Lana couldn’t figure out why they wanted to monitor Jayson. Jayme didn’t have that much interaction with him.
“Okay, I have two questions. Ryan, does Jayme ask you questions about Jayson on a regular basis? Second question, when did the girls start disappearing?” Lana asked out loud as she continued to run the information through her head.
“The girls going missing has been going on for years. Even when I was in high school,” Ryan answered in confusion. “It didn’t escalate to what it is now until last year. And as for Jayme, not on a regular, but now and then. Never really thought much about it because at least we were having a conversation and now then.”
Lana caught the slight hesitation in Ryan’s voice when he looked at his brother for confirmation. When both men looked at her with confusion in their eyes, she knew she was about to open a can of worms they may not like.
“Okay, Ice, ice baby, fill the rest of us clueless peasants in on what that brain of yours is thinking,” Swift joked, a slight chuckle in her tone.
“Jayme’s friend, do you know if she’s originally from here or did she move here from somewhere else? I’m curious whyJayme’s friends from Texas knew the woman and if they have been back around since then,” Rocky asked her own questions, mirroring the ones Lana had brewing through her head.
“To the best of my knowledge, they have not been back in town. Jayme said that her friend from Texas was a cousin or something along those lines to the girl here. I believe she is also from Texas, like they were all from. Jayme supposedly graduated from the University of Texas in Austin in Fine Arts.”
Sgt. Bueller looked over at Swift and nodded. Lana knew exactly what she was about to do.
“If we can verify that she actually graduated, see if there’s someone still on staff when she went to school to see if we can find out who her friends were. I don’t think the women were all friends, much less related. Something doesn’t sound right with all of this,” Lana added to Swift, who just nodded at her in confirmation of what she was going to do.
“What are you thinking, Lana?” Jayson asked as he turned in his seat to face Lana.
“I think it’s time to reach out to some contacts. I want to do a deep dive on the town of Hellburn Falls, as well as the county. If these girls have been going missing since Ryan himself was in high school, there’s someone here that’s keeping the business going. But what concerns me is the fact that at the rate they are going with the girls going missing, someone is getting power hungry and it’s not going to be safe to raise Dani or Jay here,” Lana admitted to Jayson, her lower lip being nibbled on again as she got lost in thought.
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
Lana hated to admit that it wouldn’t be safe here to raise the twins. Even though she had left home to join the Army and didn’t come back, mainly because she hated to admit she was afraid to face the Kenwoods, she still loved this small town.
During her musings, thinking about not only the path she took once she and Jayson had broken up, but Jayson’s as well. During that musing, a thought she was afraid to admit out loud struck her.
“Jayson, were you and Angelo just regular Delta, or did you guys become a part of Ghost Op under Colonel Hubbard?” Lana suddenly found herself asking out loud.
“T-that was both of us,” Ryan admitted, looking at Jayson in shock at Lana’s question.
“Fuck!” Lana, Rocky, Hollywood, and Sgt. Bueller all said at the same time.
“What?” Ryan and Jayson asked in union.
“Hubbard was arrested three weeks ago for human trafficking, drugs, arms dealing, and a shit ton of other charges. If his connections in the underworld are true, Angelo may be indanger,” Sgt. Bueller answered, looking over at Lana. “She’s the one who nailed his ass to the ground.”
“That’s impossible. He always helped women we rescued,” Ryan disagreed, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Did those women ever make it to their destination?” Hollywood asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.
“I don’t know. After we took them to a local hospital, they were released. You guys know that we rarely, if any, have any contact with people after we’ve rescued them. Especially in Ghost Op. Lana knows this,” Ryan answered, looking over at Lana.
“Exactly. Hubbard knew this. He knew you guys wouldn’t have access to the information on the girls because they wouldn’t know who you were. Only he did. He used that information to find the girls, rescue them, and if they didn’t have the connections that the main one they sent in you to rescue had, he told his people who the girl was and where she was located and her description. Three girls escaped after his guys kidnapped them. They were the ones who tipped us off to what was going on.”
“She’s telling you the truth,” Sunny spoke up, leaning forward. “They sent me in undercover and I saw the man with my own eyes. He was using his military connections to find victims and cover his tracks for his business.”
Lana leaned back in her seat. She knew this was going to be hard for both Ryan and Jayson to swallow since they both had high respect for the man.
The fact that she and her team were the ones to bring the man down didn’t account for the fact the man carefully chose who he would bring into the fold. Hubbard didn’t approach either Kenwood brother because they didn’t display the characteristics that Hubbard knew would keep his secret safe.
“But he put several guys who abused victims in Afghanistan in the brig,” Ryan said softly, the shock still visible in his voice.
“He told you they were thrown in the brig. In reality, they were handed over to his crew to get set up in the business since they showed the characteristics he was looking for. He knew with you guys that he couldn’t keep his side business going for long since you two had a moral compass.”
Lana let what she informed the two men sink in. She knew it was hard for them to believe since they never saw Hubbard as anything but their superior. He played the good guy very well.
