Chapter Nine
Brenden walked into the locker room and over to Stephen, who was putting on his flak jacket. He and his team were off to the Baxter compound. He knew how happy Stephen was to finally have a new lead on the person, or persons, abducting pregnant men and doing God knew what with their babies. Brenden knew how troubled Stephen was about the case and he didn’t think it was his hormones.
“Hey,” Stephen said, looking up and grabbing an FBI cap from his locker.
“Hey yourself, are you ready for this?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” Stephen closed his locker as they walked back into the bullpen.
Brenden had stopped him before he got to the door. “Do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Be careful.” He pulled Stephen closer to him, resting his palm on the growing bump.
“You sound worried.”
“I am,” Brenden whispered. He leaned down and kissed his lover right there in front of their coworkers confirming the rumors they were together. There were the normal catcalls and teasing, but Brenden and Stephen ignored it. Brenden refused to hide things between them. No one would dare ask them about it, but he wouldn’t deny being the father if anyone asked.
“Don’t worry,” Stephen told him pulling back from their kiss. “I won’t be doing much. But I will come back to you, after all, you promised to make dinner tonight.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Brenden chuckled and watched his lover walk away to meet the rest of his team.
“So the rumors are true?” Baker asked, walking over to stand beside him.
“Yeah, so?” Brenden shrugged his shoulders.
“Why didn’t you tell me that weeks ago when I told you I wanted to ask him out?”
Brenden sighed and wondered why he needed to answer Baker’s question. “You wouldn’t have cared even if you knew,” he stated as a matter of fact.
“You don’t know that for sure,” Baker said, trying to defend himself.
Brenden quirked an eyebrow and watched as the other man fidgeted under his stare. Everyone knew Baker’s reputation. Brenden had also seen it with his own eyes. Him flirting with married and single agents. Some had taken him up on his offers, and others have pretty much told him to go fuck himself. It pissed Brenden off the more he thought about the fact that Baker would overstep his bounds where Stephen was concerned.
“Stay the hell away from him,” Brenden said low and dangerous. “Watch his back when he works with you. But the second I hear you’ve said or done something to make him uncomfortable.” Brenden had stopped before he said something that could get him fired, but he let the threat hang between him and Baker. Seeming to understand, the other agent nodded and walked away, looking back at Brenden, who was still standing in the same spot.
** ** ** ** **
“Are you sure there’s something here?” Mayson asked him on the other end of the phone.
Stephen was in the control room monitoring the activity going on with the other agents. They were going off the tip that there was a body hidden on the property. After securing the necessary warrants they needed, they wasted no time. Finding the body and, hopefully, the killer was all that Stephen could think about.
The Baxter compound was a large facility with its own medical staff and fitness amenities. It catered to men and pregnant women who wanted to give their babies up for adoption and did not have the funds to care for themselves during their pregnancies. Everything completely paid for by the Baxter agency. The Baxter agency was doing a good thing by helping men and women to find homes for their child.
The agency also provided apartments to the parents-to-be and a safe place to meet couples who wanted to adopt. Prenatal and postnatal care and a place where the adoptive parents could bond with the child before taking them home. Everything was perfectly packaged, but Stephen’s senses were pinging a mile a minute that something was off. He and his team were given access to everything, including the records of the victims who were killed and their babies brutally ripped from them.
Weeks earlier, Stephen and Mayson questioned the entire staff and the director who’d told them that the victims had signed themselves out of the program. The victims had changed their minds and decided they wanted to keep their babies. They even showed the evidence of the victims signing themselves out of the program.Then how the hell did they end up dead?But Stephen still felt that something was not on the up and up, and that was what he couldn’t prove.
“I’m sure,” Stephen finally answered.
“We’ve checked everywhere. Whoever sent us the tip either lied to us, or they’re watching and laughing as we run around like a chicken with our head cut off.”
“I know,” Stephen sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.Fuck… fuck, what the hell am I missing? What am I not seeing?He stared at the screens looking at each one of them as if it was his first time. There were cameras stationed everywhere for the patient’s safety. Covering the grounds and inside certain parts of the compound.
“Fuck, Mayson, I hate this shit.”
“I know. I thought when we got here we would have found something.”
