They all had different reasons for doing what they were doing. Sloan and Roxanne did it for the money. Amy Guild kidnapped and rescued for the fame. She helped them so they helped her. It was a small price to pay overall.

  Maria had her own reasons.

  Revenge.

  Marrying Josef Petrov had never been her real choice, but he’d opened a world of opportunities. At least until he got her caught and left her with the option of agreeing to help the United States government or going to prison. She left her daughter, Ilsa, in order to assist. Now Ilsa was in prison.

  Maria wasn’t surprised. Josef did that to people.

  Governments did that to the wrong people.

  But that was okay. Maria had agreed to the United States terms then decided to work how she pleased. Faking her death had helped, but now she feared they might know she was alive. At least she was having dreams to that effect.

  No worries.

  She’d played cat and mouse before. She could do it again. Pausing her work while she played the game was the worst part. But she might know someone who could pick up her slack.

  Chapter Two

  Director Manis crossed the room toward Greg. Greg shuffled his feet and moved around in a circle before coming to rest in front of Quinn and Maggie. Desperately, he hoped that it wasn’t obvious they were minus one.

  “Kane, where has she gone now? I’ve allowed Ericka ample time to investigate her private matters. She’s found a dead soldier’s family. She’s found the family of a child. Now it is time for her to do the job she’s been paid to do.”

  Greg would have argued that all of those cases could have been jobs they were assigned but hadn’t been, but instead he said, “Yes, sir.”

  Manis sighed. “So, you don’t have a clue where she is. That’s fine, fine. But you get her here by tomorrow, do you understand? Today your team needs to go to the docks and ask some questions. According to former Agent Guild the White Lily dropped its cargo but was set to arrive yesterday afternoon to deliver a new set. She claims they didn’t make it. There is a manifest that would confirm these details, if we can find it. You need to go to the docks to see if they have it. We need to know if that ship stopped somewhere other than here or if it is just running behind.”

  The White Lily was the ship that was supposedly raided. Those people were brought to Sloan and Roxanne. Apparently, since they’d been caught, the ship planned to dock and cut out the middleman.

  Greg took the paper and held it loosely. They needed to find the information at the docks quickly so they could get to their second task.

  Twenty-four hours to find Ericka. He’d been detecting for years. People, places, things, but this was different.

  Ericka knew how to hide.

  “Well get going. I’m not paying you to stand around.”

  Greg nodded. Him, Quinn, and Maggie walked out of the main room and toward the elevator. The doors eased closed blocking Manis’ disappointed face.

  Maggie yawned behind her hand a couple of times. “Sorry, not enough sleep.”

  “New puppy still yapping all night?”

  “Yes.” Maggie yawned again.

  Maggie had a new puppy? How had he missed that?

  “Don’t feel bad, boss. I hadn’t mentioned the puppy since so much was happening.”

  With Ericka…

  Mentally, he added the words that she hadn’t. Their cohesion as a team or as friends had changed since Ericka’s addition to the group. He had room for all of them in his life. At least he thought he did. He would need to try harder.

  “Where did you get this new puppy?”

  “Tristan. He got a traveling music gig, and he didn’t want me to be alone. So, now I have a yappy puppy and a dog walker who comes over twice a day. Never lonely again.”

  Greg couldn’t tell if she was happy or irritated by that fact. He didn’t know how he would feel either.

  “What kind of dog is it?”

  While he asked the questions they were grabbing their bags from the office, locking the door, then walking back to the elevator.

  “Golden retriever mix named Dolly.”

  “Cute.” He cocked his brow. “Dolly?”

  “I know a human name, but Tristan was on his way back from playing at Dollywood in Tennessee and his car broke down close to a pet store that was going out of business. Dolly was the last pup.”

  “That’s a heartwarming story.”

  “And completely fabricated.” Blake Hager, team leader of Beta Team, appeared alongside them. He had a bag on his arm.

  “Where are you going, Hagar?” Quinn spoke up first.

  “Sadly, with your team.”

  Quinn’s eyes widened.

  Maggie stopped walking.

  Greg asked, “Why exactly?”

  “New rules since the Evers’ Investigation.” His voice got higher. “’All groups must go as two- or four-man teams.’ End quote. I don’t make the rules, I just follow them.”

  Greg kept his jaw from dropping, barely. Blake thought that meant three couldn’t go out. Surely not.

  “Besides, Director Manis ordered me to go with you guys until Stone returns. I think I’m being punished.”

  Now Greg understood. This was Manis’ way of threatening them. No Ericka then they would be stuck with Blake. It was effective. No one wanted that outcome.

  ****

  Ericka swallowed.

  Before her stood a middle-aged man with dark graying hair. It lay in a feathery look across the top of his forehead. No receding hair line, and thick.

  He wasn’t overly tall, maybe a few inches below six feet. And there didn’t appear to be an inch of fat on his body. The lithe athletic look to his frame was the most surprising thing.

  “Your hair comes from me.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Morgan’s hair was blond.”

  Ericka didn’t remember that from her memory. Her mother was blond? That seemed odd but she wouldn’t argue with the father that’s she just met.

  “Come. We have many more things to discuss.”

  She would have balked at the location of their discussion, but she’d waited so long. Too long.

  Sasha didn’t move away from the car.

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  Ericka tried to tap down her own fears as she followed this stranger that was her father into the building. The door was left open as they entered the foyer. Random pieces of furniture were scattered about the room. Papers littered the floor in awkward piles. File cabinet doors were open and left hanging out.

  “How long has this place been abandoned?” It seemed like a comfortable topic of discussion.

  “Twenty-four years.”

  Why did that number and the way he said the words make her nervous.

  He led her down a long, cluttered hallway. Beds with chairs and straps attached to the railings hugged the wall. Large, gilded frames with broken glass dangled sideways. Wires fell from the ceiling forcing them to weave and bob through the corridor.

  At the end of the long hall they entered a room, an office really. In the middle sat a perfectly clean, dust-free desk. A leather high backed office chair was behind it. Atop the desk was a rolodex and a corded telephone. A book lay open. Names, addresses, and phone numbers were written in the provided lines in perfect penmanship.

  “The last doctor to leave the hospital left his office in this condition. I’ve not seen anyone come in and clean but somehow the room remains perfect.”

  A chill raced up Ericka’s spine.

  “Take a seat.”

  Robert Stone, her father, settled behind the desk and she took the offered chair on the opposite side. He clasped his hands on the desktop.

  “Please hold all questions until the end. We have a lot of material to cover and not a lot of time.”

  Ericka went to open her mouth but closed it just as quickly.

  “Good, you’re listening.”

  She nodded.

  He leaned back in the chair. There were no creaks or groans as if the chair was brand new. Maybe there was a filter in the room or something. That might explain the lack of dust and the chair not going old. Maybe…

  He started to speak, and she turned all her attention to him.

  “First you might wonder why I chose this place. Why a rundown, closed sanatorium as a place to have a discussion. Well, the answer is simple, this place was so much more than a place for the mentally insane. The CIA brought people here to deprogram them or to program them.”

  Ericka could feel her heart beating more rapidly in her ears. There were people that she didn’t want to know had come to a place like this. She steeled herself against the next words.

  “One of those people was Maria Petrov.”

  ****

  Maria lay on her bunk. It was afternoon but she was tired. She needed the rest. As she closed her eyes, she felt the fast electric pulses shooting through her nerves. She could see the images on screens, flickering, flickering, flickering.

  “Look at the images. See what they’ve done to your home, to your country. See this politician. He took everything from you. Everything.”

  Maria sat upright in the bed. Sweat covered her forehead. It was always the same image, the same dream. Her home, her parent’s home in Russia. All the crops burned, the animals dead, her parents displaced and put into a home for the elderly and medicated into oblivion.

  Always the same.

  She massaged her eye sockets, but the image was still there. If the politician in question had been chastised properly none of that would have ever happened. This is what the condition left her with. Whether it was accurate didn’t matter.

  She was compelled.

  She had to return these people.

  They were in on the destruction together.

  She’d almost stopped. Then Ilsa had been taken. Just more proof that politicians couldn’t be trusted.

  Her husband got off with a lighter sentence.

  He was believable.

  Ilsa was not.

  The horn blew and Maria rolled from her bunk. The alarm meant they’d been spotted or were close to shore. There was only one alarm for all activities. A shame really.

  Maria entered the engine room. “What is it now?”

  The entire exercise had been a disaster this time. She couldn’t wait until the trip was over. She would never gather the people that were supposed to come off the last White Lily expedition. Instead, she waited for the next load. The idea that her friend might be able to help had been a bust. She’d tried to call several times, but the number said unavailable.

  In order to gather the next group, she needed the manifest for the White Lily.

  One of her men spoke up. “We’re taking on water on the starboard side.”

  Maria rushed to the computer. The officer had read the screen correctly despite his newness to the position.

  “Send someone down to check things out. Do so fast. We’re in open water.” They were nowhere near the shore. If the boat went down now, they might go down with it.

  With the capture of Amy Guild, they had left the shoreline and went back into open water to wait for word from the White Lily. She’d been supposed to take the cargo directly from the ship, but the ship was raided before they were able. Sloan and Roxanne had organized that little feat, no doubt to get her attention. They must have figured out that it was her running the shipping operation. Since she was taken by the government Sloan had been trying to find her. He almost had a few times, but she’d evaded him and continued to hustle him. Until now.

  Maria stayed at the helm while a small part of her crew went below deck. She paced the tiny room. The ship was at a dead stop until they deciphered the problem. If the ship truly was taking on water, they would need to abandon the vessel. It was a good thing they didn’t have their intended cargo.

  This was to be her last haul before retirement. The captain of the White Lily had assured her that the haul would fetch a promising price, but then they were saved.

  Now she would be forced to do another job. The White Lily was the problem. No one had heard from them or seen them in days. If she didn’t find them then she couldn’t pick up the next cargo or make the last money she needed. Once this job ended and she had her funds everything would change. Josef could no longer control her from the grave nor could anyone else. She was going to find a nice island to sip matai’s and watch the tide roll in. She didn’t need anything more than the necessities and peace and quiet.

  “Captain? Come in Captain?”

  The tone was frantic. Maria tried to keep her own panic down. “Captain speaking.”

  “We hit something all right. Water is coming in and fast. We don’t have a way to seal the hole but if we seal off the deck with the water, we might have time to escape.”

  “Do it.” Maria stroked the metal wheel. “All these years, now this happens. And we were so close to retirement.”

  Etched into the wood were the words, Black Dahlia. The ship had so many meaningful memories. And it was going to be her ticket out.

  But it was all right.

  She would think of something else. She had for as long as she could remember.

  ****

  Greg, Quinn, Maggie, and Blake made the silent trip to the docks. Maggie sat in front with him and bounced her knee so hard it shook the car. Quinn and Blake were in the back both looking out opposite windows. It reminded him of a car full of kids that were all in trouble.

  Traffic lights stopped them over and over. It was like they had to hit every last one as some kind of punishment. He drummed the steering wheel with his fingers and wished he was anywhere else. Or that the traffic lights would speed up.

  When they finally reached the docks, they filed out of the car and stood with their hands in front of them. Greg rolled his eyes and shook his head as he led his pack toward the manager’s office.

  The bell rang above the door as he opened it. Inside people were running back and forth. Papers were shooting out of the copier and flying through the air. An automatic stapler was shoot out staples. A mail sorter violently thrusted out envelopes.

  One man stopped to look at them then went right back to trying to stop the machines.

  Blake went over to the wall and unplugged the copier. Quinn unplugged the stapler. Maggie unplugged the mail sorter.

  The chaos in the room stopped and the people paused.

  “Thank you!” A man ran up and hugged Blake. He didn’t seem to like that very much, but he didn’t say it.

  Instead, he said, “You’re welcome.”

  “The machines have been going crazy all morning.”

  Greg would have asked about unplugging the equipment, but he didn’t want to embarrass the man he needed to question.

  “Why didn’t you unplug them?” Blake wasn’t quite as nice.

  “Good question.” He paused. “Who are you and what do you want?”

  There was the anger that Greg had been trying to avoid.

  Greg flipped open his badge. “We’re with the Police Assistance Unit. We’ve been sent to ask you some questions about the White Lily.”

  “You and everyone else. Come into my office.” He turned on his heel and started walking toward a door marked office at the back of the room. He skirted paper and other debris.

  Office workers busily picked items up and tried to sort them, but Greg knew it was going to take a while.

  The door opened and they entered a tiny office. It was barely big enough for the man they followed and Greg. The others would have to squeeze up to the door and listen. That would be fun.

  The man settled behind his desk. He scooted the chair in and put his elbows on the surface, clasping his hands in the air. “Here’s the thing. The manifest for the White Lily was here. We knew where she was supposed to be and where she was going, but after this electrical glitch today I don’t know how to find it.”

  “On the computer?” Quinn asked.

  “Nope. We print everything out. Too many computer issues here. Once we get the manifest it is printed and put in a file drawer. We’ve never had a problem until recently. We’ve had some break-ins and lost our paperwork. We were attempting to run a backup file and reprint everything when that happened.” He pointed outside.

  “So, you don’t know where the White Lily is or where it is going?”

  He leaned back in the chair and laughed. “Nope. And sadly, we don’t know where she’s been. And you know what, after the raid where her passengers were lost, we can’t ask her. The ship disappeared, vanished. We’ve reached out to the Coast Guard, but we haven’t heard anything back yet.”

  “What do you mean, vanished?” Maggie’s voice sounded skeptical.

  Greg didn’t blame her. Ships that could carry a hundred passengers didn’t just disappear off the face of the earth, did they?

  “We’ve sent out vessels to her last known location, but there is no sign of her. We’ve been through satellite footage as well. We can see the raid. The ship that pulled up alongside her. The people being escorted to another vessel just as they stated. But then poof, the ship just isn’t there anymore.”

  Greg could hear rather than see Quinn shuffling his feet behind him. The boy was itching to get ahold of a computer with the satellite feed and look at the footage. Obviously, it had been tampered with. Just like the electrical in the building.

  Whatever had happened, it was just to keep people from finding the White Lily. What could be on that ship that needed to remain so hidden?

  Chapter Three

  “Maria Petrov was here?”

  “Yes. The plan was to reprogram her to be on our side. The process proved more difficult than anticipated. Since we couldn’t wait, or Josef would get wise, the CIA hired someone else to go in.”

  Ericka swallowed. Robert could see recognition or fear enter her eyes. He shouldn’t have dragged her here, but she needed the truth. Or at least what he’d been told when Ericka was about six.

  “Your mother left you at the hospital when you were three.”

  “Yes.”

  It wasn’t a question, but he didn’t correct her.

  “I saw her and you from an upper floor.”