In His Keeping

“Almost there,” Dane said, his eyes sharp with readiness for the mission ahead. “Everyone needs to be ready to go on my count. This has to be fast because we’re open targets when we descend the ropes from the chopper.”

Dane, with his endless connections, half of which still managed to bewilder Beau, had gotten his hands on a fucking military stealth helicopter that was invisible to radar and looked like something out of a futuristic movie.

It always pays to have friends in low places.

That was Dane’s pet phrase and one he frequently whipped out when asked how the ever loving fuck he managed to get his hands on something most civilians would never even know existed, much less actually see. Not that they’d know what the hell they were looking at if they ever did lay eyes on it.

Zach, who’d headed the recon of the partially underground compound in the Mojave Desert, had uploaded scanned schematics from ground and air surveillance. Using a high-tech classified heat-seeking device, they’d been able to identify three heat signatures just hours before on the periphery of the compound where old jail cells were housed. And Beau had been able to confirm that Ari was one of those heat sources by pinpointing her location with the implanted tracking device. Thank God they’d at least gotten that accomplished before everything went to hell or they truly would be uncovering a needle in a haystack, and he shuddered to think of Ari being out there and him not having the first clue where to start their search for her.

The building used to be a sanitarium in the 1800s. The prison cells were later added in the early 1900s when the hospital had turned into a maximum-security prison for the criminals clinically insane and exceedingly dangerous to society.

The place was creepy as hell and had been deserted for decades. Or so the records stated. It was owned by a corporation not publicly traded and there were zero public records on file for the company that pointed to yet another dummy corporation. Things got interesting, however, when Eliza uncovered a link between PRI and the fictitious corporation that owned the facility.

PRI, or Psychic Research Incorporated, leased the main holding as well as half a dozen outbuildings on the sprawling thousand-acre parcel. Coincidence much?

Apparently some nut research foundation was not only active in cultivating and exploring psychic phenomena, but had invested a mind-boggling amount of money into an actual breeding program disguised as a surrogacy foundation called Creative Adoption Solutions.

Beau had a sickening dread that Ari was a product of that breeding program; and worse, courtesy of Eliza’s mad hacking skills, further digging had uncovered a complicated and well-disguised record of substantial “investments” to the foundation by none other than Franklin Devereaux.

How to explain to Ari that not only was she the product of an experimental birth, but that his own father had a significant role in funding its “research”? Suddenly Gavin Rochester’s association—and subsequent visit to Beau’s father a mere day before his parents’ suspicious deaths—seemed not only plausible but in fact highly probable.

Neither Beau’s nor Ari’s fathers was a shining example of the founding principles of capitalism and success the old-fashioned way—working your ass off and earning it. No, these two men were so steeped in shadowy dealings that they’d never hold up under concentrated scrutiny no matter how well they covered their tracks.

The question was whether Ari’s father had had a hand in Beau’s father’s—and mother’s—untimely deaths. The “coincidences” were mounting and were quite staggering. He was disgusted by his father’s participation in something so completely fucked-up and wrong. But then it seemed, the more he discovered the kind of man his father was, the more he realized that he was likely only uncovering the tip of the iceberg, and God only knew what other nefarious acts his father was involved in.

Beau sighed because it was one giant clusterfuck of epic proportions. If Ari’s parents were recovered alive, the bombshell of the true circumstances of her birth and his father’s role in the whole sordid affair was going to be one big-ass hurdle for Beau and Ari to overcome in their relationship.

Ari could only be expected to forgive so much, and she was already reeling from the shock of finding out she wasn’t Gavin and Ginger Rochester’s biological daughter. The additional information could simply prove too much for a woman already on the verge of breaking.

“I only have two heat signatures now,” Zack said grimly. “They haven’t moved in half an hour. Same spot. Completely still. Seems suspicious as hell.”

Beau swore because he didn’t have time to check Ari’s position within the compound because they were seconds away from go time. His only choice was to go in and turn the entire building upside down to locate her.

The others readied themselves for the helo drop just yards from where the cells were located. It was the most likely place to stash prisoners, though now there were only two visible heat sources, where before there’d been three.

Beau should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. His pulse had accelerated upon learning there were three people housed in a single cell. It sounded too good to be true. But Ari had been there along with two others, and their heat signatures signaled that they were all alive. Heat meant life. They’d planned to go in guns blazing, using some serious shock and awe, cause as much confusion as possible, set up explosive diversions so the fuckers wouldn’t know which way was up or down and would have no idea where Beau and the others were coming at them from.