Tell me about it.”
After the call, Marcus handed Sarah vending-machine coffee.
“It’s terrible,” he warned.
“I work nights in a hospital. Terrible coffee is one of my food groups.”
He sat beside her.
“You ever think about what you’d be doing if you hadn’t heard Emma?”
Sarah looked at him.
“Sleeping.”
Marcus smiled.
Then he turned serious.
“I keep thinking if I’d been on time…”
“We’re not doing that.”
“What?”
“The what-if thing.”
“You do it too.”
“Constantly.”
“Then why can’t I?”
“Because it doesn’t change anything.”
Marcus looked at his coffee.
Sarah added, “You were early. I heard her. Emma lived. Start there.”
Marcus nodded slowly.
At 6:42 a.m., Ortiz walked into the waiting area.
Everyone stood.
Sarah read her face first.
“Pike?”
“Gone.”
Sarah’s stomach dropped.
“The property?”
“Full of records.”
“And Nate?”
Ortiz took a breath.
“There was a young man in the house.”
Sarah’s knees weakened.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Name?”
“He says his name is Nathan Pike.”
Sarah gripped the back of a chair.
“Pike’s son?”
“He believed so until this morning.”
Sarah understood before Ortiz finished.
“DNA?”
“We need Marianne’s sample and yours for confirmation.”
“Where is he?”
“Hospital. He was injured during the raid.”
Sarah’s heart raced.
“What happened?”
“He tried to stop Pike from leaving.”
Sarah stared.
“Pike shot him.”
The room went silent.
“Is he going to live?”
“Yes.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
Another child surviving because a plan had failed.
Another life connected to people who treated children like leverage.
“When can I see him?”
Ortiz hesitated.
Sarah groaned. “Not yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Of course.”
Ortiz almost smiled.
Then her phone buzzed.
She checked it.
Her expression changed.
“DNA on Marianne’s old case file just came through.”
Sarah stared.
“And?”
Ortiz looked at her.
“The young man at the hospital is Noah Wells.”
Sarah sat down hard.
Her brother was alive.
Before she could process it, Ortiz added something else.
“He says Gordon Pike is heading for St. Catherine’s.”
Sarah’s head snapped up.
“Why?”
“Because according to Noah, Pike believes one original hospital ledger is still hidden there.”
Sarah’s blood went cold.
“The intake book.”
Ortiz nodded.
“And Pike thinks you know where it is.”
Sarah stared toward the hospital windows across town in her imagination. For years she had cleaned around locked cabinets and archive carts without wondering what histories sat inside them. Now a single forgotten book might contain the original identity of every child Pike's network had moved through Mercy General.
Cole stood. “If Pike's going there, why are we still here?”
“Because police are securing the building,” Ortiz said.
Marcus looked at Sarah. “You know those basements better than the cops do.”
Ortiz immediately said, “Don't encourage her.”
“I wasn't.”
“You absolutely were.”
Sarah barely heard them. She was thinking about an old corridor beneath St. Catherine's, one sealed off after a flood years earlier. She remembered pushing cleaning carts past boxes stamped MERCY ARCHIVE and an old supervisor joking that nobody alive knew what was inside them.
“I might know where the records went,” Sarah said.
Ortiz closed her eyes as if she had just developed a headache. “Of course you do.”
Sarah described the sub-basement. Ortiz immediately called the tactical commander.
Then Noah's hospital called Sarah directly.
He wanted to speak to her.
His voice was weak from pain but steady. “If Pike gets that book, he'll burn it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that's what he did whenever a record could connect him to a child.”
Sarah gripped the phone. “Did he ever tell you why he kept you?”
Silence.
Finally Noah said, “He said my mother didn't want me.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
“He lied.”
“I know that now.”
“You don't have to figure out how you feel about him today.”
Noah gave a faint laugh. “You sound like somebody who's had practice with impossible parents.”
“You have no idea.”
“I think I'm starting to.”
The conversation lasted only two minutes, but when Sarah hung up she felt something she had not expected: protectiveness toward a man she had never met. Blood did not create a relationship instantly. It did create the possibility of one. For the first time, that possibility felt real.
Ortiz finished her call and looked at Sarah.
“The basement section you described is real. Two officers are heading there now.”
Sarah nodded.
“Good.”
Ortiz's phone buzzed again. She listened, then swore.
“What?” Sarah asked.
“One of the service entrances at St. Catherine's just opened with a cloned employee badge.”
Sarah's mouth went dry.
“Whose badge?”
May you like
Ortiz looked at her.
“Yours.”
