Phoenix
Present Time
I sat at my desk going through yet another stack of papers found in one of the hidden rooms on the farm property. Octavius kept meticulous records, which created a lot of paperwork. It had taken me almost a year to get through the better part of it, and I still had nothing on Annabelle.
I tossed the current papers I was holding in the shredder and moved to the next folder in the stack. When I opened it, my breath caught in my chest. I closed my eyes and slowly opened them again, not believing what I was seeing. At the top of the first paper in the folder was the name I had been searching for.
Annabelle Burnett.
My hands were shaking as I carefully placed the folder on my desk and began looking through it. My heart was pounding in my chest, blood whooshing in my ears as I looked at the contents of the folder. The first things I saw were Annabelle’s birth certificate and social security card. Behind that, I found birth records for Ember, Coal, and Nivan. Then, Nivan’s death certificate. Though, it was the next few papers that caught me by surprise.
There were two hospital reports, one for a Jane Doe and the other for a Johnny Doe, admitted to Cedar Valley Regional Emergency Department. I carefully read through the reports.
A woman and young boy were found on the side of the road. The woman appeared to have some sort of head trauma and was unable to answer any questions. The young boy refused to talk to any of the hospital staff. The woman was sent for a CT scan of her head, but never arrived in the Radiology Department. According to the reports, the woman was nowhere to be found, assumed to have left against medical advice and the young boy was found dead in his hospital bed. Both reports had the same date as the date on Nivan’s death certificate.
The name of the physician who had written the report caught my eye. After reading it twice to be sure I wasn’t mistaken, I picked up my phone and placed a call. Each ring was excruciatingly long until he finally picked up. “Patch, get your ass in my office right now!”
***
When Patch arrived, I handed him the report and immediately started questioning him. He was reluctant at first, but finally told me Luke Johnson had asked him to take that particular case. There was nothing actually wrong with the woman; her coming to the hospital was just a means to help her escape.
“I swear, Prez, if I had known it was Annabelle, or even thought it was, I would’ve told you. When I joined the club and heard you talking about your past, it never occurred to me that the woman I helped could have been your girl. I never knew her name. I didn’t even know where she came from. Luke said it was better that way, plausible deniability and all that.”
“Relax,” I said. “I’m not pissed at you. I just want to know what you know so I can fucking find her.”
“That’s really about it. I ordered a CT scan for her. When it was time for the test, I volunteered to take her to Radiology. Instead, I led her to the back of the hospital where a car was waiting. She got in and I went back inside. I don’t know what happened after that,” he explained.
“So, the boy wasn’t found dead in his hospital room?”
Confusion washed over Patch’s face. “What boy?”
“The boy who came to the hospital with her. Her son,” I said and handed him the other hospital report.
Patch looked over the paper. “I’ve never seen this report before. And I would certainly remember finding a young child dead in their hospital room.”
“It has your name on it,” I pointed out.
“Well, it was fucking forged. I swear, Phoenix, there was no child with her.”
“It says right there that she arrived with a small child!” I yelled, stabbing my finger at the paper on my desk.
“I know what it says, Prez. I’m telling you, she didn’t have a kid with her. Maybe Luke knew something I didn’t.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll see what I can get out of Luke. Thanks, brother.” With that, Patch left my office and I placed another call.
“Phoenix, what’s up man?” Luke answered.
“Any chance you’re around and can swing by the clubhouse?” I asked. I did not want to have this conversation over the phone, and I’m sure he didn’t either.
“Sure. I’m in the city so it’ll be about an hour or so. Is everything okay?” he asked, hesitantly.
“Yeah, man, it’s nothing like last time.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said and disconnected.
When Luke sat down in my office, I slid the hospital reports over to him. He skimmed over the pages then returned his focus to me. “How did you get these?”
Instead of answering him, I pushed the file folder with Annabelle’s name on it to him. He glanced at it and looked at me questioningly. “Those reports were in that folder. I found it while going through more of Octavius’s stuff.”
“And you think this is Annabelle? Your Annabelle?” he asked, eyes wide.
“Yes.” I pulled out a picture of Annabelle when she was 18 years old and placed it on the desk in front of him. I knew he had seen her picture before, but I felt compelled to show him again. “Is this the girl you and Patch helped?”
He glanced at the picture and back to me. “I don’t know. I never saw her. I made all the arrangements, but I was a few states away on an assignment when this happened. I had another agent meet her at the hospital.”
“Get him on the phone. See if this is the girl,” I demanded, shaking the picture at him.
Luke shook his head. “Can’t. He was killed in the line of duty a few years ago.” Luke’s brows furrowed and then his head shot up. “It can’t be the same girl. You told me Annabelle disappeared in 1998. We helped this girl six years later.”
“It could be if she was kidnapped and held against her will for six years,” I pointed out.
“Fuck!” Luke swore. “Did you show that picture to Patch?”
Fuck me. I needed to take a deep breath and focus. Shaking my head, I reached for my phone. “Patch, brother, I need you back in my office.”
When he arrived, I didn’t even give him a chance to sit down. I was on my feet and in front of him holding up the picture of Annabelle. “Is this her? The girl you helped?”
His eyes widened and then he paled as recognition washed over his face. Slowly nodding his head, he carefully said, “Yes, Prez, that’s her.”
Jane Doe was Annabelle.
My heart started to pound in my chest again. I closed my eyes in relief for a brief moment before opening them and pinning Luke with my gaze. “What happened to her? Where did you send her? Where is she now?” I began firing off questions faster than he could answer.
He held his hands up. “Hang on, Phoenix. I can’t give you that information. It’s federally classified. You know this.”
“I’m guessing that means you also can’t tell me anything about the boy.”
He grimaced and shook his head. “Patch, you probably don’t want to be present for the rest of this conversation.”
Patch nodded in understanding and quickly left my office.
I slammed both hands down on the desk making Luke flinch back. “I don’t give a fuck if it’s classified information or not, you need to start talking! That is the love of my life and she has two children here that are alive and well. My children. They at least deserve a chance to meet their own freaking mother!” I roared.
“Phoenix, calm down. I’m not saying I won’t help you, I’m just saying I can’t straight out tell you exactly where she is,” he hedged.
“Start helping,” I ordered through gritted teeth. I had no patience left. He knew where my girl was and he was going to tell me how to find her in the next few seconds or I was going to beat the living shit out of him, federal agent or not.
“You remember Wave?” he asked. I nodded. Of course I remembered Wave. We all crossed paths at some point when we were active Marines. The last I heard, Wave was the president of his own motorcycle club, the Knights of Neptune out on the west coast. “Maybe you should go visit Wave. Take some time to catch up with him and hang around the city. See what life in his little slice of Heaven is like.”
“Thanks, man. You have no idea…” I trailed off, unable to formulate the right words. He basically told me where to find my Annabelle. Words couldn’t convey how much that meant to me.
“I do,” he said. “When are you heading out?”
“As soon as fucking possible. Been looking for that girl for 19 years. I’m not wasting another second,” I declared.