Lest Miguel’s self-enforced celibacy became all too apparent, he gently disengaged himself. “Do you want to talk?”
Aware of their closeness and perhaps her vulnerability, Julia scrambled farther away from him. She wiped the last vestiges of tears from her splotchy face. “You sing.”
“And play the guitar.”
“What is the name of the song you sang to me?”
“‘A la Nanita Nana.’ My mother used to sing it to me when I was a little boy.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“If it soothed you, I’m glad.”
Julia dared to look at him, then. Her eyes were red and puffy. “It did. I’m sorry if I woke you. I didn’t realize?—”
“You didn’t,” Miguel improvised. “I was already awake.”
Her gaze turned skeptical. “I’m also sorry that you had to see me like this. Usually, I’m in total control of my emotions.”
“In our line of work, it’s imperative. But give yourself a break. You’re in shock from learning the truth, and you need time to process it.”
Julia yawned, her emotions spent. She wriggled beneath the comforter. “Thanks, Miguel. See you at eight.”
He nodded and rose from the bed. “No need to thank me.” For some reason, Tex popped into his mind. The man never needed or wanted to be thanked.
In the morning Miguel followed Julia’s businesslike demeanor. Neither mentioned her teary meltdown. After drinking cups of coffee and eating toasted bagels with cream cheese, Julia drove them to a hangar at a private airfield where Dr. Trey McAdams, Brielle’s oldest brother, met them. An FBI helicopter stood ready to transport them to Staunton. Though Miguel wondered about the fallout of Brendan keeping the identity of Julia’s birth parents a secret from Madam Secretary, he didn’t broach the subject.
Trey greeted Miguel and Julia with professional and familiar warmth. He shouted above thewhirrof the helicopter blades, “It’ll take about thirty minutes to fly to Staunton. I’ve been working with a pair of local detectives, and they’re meeting us on the ground. Let’s go!”
They climbed aboard the FBI’s newest addition to its air fleet, a helicopter as fancy and comfortable as one of its jets, strapped in, and put on their headsets.
When they were in the air, Trey spoke. “We don’t have much intel. All we know is that Axis and Axalia conned their psychiatrist and were granted freedoms they never should have had. It took every ounce of my self-control not to knock the guy’s teeth down his throat. Something triggered their escape, though. We’re trying to figure it out and where they might have gone.”
“Any theories?” Miguel asked.
“Yeah. And none of them good.” Trey shot a meaningful glance at Julia.
“You think they know about me,” she surmised.
“I think they’ve always known about you, Julia. They just couldn’t identify you until now. Who’s to say if Lola Anderson learned that the Washburns adopted you? Tex scoured Axel Anderson’s hard drives, and there wasn’t any mention of you or your family.”
For the duration of their flight, they debated where the Anderson siblings might have gone and kept circling back to one location—Mexico.
Partners Carroll and Bartenope, both tall, muscular men dressed in similar black tailored coats and suits waited for Miguel, Julia, and Trey next to a standard-issued SUV. Trey introduced Miguel and Julia, and everyone piled into the vehicle.
On their way to Western State Mental Hospital, Trey asked Detective Carroll, “Have you learned anything since yesterday?”
“Yeah. All the traffic and security cameras in the entire area suddenly went black. After Axis and Axalia escaped from the hospital, we don’t know if they continued on foot or if someone picked them up.”
“We do know they stole clothes from a couple they nearly beat to death not far from Western State. We found their patient uniforms in a dumpster. Officers are canvassing the area and questioning anyone who might have seen them,” Detective Bartenope added.
“Tex can help with that, and maybe even recover the footage. I’ll text him,” Miguel commented.
“Tex?” Detective Bartenope inquired, turning in his seat with a frown.
“A former Navy SEAL who’s a genius with a computer. He goes where no one else can.”
Several inches of snow covered the grounds of the mental hospital. Yellow crime scene tape prevented looky-loos from being able to trespass onto the property. Multiple police cars with lights flashing provided another barrier. Detectives Carroll and Bartenope, Trey, Miguel, and Julia ID’d themselves and ducked beneath the tape. A skeleton crew of hospital employees, who were needed to care for the patients too mentally ill to be transferred to another facility, were directed to use the entrance at the back of the building.
