Gone Too Far (Devlin & Falco #2) - Debra Webb Page 0,94

pretending to be. After a while, it feels . . . right, and you do what you have to do.”

“What happened before you vanished?”

“I overheard a conversation. Passed along the intel, and that was the end of my cover.”

“Someone saw you or set you up?”

“The last bit of intelligence I passed along was too close. No one knew except Eddie, his father, and the woman on the phone. They knew it had to be me. There was no one else in the house that day.”

“What about the woman? Did you recognize her?”

“I only heard her voice on the conference call. For a moment. A dozen words, maybe. She never came to the compound.” A snippet of memory about someone important visiting at the party on October 31 flashed in her brain. Was that why she’d ended up drugged that night, so she wouldn’t see the visitor? Sadie shook off the memory. “She’s the big mystery that remains even after digging in so deep and all that hard work.”

“And sacrifice.”

Sadie nodded.

“Where did they keep you?”

“A containment facility away from the compound, I think. But I can’t be certain.”

“You were tortured and drugged all that time. Why keep you so long and then let you go?”

A baby crying echoed in her brain. It’s dead. It’s dead.

Sadie blinked at the painful reverberation. “They wanted to make sure I forgot anything I ever knew, I guess. They did this whole brainwashing thing.”

Devlin considered this a moment. “Why didn’t they just kill you?” She picked up her mug but didn’t bring it to her lips. “Sounds like they were waiting for something. Maybe some sort of deal with the DEA or BPD.”

“There was no deal.” Sadie shook her head. “No one knew if I was even still alive.”

“Maybe you just weren’t told about it. Your father could have—”

“He had nothing to do with it,” she snapped, cutting Devlin off.

The other woman held up her hands in surrender. “Okay. Got it.”

Those emotions she didn’t like to feel roiled inside Sadie. She should have known Devlin wouldn’t stop digging. Damn it. “They kept me alive because I was pregnant with an Osorio heir. A boy. Okay?”

Devlin looked as stunned as Sadie felt at having told her. She’d never told anyone that part. Not even Dr. Holden—at least as far as she knew. If she had, he’d never mentioned as much. He would have told her, wouldn’t he? Wasn’t he supposed to share everything that came out during her regression sessions?

Sadie forced away thoughts of Holden. Didn’t matter. The kid had died at birth. What would have been the point of telling anyone? The omitted detail might have kept her story from being considered suspicious and being dissected repeatedly by the BPD and the DEA when she first reappeared. But she couldn’t be sure of anything . . . couldn’t bear talking about it then or now.

Why the hell had she just told Devlin?

Weak. Rattled. Losing her fucking mind. Take your pick.

“You were pregnant. Oh my God. What happened to the baby?”

“It died just before or during birth. I can’t be sure. I only know it . . . he was dead. I saw him. Touched him.” The foggy memory of cold flesh swam in her head. “I guess I fell over the edge completely then, because I went batshit crazy.”

Devlin waited for her to go on. Sadie had gone this far; she might as well tell her the rest. Maybe she was at that batshit crazy place again . . . just a little less violent.

“I don’t remember more than a voice here or there after that. My next real memory is of waking up under that overpass on Eighteenth.”

Devlin absorbed this statement for a bit, then said, “I’m stunned you were able to escape. Why didn’t the old man ever send anyone after you?”

“How the hell should I know?” She tossed back the last of the coffee. How many times had she asked herself that same question? She. Did. Not. Know. “I gotta go.”

“Wait.” Devlin stared at her as if trying to see inside Sadie’s head. “Why would Carlos Osorio send his granddaughter to Birmingham under a fake identity? Particularly considering this is where you live.”

“That’s the million-dollar question, Devlin. Who the hell knows?” Speaking of a million dollars, she thought of the reward the Walshes had offered and wondered what Naomi thought about it. Was that the family’s estimated value of their son’s life?

Sadie felt sick. Devlin asked questions, raised possibilities she didn’t want to

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