THE GIRL WHO WAS HAUNTED

A PULSE-POUNDING PLOT-TWISTING CHRISTIAN SUSPENSE

ADELINA THRILLERS BOOK 5

KATHLEEN GUIRE

Copyright © 2024 by Kathleen Guire

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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THE GIRL WHO WAS HAUNTED

ADELINA THRILLER FIVE

by Kathleen Guire

CHAPTER 1

HAUNTED BEGINNINGS

Just as I settled into the calm of our new life at Spruce Lake, a single phone call threatened to pull me back into the chaos I had fought so hard to escape.

“Mom, Dad and Sawyer are going fishing,” Payton yelled from the front porch of our lake home.

It had been a year since Nathaniel and I had moved to Spruce Lake. It was autumn again, and the leaves were as colorful as the Fruity Pebbles that Payton begged me to buy.

“Okay,” I yelled back.

Payton ran back in, slamming the door behind her.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

My phone buzzed. I picked it up off the arm of the chair I was sitting on. It was Kat:

Podcast recording at 3 PM.

I responded:

Okay.

Good. Payton and I had plenty of time to do something before the podcast recording. We had moved up here because the year before I had been having breakdowns when my body was shutting down from the stress of working on the International Task Force for Safe Children and at the Trauma Recovery Center. The trauma specialist had given me a stack of books to read, including The Body Keeps the Score. Turns out I was an empath and absorbed the feelings of others, adding to my own trauma triggers. My body checked out.

Since the move to Spruce Lake, I’d been focusing on learning how to mother my children. It seemed my triggers were tripping theirs and vice versa. I wasn’t the only one being triggered. Kat and Jim had adopted two siblings of the teen who had shot Jim. Kat and I both thought our trauma histories would set us up as successful parents of kiddos who had the same. Boy, were we wrong.

With the help of Barbara, former newscaster for Best Broadcast News (BBN) turned podcaster, we interviewed trauma experts on the podcast to help our listeners who were foster/adoptive and/or parents of kiddos with neurodivergence. Truth is, these interviews were for our benefit and education. I took furious notes during these interviews and read every book and workbook the guests sent us. I was slowly finding my footing as a mother. It was the hardest job I’d ever done.

There’s no checking out in parenting. No sleeping for two days after a case is over. No filing away what you’ve been working on for the day while you veg in front of the TV.

“Pool or library?” I asked Payton.

“Oh, library and coffee?” she squealed. “And the pool!”

Payton was an expert at taking the “Give choices” I had learned in the Trauma-Informed Parenting Workshops I’d been attending and turning it into “Give me all the choices!”

I checked the time.

It was only eight a.m., and we had time to do all three, so I said, “Yes.” That was another parenting tool: say “yes” as much as possible because there are so many times we have to say “no.”

I sent her off to get dressed, which thankfully was not a stressor because sister-in-law and best friend, Cecylia, had organized her closet into outfits (which she had also purchased). I grabbed our swim bags, which I kept packed and ready, and within fifteen minutes we were heading out the door—first to the library, then coffee, and probably a muffin.

We’d swim before lunch and then I’d have time to get ready before my podcast recording.

We were pulling into the library parking lot—the same one Kat used to be the head librarian of—when my phone rang.

“Adelina, we need your help on a case.” It was Sabilia, head of the International Task Force for Safe Children (ITFSC) that Nathaniel and I served as agents on.

“I don’t do that anymore,” I said. “Sabilia, you know that.”

Sabilia was used to getting her own way. She had an on again off again relationship with Officer Craig, who had joined ITFSC. He seemed to like her sassy-ness, and she ordered him around as if he were staff instead of a future husband. When she stomped around on her heels like a stormtrooper, he just chuckled and complied.

“Wait until you hear where the case is. I think you’re going to want to take it,” she said emphatically.

Payton was unbuckling. I unbuckled and continued the conversation as we exited the car and headed across the parking lot to the main entrance of the library.

“Where is the case?” I said, grabbing Payton’s hand and smiling at her.

“Poland.” I stopped, and Payton looked at me, confused, and pulled on my arm.

“Just a second, sweetie.” Once inside, I could ask Bennie, who worked at the library, help her, and then I could call Sabilia back. “Call you right back!”

I hung up, and we continued into the Evergreen Falls library. Bennie greeted us in the children’s section.

“Payton, we got the new book you wanted!” he said in an exaggerated whisper that was more yelling than whispering. She followed him.

“Can she stay with you a minute, Bennie?”

“Yes, we have lots of books to look at,” he said.

I slipped back outside and called Sabilia back. “What’s going on in Poland?”

“The trafficking ring Ryszard ran is back under new management. Three teens have gone missing from the orphanage you were in.”

“What?” With no trigger warning—she plowed in while I bottomed out emotionally. I was chained to a rusty metal bed in a musty warehouse once again. I struggled to catch my breath. The world spun in a kaleidoscope of melting color.

Over ten years had passed since my adoption. When I was in the orphanage, my friend Daria and I used to supervise and help what we referred to as the Littles, the preschool-age kiddos.

“Does that mean some Littles?” I asked. I knew Sabilia would understand the terminology. I couldn’t let this happen to them. I felt guilty for leaving them all those years ago when I was adopted. Guilt rose, scorching my throat, and a quote forced its way out.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I could get a list of names. I can book us a flight tomorrow.” Sabilia was acting as if I had already agreed.

“I need to think about it and pray,” I said.

“Do you need to talk to my brother?” she replied, referring to Father Raphael, my long-time spiritual advisor.

Last year, Nathaniel had reprimanded me for always reaching out to Father Raphael instead of talking to him when I needed advice. For years, I had treated Father Raphael as my personal advisor, not realizing that I had monopolized his time when he had a parish and task force to run. Not to mention, I was slighting my husband by not asking for his advice.

“No, I want to talk to Nathaniel first. Thank you though.” I hung up and went back into the library and joined Bennie and Payton.

Once home, I rushed the kids through their bedtime routine. I pulled a suitcase out of my closet and began shoving things in.

Nathaniel placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “Adelina, you need to calm down and think this through.”

I shrugged him off and said, “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Nathaniel, this is my calling.”

“Adelina, before we moved you said being a mom was your calling. I think you’re overreacting. Let Sabilia and the Task Force handle this.”

“No, Nathaniel, I said parenting was my purpose for this season of my life. Kat and I have been doing a Bible Study together - Parenting Isn’t Your Highest Calling.” I sat down on the bed. He didn’t get it. How could he? He had been raised in a secure, loving home. He didn’t leave preschoolers behind in an orphanage.

“I left them there,” I said. A tear slid down my cheek and hovered on my quivering lips.

“Who?” he asked. “You brought Cecylia with you, Daria, and Kasia, too.”

“The Littles,” I said. “They were the youngest in the orphanage. Daria, Kasia, and I all left them at once. Daria and I used to get them dressed while we recited “How Doth the Little Crocodile.” I was sobbing now. “I *sob* just * left them.”

“Adelina, I’m calling Father Raphael right now. You need to talk to him.”

“But you said, I needed to stop relying on him.”

“No, I said you needed to stop calling him four times a day and every time you got a hangnail. This is serious. You’re right, I don’t understand. It’s like you feel as if you have to save the whole world all the time and it was killing you. Remember that? Remember the episodes where you blacked out?”

He sat down next to me and wrapped his arms around me, squeezing the breath out of me. “I love you.” Then he stood, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and called Father Raphael. He walked down the hallway towards the family room as he spoke. I could hear bits and pieces of the conversation.

“She… breakdown…. Poland… Needs to talk…,” then silence. He must have stepped outside.

I stood and finished packing in a more orderly and organized manner. I was going. These were my Littles. How could I have abandoned them? It struck me much deeper to the core now that I was a mother. But how could I leave my children behind? Even if it was just for a week? Or a month? Who knew how long this was going to take?

Sawyer was just feeling safe enough to speak three-word sentences. Payton was learning how to read. I’d been homeschooling them. We’d joined a local homeschool co-op and Payton had made a few friends, including Kat and Jim’s younger kids. Their two older kiddos, Helena and Jordan, helped with babysitting when they weren’t busy with their college courses or studying. In a short year here, we’d built a life that had deep roots.

Mom and Dad had bought a place here as well, giving their neighbors some more peace and quiet. No more bombs going off in their backyards. No more FBI agents crawling all over, traffickers trying to kidnap kids on their front lawn, my kids. Mom loved it at Spruce Lake. She was still writing books. She made sure she took time to spend with all her grandkids every week as well. She and Bennie’s grandmother Meredith got along famously.

If I left this life to rejoin the task force for this case, would everything I’d worked so hard to build fall apart? Would everyone I love be angry with me, including Nathaniel?

I finished packing my suitcase, toiletries, and grabbed my passport out of the lockbox. Nathaniel still hadn’t returned. I took a quick peek at Sawyer and Nathaniel, sleeping peacefully, and then climbed into bed.

I tossed and turned all night, wrestling with blood soaked Ryszard, grabbing at Daria who swayed in the doorway in a drug induced stupor. Every time I got inches from reaching her hand, she swayed away and I lost her. Behind her the littles screamed, “Help us Adelina!” their emaciated pajama clad bodies were dirt covered, their bones projecting out of arms and legs. Had no one fed them or bathed them since I left?

I awoke, drenched in sweat, to my alarm beeping on my phone. I was alone in bed. Nathaniel must be up with the kids.

I stumbled out of bed and down the hallway to the kitchen. It was 6 am. My flight left at 10 am. I was meeting Sabilia at the airport. I needed to eat and get on the road. After the nightmare I had last night, I had to go. My resolve was firm. Nathaniel couldn’t talk me out of it. He would have to plan for the kids. He would have to parent, just like I did when he went on missions.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted up the hallway. I rounded the corner and Nathaniel handed me a mug. “Drink up. We need to leave in half an hour.”

“What? I thought you wanted Father Raphael to talk me out of it!”

“I did. But he talked me into it. We’re all going,” he said with a smile, his chocolate brown eyes melting my anger.

“We’re going on a plane!” Sawyer yelled, twirling around in a ballerina skirt. Her hair sticking out at odd angles on her head.

“You might want to fix her hair,” Nathaniel said sheepishly.

“I’m impressed. They’re dressed.” I said with a wink.

“And packed,” Nathaniel said. “I had help with the kids stuff, “ he pointed to two suitcases with retractable handles and wheels. “Your mom,” he said in explanation.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Nathaniel’s idea of packing for a mission was throwing a few pairs of shorts and tees, and a toothbrush in a bag, plus a carry on with his computer.

“Oh, and your mom also packed school supplies and your instructor’s guide. She has them and she’s shipping them to the address Sabilia gave her.”

“You guys did all this while I was sleeping?” I said as I sat down at the table. Payton and Sawyer joined me and wolfed down some pancakes with maple syrup and sausage links.

I suddenly felt the urge to kiss Nathaniel. So I stood and embraced him and gave him a peck on the cheek and whispered “to be continued when we are alone.”

He kissed my forehead, and then the door chime pinged.

Father Raphael stuck his head in the door, “You guys ready to go?” Sawyer got down and ran around the room with his arms spread wide, imitating an airplane. Father Raphael scooped him up and Sawyer yelled, “Airplane!”

Once in the SUV, I leaned back and smiled. My family was supporting me in my calling and it was an amazing feeling. I had no idea what was in store for me in Poland, but I knew whatever it was, God was with me. He hadn’t failed me yet. Even all those years ago, when I was an orphan, He had a family in mind for me. Now I have a family myself and they were with me. I wasn’t alone anymore. I had defined home, family, marriage, parenting (still working on the last two), now I felt ready to define calling and step into it.

While we traveled to the airport, I texted Kat and let her know I would not be available for the podcast, for I didn’t know how long. I let Cecylia know.

Cecylia: yes, you can. You need to go.

Once at the airport, we met Sabilia and after going through all the steps, boarded a plane. The flight attendant led us to a section in first class complete with lie-flat seats, monitors to watch movies, pillows, blankets, and a basket of kid’s snacks. She was prepared!

While I was getting Sawyer and Payton situated, I saw a flash of pink out of the corner of my eye.

“Is that what you’re wearing, Adelina? I mean be comfortable, but you can be stylish too!”

“Cecylia! You’re coming?” I was speechless for a minute.

CHAPTER 2

GHOSTS OF THE PAST

Cecylia plopped a large carry-on in the first class cubicle across from mine.

“I was going to take Mom’s plane, but traveling alone is no fun, I wouldn’t be with you,” she reached in her bag and pulled out two brightly wrapped packages with pink bows and held them out to Sawyer and Payton.

“By ‘you’ you mean Sawyer and Payton,” I said with a laugh.

“Not just them,” she handed me a package as well.

I sensed something different in Cecylia. Was she feeling guilt? Did she feel responsible for the human trafficking ring she had worked for her step-father in all those years ago? Is guilt why she was coming? Truth is-Cecylia hated being part of a mission. It scared the life out of her, unless she was behind a computer screen.

Father Raphael interrupted my thoughts by squeezing through the aisle between us. Even the first class aisles were small for Father Raphael’s tall frame and broad shoulders. Come to think of it, he and Jim Gains, Kat’s husband had exactly the same build and frame, which made them not only stand out among a crowd, but not look like the rest of the seemingly factory made FBI agents in dark suits with bulky frames threatening to rip the seams of said suits. Father wore charcoal gray trousers and a black shirt with a priest’s collar every day.

Agent Jim was more laid back in his khakis and button downs. The difference was Father seemed in complete control of his body, while Jim seemed disjointed and not sure how to work his long limbs, resulting in many fumbles and stumbles. However, the year of spending time with Kat and Jim had taught me, what he lacked in coordination, he made up for in brains.

A flurry of activity at the front of the plane caught my attention. Someone stumbled down the aisle, dropping a carry-on. I’d recognize the blazing red hair anywhere. Jim Gains. Kat followed behind him, leading Louisa and Edmund, their two younger children.

As Jim righted himself and grabbed his carry-on, he said, “The more the merrier! Right?”

Even though no one had asked a question, it seemed appropriate for him to acknowledge I wasn’t alone. I had all these people to help me. When I’d taken down Ryszard, I’d often quoted Poe’s poetry with the theme of Alone.

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were—I have not seen

As others saw—I could not bring

My passions from a common spring⁠—

From the same source I have not taken

The poem I’d recited so many times wasn’t true anymore. Although from childhood’s hour, I had not been as others were, it was okay now. My passions were now from a common spring. Everyone on this mission wanted the same thing — to end human trafficking. We all came together in pursuit of that goal and our Christian faith as well — the spirit of the Lord bestowed upon us the power to preach the gospel of good news to the weak, the poor, and afflicted. To proclaim liberty to the physical and spiritual captives. The spiritual part was Daria’s speciality. Where I had failed in this, she had flourished.

Kat and Jim settled in and we chatted while Louisa and Edmund joined Payton and Sawyer, colored, and watched movies, finally falling asleep in a beautiful heap of arms, legs, tousled blonde hair next to vibrant red.

We landed at Lotnisko Chopina w Warszawie. The vans sent to take us to our hotel were late. The kids were cranky and tired. We’d basically lost a day in the air. Although it was eleven pm at home. It was six am what we would refer to as “tomorrow” here. While we wanted to hit the hotel and fall asleep, the day was just beginning here.

As we piled our luggage on the sidewalk, Nathaniel offered to stay and wait for the official task force van.

“I’ll just get a cab,” I told Nathaniel. “You can stay with the rest of the team.”

“I’ll go with you to help with the kids,” Cecylia said.

Jim and Kat decided to do the same. Jim hailed a cab. Four of them lined up.

Cecylia and I grabbed one with the kids. Jim and Kat and their kids took the other, leaving their luggage to ride on the vans with Sabilia and the rest of the task force.

Two cabs pulled out and headed to the Polonia Palace Hotel. As we veered around other vehicles and through narrow streets, I lost sight of Jim and Kat’s cab.

“Something isn’t right,” Cecylia whispered. “I’ve been to this hotel many times with my mother, they aren’t going there.”

“Are you sure you’re going the right way?” I asked, repositioning a sweaty Sawyer.

“Short cut,” he said and turned up the music.

Fifteen minutes later, we weren’t any nearer the hotel. In fact, we were leaving the city. The driver glanced back at us, grinning and showing rotting teeth, with a large gap where his two front teeth should have been.

“A…what do you say… scenic route? I make a phone call, yes?”

He picked up his cell phone and pushed a button and said in Polish,

“I have them. You’re right. It was easy. No. No fight from them at all. You have my money?”

Apparently, someone had hired this man to kidnap us. But by whom and why? It was common for the mafia to separate families at the airport and charge a ransom for the return, usually of the wife and kiddos. But this was different.

I guess Cecylia and I had become pretty Americanized because this man didn’t realize we were Polish. That also meant he was a low man on the totem pole and did not know who we were. I slipped my phone out of my pocket, smiled at the driver, “You’re right, this is a pretty route,” and texted Nathaniel:

Someone has taken us hostage.

But what did we do? We had children with us. If the mafia simply wanted money, we would have experienced an uncomfortable few hours until the ransom was paid. But someone would have to pay it. Sawyer and Payton may have a meltdown, but they would be okay. I think.

But what if it’s not simply a mafia kidnapping for money? What if whoever is in charge of the human trafficking ring has gotten wind of our coming? What if he wants to eliminate us or hold us over Nathaniel and Rob?

“At the next stop, you need to get out with the kids,” I whispered to Cecylia. “Get back to the hotel and tell Sabilia what happened.”

“What about you?” she said.

“I’m coming. I just need you to help me get the kids out.”

“Who asked you to kidnap us?” I said boldly, in perfect Polish.

The driver looked stunned. He hit the brake hard and turned to answer me.

At the same moment, Cecylia opened her door and pulled Sawyer and Payton with her. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I saw them land in the grass near the edges of a farm. Cecylia stood and righted herself and flashed me a confused look. The kids stood and clung to her as the taxi moved away from them and sped up. All while I struggled with the locked door on my side.

I lunged for the open door on the other side and caught the expression of the cab driver in the rearview mirror. He grinned a menacing, evil grin.

“You. I was paid to kidnap you,” He said and laughed. “I did good, no? The girl with the red hair. So easy, no I don’t have to take care of the children too, no?” and sped up.

I rolled to the other side of the taxi and out the door, rolling up like a possum, bumping along the gravel road.

As I stood, a white van pulled up, and the door opened. Arms reached for me, powerful hands gripped me, and pulled me in.

“Adelina, are you okay?”

Father Raphael. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

“Get that taxi driver!” I yelled.

Bruises covered my body, and I anticipated feeling sore the next day, but my top priorities right now were my kids and Cecylia. Number two was questioning the taxi driver.

“The kids are safe,” Father Raphael said. Then he turned and addressed the driver. “You heard her. Catch that taxi driver.”

The van sped up, passed the taxi, and cut it off. The taxi veered to the right and bumped along a field before it stopped. Exiting the taxi, the driver ran further into the field. But he was no match for Father Raphael’s long legs. Seconds later, Father Raphael tackled him while he yelled,“Priests don’t tackle people!”

After tackling the taxi driver, Father Raphael questioned him in rapid-fire Polish. Unfortunately, he knew nothing. He’d only taken the job to get a few extra dollars.

“It was my first time kidnapping someone!I needed the money for my family.” The taxi driver genuflected and performed the sign of the cross.

“Forgive me Father For I have sinned,” he added.

After determining he had no intel, Father Raphael slipped him some money and let him go.

Once we were settled into the Polonia Palace Hotel, the task force planned a meeting in the posh hotel lobby. I loaded up my bag with books, crayons, coloring books, and an iPad as a last resort. This mission was definitely going to be a lot different from my last missions. I would be navigating meetings with children, and so would Kat. I thought it would be easier, but right off the bat, someone kidnapped us. How did I keep my kids safe in this environment? Even if I kept them near me, they could be in trouble!

The meeting went fairly smoothly considering who was in charge - Sabilia. Father Raphael remained his cool-calm self and sat in the background. Cecylia, as usual, opted to be behind the computer or in the van during the mission. Kat and I played on the floor, whispering with the kiddos. After an hour, they were done. The kids needed food and a nap. So did I.

The first order of business the next day would be visiting the orphanage, the one that Daria, Kasia, and I had lived in. The one from which Daria and I had been trafficked. The one where Cecylia had scouted us, fed us to her step-father Ryszard, and set up a website to sell us to the highest bidder — all to save her mother.

Back in our room, Nathaniel ordered pizza, which he totally botched. I let him because he said he could do it. We ended up with chicken on white sauce pizza. His Polish was rudimentary at best.

Sabilia asked us to stay in our rooms and not leave the hotel until we figured out who was behind the kidnapping. I didn’t feel confident that would happen because whoever was behind it could just hire another taxi driver who needed the money.

After the kids and Nathaniel had fallen asleep, I broke protocol, went out to explore, not for the case, but for old-times’ sake. It would be nice to walk around Warsaw, grab some snacks, and hear people speak my native language. As I closed the door to my hotel room with a quiet click, I pulled a hat over my head and headed toward the elevator.

I hopped on the first car and as the door closed, a pink clad Cecylia appeared.

“Where are you going?” I’d gotten used to the fact that Cecylia could appear out of nowhere. In fact, I expected it, but I had mistakenly assumed it wouldn’t be the case on this mission. She had never wanted to return to Poland, she’d said. After everything she’d gone through with the trafficking ring and her step-father, it had colored her perception of her native country. Maybe all that was changing after working with the task force all these years. It changed my perception. Evil knows no country borders. It can happen in any setting, rural Poland, a university in the United States like Red Maple University, or in the Appalachian Mountains, where my kids had been born and trafficked by their own family.

“Are you defying Sabilia again? You are like that poem you used to quote-something about a dog and cat-

But the truth about the cat and pup

Is this: they ate each other up!”⁠1

She said with her hand on her hip.

“Cecylia, you’re quoting poetry as well as using it for a diversion tactic. I’ve trained you well.”

She laughed and flipped her blonde bob.

“May I point out that you are wearing a coat and hopping on an elevator?”

“My stomach is upset. I need something for it,” she explained as she stepped on and the doors closed behind us.

“You couldn’t order room service?”

“The truth is, I wanted to go see Warsaw. Maybe do a little shopping?” she smiled.

“My thoughts exactly,” I said. “What about Frick and Frack?” referring to her ever present bodyguards.

“They’re asleep,” she giggled.

So here we were, two giggling girls, acting like teenagers, sneaking out of our rooms to roam the streets of Warsaw.

The fall morning fog had melted off, and the sun shone. Cecylia and I peeled off layers and found a shop to get a good cup of Polish coffee. We sat on stools and made a list of shops we wanted to visit.

As we sipped our strong brew, I gazed out the window, happy to be with my friend in my home country once again. As a lone leaf swirled to the ground, I saw him. Ryszard, walking by, peering into the windows of shops on the other side of the street. How could this be? Father Raphael had shot and killed him years ago when I was in college. I had no words. I pulled on the sleeve of Cecylia’s cable-knit sweater and pointed. I could feel my mouth hanging open and coffee dripping down my chin. I froze.

“It can’t be,” she whispered. “He’s dead.”

But there he was, the same broad shouldered, muscular, stocky, blond man who had trafficked me, married Cecylia’s mother, followed us to the United States and tried to kill us and our families.

Finally, instinct, or whatever you want to call it, kicked in. I grabbed a napkin and wiped my chin and grabbed Cecylia’s arm.

“Let’s go!” I said. “Is there a back door?” I asked the guy who had served us.

“Yes,” then he paused. “Wait, you are Adelina. You wrote the book, Surviving Trafficking And Trauma. Wait until my sister hears I met you. Could you sign this napkin for her?”

I played the celebrity card even though I did not know I had one on my deck. Not in my wildest dreams did I think I had readers, fans, I guess, in Poland. I’d written a book Surviving Trafficking and Trauma about human trafficking and my experience. It was really a combination of the blog posts I’d written when we were trying to take down Dr. Verde. I’d just added some more of my stories and other women’s.

I scribbled my name on a napkin while Cecylia remained frozen and looked as if she were going to puke.

“Have you read the book?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said sheepishly.

“Well, then, you know that sometimes evil men track me down and try to kill me. This is one of those moments.”

He glanced around in terror. “Here in the shop?”

“No, but he may come here.” I said, pointing to the crowd of bustling people on the sidewalk.

“This way,” he said as he led us behind the counter and down a long, narrow hallway.

“I can’t believe I helped Adelina. My sister is going to flip out. Will you put me in your next book? My name is Jan.”

The last sentence trailed off in the distance as I dragged Cecylia down the back alley. We ran. I don’t know where we were running. Then she stopped, put both hands on her knees, and puked.

I pulled an extra napkin out of my pocket and wiped her lips. “This can’t be happening,” she said, righting herself.

This puking pause gave me enough time to form a plan. “Cecylia, you need to call Rob, tell him to get Frick and Frack to come and get you.”

I was already moving away from her, jogging back toward the main street through the narrow pass between the buildings.

“Where are you going?” she gasped.

“I’m going to follow that man.”

1. Eugene Field, “The Duel”

CHAPTER 3

WONDERLAND ECHOES

Ten minutes later, I had located the Ryszard doppelgänger. As I slipped through the crowd, stopping to hide in shop entrances if need be, he stopped to take a call. I was close enough to reach out and touch him. I slipped back into the shadows.

“I lost her,” he said. “She was in a coffee shop and then she disappeared…. I wouldn’t be looking for her if you’d done your job.” he said, his voice rising with each word.

I froze. If I moved to open the door of the shop I was standing next to, he would see the movement and see me. Internally, I wrestled with what to do next. Should I hope for the best and run in the opposite direction or... someone yelling my name interrupted my last thought.

“Adelina!!”

I turned to see where the voice was coming from.

Jan ran towards me with a piece of paper in his hand raised high like a flag.

What was he doing? I took half a second glance at the Ryszard look-alike. He was looking right at me. Taking a step toward me, he ended the call. He was six inches from me.

“You forgot to pay your bill, Adelina,” Jan announced, waving the paper in the air. “I told my boss who you were but he said he didn’t care. If you don’t pay, the police will⁠—”

Ryszard look-alike had a hand on my arm. “Adelina,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Just then, the promised police appeared.

“M’am you need to pay your bill or come with me,” he declared, grabbing my other arm.

“Yes, I have the money, right here, if you could let go of my arm.”

“Adelina, what are you doing?” The crowd parted as Nathaniel ran down the sidewalk towards me. He stopped short when he saw Ryszard.

The police officer let go and I fished the money out of my pocket and thrust it toward Jan, who took it and ran back toward the cafe. Ryszard still had a firm grip on my other arm. Nathaniel was ten feet away, frozen with indecision. Within what seemed an eternity and a second, the police officer disappeared and a Mercedes pulled up beside me. The Ryszard twin pulled me toward it and jerked the door open. He swung me around and landed me in the backseat. Nathaniel’s wiry legs were no match for the car as it pulled away from the curb. I watched out the back window as Ryszard faced Nathaniel and there was nothing I could do to stop whatever was going to happen next. Tears slipped down my cheeks, and poetry and definitions flitted through my mind faster than a mindless scroll on Instagram.

Danger -the possibility of suffering harm or injury.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you’ll be swept off to.”–Bilbo Baggins

I had brought my whole family to Poland, and within the first twelve hours, someone kidnapped my kids and me. Cecylia and I were running away from our past, and my husband was facing off with Ryszard, who was supposed to be dead. The only positive thing at this moment is that my kiddos were safe in the hotel.

As Ryszard and Nathaniel disappeared in the distance, I turned to see where we were headed. The buildings of the city rushed by in a blur of brick and stone. The driver gripped the steering wheel with determination as he dodged cars, switching lanes like he was in an action movie.

“Where are we going?” I asked in Polish.

“I don’t speak Polish very well,” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror. Not only was he driving like he was driving in an action movie, he looked as if he belonged in one. He had a sort of Jack Ryan meets Mission Impossible vibe. Square jaw, muscular arms. Piercing blue eyes under calm and serious eyebrows.

“Where are we going?” I repeated in English.

“We’re going to an estate outside of the city. We’ll meet the rest of the team there.”

“What?” my mind ran through a thousand scenarios. None of which made sense.

“Are you British?” I asked the first question that came to mind didn’t really have any logic behind it.

“Yes, I’m Brennan. I’m part of the ITSFC, UK division.”

“You’re one of us?”

He smiled at me, displaying a row of perfect white teeth.

The sun shone through the window, baking my face. It was too hot in here and I couldn’t put my finger on what was going on. I could feel poetry rising in my larynx. I grabbed the sleeve of my sweater and peeled it off.

“The education of circumstances is superior to that of tuition.” ~ William Wordsworth

It was too late. It slipped out and there was nothing I could do about it.

“What was that?” he asked. “Circumstance is superior?”

I ignored his question and responded with my own.“Could I ask you a question? Why did you leave my husband back there with a human trafficker and terrorist?”

“What? I would never…” he struggled to answer.

“Ryszard.” I said emphatically.

“I don’t know who that is. I was just asked to bring you to a safe location.”

I fiddled with my seatbelt and then the door handle. I still didn’t trust Brennan Of the ITSFC, UK division, especially since Ryszard shoved me in his car.“By kidnapping me?”

“We didn’t have time to talk. We saw the police moving in and some of them aren’t with us, you know, they’re against us.”

“So you took me and not my husband? What about my children?”

When I said husband, he pulled up his phone and scrolled through a few photos, driving off the road at the same time. Gravel chipped at the side of the car before he swung back onto the road.

He held up his phone with a picture of Nathaniel.

“Well, my bad. I guess I was supposed to pick him up too. I didn’t get that text until I’d started driving.” He smiled his movie star grin and kept driving.

It was clear I wasn’t going to get any answers out of him. He probably didn’t know his right from his left. It didn’t matter. We’d pulled onto a narrow rutted road that ended at a large gate. He rolled down the window and plugged in a code to the pad, and the gate swung open. We pulled through to a paved tree-lined lane that led to a castle-like home.

Nestled in the picturesque Polish countryside, the grand estate stood majestically behind a wrought-iron gated entry, offering an air of timeless elegance and security. Beyond the gates, a vast expanse of meticulously manicured green lawn stretched out, dotted with mature trees that provided both shade and a sense of history.

Kids ran on the emerald green lawn with rust and mustard colored leaves swirling around them. Four kiddos. Wait. The two tow-heads were mine, Sawyer and Payton. The two redheads were Kat’s. A young woman in a black uniform and white apron who looked as if she had stepped out of Downton Abbey carried a tray of something towards the kids. Kat followed her, carrying an orange plaid blanket which she spread out on the lawn.

Brennan slowed to a Driving Miss Daisy pace after his race car antics on the road a few minutes ago. I pulled on the door handle. Still locked.

“Let me out,” I yelled. The lock clicked, and I leaped out, leaving my outerwear in the car.

I knew what Alice in Wonderland must have felt like when she entered an alternate universe.

“Alice stepped through the looking glass and found herself in a strange, inverted world where everything seemed oddly familiar yet unsettlingly different. The confusion and terror gripped her as she realized that the rules of this new world were unlike anything she had ever known. Shadows moved in peculiar ways, and the landscape seemed to shift and warp as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. The eerie silence was broken only by her own footsteps echoing in this bizarre, mirror-image realm.”⁠1

What was going on?

“Oh, Adelina, you’re here,” Kat yelled casually. “Come have a snack with us!”

“It’s about time you got here,” Cecylia’s voice said. She stepped out from behind a large oak tree.

“What is going on?” I demanded of her. “Half an hour ago, you were puking behind the cafe, scared to death…” I took a deep breath.

“Didn’t Sabilia text you?” she asked.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. No messages.

“Nope.” I said. That was just like Sabilia. Move the entire operation and not keep me in the loop. She enjoyed being in control, but this was taking it a bit too far. I needed to talk to her, but first I was going to hug my kiddos and eat a snack.

Minutes later, another car pulled up and Nathaniel and the Ryszard hopped out, chatting and laughing.

I decided right then and there I was Alice in Wonderland. Sabilia was the queen. That’s about the only way any of this made any sense.

Payton and Sawyer dropped their applesauce pouches and ran for their dad, tackling him and laughing. The image of them being so close to Ryszard made me feel as if I was going to puke like Cecylia had earlier. Then another thought took up residence in my mind. Why did Cecylia puke? I stood and walked to the large oak she was leaning on.

I circled the oak, and an acrid odor of vomit bowled me over. “Did you throw up again?”

“I did,” she said defiantly.

“You never get sick. What’s going on?”

She smiled. Her skin wasn’t glowing with a multitude of products, as was her norm. The ends of her perfectly straight hair had become frayed. She looked frayed at the ends. “Green around the gills,” my dad would say.

“You’re pregnant!” I yelled.

“I am!” she said with all the gusto she could. “I’m happy. I am. It’s just I feel sick all the time,” she explained.

“Why did you come on this mission? You should have stayed home.”

Here we were on some Downton Abbey Alice-in Wonderland themed version of life. My best friend was pregnant, and we were obviously in danger or Sabilia wouldn’t have moved us from the posh hotel.

“Here, eat a few teddy grahams,” I offered.

Nathaniel untangled himself from our kids and stood. “Adelina, this is Derek, from our UK branch.”

I dropped the teddy grahams and manually shut my mouth.

“I’m sorry, you look like…”

“Ryszard,” he said with a smile.

“But you’re British?” I asked, unable to put two intelligent sentences together, or thoughts for that matter. While I struggled, Sabilia stepped out of the castle, flanked by Downton Abbey-clone maids.

“I see you’ve met Derek,” she yelled across the expansive lawn. I waited for her to yell “Off with her head.” She was the queen, and we were her subjects. She was enjoying this meeting way too much. She had to have known. As usual, she dressed the part, an emerald green form fitting dress and matching four-inch heels. She styled her blonde hair in a French twist at the back.

She stood for a moment, her hands on her hips. Her entourage of servants froze and waited.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” I asked.

“You should have seen her face during the intake interview,” Derek said with a laugh. “And Father Raphael’s. It was as if they had seen a ghost.”

“I’d love to hear that story,” Nathaniel said, slapping him on the back.

“I can do better than that,” Derek said. “ITSFC records all the intake interviews. I can have someone named Cecylia pull it up. She’s here isn’t she.”

I glanced behind me to where Cecylia had been a moment ago.

“She is,” I answered.

Cecylia had slipped behind the oak tree again. She must be vomiting again. She stepped out when she heard her name.

“I’m here,” she said, wiping her mouth with a tissue.

Derek smiled at her. “I hear you’re the best with technology.”

Cecylia tried to answer but her brain must be having the same reaction mine had. She couldn’t tell it this wasn’t Ryszard, even though he had a British accent and Ryszard was dead.

“I am,” she said quietly, definitely not her normal self. It could be the combination of the pregnancy and the shock. She took a baby step forward and then collapsed in a heap on a pile of orange and yellow leaves the kids had been playing in.

I rushed to her side, “Cecylia,” I patted her face. She roused slightly. “Get me some carbonated water.” I yelled at the immobile servant. She paused and ran toward the house.

“Are you happy, Sabilia? Did you get your little thrill from deceiving us? Having us accosted on the street by this Ryszard look a-like, and then my being kidnapped.”

“I did no such thing!” she said. “I simply had you picked up by an agent.”

As she stepped forward, her heel sunk into the moist soil. Her foot recoiled as she moved back to the paved walkway.

“Good. Stay there,” I commanded as I helped Cecylia up to a seated position. “And you,” I pointed to Derek, “I don’t know how much Sabilia has told you, but you need to get out of Cecylia’s sight for now. We can talk later.”

“I know what’s wrong with her,” Payton said. She had joined Cecylia on the ground. “Mama was really sick when she was pregnant with Sawyer and when the bad men came, she passed out.”

She pointed at Ryszard. “Are you a bad man? You must be. Mommy said we don’t have to do anything for you anymore.”

Sawyer joined us in the leaf pile, hiding behind Cecylia. Payton put her arm around Cecylia. “You don’t have to do anything this man asks,” she declared in a shaky voice.

I looked pleadingly at Nathaniel, who looked torn. Did he comfort his kids or get Derek out of sight?

“I think I need the priest,” Cecylia spoke in a barely audible whisper. The Downton Abbey maid returned with water and poured it in a glass. Cecylia sipped it and smiled a wobbly smile.

Nathaniel led Derek into the house.

“Is he staying here?” Cecylia asked. “I can’t…,” she leaned back on me, too tired to finish.

Payton was on her feet. “Dad,” she yelled. “You can’t let that man in our house.”

Derek turned with an anguished look on his face. “What’s going on?” he asked Nathaniel.

“Apparently, Sabilia hasn’t briefed you on the story of your doppelgänger,” he said, turning and leading him toward the car I had arrived in. “We will talk about it in the car, but you’re going to need to stay somewhere else for now.”

As the car pulled away, Father Raphael and Rob ran out of the house and across the lawn toward Cecylia. Sabilia stood rooted on the paved sidewalk, like the queen from Alice in Wonderland.

1. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

CHAPTER 4

CRAFTING THE VILLAIN

Sabilia abandoned her post to retreat into the estate.

After taking several sips of sparkling water and receiving a few hugs from the kids, Cecylia revived enough to move to a chair. Father Raphael joined us with three extra chairs he had gathered from the lawn. Kat offered to take the kiddos inside so we could talk. Father Raphael sat gingerly in his chair and folded his hands as if in prayer.

“You couldn’t have warned us?” I asked.

Father hung his head. He was silent. I agreed with the silence. As the sun shone on the leaves and the colors sang an autumn tune, there were no words. No words for deceiving us. Especially Cecylia, in her current state. I knew trauma could affect an infant in utero. I couldn’t even imagine what this shock was doing to her cortisol levels right now, and it was crossing the placenta as we spoke. I was spiraling for Cecylia and for the baby. I needed to hold it together. I needed to be a support for her. As much as I tried to squelch it, a quote slipped out.

“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail, “There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.

See how early the lobsters and turtles all advance!

They are waiting on the shingle -will you come and join the dance?”⁠1

Although my habit of reciting definitions and poetry had taken a back seat in the coping mechanism department, this was new. Since I’d arrived in Poland, I was thinking and reciting the books I’d recently read myself or to the children.

I guess, like Kat, what I read came out. She recited murder mysteries, pre-adopting young kids. Now she was more likely to break out into a children’s song or scripture. We couldn’t stop the self-regulating habit of recitation. It seemed to evolve on its own based on life experience.

As soon as I finished the quote, the queen herself joined us on the lawn. She’d replaced the emerald green heels with a more sensible rain boot. She marched across the lawn, bits of water squeaking at the force of the rubber boots and each step. Rob followed her, gaining on her and passing her as he jogged to Cecylia.

“What the hell, Sabilia?” he yelled back to her. “My wife is pregnant. What do you think you’re doing?”

Father Raphael jerked his head up. His body followed like a robotic puppet. He was standing now. His arms outstretched, hands in the air.

“Praise be to the Father for a new life!” he bellowed, as if he were delivering a sermon from the pulpit.

Sabilia stopped in her tracks. Her yellow boots settled into a small puddle, sinking into a mushy mess of leaves. She looked at Cecylia in a powerless, panicky sort of way, but kept repeating something to herself in a whisper that sounded like “carrying-a-child.”

“I guess that’s one way to break the news,” Cecylia said.

“I repeat, what the hell, Sabilia?” Rob said, refusing to let it go.

I didn’t want to let it go either, but I was enjoying seeing the queen thrown for a loop. Sabilia was always the controller. Nothing seemed to rock her world, or at least, she didn’t show it. Now it seemed as if someone had turned her inside out and we were witnessing her inner anxiety on the outside, transforming her into a creature I didn’t recognize.

“There was a plan,” Sabilia yelled defensively. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I didn’t know,” she said as she ran towards Cecylia. Her boots made a “squelch squerch” sound I knew so well from Going On A Bear Hunt.

Sabilia squatted down and hugged Cecylia. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Your flair for dramatics and need for control has gone too far this time,” Rob said, putting a protective arm around Cecylia.

“What’s the plan?” Cecylia said.

“I’m going to assign a lady’s maid to you and hire a nutritionist.” Sabilia said, ignoring the question.

“I appreciate that, Sabilia. I’ll be okay. What’s the plan?”

Father Raphael, Rob, Nathaniel, and I stood in unison and crossed our arms, waiting for an explanation.

“I’ll share the plan with them,” Sabilia said, waving her arm in a semi-circle towards us, as if she were royalty, “after I tuck you into bed.”

“Sabilia, I’m pregnant. Not sick.” Cecylia said, standing and flipping her blonde bob. “What you did is cruel. If I had to live through that, I want to know why.”

“I think we deserve an explanation,” Father Raphael said. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing him on this mission.” His face was stern, flexing the white scar on his face, giving him an air of malevolence. “We are supposed to decide as a team.”

“Are we a team?” Sabilia said, her tone severe, her face tight and red.

“Of course we are,” I replied.

“Really?” she asked, rising on her toes. “You left and moved to Spruce Lake. Cecylia, you left me too. Aneta got married. Kasia has her college friends. She visits you more than me.”

So that’s what this was all about. Sabilia was feeling abandoned. At age forty she an empty nester, and officer Craig, who’d asked her to marry him, must have tired of waiting for her to say yes. Rob, Cecylia, Nathaniel, and I had moved to Spruce Lake. I was busy being a mom, writing books, and podcasting with Kat. My life was a lot less dangerous, and I liked it that way. The only reason I’d come on this mission was because the teens being targeted were the same Littles I’d cared for when I was an orphan in The Children’s Home.

“What about calling?” Sabilia yelled. “You have abandoned your calling,” she said with a sob. “I’m the only one left who cares. I’m the only one left on the ITSFC who is doing the work.”

Yep. She felt abandoned. I knew the feeling.

“Take a breath,” Father Raphael said. “Tell us the plan.”

“We’re all on your side,” I said.

She laughed. It’s what I’d heard her say when I joined the task force. When she’d said it, I thought she meant she was on Cecylia’s side, who was on the human trafficker, her stepfather Ryszard’s side. We’d come full circle, and she recruited the Ryszard look-alike to get back at us for abandoning her. She felt alone, like I did as a fifteen-year-old in the orphanage.

As I laughed, the tension rose like a vapor and the autumn breeze carried it away.

“Everything’s going to be all right,” Father Raphael said.

Sabilia sat down and shared the plan.Turns out, when she interviewed the Ryszard look-alike, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hire him. She planned to use him in the European trafficking market, starting with Poland.

Cecylia’s job was to circulate the news on the dark web that Ryszard was back and ready to pick up business where he left off. The plot unfolded as follows — he wasn’t deceased. Instead, he had concealed himself and established a stronger network involving influential politicians, high-ranking government officials, and rulers in various countries. They not only condoned the type of trafficking he wanted to conduct, but actively supported it. Sabilia had been on the lookout for doppelgängers of various positions of power in Europe to place videos, photos, and evidence on the dark net to build credibility.

Unfortunately, Derek was way too refined to step into the role of evil human trafficking mastermind. The one thing that had thrown me off when I first spotted him on the sidewalk was his gait. It wasn’t the same as Ryszard’s. There was no overconfident swagger. His stride and bearing resembled an earl from a history book. He stood too straight. His speech was too proper and his manner too kind. He needed to learn how to slam a girl into a corner and tell her he was going to kill her-all with an evil maniacal grin, then walk away with swagger.

Derek was a trauma trigger, his mere presence sending a chill down my spine. And to make matters worse, Sabilia had placed unreasonable expectations on me, like a heavy weight on my shoulders, to fulfill a plan that I had never willingly agreed to. It was my job to coach him and transform him into an odious creature —an underworld trafficker.

CHAPTER 5

FACES IN THE VAN

Three hours later, we had dined in the estate’s huge dining room at the polished walnut table. We bathed and tucked the kiddos into bed.

Cecylia lounged on a couch, sipping sparkling water and snacking on goldfish. Her stomach had settled a little, but not enough to eat “real” food. Thankfully, Kat and I had loaded up on snacks that she seemed to keep down — unless Sabilia had another surprise that would cause Cecylia to upchuck again.

Sabilia sat in the chair next to Cecylia with her arm draped over the edge of the couch. Was she still feeling guilty? She plunked away on a laptop and glanced at Cecylia every sixty seconds.

Nathaniel stood with me in the doorway of the historic Polish estate. The heavy wooden door, polished dark oak, was adorned with intricate carvings of floral motifs and mythical creatures. Brass knockers shaped like roaring lions gleamed with a patina of age. Above, a graceful archway with stained glass windows cast a kaleidoscope of colors onto the threshold, marking our entry into the estate’s storied past. I’d never been in a castle like this. Sabilia had grown up on an enormous estate like this. In fact, her grandfather bought and restored bombed and forgotten estates after World War II.

“Sabilia,” I said, glancing around at the intricate carvings and polished wood. “Is this your house?”

“Yes,” she said as a tear slid down her cheek to a quivering lip. “I haven’t been back here for years.”

This estate held history for certain. Possibly history Sabilia and Father Raphael didn’t want to revisit. I tested the waters. “This is where Aneta lived when she was trafficked?”

“Yes, so many memories.” She said, sweeping her arm around the room as if it explained everything.

Wanting to hear more of the story and see more of the estate, I asked, “Can we get a tour?”

“Maybe tomorrow. My brother has gone to the church to pray, probably for my sins,” she said, dabbing her tears with a silk handkerchief.

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized two things — how being at her home transformed her outwardly into an aristocrat. And number two, how much shame and guilt she had about something that was overflowing like too much water in a bucket.

Sabilia blew her nose loudly into her handkerchief. “Nathaniel, Adelina, Cecylia, Rob, I need to tell you something.”

Kat and Jim stood in unison. “We’ll be heading to our room,” Kat said, “if we can find it.”

“No, please stay, I want you to hear this,” Sabilia said. She stood and paced, her emerald heels clacking on the floor.

“When Aneta was trafficked, I... lost a baby. The stress of it was too much,” She fell on her knees in front of Cecylia and grabbed both of her hands. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to lose this baby. I’ve called the best doctor in the area. You’re going to be pampered and taken care of. No more stress for you,” she said, rising.

“Wait,” Cecylia said, pulling on Sabilia’s arm. “You were married?”

“Yes, to a Baron. Of course, they abolished all of those titles in 1921, but you can’t change the way a nation has functioned with pen and paper.”“

“What happened to the baron?” I asked.

“He couldn’t take the shame of my sister being trafficked. It tainted his good name, his words not mine.”

I ran to Sabilia and hugged her. Kat joined me. “I had no idea. When you came to the orphanage, you were so confident.”

“I was broken, Adelina,” she said. “I mean who uses a fifteen year old orphan and feeds him to a trafficker. You could have been killed or worse sold as a sex slave. I was out of control.”

“Oh,” I said. Truth is — to me — and probably Kat, this never crossed our minds. We’d been used and abused as children, so this was normal to us.

“Yeah, that was messed up,” Cecylia said.“But no more messed up than my step-father using me to scout teens.”

“I’m so sorry you went through that,” Kat said. “Thank you for sharing.” Jim stood behind her, looking uncomfortable.

“I’m glad I got that off my chest. Maybe my brother’s prayers are paying off. He said we should stay here instead of the hotel. He told me I needed to make sense of and peace with my past.”

“Confession is the first step,” Nathaniel said.

“You sound like my brother,” she said with a wobbly smile.

“I’m still angry at you, Sabilia,” Rob said, rising to his full height and pushing his shoulders back, just like dad did. “But it helps to know why.”

“I can see why this mission is so important to you,” Jim said, stepping toward her. “I can understand why you put all this work into the mission, from an agent’s standpoint, it is brilliant.”

Jim Gains -always the agent. Always focused on practicality. I thought he was finished. Instead of going back to his place behind Kat, he took another step and threw his long lean arms around Sabilia and said, “But you can’t think your sister being trafficked, your husband leaving you, and losing the baby is your fault. It’s not your fault.”

Sabilia thanked him and all of us for listening. She excused herself and went to her room. We followed suit. Tomorrow we’d get to work on this mission of eradicating traffickers from Poland.

The next morning we met in the dining room for a buffet style breakfast to be followed immediately by a task force briefing.

Cecylia had agreed to rest in her room while we met. She barely ate anything at breakfast, and Rob took her back to their room to keep her promise and relax. Sabilia had already had the doctor examine her and assigned one of the staff to be at her beck and call. Cecylia was fine with that. Even though she’d married Rob, she’d brought some of her lifestyle with her, including her ever present bodyguards. Come to think of it, we weren’t that far from Cecylia’s old family home. I wondered if she was being triggered as well. I would talk to her about it later.

I needed to focus.

The Ryszard double joined us. With Cecylia tucked away in her room, it was safe for him to be here-unless Rob lost it on him. Or Sabilia. Father Raphael hung back. I wasn’t sure if the sight of this British agent sent him spiraling or if he were carrying the weight of Sabilia’s sin on his shoulders. He cast her furtive glances as she started the meeting, seemingly her old self. I guess confession is good for the soul.

After the meeting, with assignments in hand, Kat and I went to retrieve our kiddos from the nanny Sabilia had hired.

The nanny was actually a college student majoring in early childhood education. We found them blowing bubbles out on the lawn and laughing. The fog that had covered the morning had dissipated. The kiddos wore wool sweaters and rubber boots. In terms of attire, the girls opted for skirts and tights, whereas the boys went for corduroys. They looked like something out of a picture book. They probably wouldn’t look like that in a few minutes when I told them it was time to do some schoolwork.

Actually, the disappointment was short-lived when I shared that we'd be sightseeing, including a petting zoo. Sabilia wasn’t exactly happy that we were taking most of our first full day on the job to spend with our kids. Now that I knew her story, it may have just been jealousy, so I trod lightly. I promised her after our zoo excursion, we would bring the kids back here for naps and I’d visit the orphanage with Kat, Nathaniel, and Jim. Rob and Cecylia would sit this one out.

After lunch, Kat and I had tucked the kids into bed. Cecylia promised to sit in the nursery wing and listen for them. Sabilia had provided a nanny, but I’d feel better leaving them with Cecylia, who set up her laptop so she could start setting up a framework on the dark net.

Kat and I met outside at the larger barn converted into a garage and looked at the cars.

“Are you driving?” I asked.

“No, I don’t feel comfortable driving here,” Kat said with a chuckle. “I thought you would.”

“I could, but I rather not unless I have too. I was fifteen when I left Poland for the United States to become a Hunter. Besides, kids in the orphanage didn’t have opportunities to drive a car.” I said, patting the hood of the Merćedes.

“Same with the group home,” she laughed. “How far is the orphanage?” she asked as she pointed to a few bikes.

“15 km,” I laughed. “A little over nine miles.”

“Oh, these are e-bikes.” We both had e-bikes back home and slipped off for an odd ride to the cafe when we had childcare.

“Shall we?” she asked, while shoving a helmet over her chestnut hair.

“Yes,” I said and did the same.

After we wheeled the bikes out of the garage, I pulled out my phone and texted Nathaniel to let him know about our plans. The day had turned warm and sunny. It would be a beautiful ride. I pulled up the GPS on my phone, attached it to the handlebars and we were off like two giggling school girls.

Turns out neither of us had ever had the opportunity as children to ride bikes.

“We are re-parenting ourselves,” Kat said with a laugh as the wind pinked her cheeks and blew a swirl of leaves around us.

I pumped the pedals and changed gears as we rounded a curve and began ascending a hill. “I feel like there’s a quote for this. Did any of your mystery books have a main character riding a bike?”

“Father Brown,” she responded, exhaling heavily as the hill steepened.

The wind whipped a curl into my mouth, and I gagged.

Kat laughed.

As I peeled the hair out of my mouth and veered off the road, barely righting myself before hitting a tree. I sucked in a deep breath as Kat continued to snicker. “What are you laughing at? Me?”

“I’m just imagining Father Raphael on a bike.” We both giggled.

Amid our laughing fit, Father Raphael sped up behind us on his own bike. At first, he startled me. I hoped he hadn’t heard us laughing at him. Turns out he was better at riding a bike than we were. I’m sure he had one as a child.

“Taking the scenic route today?” he said. “I thought I should come in case any of the girls needed spiritual advising.”

“How did you know…”

Before I could finish, he said, “None of the cars were missing. Then I noticed two bikes were.”

“Should we call him Father Brown?” I asked with a chuckle.

Forty-five minutes later, we pulled into the long lane that the orphanage sat at the end of. It was bittersweet coming here. This place offered wonderful memories, but awful ones too.

Half way down the street, before I could finish my trip down memory lane, a van came speeding down, knocking up a cloud of dust. We three bikers stopped and waited for it to pass as we coughed. As it passed, I heard pounding and saw the faces of two blonde teen girls plastered against the back windows.

I knew those faces. Two of the Littles. I slammed on the brakes and turned my bike in the opposite direction, pedaling after the van as fast as I could. I hit the pedal assist and pulled precariously close to the side of it, gravel hitting my calves, then I was behind it again. If I could just reach out and touch the handle to the backdoor. If I failed, they would shortly be on the highway. I would be flung off to serious injury or, worse, death.

Just as I was about to take the chance, one backdoor flung open. I sped up and grabbed a hand that reached out for me. Jerking her out of the van, she rolled across the road and curled up like a pill bug. I reached for the second girl. It was too late. The van was at the mouth of the road now. Once it was on the main highway, I could do nothing. But for one brief moment, I saw my opportunity as the van came to a rolling stop. The van door was still open. I reached in and grabbed a hand, and pulled the other girl to safety. Well, almost safety until the driver and other passengers realized they had lost their cargo.

I motioned for the teen to hop on the back of my bike, riding on the rack. The only place available. We took off at a snail's pace, my legs and battery were both out of juice.

Were girls taken directly from the orphanage now? Why didn’t we bring a car? What was I thinking?

We were off to a slow start when a spray of bullets hit the surrounding gravel. Kat had the first girl on her bike and they headed for the few sparse trees off the lane. I followed suit. The bullets chasing us like we were in an action film. The only difference is we didn’t have an explosive to throw back at them. The girl behind me, who I now knew was Ania, screamed and fell to the ground. A small pool of blood formed underneath her leg. She was exposed. Too out in the open. What did I do? I could not leave her there. I couldn’t let her get shot again. I’d already dismounted the bike, and I positioned it as a sort of shield in front of us as I kneeled down to check on her wound. The bike wasn’t much coverage.

Suddenly, a few shots came from the opposite direction. Father Raphael advanced on the van, taking out the rearview mirror. Which must have been close enough to the driver’s head to scare him off. The driver, who had lurched to a stop to shoot at us, sped off down the highway, leaving behind two wailing teens and turning our morning of re-parenting ourselves into a nightmare.

“Are you okay?” I yelled to Kat.

“Yes, we are both okay,” she said, wheeling her bike toward the road. Her passenger followed, crying and shaking.

“My girl’s hit,” I said.

Father Raphael was on the phone, immediately describing the van and the contents.

“They’re going to try to locate the van and follow it,” he explained after the call. “Let’s get to the orphanage and find out what is going on. Can your girl walk?”

“I think so,” I said, while supporting Ania with my arm around her waist.“It’s a flesh wound, it just nicked her thigh, but she’s pretty shaken up.”

Father Raphael strode quickly to us and examined the wound. “Yes, superficial. You’ll be okay,” then he looked to me to supply the name.

“Ania,” I said.

“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?” Kat asked.

“No,” the second teen said.

“She’s right,” I explained. “We don’t know who is with the traffickers and who isn’t.”

Father Raphael had wrapped the wound in a handkerchief. He picked Ania up. “I’ll take her to the orphanage until we can get some help.”

“They just came in the front door and grabbed us out of the lobby,” Ania replied, sniffling.

“I don’t want to go back there,” the other declared.

“I’ll be there to to protect you,” Father said. “I won’t leave you.”

I gave my bike a quick check. “I know where we can get help and transportation quickly.” I added, “Kat, do you want to come with me or stay here?”

“I think I’ll stay here with Father Raphael and the girls,” she said.

“I’ll be back with reinforcements,” I stated as I mounted my bike and took off on the main road.

I knew exactly who could help me in Sulejów. When I’d gone undercover on my first mission at fifteen years old; it was right here in this little Polish village. Sabilia was just getting the ITSFC started, and we had some unusual members, including the local taxi driver and the local baker. Ten minutes later, I pulled up in front of Antoni’s, the taxi driver's house. His dog barked at the gate and within thirty seconds, he waddled toward the door.

He studied me for a few seconds.

“Adelina! You are back. You need a taxi?” he laughed as if he had told a funny joke.

The gate rattled as he opened it.

Antoni hoisted his trousers over his ample middle section and smiled. “Come in, come in, have some coffee. Your little friend is here, no.”

“Hello, it’s nice to see you, Antoni” I stopped mid sentence as he led me into the living area and sitting there sipping coffee out of Polish pottery was Kasia.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded.

“We have a reunion, no?” the taxi driver said.

“I brought some rolls,” a voice from the gate yelled as the dog yapped.

“Yes, the team is back together,” Antoni repeated.

Funny, the taxi driver and the baker looked no older to me after ten years. Probably because when I was fifteen, I thought they were ancient, and they were probably only thirty. They must be forty-ish but it didn’t register on their frames or faces. The only differences in them was a few lines time had etched around their eyes. What a ridiculous thought to have while teens were being forcibly removed from the orphanage lobby. I felt a quote coming on. Whether the recent attempted abduction or just being in the presence of friends who accepted me and all my idiosyncrasies triggered it.

Before I could stop it, a quote slipped…

“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”⁠1

Kasia jumped up. “What is going on? Something happened. You’re quoting Poe.”

CHAPTER 6

THE ONES LEFT BEHIND

“She still does the poetry, no?” the taxi driver said with a chuckle.

“Not all the time,” Kasia answered. “She quotes kids’ books mostly, but Poe means something is really wrong.”

“You have children?” Antoni asked.

“Yes, two. A boy and a girl,” I said.

“How wonderful,” the baker said while patting me on the back and shoving a sweet roll in my hand. “Eat. Yes.”

“Guys, focus,” Kasia said. “Obviously something sinister is going on.” She walked to the window and pulled back the curtain. “Did you ride a bike here?”

She is so much like her mom, I thought. Ordering us around. Asking questions without giving anyone an opportunity to answer.

“Yes, I did. From the orphanage. Antoni, can you ask Aginiezka to make us some more coffee and I’ll tell you the whole story. We have to be quick. Father Raphael, Kat, and the girls who were almost abducted are waiting at the orphanage.”

Aginiezka smiled and busied herself with making coffee. I really needed the coffee and the sweet roll before we headed back, so the suggestion was more for me than it was for everyone else.

I doubted the baker would close his shop for longer than half an hour, so I quickly started at the beginning. I told the whole story of the Ryszard doppelgänger, staying at Sabilia’s estate, and my trip here on the bike.

“So we need to rush to the orphanage and pick up the priest and this Kat woman,” said the taxi driver as he jingled his keys. He headed toward the door.

“I must get back to the bakery,” said the baker with a frown, “but I want to help.”

“Come to this address tonight after you close,” I said, handing him a piece of paper with Sabilia’s address.

“The estate,” he said with eyes as large as the Polish pottery saucers our coffee cups were sitting on.

I handed a second piece of paper to Antoni.

“Yes, I can drive us there. I will pick you up later.”

Five minutes later, we were whizzing down the road toward the orphanage.

“Kasia, you have some explaining to do,” I said.

“Relax, I didn’t drop out of college. I’m taking some online classes this semester. I can study here.”

“Good,” I said.

“Does your mother know you are here?”

“Are you kidding me? Why do you think I came to find you first? I’m going to let you break the news to her,” she laughed.

“I see you lost something again. Just like the old days,” I chuckled.

“No, I haven’t,” she punched me in the arm.

“Yes, you have. You’ve lost your mind.”

“Funny,” she said.

“Did you know the teens that were grabbed this afternoon?” she added.

“I think you would remember them. Ania and Julia.”

“Yes, I remember them. Are they okay?”

“Yes, Ania was grazed by a bullet but it was nothing life threatening.”

We pulled up to the entrance of the orphanage. Kasia hopped out and ran in. “I’m going to check on the girls,” she yelled as she opened the main door.

Once we were inside, Father Raphael was just as shocked at seeing his niece as I had been. She retold her reason for coming and begged Father Raphael to soften the blow for her when she talked to her mother.

“I would, but I don’t think I’m going back to the estate today,” he said.

“Chicken,” she said, while flapping her arms like a chicken.

He smiled and patted her on the head.“I think you’re the chicken. You can talk to your own mother.”

Kasia sobered and frowned. “No, I can’t. She has been out of sorts since you all started planning this trip.”

So Sabilia had kept Kasia in the dark about the miscarriage, the divorce, and all the memories that had triggered her. The triggers she was now taking out on me.

“I think I’ll stay here with you, Father,” Kasia said as she examined Ania’s wound.

Turns out, she hadn’t been shot. A piece of gravel must have ricocheted and hit her arm, causing it to bleed a lot. She’d always been super sensitive. Probably the fear combined with the adrenaline had made her think that she’d been mortally wounded.

“I thought that I’d been mortally wounded,” she announced.

Touche.

“I’m so glad you came back to save us, Adelina. How did you know we were in danger?” she added.

I wrapped her arm in some clean gauze and fastened it with a clip.“Sabilia received a tip that there was a new trafficking ring in the area. So we packed our bags and came.”

“Thank you,” she said. A tear slipped down her not-so-chubby-anymore-cheek.

It saddened me that the littles were still in the orphanage. I had been certain all of them would have been adopted when they were four and five, but here were two of them as teens.

“What about the other Littles?” I asked.

“We haven’t been called that since you and Daria left,” she said with a giggle. “Julia and I are the only two left.”

“Why are you still here?” Kat asked, finally joining the conversation.

We had relocated to the common room and Kat had taken up residence in the corner. Maybe this environment was similar to the group home she’d lived in and it was triggering her.

“Well, my parents right’s were never terminated, so I’m here for another three years,” she said with a sad sigh.

Kat looked to me to explain.

“If a parent or guardian contacts their child or ward every six months with a visit or phone call, they maintain their rights.” I said.

“Oh,” Kat replied, “that doesn’t seem right.”

“It’s not,” Ania said. “I could have been adopted when I was five, but nope, my parents kept calling every month. They didn’t want me back. They just didn’t want anyone else to adopt me.”

“Yeah, after you took down the trafficker and got adopted, I had some prospective parents too,” said Julia, who had joined us while Ania was telling her story. “But just like Ania, my aunt, who has guardianship kept coming for short visits every few months.”

My heart broke for these girls.

“You said prospective,” Kat said. “Does that mean you met them?”

“Yes, Antoni, the taxi driver and his wife, Aginiezka. I could have lived in a beautiful home and had a family.”

Just then, Antoni entered the common room and Ania rose and ran to him. She embraced him.

As if my heart couldn’t break anymore.

“My little, Ania,” he said.

“He comes to visit a few times a week,” she said with a weak smile.

“And what about you, Julia?” I asked.

“The baker. He brings me rolls a few times a week,” she said.

I was going to make sure these adoptions happened after I took down the trafficking ring.

“I never got adopted,” Kat announced quietly.

“You?” the teens responded.

“Yeah, I lived in a group home when I was a teen.”

“Like an orphanage?” Ania asked.

“Kind of, but grayer and with fluorescent lights everywhere,” she laughed. “I love all the color you have here. The Polish pottery. The red in the rugs and curtains.”

“I never thought about that,” I said.

Antoni was wagging his head in proud agreement, as if he had decorated the orphanage himself.

“Yes, plus you teens have access to a small kitchen. In the group home, they were so afraid we were going to harm ourselves, we didn’t have forks, butter knives, or hot surfaces like a stove,” she said with a sad smile.

“Sounds like a prison,” Kasia said.

“It was.”

“I hate to break this dark trip down memory lane but we need to get back to the estate,” I suggested. “We can’t stay here all day. Kasia, you coming?”

“Nope, I’m going to hang here.”

I wasn’t about to be the one to tell Sabilia the news that her daughter had left college, flown here solo, and wanted to join the ITSFC. Since Father Raphael was also camping out at the orphanage, I decided staying silent is the best way to go.

I filled Kat in on the taxi drive ride home. We agreed Kasia should be the one to let her mom know she was here.

Back at the estate, we discovered they’d not gained any new information or been successful in tracking the van. We had nothing.

Sabilia thought it a good idea to place some security at the orphanage.

I spent some time with Payton and Sawyer before a late dinner, followed by a task force meeting with our old buddies, the taxi driver and the baker.

When Derek strode in, late to the meeting, the baker blanched white like the flour he used and said, “The bad man is back.” He leaned back in his chair, which fell over and he passed out. It took fifteen minutes and a glass of iced water that he mostly just dipped his handkerchief in and rubbed his forehead, to convince him Derek was part of the team.

“Just because he can talk in a fancy British accent doesn’t mean he is good,” the baker said while patting his forehead with the now dripping handkerchief.

Sabilia hadn’t thought through her little plan. She hadn’t realized how far-reaching the reaction seeing Ryszard again created. I’m sure the whole village of Sulejów would also have a negative reaction. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be fainting left and right, but who knew?

The Littles, by that I mean Ania and Julia, hadn’t been filled in. Neither had Kasia. On the other hand, I don’t know if the Littles had actually seen Ryszard, but Kasia had. So far, this mission wasn’t off to a great start.

I felt as if Sabilia had spent too much time reveling because we had somehow abandoned her. She thought getting back at us by hiring this Ryszard doppelgänger was our just desserts. Derek, who was currently in the corner in a wing chair with his legs crossed, sipping daintily from a floral tea cup, had no clue he wasn’t hired for his skill as an agent.

Not only did I have a ton of work ahead of me, but Sabilia seemed to have no plan. She had done zero research to find out what was actually going on with the area teens and how they were being trafficked. Not only were they being ripped from the foyer of the Children’s Home, the local law must be in cahoots if nobody was doing anything to stop the trafficking. The brazenness of the kidnappers was proof. They shot at a priest, for goodness’ sake. You didn't do things like that, especially in Poland, which is over ninety percent Catholic.

I wondered how many months it was going to take to turn this feminine version of Ryszard into a hard-nosed criminal. What was the point, anyway? How about we just plant a couple of teens in the orphanage and follow the breadcrumbs back to the traffickers? I no longer fit the bill, but Kasia could pass as a sixteen-year-old with her shoulder length gold hair and bright blue eyes. She was a beautiful target.

I opened my mouth to make a suggestion and then remembered Sabilia didn’t know her daughter was here. So I shut my mouth and excused myself as the meeting wound down and we were yet to come up with a strategy.

My assignment was to begin Derek’s training bright and early the next morning. This was not going to be fun. I had already decided my kids were not going to get lost in the shuffle while I did what Sabilia wanted me to do. Part of my reluctance to participate was because I didn’t think her plan was viable and we were wasting precious hours on training when we could be tracking the traffickers.

The next morning, after breakfast, I met with Derek and informed him we could train for an hour. Then he’d have to wait until nap time for another session.

When Sabilia found out what my plan was, she was furious. I could only hope that Father Raphael and Kasia would come home and take the focus off me.

“I want you to train for eight to twelve hours a day!” she screamed.

“Not happening,” Nathaniel said as he stepped between us. “Adelina is a homeschooling mom, she has other responsibilities.”

“Way to rub it in, Nathaniel,” she said, spit running down her chin. “I want you two off the team,” she said and stomped off.

Sabilia had turned into a rabid dog. Foaming at the mouth and severe mood swings. Was she on drugs? Maybe she should be off the team.

CHAPTER 7

FRACTURED TEAM

Nathaniel and I packed our bags, gathered the kids, and called for a taxi. As we carried everything to the main foyer, Kat, Jim, and their kiddos returned from a walk.

“What’s going on?” Jim asked.

“Sabilia kicked us off of the team. We’re out of here,” Nathaniel said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so harsh. Adelina thinks we should wait until Sabilia calms down and apologizes. I don’t. I’m done.” He slammed the handle down on his suitcase.

“I get it,” Jim said. “Kat does the same thing.”

“What same thing?” I asked.

“Let people walk all over you,” Jim said while patting Kat clumsily on the shoulder.

“It drives me crazy,” Nathaniel said as he knocked my shoulder with his.

“We’re standing right here,” Kat said.

“Mom, you said we were going somewhere fun,” Payton whined.

“We are,” I said.

“We’ll join you,” Kat said. “Where are we going?”

“There’s a play place for kids about ten minutes from here,” Nathaniel said. “We plan on camping out there until we can check into our Airbnb at 4 pm.”

Half an hour later, Kat, Jim, Nathaniel and I, plus our four kiddos, were sipping carrot juices and coffees at the play place. The carrot juices were an attempt to get some nutrition in the kiddos’ bellies before they played. After the kids finished, Nathaniel and Jim took the kids to climb through tunnels, play in the ball pits, and go down the windy slides to their hearts’ content.

Kat and I sipped our drinks and discussed our next steps.

“Are you going back home?” Kat asked.

“No. Not yet. For two reasons. Number one.Kasia and the other teens. I don’t think Sabilia’s game plan is going to to be successful, but that doesn’t mean I want to abandon the mission. Plus, number two. I want my kiddos to enjoy more of the beautiful country of Poland.”

“I want to stay here just for the coffee,” Kat said with a giggle.

“Why don’t you and Jim come and stay with us in our Airbnb?”

“I’d love to. I’m sure Jim will be willing. If Sabilia has treated you poorly, he won’t be able to forgive her. He’s like Mr. Darcy,

‘I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself.’ ⁠1

If you offend Jim, he doesn’t forgive easily, especially if you hurt someone he cares about.”

“I see you are quoting other books now. Not just mysteries.”

“Because of Maryanne. She’s given me a recommended reading list.”

“I’ve branched out too into kids' books.” We both laughed.

I needed this time to laugh with someone and forget how one of the people I loved so much had turned on me so suddenly. Again. I should say this wasn’t new. It had never been this fierce, which concerned me. I wondered how Rob and Cecylia were faring. Cecylia was so sick she could barely function and yet Sabilia was expecting her to work tirelessly on the dark net.

“Here you are,” a familiar voice said. Cecylia appeared out of nowhere as per usual. Rob followed behind her, carrying a large pink satchel full of her supplies and, I guessed, her computer.

“What’s going on?” I asked Rob.

“Sabilia has gone postal.”

“What does that mean?” I still didn’t get some of the American idioms.

“Crazy,” Cecylia said.

“She yelled at Cecylia for taking a nap,” Rob explained. “So I said, we are out of here and I packed our bags.”

“How did you find us?”

“You have to ask?” Cecylia said with a laugh.

An hour later, we loaded the kids into a rental van and all of us, including Rob and Cecylia, headed to the Airbnb. The only person missing was Jim, who went back to the estate to pack up all their belongings. He didn’t want Kat and the kids to go back there.

Our Airbnb was a smaller estate, but still much larger than any of our homes in the states. It was going to suit us just fine.

Nathaniel and I were settling our kids in their room when his phone rang.

“What’s up, Jim?”

“Sabilia is gone. The place is deserted.” Nathaniel relayed to me before putting the phone on speaker.

Nathaniel asked,“Did she leave?”

“No, I think she was taken. There’s a note.” Jim replied.

Nathaniel set the phone down on one of the kids’ beds.“What does the note say? You’re on speaker phone. Adelina needs to hear this.”

“Leave the country or she dies.”

“What?” I replied.

“Who is going to die, mama? The red queen? The one who says ‘off with their head?’” Payton asked.

How could I explain this wasn’t a story without triggering her?

Nathaniel took the call off speaker and left the room.

“No one is going to die,” I said. “The red queen is going to live.”

After I had the kids situated, I called Father Raphael and then Antoni, the taxi driver, to inform them and ask if they had any new intel on the trafficking ring that could help us find Sabilia.

“I think it is a British Chap,” Antoni told me. “I will keep my ears open while driving people around, no?”

I was angry at Sabilia, but I didn’t want her to die. If she did, Kasia would be orphaned again. No matter what my feelings were in the present moment, it was time to assemble the team and get to work. Training Derek moved to the back burner.

I slipped into the massive kitchen and dug into the cupboards for coffee supplies. In the butler’s pantry, I found a modern-looking espresso machine and popped a pod in and grabbed a mug before hitting the green button.

Seconds later, the machine chugged, hissed, and steamed out a frothy perfect brew.

“Here, you are,” Kat said. “Jim called me. What are our next steps?”

“I think we need to assemble the ITSFC we have and save her and take down this trafficking ring for good.”

She brushed her dark hair from her cheek and said, “I agree. But what about the kids? We can’t leave them here while we work.”

“It’s time to call for reinforcements.” I said, while setting up the machine to brew another cup.

She sipped the coffee I had handed her. “More team members?”

“I was thinking- my mom and dad. They could come and take care of the kids.”

I made the call and without hesitation, mom booked the flights. Mom and dad would be here within twenty-four hours. For now, I needed to stay at the Airbnb and keep life as normal as possible for the kids.

Kat and I decided to take our coffees out to the stone patio that overlooked a lap pool.

Cecylia joined us with sparkling water in hand.

“This has been crazy, right?” she said.

“Yep, it is crazy.” As we were discussing what we knew about the case, Jim pulled up and joined us, hauling with him a whiteboard and pack of markers.

“This is how Kat works,” he said, explaining to us as if we didn’t already know.

“Perfect timing,” she responded, jumping up to give him a hug and grab the whiteboard while he grabbed a chair to prop it up on.

“So we get kidnapped right off the bat at the airport.” Kat wrote the fact down and erased it and wrote it neater. “Oh, I don’t have to do that. Bennie is not here.” Bennie is her friend, who is OCD about neat handwriting (among other things) and has a high IQ

“Do you think you could get Bennie to come here?” I asked.

“No. I think being away from home would cause too many meltdowns and he wouldn’t be of any use to anyone.”

“There’s another way to ‘get him here’ without him actually getting on a plane.” Cecylia held up her iPad. “We could call him and use the information he gives us all while he is safe at home in his room.”

“Yes, that could work.” Kat said and wrote some more information on the board.

Someone knew we were coming.

Which flight we were on.

When the plane would land.

“Or some taxi drivers were promised a reward if they picked up people with our description,”“ I said while picking up a strand of my red hair. “Cecylia blends in well because she’s a blonde, like a lot of Poles, but my red hair makes me stick out and is easy to find.”

“Well, natural redheads. Plenty of purple-red dyed hair.” Cecylia added.

The Whiteboard said:

Someone knew we were coming

One or more taxi drivers were given our description and promised money if they picked us up.

The traffickers were taunting us by grabbing girls right out of the foyer of the orphanage.

We didn’t have much information. Nothing to sink our teeth into. The whiteboard didn’t perform a magic trick and tell us which action to take next. Kat set down the marker and said she was going to make a fresh cup of coffee.

While she was in the kitchen, Antoni pulled up in his taxi. He huffed around the corner of the house. “I have some news,” he puffed.

“What is it?” I asked.

Kat stuck her head out the window and said, “Wait, Antoni, I’ll make you a cup of coffee.”

Antoni sat down heavily in a chair to catch his breath.

With coffee in hand, he took a sip and said,” There was a man in my taxi. British. He took a call. He said ‘Of course I can get some girls. Give me one more day.”

Antoni chuckled. “He didn’t know I spoke the English.”

Although Antoni spoke the English, it wasn’t well. It was important to make sure he heard what he thought he did.

So we asked him a few more times, and he said the same thing. Apparently, the man had been sweating and appeared to be nervous. He seemed stressed.

Maybe Ania and Julia were supposed to be delivered to a buyer and the British guy didn’t deliver.

“He isn’t in charge then, your passenger, he is a cog in the human trafficking machine,” I said.

“What if he tries to kidnap some teens again?” Kat suggested.

“I see what you are saying. Maybe we pull the guards and insert someone in the orphanage who blends in so they will think the coast is clear. Someone like me.” I suggested.

“And me,” Kat added, “we could pose as some sort of staff. I can dress up like a cleaning lady. Cecylia can make us badges.”

“I want to dress up like a cleaning lady,” I said. “It’s a good plan.”

“Are you two making plans without us again?” Jim asked as he joined us on the patio.

Nathaniel announced as he pulled a chair out.“Yes, they have this whole plan. I overheard it all from the kitchen. They aren’t going to ask anyone’s opinion.”

“We will ask your opinion,” I answered.

“We just won’t listen to your answer,” Kat responded, giving me a high five.

“We go in as cleaning ladies and the guards disappear into the forest until we need them.” I said, wrapping our plan up into a nice red bow. It could work.

CHAPTER 8

DISGUISED IN PLAIN SIGHT

“Oh, I forgot. I brought a guest,” Antoni said while heaving his substantial form off the chair and waddling back to the taxi. “I thought he was the bad man you stabbed, Adelina, but he says he works for you. When I picked him up I thought I was going to have a heart attack it scared me so bad.”

The last few words were faint because he hadn’t stopped to finish but huffed his way around the corner of the house and back to his taxi. A few seconds later, Derek walked around the corner of the house and said, “I thought he’d forgotten me. I didn’t want to come unannounced. I know how that worked out the first time.”

I had a momentary shock flit through my arm and changed to goose bumps. I could ignore my body’s reactions for the moment. The real question was, could Cecylia? Rob was going to have a fit when he found us here.

“Good, you’re here,” Jim said as he stepped out the patio door carrying a tray of coffee and Sernik (Cheesecake): A Polish-style cheesecake often flavored with vanilla or citrus. Plus, Makowiec (Poppy Seed Roll): A sweet pastry filled with a poppy seed mixture.

I gave him a laser-eyed look that would have knocked the coffee out of his hands if I actually had lasers in my eye. How could he bring the Ryszard look-alike here?

“I called him,” he said in explanation. “Sabilia may have not had the best attitude toward all of us, but she did have a plan. I think the plan is even more empowering with traffickers not knowing about Derek, our secret weapon, so to speak.”

“So no cleaning women?” I asked. My plan was being sidestepped. Shelved. I didn’t want to follow through with Sabilia’s plan. I wanted my own plan my way. I could tell by Kat’s expression she was thinking similar thoughts.

“So can you train me?” Derek asked with a smile.

We were going to have to work on his polite demeanor. He had way too much of a preppy boarding school smile. Like I-didn’t-do-what-the-teacher-asked, but I can smile a super-sappy-smile and the schoolmaster will forgive me. Wait, why was I thinking about what he needed to work on? I didn’t want to follow through with this plan. Kat and I had a good plan.

“How about a compromise?” Jim asked, taking the reins of the conversation.

Kat folded her arms over her chest, a common defensive posture. I glanced down and realized I was doing the same. I guess Jim had practiced some trauma-informed tactics with Kat in the past. Nathaniel was still fairly new to the trauma-informed game, even though he’d taken classes with me and listened to the Trauma-Informed Parenting Podcast. I had to admit. I’m a lot to handle, especially when I get stuck in my-way-or-the-high-way thinking and I expected him to bend. All the while, I stood my ground, frowned and crossed my arms like Sawyer did when he was stuck in his downstairs brain.

“What sort of compromise?” Kat spit out.

“You two go in as cleaning ladies in the mornings and find out all you can from the teens. In the afternoons, you can work with Derek.”

“Maybe that could work. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Should I be offended?” Derek said with a sheepish grin.

How did I explain to this innocent, proper British man that his very face was offensive to us, at least Cecylia and I, probably Father Raphael too, who had conveniently avoided the situation by holing up in the orphanage? He most likely wanted Kasia there to protect her from the constant shock of seeing Ryszard’s face every day.

Kat and I finally consented because there was nothing else we could do to convince them that two cleaning ladies were enough to take down an entire trafficking ring and rescue Sabilia at the same time.

The following morning found Kat and I in the orphanage opening windows before we started our cleaning routine. We had added some extra padding under our clothes. Cecylia had worked her magic on our makeup causing us to look old and haggard, all the while telling us we should not get in front of any cameras because we looked horrible.

“I think that’s the point,” I said. “We don’t want to look like supermodels.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. You never could,” she turned to Kat, “She could.”

“Thanks, Cecylia,” I said as I fixed my wig.

Father Raphael had made the arrangement for some of the regular cleaning staff to take a few days off with full pay and a bonus for a reward.

The only problem with this gig is we actually had to clean, which I didn’t mind, but it really cut down on the time we could talk to the teens. It turned out that it didn’t matter. To most of the teens, we were invisible. They had conversations in the hallways and in the common room as if we weren’t right next to them, scrubbing windows. In order to gather more information in our new cleaning woman's invisibility cloak, Kat and I decided to divide and conquer. She took one section of the orphanage while I took another, cleaning and listening the entire morning. Of course, all Kat could do is record conversations for me to interpret later. It would have to work.

“Can you believe what happened to Ania and Julia?” one teen said. “I’m afraid to go to school!”

“I don’t feel safe,” another said.

The staff had brought in one counselor who set up in the common room at the front of the orphanage to talk to the teens. He held a group session for the teens before they left for school. I guess the assumption was the extra counseling would help them conquer the school day. Made sense. The common room begged for a thorough cleaning during this early morning counseling session. I was going to take my chances and if I got kicked out, no harm done.

“So the best practice is to stay in pairs,” the counselor advised. “I know this is really scary, but we can keep each other safe.”

“No, we can’t,” a girl with waist blonde hair said. She stood with her hand on her hip, jutting out to one side. “Ania and Julia were together right here in the orphanage. Two guys with guns stormed the foyer and took them.”

That was true. She had a valid point. Partnering with a friend like we did in elementary school wasn’t going to cut it. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t blow my cover, so I continued scrubbing the wall of windows on the front of the orphanage.

Where was Father Raphael? He could/should be here shepherding as well.

As if I had cued him with a thought, Father Raphael strode in the room and pulled a chair up to the circle.

“I have a question,” said another teen. “How is spiritual advisement going to help us not get taken? Are we supposed to just pray our way out of it?”

“That’s a great question,” said a familiar voice. I turned quickly to see Kasia leaning against the door frame.

Why was she so dressed up at 7 am? What was with all the makeup? It was if Cecylia had helped her. Her hair glowed with a glossy sheen. It was if she had spent the better part of the morning straightening and oiling it. Her lips pinked by the particular shade Cecylia wore. Yep, this had Cecylia written all over it.

I turned to rebuke her for flirting with the teens, or at best ask her what was going on with all of this. Without thinking, I waved my arm up and down as if I were pointing out her wardrobe. But why would a cleaning woman be talking to her about her wardrobe and makeup?

She caught my eye, and I turned away quickly. She hadn’t been filled in on the cleaning woman undercover mission, so I didn’t dare speak and blow my cover.

After a good minute, I turned to study her again. She moved toward the teen, who had asked the question.

She asked him to stand and then said, “Try to grab me. Go ahead. I dare you.” As she dared him, her eyes flitted to the counselor instead of the boy.

So that’s what this is all about. I mean, that’s who this is all about. Kasia has a crush on the counselor.

“I don't think you need to harm anyone to make your point,” Father Raphael said, rising to his feet and pointing to a chair. Instead of waiting for her to take action, he pulled it over to the group circle and motioned for Kasia to take a seat.

“She’s right. I am not just a priest. I’m part of an international task force, ITSFC, and we take down human trafficking rings across the globe.” He moved his jacket slightly, so everyone got a glimpse of his gun.

“Can we have one of those,” the male teen asked.

“We,” the counselor said, “are not here to learn how to respond to violence with violence. We are here to talk about how you are all coping with this and to give you strategies on how to move forward.”

“One strategy I’d like to employ is the priest walk us to school,” Ania said, finally adding her voice to the discussion.

I had to move to another room in a minute. There was only so long I could spend on this bank of windows. As I gathered my supplies, I took one last look around the circle of teens. They were gazing at Father Raphael as if he were some sort of God.

“Done,” he said. “I will walk you to school.”

Kasia only had eyes for the counselor until I dropped a bucket. She jerked her head up at the sound and stared at me for a full five seconds.

“M’am,” she said. “You missed a spot,” as the teens grabbed their stuff and exited the room, and followed Father Raphael. She walked toward me. She followed me out of the room. Everyone had left the counselor sitting there alone with his non-violent speech. He didn’t follow the teens or Kasia.

Maybe he wasn’t keen on her. Or maybe she was using the wrong approach. Come to think of it, she’d probably not gotten much relationship advice from her mom. Sabilia is prickly like a porcupine. Her idea of getting a guy’s attention is getting the upper hand. That’s what she’d done with officer Craig and somehow it worked. But I think she viewed relationships through the lens of her trauma, which made her feel as if she were in control.

I wanted to make sure Kasia didn’t follow Sabilia’s relationship advice. It wasn’t based on relational intelligence, but on trauma. Kasia had experienced her own trauma, so she was in danger of following the same bitter path.

Kasia grabbed my elbow. “I said you missed a spot,” she said loudly enough for anyone to hear. She hissed in my ear, “Adelina, I know it’s you.”

“Don’t blow my cover,” I said, jerking my elbow away. “I’ll go back and clean the missed spot if you show me where it is,” I replied in my best old cleaning woman’s voice.

She led me back to the common room where the counselor was gathering his papers.

“I have a bone to pick with you,” he said, pointing a paper at Kasia.

“Oh,” she said with a smile.

“I have a job to do and you aren’t helping,” he said as he stuffed papers into a leather sleeve. “I’d appreciate it if you save your instruction on how to wrestle a teen to the ground for your own time. Do you honestly think a teen girl could wrestle a large male trafficker to the ground?”

I opened my mouth to say something and quickly closed it. Remember Adelina, you’re the cleaning lady, not a member of ITSFC who, as a teen, had taken a rather muscular man to the ground and stabbed him. I really wanted to say it. Instead, I went to the window and scrubbed a spot with force.

“Lady, no offense, but you have cleaned those windows enough. We need some privacy here.”

I bowed, gathered my cleaning supplies again, and shuffled to the door in my slowest, most old lady fashion. I didn’t want to miss what was going to happen next. If he expected Kasia to be sweet and apologize, he had another thing coming. I was afraid she would yell, stomp her foot, or worse, use some of her very violent, self-defense moves on him.

She picked worse. My back was turned but the noise of the scuffle and his oomph as he hit the ground followed by, “What the hell?” coming from the counselor.

“Yes, we can defend ourselves. We can take a grown man down.”

I turned to see the counselor scanning the room in a panic. “Who is we?”

Before I could calculate her next move, I sped my pace, abandoning my old woman's gait. Not fast enough. She grabbed my sleeve, pulled me back into the room, and slammed the door behind me.

“This woman at fifteen years old took down a trafficker and stabbed him with his knife.” In one swift moment, she ripped my gray wig and handkerchief covering off my head.

The counselor rose to his feet slowly, leaning on a folding chair for balance while he stared at me with a dumbfounded expression.

“I asked you not to blow my cover,” I said.

“No offense lady, I almost wrote you off as a nosy cleaning woman until I saw how intently you were studying Kasia and Father Raphael. As if you anticipated what they were going to say and do next. So you kind of blew your own cover.”

“With you,” I said. “But not with a trafficker rushing in here to grab a teen. So I would appreciate it if you let me shuffle on out of here to the foyer so I can do my job as the students leave for school.”

“Yeah, me too,” Kasia added. “I need to walk to school with them and Father Raphael.”

“This conversation isn’t over,” he said, as he stuck the leather sleeve under his arm and stomped out of the common room.

“You like him,” I said as we both watched him exit.

“What? No. I’m not into all that ‘What do you feel about this crap?’”

Yep, she likes him. She has touchy feely crap written all over her beautiful face.

CHAPTER 9

THE FOREST MEETING

After the teens had left for school, there was nothing more we cleaning ladies could do except clean. I met Kat in the supply closet and we divided the jobs even though I felt as if I should do more since I had spent thirty minutes on a few windows that didn’t really need cleaning. If everything worked out, we should be out of her by eight-thirty and have the rest of the morning to school our kids before training Derek.

As I swept the edges of the hallway near the director’s office, I overheard a conversation that sent chills up my spine. Director Josef had long since retired and a younger director, not much older than me, was in charge now.

He wore over-smart suits and ties and walked around as if he were a bank manager instead of what I believed a director should be - interested in the kids and providing “counselor sessions,” as well as managing the day to day.

The new young and spiffy director seemed to regard the kids as currency in a vault. He breezed down hallways patting the littles on the head as if he were counting them. There were no peppered conversations and encouraging words. He didn’t invite the kids into his office like Director Josef had. He rarely interacted with any of the staff, but instead, sat in his office sipping espressos from his expensive machine.

I had gathered all this info this morning, of course. Father Raphael and Kasia had filled me in. In fact, it was Father Raphael who had suggested the counselor be brought in for the teens. Only when Father Raphael explained the church would pay for a counselor to come in and meet with the kids, plus it wouldn’t look good for the director’s reputation if he didn’t.

“I see what you are saying,” the director had said. “It would harm my standing and status in the community if I didn’t hire a counselor.”

Father Raphael had relayed the rest of the conversation to me, his face taut with anger. The long scare that Ryszard that had long ago inflicted on him, grew translucent.

As I corralled dust bunnies in a corner near his door, I wondered what in the world this man was doing in this small village, directing a Children’s Home and exactly which reputation he was worried about. If he got a promotion, it would be to a larger orphanage in the city which he was ill-equipped for.

“We have a situation here,” he said into the phone. “I know what I promised and I can deliver.” Followed by a minute of silence, which could only mean the caller was berating him for not keeping a promise. I moved closer to the door, pretending to look for cobwebs.

“It’s just a priest and a young girl. The rest of their team seems to have abandoned them. I think we can move all of them out at once, you have the team leader, right? I think they’d do anything to get her back… yes, including let fifty-two orphans disappear.”

I was so shocked, I tripped over my broom, accidentally banging into the door. He stood and opened the door to check what was going on.

I smiled and shuffled down the hallway toward the cafeteria, but not before I heard him say, “It was just some old hag of a cleaning lady. Why can’t they hire some pretty woman, like some of the teens…”

I had gathered all the intel I could without blowing my cover by punching him in the nose. It was time to set my anger aside and somehow find a way to go back and listen in on the rest of the conversation, but it was too late. He left the office and marched to the cafeteria. Kat was in the cafeteria. Maybe she could gather some intel or hit him with her mop by accident.

Wait, terrible idea. We have to find Sabilia, not kill the man who knows where she is. We need to not only rescue the teens we came to Poland to protect but also protect the entire orphanage.

I finished cleaning and met Kat in front of the orphanage. I was in a hurry to get back to our house and fill in the rest of the team, but I also wanted to talk to Father Raphael before I left. Kat and I had planned to walk the two kilometers to Sulejów and then take a taxi with Antoni. We couldn’t be seen visiting his house, so this was going to be tricky. Cleaning women couldn’t afford to take taxis. Once in the forest, Kat and I were able to pick up our pace and miracle of miracles, we ran into Father Raphael and Kasia trekking back to the orphanage with pastries in hand.

“I forgot how much I love these,” Kasia called out, holding up a half-eaten pastry.

“Don’t blow my cover again,” I hissed.

“Who is going to hear you?” she laughed. As if in response to her question, a squirrel barked beside her and scurried up a tree. She jumped, the sweet pastry flew out of her hand and bounced off the ground.

This time Kat and I laughed so hard, I thought I was going to pee my pants which I guess is perfectly acceptable at my age. The thought made me laugh harder.

After I’d caught my breath, Father Raphael suggested we move off the trail for our little conference. As we moved deeper into the forest, he motioned back to the tree the squirrel had scurried up. I followed his arm to see a camera pointed at the trail.

“Oh,” I mouthed.

“They can’t hear us, just see us,” Father Raphael guided me by the elbow to a fallen log and joined me as I sat down.

“Orphanages are super high tech,” Kat replied, as she joined us on the log.

“I don’t think those belong to the orphanage,” Father Raphael answered.

“Maybe the director?” I said.

“What?” Kasia added, while scanning the woods. “I’m creeped out enough already. Can we get out of these woods?”

Not so tough now, I thought. Now that we are in the woods instead of wrestling a counselor you have a crush on, all while hoping he likes you back. I get it. Kasia was seven years old when we’d had a run in with Ryszard on this very trail.

“Well, we can’t talk anywhere else right now,” Kat pointed out.

I readjusted myself on the log, trying to find a comfortable position.“Yes, and you two will be expected back at the orphanage. If what I overheard is happening any time soon, we need to put a rush on our plan.”

I filled them on the part of the conversation I’d overheard and then headed back to the trail.

Kat and my cover could be blown, and I didn’t know how to fix that. What I did know is I needed to turn Derek into Ryszard. Today.

He didn’t have weeks or months to prepare. He had to go in undercover tomorrow before they cleaned out the orphanage, killed Sabilia, and then moved to another small village to do the same.

Antoni was happy to see us. Once again, the baker mysteriously appeared at Antoni’s door shortly after we arrived. Kat and I had entered through the back so no one would see us poor cleaning ladies forking over hard earned money for a taxi.

The baker shoved a crinkly white bag into my hand. “For the children,” he explained.

“Hey, my dad is arriving later today. Can I get some rolls for him?”

“The rich American?” the baker beamed. “I will be right back.” He rushed out the door to fill the order.

While the baker filled the order, Kat and I had time to fill in Antoni, who could fill the baker in later.

“Do you ever give the director a ride?” I asked, hoping he’d heard some conversations to help us.

“No, he has a fancy car. It’s beside the orphanage, covered with a tarp.”

“What if he got a flat tire when he needed to go to a meeting?” Kat suggested.

“I like how this girl thinks,” he said with a chuckle. “I think I could arrange for his tires to go flat.”

After I’d shared everything I’d overheard the director say, it was time to get going. The baker rushed in breathless. “I have some news,” he said as he shoved a white bag of rolls in my hands.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I had some customers. That is why it took me so long to return. They are not from around here and they have guns.”

This new intel was horrifying.

“Do you know where they were headed?” Kat asked while hiking up her woolen tights.

“No but I had a boy follow them. They were on foot.”

“Good job,” Antoni said, patting him on the back. “The team is back together, no?”

The ever present guard dog barked, interrupting our conversation.

“You have some customers,” Agnieszka yelled.

“You stay here,” Antoni commanded. “Stay away from the windows,” he added as if I were the fifteen-year-old girl he’d helped all those years ago, instead of a grown woman, married with children, looking like a seventy-five-year-old.

He was right. Kat and I relocated to the kitchen where Antoni’s wife was. It was good we were still in costume. If the customers entered the back of the house, they would probably think we were local village women stopping for a coffee and a chat. So we did exactly that. We sipped coffee and chatted about the weather, including the upcoming snow promised as early as next week.

Five minutes later, the baker joined us. “It was the men who visited the bakery. Antoni took them somewhere.”

“I guess we should wait here until he gets back and find out if he learns anything.”

The baker wiped non existent flour on his apron, “No, he says you must go alert the rest of the team. Tell them everything you found out. He will come to your house later.”

“How are we supposed to get home?” Kat asked.

“Antoni said the bikes you rode the other day are still here. Take those,” he said with a grin.

That’s just great. We will stick out like sore thumbs. Two old ladies riding e-bikes.

There was nothing else to do except walk the five kilometers. The bad news is, we would have to shuffle along like our characters. Shuffling that far would easily take a huge portion of the day. It was already nine am. Bikes it is.

Kat pulled at her wool skirt. “I’ve got to get out of this stuff.”

“I agree. My head is itching.”

“Why don’t you change here?” Antoni’s wife offered. “I can lend you some clothes. Take the wigs off and wash your faces.”

Kat and I gave each other a sideways glance. Not only was Agnieszka at least five inches shorter than me, eight for Kat, how do I say this kindly? She loved the baker’s treats, and it showed.

“Not my clothes,” she said with a chuckle. She patted her ample hips. “We live close to the baker, no?”

What are we going to wear? We couldn’t wear the skirts and sweaters. Without the fillers, the clothes would fall off.

“My sister, she lives in Warsaw. She married a wealthy man. When she comes to visit, she sometimes forgets some clothes because she has so many. When she is here, she walks a lot to ‘get her steps in.’”

She led us to the bedroom her sister stayed in and pulled some workout wear out of the closet. Kat and I slipped into the latest fashion in workout wear, high-waisted yoga pants, cropped tops, sweatshirts, and baseball caps.

Thankfully, she’d left a pair of tennis shoes that fit me. Kat had to borrow some from Agnieszka that she only used when her sister visited and dragged her on walks. The rest of the year, she confessed, she hid them in the back of the closet, because she preferred her sensible shoes.

“Now even if you blew your cover in the forest, no one will suspect young, fit tourists zipping around on e-bikes who are staying in an Airbnb.”

“You were listening?” I asked.

“Of course, I hear everything,” she said with a wry smile.

“Welcome to the ITSFC,” I said, smoothing my hair and tucking it into the baseball cap.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Now we knew who the real brains were in the household. I shouldn’t think that. Antoni was a lot smarter than he let on. He’d perfected the dumb taxi driver act, which made him the perfect spy.

We zipped down the road, the air warming and the sun rising higher. At this rate, we’d be home by nine-thirty and I needed to make a choice. Did I spend the whole day creating Ryszard or did I school the kids first? I didn’t want to abandon or neglect my children. I guess I was making a mountain out of a molehill. One morning would not ruin them forever.

We’d spent the last year at Spruce Lake working hard on attachment. In simple terms, that meant I was with the kids ninety percent of the time, reading to them, taking them swimming, to the library or playing games. Whatever I did, they did, and it helped them feel safe. I didn’t want to risk a huge regression. The truth is the schedule with the kids regulated me as well. I’d quit the ITSFC completely because I was having trauma blackouts before and during the last mission I’d worked on. I’d also stepped back from my responsibilities at the Trauma Recovery Center.

Kat and I rode the last ten minutes in silence. We were most likely both trying to figure out what was next. Focus on the kids or the task force. As we pulled in the driveway at the estate, the kids ran out to greet us. We parked the bikes and hugged them. All six of us walked around the back of the house. Cecylia, Rob, Nathaniel, Jim and Derek, sat on the outdoor patio furniture.

Instead of a tactical mission plan, the whiteboard had neatly written spelling words and sentences.

“We did a little school work,” Nathaniel said. “You say keeping a schedule is the key to felt-safety.”

“Kat says the same,” Jim said.

Maybe Nathaniel and Jim were listening to the training we attended or listening to us.

“I’ve been doing some schooling as well,” Cecylia added. “I’ve been educating Derek on how to act like Ryszard. I found his key — acting. He did some Shakespeare in college. Wait until you see him.”

CHAPTER 10

FROM SCHOOLBOY TO OVERLORD

It was only after a few minutes that I noticed the spelling words weren’t from Payton’s spelling book. Nor were there any actual school books on the table.

“Old,” I read.

“Mommy is an old woman,” Sawyer recited.

“Mission,” I read next.

“Mommy can’t help right now. She’s on a mission,” Sawyer recited.

I read the next word on the list. “Traffickers? Really guys?”

“T. R.A.C.K. no T.R.A.F.F.I.C.K.E.R.S.” Payton spelled, correcting herself in the process. “Mommy is looking for traffickers.”

Louisa repeated the word and spelling as Edmund and Sawyer played with yellow dump trucks in the dirt.

“Where are the school books and where did you get those words?”

“We didn’t know where the school books were,” Jim explained, so we improvised.

“You got the spelling words off the mission whiteboard,” Kat pointed out.

“Yes,” Nathaniel said,“and for art class, the kids drew pictures of what you two would look like old. I think they were pretty spot on.”

Jim and Nathaniel simultaneously produced crayon drawings of Kat and I with circles for hand and lots of lines around our eyes and round mouths.

These guys were creative. I would give them that, but not great at looking for school books, since the bag mom had packed the books in had “school” stitched on it.

Kat and I couldn’t help but laugh as we sped inside the kitchen to grab a snack. We agreed we would count this morning’s schooling as language arts and art.

Kat made fresh coffee, and I grabbed some muffins as we waited for Cecylia and Derek, who minutes earlier had promised to show us what he had learned so far.

We were not disappointed. Minutes later, Derek aka Ryszard strode in wearing a black leather jacket and more of a grimace than a scowl. But we could work on that.

He rushed over to me, grabbed both my arms and said, “I’m going to kill you.”

I laughed.

“Derek, that’s good,” Cecylia encouraged. “Lose the stiff Shakespearean presence.”

I couldn’t help laughing because he had drawn out the words. Even though he recited in Polish, it was too proper, like Elizabethan stage English.

“We are working on it,” Cecylia replied. “Give us a few more hours. What do you think of his outfit?”

It was always about the clothes for her.

“The clothes are perfect,” I answered. “Did you give him the scar from where I stabbed him?”

“Be patient,” she said. “We’re not going in the field today.”

I was glad Derek hadn’t nailed Ryszard yet. Even though I knew time was of the essence now that we knew the orphanage director was in on it, whatever it was. I don’t think I could have taken Ryszard swaggering in and threatening to kill me after the morning I’d had and it was only ten fifteen.

Kat and I gathered our coffee and muffins and went back to the kitchen. Cecylia and Derek went back to work.

We spent the next two hours reading books, reciting a few phonics lessons, playing outside in the yard, and enjoying the time with our kids before we broke for lunch. After lunch, the kids normally napped or rested, depending on their age. While they did one of those two things, we got out the white board and plan what to do next.

Kat and I had taken a few minutes earlier to fill Jim, Nathaniel, Rob, and Cecylia in on what we’d learned earlier. We had no leads on where Sabilia was, so we decided to put Ryszard into play.

Kat outlined everything on the board. She called her friend Bennie on FaceTime so he could look over the plan and see if he remembered anything specific we’d neglected to catch from the information we’d passed on to him.

Bennie had joined us on FaceTime when Derek entered as Ryszard.

“That’s not Ryszard,” Bennie yelled! He reported three things Derek was missing.

“First,” Bennie said, “He needs to look mad.”

Bennie had never met Ryszard, but we’d sent him some article with pictures and the few videos Cecylia had found. Derek made the few corrections and was instantly transformed into evil-Ryszard shedding his boarding school charm and enveloped his countenance into a black shroud of evil. I knew he’d hit the mark when he threatened me again and I’d backed away.

What I thought would take him days, or even months, he’d accomplished in one day. Just in time too, because if he didn’t act quickly, the teens would be taken. There was nothing we could do to stop it except maybe shoot a few traffickers.

I didn’t want a bloodbath. Too many teens could get hurt or killed.

When Derek finished his demonstration, Antoni pulled up in the taxi. He huffed into the back patio doors. “That man had me take him everywhere, but I learned a lot.” He plopped down into a chair. “I don’t know how he runs an orphanage. He is never there.”

His wife, Agnieszka, followed him in with the explanation. “You said I am on the team, no?”

“Yes,” Kat and I said in unison.

Kat and I were both still wearing the yoga pants and hoodies.

Agnieszka took a seat while Antoni held his hat in his hands and gave us his full report.

“That man is not Polish,” he said as he finished.

“I’ll make some coffee,” Kat offered.

She rose and went to the kitchen. Agnieszka followed. “I left some rolls from the baker in there when I came in the back door.”

Turns out, the new orphanage director had Antoni drive him to surrounding villages and stop at every small orphanage.

“Looks as if he is moving soon and scoping out his next target,” Jim said with a hand on his chin.

“Then we don’t have much time,” Nathaniel added.

Cecylia yawned and Rob stood up. “That’ s my cue. She’d had enough for the day. Time for a long nap. You can fill me in later. I have to go pick up my parents.” He glanced at me. “Our parents at the airport.”

The meeting wound down. We had a plan in place. Cecylia had added photos of Ryszard on the dark-net. I had to hand it to her. Even though she was pregnant, emotional, exhausted, and sometimes irrational (plus always sick) she was on the ball. I don’t know how she was doing it all.

As soon as that thought swept through the cobwebs in my mind, I had another niggling one about Sabilia’s behavior lately, but I brushed it away.

I didn’t have time to think about why she was behaving the way she was. Once I got her home safely, I could yell at her. Or forgive her. Probably both.

As if I was exiting the library study to check on the kids, I overheard Rysard say, “He contacted me.”

I rushed back in. “Who?” all of us said in cadence.

“The orphanage director,” he said.

That was fast.

Cecylia had told us she’d scheduled some posts to go live on the dark net over a period of days, but I had no idea a fish would bite the hook so soon,”Jim said.

“What do I say?” Derek asked, leaving his tough persona behind and sinking back into his nervous schoolboy persona.

“Pull yourself together. You’re not going on a date with him,” Nathaniel said. “You’re an evil trafficking overlord back from the dead. Back to reclaim your territory. He’s a tiny little minion.”

“So don’t answer,” Derek said, confused.

“Yes, answer,” I said. “What he means is, you need to sound perturbed that a minor cog in the wheel who means nothing had dared to contact you directly.”

“So do answer.” Beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

How was this guy going to go in the field and last for longer than a minute? Make that twenty seconds.

Nathaniel grabbed Derek’s phone and typed in a response.

“What did you say?” I asked.

Who the hell are you and how did you get my number?

“Perfect,” Kat said, sitting on the edge of her seat.

“Should I have used stronger language?” Nathaniel asked, looking at Kat. We all knew she had group home skills that applied in situations like this.

“No, I think that said it all,” she smiled.

Derek’s phone buzzed.

“He says he’d be honored to meet me if I had the time.”

“I don’t like it,” I said. “Tell him you don’t meet with low men on the totem poll. You will only meet with his boss.”

Derek’s hands shook so badly he couldn’t type in a response. Nathaniel took over once again.

Instead of handing the phone back this time, he held on to it and waiting for a response. Kat, Jim, and I gathered around and waited for the next text response.

Antoni and his wife said their goodbyes and moved toward the door.

“Wait,” I said. “Let’s see what he says,” I begged.

Kat added, “Yes, maybe the two of you can be our spies again.”

We didn’t have to wait long for the incoming text. The director arranged a meeting to introduce Derek (Ryszard) to his boss.

The castle Jim and Marge had stayed in when they came to Poland to adopt me. It was just a few kilometers from the orphanage. Perfect. I knew that place like the back of my hand. Maybe Kat and I could take on another persona and listen in on the dinner conversation. I didn’t think Derek was ready for a mission. He couldn’t manage a simple text without freaking out.

Cecylia and I would have to work with him more later before the next day when the meeting was set. After the meeting was set, I went to our suite to check on the kids and take a break myself. I washed the rest of the makeup off and planned to soak in a hot bath.

Sawyer slept soundly. Payton played with paper dolls with the Nanny.

I slipped into the bathroom and turned on the bathwater and indulged in a nice, long soak. My parents would be here in a few hours and I couldn’t wait to see them and hug them.

Four hours later, I’d set the table for a late dinner. Rob pulled up in the rental car and my parents. Sawyer watched out the window and reported the play-by-play.

“It’s Grandpa and Grandma,” he said. “And the police guy.”

I ran to the window to see which police guy he was referring to.

Officer Craig. What was he doing here?

Mom and Dad bustled through the front door. The kids, Kat and I, had created a welcome banner which was strewn haphazardly across the dining room opening. Cecylia had ordered pink balloons and some more formal floral arrangements which made our attempts look elementary ish and homemade, which was okay with me. The two combined were perfect. Just like being at home.

I hugged mom and dad as Rob lugged the suitcases in.

“Where to, Adelina?” Rob asked. I pointed him to the last suite, which just happened to be on the third floor. I didn’t know where we were going to put officer Craig. Or detective or whatever he was now. I wondered what he has doing here. But I was going to find out.

Jim and Nathaniel pitched in to help Rob haul the baggage up three flights.

Mom and dad moved on to squeezing and talking to the grandkids. I saw my opportunity and made a beeline for Craig.

“What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too, Adelina,” he said.

“I’m sorry. It’s just been a stressful few days,” I answered.

“I know,” he straightened, flexed his arms, and let out a whoosh of breath before responding.“For me too. Turns out my pregnant wife was kidnapped.”

“What?” My mind raced over the past few days, tripping over the obvious facts. I grabbed them and tried to put them in order.

“Sabilia and Craig are married. She is pregnant.” Dad said matter-of-factly.

CHAPTER 11

A HAUNTING REVELATION

Suddenly, the loose pieces of the puzzle fit together, showing me the whole picture. Sabilia, triggered by her family estate, pregnancy, previous miscarriage, left Craig before he could abandon her. Whether the story repeated itself or not, she was acting as if it already had. Not to mention, her hormones amplified everything.

Our home, large as it was, was getting crowded. We’d given the last suite to Mom and Dad. Officer Craig, I couldn’t seem to stop calling him that, opted for a small room off of the kitchen with a cot. It must have had one time belonged to the kitchen maid.

Although Jim and Nathaniel informed him that his wife owned a huge estate, which meant he did. He opted to stay with the team and staying on top of things and in the loop.

I was still digesting the news that Sabilia was married and pregnant when I got ready for my job as a cleaning lady the next morning. Kat and I had decided to go into work. We didn’t think anything on the video camera really blew our cover as long as the counselor stayed quiet. We were good.

As I yanked on my wool tights and Cecylia pulled my wig over a netting, I squirmed like a worm trying to escape its skin.

The mission had stalemated. All the wasted hours cleaning were getting us nowhere. Sure, we had more information, but we were no closer to rescuing Sabilia, which I felt should be our first and main priority right now. The kids in the orphanage may be the next target, but for now, they were safe and well guarded.

I decided right then and there, after I finished work for the day, I would ride my bike around the area and see if I could find Sabilia chained up in some abandoned building like I had been when I was kidnapped at fifteen years old.

I was grasping at straws. But straws were all we had at this point. I knew Craig was losing his mind (probably) so I decided to fill him in on my plan. As soon as Cecylia finished my makeup, I made a beeline for the breakfast room.

The kids were still asleep, which was good. Didn't want to explain to them why their mother suddenly looked like their great grandmother. I swung the corner too quickly and slammed into something solid. It wasn’t a wall. I struggle with proprioception issues, but most days I can walk through a fifteen foot doorway. It wasn’t Nathaniel.

“Excuse me, M’am,” Craig said. “Are you here to clean? Let me find the lady of the house.”

I laughed so hard I thought I was going to pee my pants. “First of all,” I said, “that was a huge complement on my cover. And second that is the worst Polish I’ve ever heard.”

“Adelina,” he said with a shocked expression.

Just then, Kat rounded the corner. “Where’s the coffee? Before you ask, I don’t speak Polish and I’m not cleaning this house. All I do at the orphanage is clean. I have to use this little translator recorder that I keep in my pocket. I haven’t had to use it so far because surprisingly, cobwebs don’t speak Polish either.”

Craig stood dumbfounded for ten seconds. Kat and I poured our coffees while we waited for Antoni to pick us up. The plan was for us to pack our touristy yoga pants and tops, ride to the end of lane with Antoni, and then walk to the orphanage. Afterwards, we’d walk to his home and change. Our bikes would be ready for us at his house.

Antoni honked and Kat and I set our coffees down.

“Oh, I almost forgot. I’m going to ride around on my bike after work and look for Sabilia. I want to check some abandoned buildings.” I shuffled toward the door.

“Like that?” Craig still hadn’t recovered from the shock of seeing me as an old woman.

“I’m in,” Kat said, smiling and cracking some of her makeup, giving her a more haggard look as the lines hardened.

“No, we will change,” I said with a laugh.

“Just ride a bike to the taxi driver’s house,” I said as I slammed the door a little too loudly. Hopefully, I hadn’t woken the kids and started the day earlier for Mom then she wanted after her long flight the day before.

As we rode in the taxi, I asked why now questions.

Why start the trafficking ring again now?

Where are they shipping the kids to?

Why do they want kids of all ages?

Fighting trafficking was like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. The game the kids were playing at the play place we’d gone to the other day. As soon as you pounded one down, another popped up.

The problem with trafficking is they popped up as something more sinister each time. Like the familial trafficking ring I’d warred with in my last case with the ITSFC. The ring in which my children who had come home to me through adoption were trafficked and nearly sold.

“I almost forgot to tell you,” Antoni said. “The director said yesterday on the phone something about breeders.”

I manually closed my gaping mouth.“Breeders?”

“Yes, and they said they no want the kids who, how you say have something wrong with them. Autism, yes that was one of the words they used.” Antoni gripped the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles pinked.

“You mean they don’t want the neurodiverse kids?” Kat said, leaning forward.

“I don’t know that word,” Antoni said.

I took over, explaining, “I think what you’re saying is that the traffickers don’t want any kids that have any physical issues. Blind kids. Deaf kids. Cleft lips or palates. In other words, a lot of the anomalies associated with prenatal alcohol and drugs. Or kids on the spectrum.”

I guess this was a win for those kids. We didn’t have to worry about them being taken, but it made me wonder. Was this some sort of pro-nazi cult reborn and trying to set up breeding programs like they did in World War II?

“So they won’t take the kids who have something wrong with them?” Kat repeated, to make sure she understood.

“No. They will take the kids. They don’t keep the kids,” Antoni said, as if that explained it all.

Visions of gas chambers flitted through my head like a nightmare. “I’m going to throw up,” I whispered to Kat.

Before I could stop it, a quote came out instead.

“Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.”⁠1

Kat looked at me, eyes wide with terror.

“You mean they are going to murder those kids?” she asked.

“That’s what I think. But we need to find out if it’s true. When is Derek meeting the head of the trafficking organization?”

We needed to fill him in on the information we’d just been given. I didn’t want him to go into the meeting blind.

I couldn’t send Antoni back to tell him because he’d sat on that information overnight and didn’t understand what it really meant, it had to be someone who did.

I didn’t want to send the intel via text for two reasons. One. I didn’t bring my phone because cleaning women didn’t carry expensive phones. Two. I had this weird suspicion that someone was tracking me beside Cecylia.

It was up to Kasia or Father Raphael's trek back to the estate and relay the message.

Kat and I cleaned with no incidents or new information. We essentially gave the real cleaning ladies a vacation day while we did their jobs. The director had made himself scarce. I didn’t dare interfere with the early morning counseling session again. So I steered clear of the main common room where Kasia, Father Raphael, the teens, and counselor, whose name I’d yet to learn, were.

By the end of our shift, I ached and felt the age I looked on the outside. Kat and I waited in the woods, off camera, for Father Raphael to return from walking the teens and kids to school.

I sat down on a rock behind a log. I was hidden, but I could still see the trail. Kat joined me lounging on a carpet of moss.

We didn’t have to wait long before we heard voices. I hoped it was Father Raphael, but I waited to make sure. Kat didn’t She jumped up, breaking character by acting much too lively for a cleaning lady. I jerked her arm and pulled her back down.

“What was that?” a male voice asked.

“It’s no one, a cleaning lady from my orphanage,” the director’s voice said.

“What is she doing in the woods?” the other male voice said.

“Probably relieving herself.” They both laughed and paused on the trail. I was afraid they were going to come and see for themselves, instead they continued their conversation as if a cleaning woman peeing behind a tree wasn’t of any consequence. As if she were an invisible non person.

“You are meeting with Ryszard this evening.”

“I can’t believe he is alive. I thought the priest shot him.”

“That explains why the priest is back here and living in the orphanage.”

“What should we do about that?”

“Maybe we should let him do what he came here for.”

“What’s that?”

“To finish the job.”

“Then we don’t have Ryszard honing in on our territory.”

“I’m not sure Ryszard is one of us.”

The other man laughed and said. “Heil Hitler!” and they continued down the trail, laughing as if it were the greatest plan in the world.

I stood a little too quickly. I was dizzy from the circulation being cut off for too long in my legs. I hoped the two men were far enough ahead on the trail that they didn’t see me lose my balance and grab a tree branch. The branch slipped out of my hand and I went down.

One of the men ran back down the trail and through the brush toward us.

“They’re both here,” the director yelled to his companion.

Kat opened her mouth. I shook my head. If she said one word, our cover would be blown and the director would shoot us right here in the woods. She didn’t speak Polish and her English was way too educated.

“We are tired from cleaning, no? We take a little nap before our next job.”

I staggered to my feet, rubbing my aching back.

“Leave them,” the other man said. “When we are finished with our work, there won’t be any ugly old women left. These two will die of old age soon, but the others…,” he stopped himself before he shared his overarching plan with a pair of expired cleaning women in the woods.

I stretched, scratched my butt, and tried to look uninterested.

“We go, no? These important men have better things to do than talk to old women in the forest.” I said to Kat.

I shuffled toward the trail through the leaves. Dust wafted through the air. Kat joined me.

The men moved on, forgetting again that we existed.

A few minutes later, Father Raphael and Kasia passed us. With the close encounter we’d jus had, I didn’t want to be seen on camera talking to them, so I kept walking, ignoring them, hoping that would be a sign to follow us, or come back to the house or something.

As we neared the taxi driver’s home, I had the urge to stop shuffling and run instead. But I had to play the part to the very end. Kat must have had the same thought. She increased her pace. I grabbed her elbow as a reminder to not break character.

I couldn’t wait to change into yoga pants and move quickly. Instead, I whispered everything to Kat as we hobbled down the brick street together. Her shoulders slumped further toward her knees and tears dripped down her cheeks. We needed to share the information with Father Raphael before it was too late. And Derek. Before the kids were taken and gassed or whatever they planned to do. The girls impregnated for the Reich. Had we stepped into an evil time machine which hadn’t learned anything from history? I couldn’t breathe.

“From a proud tower in the town, Death looks gigantically down.” – Edgar Allan Poe

Once inside Antoni’s home, I ran straight to Agnieszka and wept on her shoulder.

“It’s so much worse than we thought,” I sobbed. “I don’t know what to do.”

Kat joined us, weeping for both of us.

“Let it all out,” Agnieszka said, “cry and then tell me what is going on. We will make a plan.”

Antoni closed the curtains with a look of concern. I ripped my wig off. Sensory overwhelm struck again.

I was just about to tell all when the door chimed, letting Antoni know he had a customer.

He shushed me. Agnieszka led Kat and me to the spare bedroom to clean ourselves up and change. We wouldn’t come out until we had the all clear.

“It is okay,” Antoni bellowed. “It is just the priest and the little girl who likes the sweet rolls.”

Kasia and Father Raphael must have read the sound of silence when Kat and I passed them on the trail.

I was so relieved I wept again.

We’d filled Father Raphael and Kasia in on everything we’d learned, including the fact that the leader of the trafficking ring thought Father was in town to kill Ryszard and he would be happy to let him do so. The important part of that intel is that the director and Nazi leader had no plan of letting Derek (Ryszard) take his former fake place and control the organization.

I had no clue what to do next.

Kat voiced her opinion and shared her group home skills. She suggested Ryszard act like a Nazi and win them over. “Maybe he can shoot Father Raphael to prove his allegiance.”

“So I wear a vest and he shoots me,” Father Raphael said.

“Well, you would need to shoot at him first, aim and miss.”

Father shook his head in agreement. “Sounds like a good plan.”

Kasia, despite the weight of this plan and the whole situation, seemed impatient for this meeting to be over.

“Do you have a date or something?” I teased.

“As a matter of fact, I do,”

“With the counselor?” I asked.

“Yes,” she smiled.

CHAPTER 12

TIME-WARPED TERROR

“If we are boring you with all of this talk of Nazis taking over the world and trafficking kids, then please go,” I said with a huff.

“You sound just like my mom,” she retorted. “Maybe I want a life away from all this trafficking stuff that has taken over my whole world.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m just emotional right now. Please go and have a good time.” I wiped a tear from my cheek, stood, and embraced her. I did understand. How many times had I wanted out? How many times had I broken down and quit? How many times had my body betrayed me and shut down in the middle of a mission because it was sending me a big fat no! Yet, trafficking kept poking me, finding me, and taunting me.

“Why did you leave college and come here then?” Kat asked.

“I was worried about my mom, uncle, Adelina, and Cecylia. They are my family.”

Kasia dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve and made a quick exit out the back door.

Fifteen minutes later, Craig joined us. We hopped on e bikes and set out.

An hour and a half later, we had exhausted every country road I could think of and found nothing.

I was hungry, tired, and thirsty.

“Should we call it a day?” I asked Kat and Craig.

“Let’s try this last little lane,” Craig said as he veered onto it.

The last little lane led to an old estate that I thought had long been abandoned.

As we neared the house, I noticed there was a lot of movement. People were lounging on outdoor furniture and talking on the freshly mowed lawn. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe someone had purchased the rambling old estate and restored it.

I was on the verge of yelling “Hello” when Craig angled his bike in front of me, causing me to careen into the woods and bump into a tree stump. I turned to ask why when he shushed me.

“I see a bunch of Nazis,” he whispered.

I lowered my bike gently and peered through the woods. Kat joined me.On the manicured lawn, six men with Nazi emblems on uniforms chatted. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed children ran around the lawn with what must be a nanny, flying a kite.

The manor had been meticulously restored to its pre-World War II glory.

I felt as if I’d entered a time warp and we’d been transported to the Poland of World War II. To a time when Nazis commandeered the huge estates and filled them with German officers and Nazi sympathizers, driving the Jews and Catholics out.

Professor Wroblewski, who had tutored me when I was an orphan, had lived through the Nazi invasion as a boy. He had shared his story with me. His story was replaying right in front of me in technicolor not the black and white films of the war.

Before I could say a word, Craig walked briskly up the gravel lane toward the manor.

“Heil Hitler!” he called.

The six men stood in unison and “Heiled” him back. “And who are you?” One said.

Great, Craig didn’t speak Polish. He walked himself into a death trap.

What would we tell Sabilia when and if we rescued her? Your husband was gunned down in the war that happened years ago. Piotrków Trybunalski, where Sabilia and Father Raphael’s family estate was located, had been the first ghetto during World War II. The village the orphanage was located on the outskirts of had been bombed and completely destroyed. I couldn’t fathom Nazis being welcome here.

To my surprise, all the men spoke English. They were Brits. So they weren’t even Polish. That made more sense, no none at all. I felt like a grown up Alice in very grown up, very scary Wonderland. None of this made any sense.

So far, no one had shot Craig or even seemed surprised at his walking brazenly up the lane. One of the men offered him a drink and called for a maid. Kat and I looked at each other in shock, not sure what our role was here. Neither of us fit the Nazi criteria for appearance. Her hair was dark and mine red. We resembled the daughters from Fiddler on the Roof and we all know how that story ended. Kat and I, without saying a word, mutually decided to stay put and see how this played out. Did we really have any other choice?

I checked the trees for cameras. I didn’t see any within a ten-foot radius above us, so we were safe for the moment.

Ten minutes later, Craig joined us. He carried a flyer which he stuffed in his pocket as he mounted his bike and motioned for us to follow through the woods on a deer trail. When we had traveled a safe distance from the main lane, he stopped.

He pulled out the flyer. “They are hosting a rally in Piotrków Trybunalski to garner more support. The officers thought I was a local who was interested. They were more excited to find out I am American.” He shoved the flyer into my hand.

“This is tomorrow evening,” I said as I scanned the information.

“So, the Nazis and the orphanage director plan to kill Ryszard this evening and take over the whole area. This wasn’t only a trafficking organization. They planned to take over the local people. Period. No joining up. Or agreeing with the philosophy.”

“This whole thing is growing out of control right before our eyes and we haven’t made any progress. All we have so far is a cleaner orphanage,” I said.

“Did you see Sabilia?” I had no idea why I asked the question. If he had, he would have tried to rescue her.

“I didn’t,” he said. “You two were only five feet from a camera. I saw it on my way back to my bike.”

“Oh,” is all I could say.“What do we do now?”

I felt as if I had a month’s worth of overwhelmingly bad news dumped on me in one day. I didn’t feel as if I could regulate much longer. I needed to get home and see Nathaniel and the kids and see they were still there and there were still good things in the world.

Kat looked as if she were spiraling as well. She gripped her handlebars until her fingers drained of blood and turned frosty white.

“Let’s go home,” I said.

“Yes,” Kat said as she started her bike and pedaled in that direction.

Two hours later, I’d spent time with my kids at lunch, and now Kat added everything we’d learned to the board. Craig and I threw out a few facts she missed. Cecylia typed on her laptop, fingers flying.

“How did I miss this?” she said.

These guys are all over the dark net. Anti-Jew. Anti-Black. Anti-Catholic. They’re unashamed of advertising what they plan to do. Their plan is to start in small villages. Obscure ones like this one. Clean out the orphanages. Use the teens that meet their criteria in breeding programs to build up their stock. Rid the community of the people who are elderly and whomever doesn’t fit their perfect specimen criteria.

In a few hours, Derek had his meeting with the leader of the organization where he would shoot Father Raphael and prove his allegiance as a Nazi. I felt as if we’d taken this boarding school boy and were now feeding him information as if he were drinking from a firehose. I didn’t think he was prepared in the least. Yesterday, he couldn’t answer a phone call without shaking with fear. I prayed his Shakespeare days would serve him now.

Pray. That’s something I hadn’t done in a while. Sure, I prayed with the kids when I did their bible lessons for school and we prayed at mealtimes. But as far as my personal prayer life, I’d left all that back in the United States. Honestly, I wondered if I’d brought a God big enough to overcome the condensed evil we were facing. I’ve been more triggered than I expected. I had reverted back to old patterns of doubting God and survival mode, fear, and self-reliance. The problem with all of this was — so was my partner, Kat. Maybe we shouldn’t be partners.

I excused myself and ran back to our suite, where Sawyer still napped and Mom and Payton were reading.

“Will you pray with me, Mom? I’m feeling overwhelmed and a lot of fear.”

She set the book down and asked Payton to color for a few minutes while we chatted.

“Adelina, I wondered if coming back here would trigger you,” she said as she sat down in a floral arm chair.

“It’s not just that, Mom. I am. But this is so much bigger than we thought. I don’t think we can handle it on our own.”

“Of course we can’t,” she said, leaning forward and rubbing my back.

“Is that supposed to encourage me?”

“What I mean is, in our human ability, we can’t handle this. But God is not too weak to handle it. We can’t do this by ourselves,” she smiled a weak smile. “I’ve felt oppression here and I’ve been praying. Now I know what to pray against specifically.”

I leaned forward. “Wait, what? You feel it?”

“Yes, I do. Remember we don’t wrestle only with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers and rulers of this present darkness.”

“That’s pretty heavy stuff, mom.”

“Not when you understand that we are seated with Christ far above every principality and power in the heavenlies. Nothing can separate us from his love.”

“What if one of us dies?”

She stood and leaned over and hugged me. “Adelina, you’ve been much closer to death in your short life than anyone I have ever known. Are you worried about dying because you have kids?”

“I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about Sabilia. She thinks her brother’s faith will save her. What if we don’t find her? What if they kill her because she won’t shut up and we all know that’s a problem for her.”

“Let me share one more scripture with you and then we will pray. God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound and disciplined mind.”

“Thanks Mom.” We prayed together and agreed to fast dinner while Derek and Father Raphael planned to shoot each other.

We prayed we would find Sabilia alive and she would know the love of God for herself. For the health of the two babies. Safety of all the kids. The teens. God would chase the evil from the area.

We could have prayed for hours, but Sawyer woke up and asked to go outside and play. Payton finished her coloring session and was eager to do the same.

At dinner that evening, I sipped water and the coffee I allowed myself as we waited for news of Derek and Father Raphael. Cecylia had given him an ear piece which he planned to smash if anyone got suspicious. She also clipped a camera to a button on his shirt. She’d set up a large screen to watch the whole exchange. Mom and dad had fed the kids an early dinner and settled in our suite for a popcorn and movie night.

Ryszard a.k.a. Derek walked into the meeting with a “Heil Hitler.” Any second now, Father Raphael would walk in aim and miss.

Everything was going as planned. The orphanage director and man we’d seen earlier who much be in charge exchanged the same greeting with Derek, looking pleased that he was informed and agreed with their Nazi agenda.

“I came back to resume the trafficking ring, but I see you have bigger plans,” he said with a smile.

“Yes, we do,” the leader said.

“I’ve seen your website on the dark web and I approve.”

“Why do you have a British accent?” the orphanage director asked.

“I attended a boarding school in Britain. I hid that part of myself when I returned to Poland all those years ago. I don’t need to hide my past anymore, do I?”

Great job, Derek. You added some truth.

Father Raphael rushed in and pulled out a Glock and shot at Derek and missed.

Derek transformed into an evil Ryszard. He pulled out his own firearm and aimed for Father and pulled the trigger, missing the vest and shooting him in the shoulder, then the leg.

What is going on?

“You killed my brother. Now it’s your turn to die.”

CHAPTER 13

VANISHING FAITH

The button camera honed in on Father’s anguished face and then his shoulder, which was oozing blood. And then his leg which was spurting copious amounts of the crimson liquid. He may not survive if the blood flow continued at that rate. He wasn’t going to survive. That was my first thought. I didn’t look around the room and see who else was reacting. I was going to lose my first father figure, besides Josef, who was the director of the orphanage when I was a teen. Father Raphael was my first spiritual father. The camera went black.

Someone had removed it and smashed it.

My brain was still trying to make sense of what had just happened. It was like a movie scene except the hero didn’t stand up and run away. I glanced around the table. Slack jaws. Anguish. Tears.

How could we get Father and make sure he had medical treatment? Now.

“I’m going to him,” I said.

“No, Adelina. You can’t,” Nathaniel said. “You saw what Derek did to a priest. A man who trusted him.”

“Who in the world approved this agent?” Jim said, taking his agent persona as a barrier of protection from his grief. I observed the practice frequently in agents. I couldn’t do it myself. I had a hard enough time regulating my emotions on a daily basis.

“Sabilia,” I said, giving Craig a quick look.

“That’s really hard for me to believe,” he said, rubbing the top of his crew cut. “She’s such a perfectionist. Always checking and double checking everything.”

After he finished talking, we sat in silence. Immobilized. Nobody knew what to do next until Craig said, “I’m going in. They don’t know who I am and they think I’m a Nazi sympathizer. I kind of set that up this afternoon.”

Without another word, he strode out of the room before anyone could argue or stop him. He closed the door so softly I didn’t know which one he’d exited.

Mom passed us on her way to the kitchen. She saw our faces and doubled back.

“Dad’s asleep with the kids…. What’s going on?”

We filled her in and she did what she always did in a crisis. She uttered a quick prayer under her breath and went to the kitchen and made coffee and a tray of snacks.

She brought them into the dining room, which had become a command center. The screen on the wall still blinked blankly. For some reason, we were all staring at it, as if we could will it to rewind the horrible scene we had watched fifteen minutes earlier and play a different one.

I wanted to yell, “Give me a redo,” Like I did with my kids when they needed a correction and a chance to do things over. Instead, I quoted:

Because I could not stop for Death⁠—

He kindly stopped for me⁠—

The Carriage held but just Ourselves⁠—

And Immortality.-⁠1

“Death won’t stop me,” Craig said from where he stood in the doorway with weapons strewn across his midsection. A saber topped them.

“You can’t go in there like Rambo,” Jim said.

“What would you do if that were your wife? And why are you sitting here while the priest bleeds out?”

“I see your point. I’ll join you. Let me grab some gear,” Jim said, rushing down the hall.

“Me too,” said Rob and Nathaniel.

“So the women are supposed to stay here and wait?” Kat asked.

“Yes,” Jim said. “Please. We have children counting on one of us staying alive.”

“I know. I know,” she said.

While the men geared up, we women sipped coffee and tried to make sense of what had just happened.

“I’ll grab my computer and see what I missed about Derek,” Cecylia said, breaking the silence.

“Maybe I can get Damica on the phone. She can profile him.”

The men stomped down the hall to the front door and out without a word.

As soon as the door slammed, a blurry, out-of-focus image popped up on the screen.

“How did we do?” A large nose came into focus.

“You’re too close,” Father Raphael’s voice said. “All they can see are your nose hairs.”

The camera panned out, and Derek and Father Raphael came into view.

“How did we do?” Derek said again.

“Get the guys, Kat.” I said.

She popped up and ran down the hall and out the front door.

Father Raphael stood clean and wound-less. No injuries. What just happened?

Sabilia’s face appeared between them and as she grabbed for the button camera, Father said, “We got her back!”

A minute later, the team seated around the table, Father Raphael and Derek, explained everything.

“Turns out, I couldn’t convince them that I am Ryszard so I had to choose the next best thing. His long lost twin. Cecylia, I’m going to need you to create a paper trail for us being separated at birth. I’m going to fill my mum in on the fact that I was adopted at birth….”

He kept talking without sharing exactly what happened.

Could this get any more complicated?

“So why all the theatrics?” Jim asked. “It looked as if you mortally wounded Father Raphael.”

“Well, they don’t really like priests. During the second World War lots of Catholic priests stood up for the Jews and the Jewish children, like Janusz Korczakso it would put me in their good graces if I shot a priest.” Derek grinned his schoolboy grin.

“We arranged everything beforehand at the last minute. Turned out Derek’s time on the stage was a bonus, especially in this instance. Fake blood,” Father Raphael said, as if that explained it all.

Sabilia still held the button camera and even though Derek and Father Raphael were off screen, they were doing all the talking. “Are you going to let me talk or not?” she said, elbowing them out of the way.

“How did they treat you?” Mom asked.

“They treated me very well. I think my blonde hair, blue eyes, and stunning figure, plus that fact that I am pregnant was a bonus. They asked me all sorts of questions…” then she stopped and put her hand over her mouth.

“We know you are pregnant,” Cecylia interrupted her. “Your husband told us everything.”

Sabilia was speechless. A rarity for her. Her red lipsticked mouth hung open for a solid three seconds.

“He’s here by the way. I’m sure he’d loved to speak with you,” Mom said.

Sabilia must have handed the camera back to Derek. She disappeared, and he came back on the screen.

“We are coming back there,” Father Raphael said from behind him. “I have to hide out. I’m dead.”

“What about Kasia?” I asked. “Is she still at the orphanage?”

Sabilia jerked the button camera out of Derek’s hand with her perfectly manicured hand (I guess they were treating her very well). “Why did no one tell me my daughter is here?”

“Seems as if there are a lot of secrets on this mission,” Nathaniel said, finally contributing to the conversation.

Mom added,“Kat and Adelina kept an eye on her. They’re undercover senior citizen cleaning ladies at the orphanage.”

“This I’ve got to see,” Sabilia said with a laugh. Her expression changed. “Hey guys, I’m sorry…”

“It’s time for you to get off camera and get home safely,” Mom said, shutting down the conversation.

As much as I wanted to hear Sabilia say she was sorry for the way she had treated me, I mean us, Mom was right. This wasn’t the time. We had dodged a bullet. Literally. Thanks to Derek and Father’s quick thinking. But that didn’t mean we were out of danger. If I knew anything about how these organizations worked, we had put the whole operation on fast forward. Whether Derek knew it or not, he wasn’t safe. If they didn’t want to hand over the reigns of the trafficking New World Reich, they will kill him and the rest of us too. There will be no one to save the kids, the teens, or the village.

I didn’t stay up for the full briefing that evening. My shift as a cleaning woman stated way too early, plus it was hard work. I was worn out , not only physically, but emotionally. I longed for the days back at Spruce Lade when the most difficult thing I had to do was manage the meltdowns of my kiddos, who were triggered by their past trauma. And that was super hard.

Next on the list is to show up on the podcast and talk about practical tips for overcoming a traumatic past and different sorts of human trafficking. Because I’m an introvert, that is really exhausting for me. Boy, we were going to have a lot to talk about when we got home. I imagined the sorts of conversations that were going to start on the podcast and the incredulous comments of people who were insensitive and lived in denial that the Nazis could rise again.

I was spiraling. My thoughts were all over the place. I needed to get rest so I could clean in the morning and eavesdrop on the conversations I was sure would be taking place. To help myself fall asleep, I listened to a few Psalms on my Bible App and imagined myself sitting on my front porch at home watching the fall leaves swirl around.

The next morning, I told Cecylia she didn’t need to apply massive amounts of makeup today. I felt as if I were an eighty-year-old woman. My joints ached. My head throbbed. How did cleaning women do this every day?

After Cecylia finished, I walked into the kitchen to plop a pod in the Nespresso machine. Father Raphael sat at the table in the breakfast nook, reading his Bible and humming a hymn.

“I’m so glad you’re not dead,” I said.

“And you are?” he said.

“You know who I am!”

“I thought you were the cleaning lady,” he said. I knew he was trying to lighten the mood. He’d seen me in this get up before. “You know, it is usually me saying that to you, Adelina. You’ve had many more close calls than I have.”

“True, but I thought I lost you last night.” I didn’t throw in all my thoughts about him being my spiritual father. I needed to keep my emotions in check today so I could do my job.

“I’m ready to go at any time. Are you ready to die?” he added.

The machine hissed, signaling its final cycle of the brew.

“Great early morning pep talk, Father,” I swigged espresso. “I am. It’s your sister Sabilia you should be concerned about.”

“Why? She’s safe.”

“Yes, but is she saved? How can you be so blind to your own sister’s relationship with God. She has been riding on the coat tails of your faith for years and assuming that is enough”

He glared at me for a millisecond, then his expression changed to pensive.

“Like I said, great topic of conversation for five-thirty am. I have to go clean an orphanage and check on your niece.”

I knew I was piling on the guilt for his niece and sister, but I was angry. I was exhausted, confused, and disoriented by this whole mission. I just wanted to go home and live my comfortable little life. Yes, raising kiddos with trauma histories is one of the most difficult things I’d ever done. However, I was tired of carrying everyone else’s burdens and then it hit me.

As angry as I was with Sabilia for treating me the way she did and kicking me off the ITSFC, something she’d said really struck a nerve. “What about your calling?”

She was letting her brother maintain her faith for her, but she knew what it meant to be called to something. Another thought and scripture came to mind. God uses all who are willing and some who are not.

Many are called but few are chosen. Matthew 22:14

As Kat and I rode our bikes to Antoni’s house to hide them, I thought about the verse. What did it mean? Was I called and if I didn’t answer it, did it mean I was less loved? No, that couldn’t be true. But Sabilia had answered the call and she didn’t consider herself chosen. I guess we both lacked balance in this area. It was time for me to take time and the responsibility to sort these things out. Instead of waffling between wanting to be called on this mission and then deciding I was too tired or too fill-in-the-blank. Even though I wanted to go home, it was time to commit to the calling for this season.

1. Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death”

CHAPTER 14

SACRIFICES FOR THE REICH

After my mini crisis and debating myself about my calling, I prayed and cleaned all morning. My job was to gather intel, but I couldn't seem to get close to anyone who had any intel. Kat and I worked on opposite sides of the orphanage, which suited me fine today. I needed a couple of months to process everything that had happened the last few days, but a few hours was going to be all I got.

I was finishing up in the main common room after the counselor, Kasia, and the teens left. I don’t think father Raphael thought about the fact that the teens would need another round of grief counseling after they heard the news that he was dead. I overheard one of them say,” Is life ever going to be good?” as she walked out the door.

I wanted to rip off my wig and say, “It’s me, Adelina. And yes, it does get good. God works all things out for good for those who love them and those who are called according to his purpose.”

Did I really believe that?

I didn’t have an opportunity to talk to Kasia. She was here and looked fine when she passed me in the hallway, ignoring me, like most people do with cleaning ladies.

I don’t know how much she knew about what was actually going on, that her sister had been rescued, Father Raphael wasn’t dead, and the fake Ryszard, or twin, was on our side.

But now, the comment or question the teen asked propelled the idea of calling back into motion in my brain.

I felt called to let these kids know they were safe and their life had value. Origin of birth doesn’t determine value. A traumatic history of abuse and neglect doesn’t make you less valuable. It gives you the gift of empathy and understanding. I had both of those.

The first order of business was to get these kids physically safe by taking down the New World Reich, and improving their felt-safety by meeting their needs where they are instead where society expected them to be.

After cleaning, Kat and I shuffled down the forest path in our best old woman gait. I didn’t have to try that hard. Exhaustion caused me to drag my left foot like a zombie. I hoped we could accomplish two objectives on our walk to Antoni's-overhear something that would help the team, and get some perspective on where we fit in on this whole mission. We couldn’t be cleaning ladies forever. Sure, the orphanage was clean, but we weren’t actively stopping the Nazis or rescuing the teens. We were in a wait-and-see-what-happens pattern and I didn’t like it. I opened my mouth to share my musing with Kat when voices moved toward us, increasing in volume.

The orphanage director, dressed in an expensive Polish suit, said, “We need to move the operation.”

“No, we don’t. Everyone is in place here,” replied the man in the Nazi uniform, his voice clipped and commanding.

“But Ryszard’s twin, this is his territory, and I don’t think he is going to let go easily. I say we count our losses, grab a few teens, and go.”

The man in the uniform adjusted his black leather belt with a large, ornate buckle. “I think we get him on our side,” he said with a cold, piercing gaze.

“He shot a priest.”

“I know. That’s the sort of man we need on our team. The kind that will stop at nothing to make the New World Reich come to power,” he replied, his tone firm and unyielding.

The director shot back, “You mean you want to give him power. You want to replace me.”

“I didn’t say that,” the man in the military uniform replied.

“Well, that’s what you’re thinking. You’ve been moving me around the country from village to village, and I’ve done all the hard work. All we have to do is grab the teens and kids and go,” the director said, his frustration evident.

The man in the Nazi uniform, with deliberate, precise steps, moved closer, instilling a sense of fear in the director.The director took a step back, colliding with a pine tree.

The Nazi continued, “We will do what is necessary for the New World Reich. Your sacrifices are noted, but the plan remains. We get Ryszard’s twin on our side. End of discussion.”

“What about me? What’s my role,” the director said as he tried to regain his footing.

“I think we can handle that without you,” the other man said. With that, he pulled out a gun and shot him point blank in the forehead.

The orphanage director emitted a whistling gasp as his body crumpled.

“The New World Reich thanks you for your service. Your sacrifices will be remembered.”

Kat gasped and stood for a second. She sank to the ground. Had he seen her?

He smiled and rubbed his jaw. He was enjoying this. “Who to pin this on to help the cause?” he said to an evergreen. “Aren’t you always using the services of that penguin like taxi in the village?” he asked the corpse.

“Yes, I will makes sure he gets the blame. He is a Jew.” He laughed.

The entire soliloquy he had performed in English.

He suddenly turned to the log we were hiding behind and addressed it. “Cleaning women. I know you nap there every day. Rush to town and get the authorities. Tell them a man has been shot by the taxi driver.”

Of course, Kat had no idea what he was saying, so I grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. We hobbled to the trail and as fast as our undercover characters would allow.

“And if you tell anyone what happened here, I will kill you and your families.”

At this moment, I was so grateful that we were disguised. If we’d been ourselves, he would have shot us on the spot and then went after our families. Since he thought we were going to die any minute, he felt free to use us to accomplish a mission. But I was convinced, the next time he saw us, we were dead. We were the elderly. The non-existent, worthless, throwaways.

Our career as cleaning women ended today, one way or another. Either in a body bag, or if we could remove our disguises. I couldn’t wait to change out of this, get up and be myself again. By that I meant, the other disguise, a yoga-pants-wearing tourist with a baseball cap pulled down over her face, touring around on an e-bike.

We didn’t do exactly what the New World Reich officer had asked. We were smart enough to fake the pretense of doing so. We went to the police station and said a bunch of agitated gibberish and left. Then we went to Antoni’s and filled him in.

“You’ll have to go into hiding,” Kat said. We changed and grabbed our bikes and took off toward home.

The team needed to know what was going on. Ryszard's twin needed to be warned that it was time to step up his game and take over. There was still the risk that if he showed any sign or weakness or backing down, the next bullet had his name on it. He had to be the sacrificial lamb and step up to save the kids, the village, and the taxi driver.

When we arrived home, it was eerily quiet. I found a note on the kitchen counter. Mom and dad had taken the four kids on a field trip and wouldn’t be home until later in the afternoon. Sabilia and Craig moved to her estate. Derek had joined them. Nathaniel, Rob, Jim, and Father Raphael sat by the pool drinking coffees as if there were no mission, no crisis, just a lazy autumn morning to sip hot brews and chat.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked.

“Taking a coffee break. Join us,” Jim said as he stood and grabbed two chairs. “We have a plan.”

Jim had a confident soothing tone, which instantly calmed me. Kat sat and poured two coffees from the carafe.

“I’ll go make a few shots of espresso,” Nathaniel offered.

“Where’s Cecylia?” I asked, sipping my coffee.

“She’s laying down for a bit.”

“Wait until we tell you what we saw in the forest before you leave to make the much needed espresso,” I said.

Kat and I sipped the weak brew and filled them in.

“He shot him right on the trail?” Nathaniel asked, plopping back into his chair.

“And where were you?” Jim asked.

“In the woods, hiding behind a log.” Kat said. “I may have stood up after the director crumpled to the ground.”

We filled them in on our instructions from the New World Reich officer, taking turns sharing. How he planned to blame the murder on Antoni.

“That’s it,” Rob said and thumped the table, jarring the coffee cups. “No more cleaning ladies. He could have shot you.”

“He will if he sees us again,” Kat said matter-of-factly.

I added, “So he will never see us again. I’ll take that espresso now.”

Nathaniel stood and jogged to the kitchen.

“Jim, you said you have a plan,” Kat said.

“We do, but we should get Antoni to a safe location first.”

“Done. He went to visit his wealthy sister-in-law’s in Warsaw until this all blows over.” Kat said.

“How do we take down the Nazi organization before it gets out of control?” I asked.

“I talked to Damica, our profiler this morning,” Jim said. “She said the real issue is all the minions underneath the leader are power hungry. They driving motivator is power and once given permission to gain it without consequences, they do so.”

“Do you think most of them experienced childhood trauma?” Kat asked.

“That’s what Damica says.”

“There’s more,” Rob said. “Damica said if the people you are trying to govern don’t agree with you mission or aren’t power hungry, give them them the illusion that they are doing something right for the cause.”

“Like Herschel Grynszpan, the Jewish boy who shot the Nazi during World War II in Paris. The only problem is he shot the Nazi diplomat Ernst vom Rath who was helping the Jews ,” I replied.

“Exactly, sis.” Rob agreed.

Nathaniel returned with the double shots. I poured mine directly into my coffee and took a long swig.

“So how do we take them down?” Kat asked, taking a sip of her espresso.

“During World War II, many tried by attacking individuals. That didn’t work.” Nathaniel stood and paced on the patio. “What finally worked was taking down Hitler, removing his power, and he self-destructed. Next on the agenda was freeing the people in concentration camps as well as prisoners of war,” he explained.

“We can’t let it get that extreme again,” I said.

“No, we can’t,” Nathaniel agreed.

I drummed my fingers on the table, as I thought. “But if we take down ‘The Man In The High Castle,' everything else crumbles.”

“I think the plan is for me to become ‘The Man In The High Castle,’” Derek said, as he walked around the corner of the house and joined us at the table.

This title wasn’t just a name; it was a symbol of the ultimate authority within the Reich.

“And I have just the castle for you,” Sabilia said, tiptoeing over the soggy wet grass with her high heels until she arrived on the solid ground of the patio stones.

“My estate,” she said triumphantly.

“Perfect,” Jim said.

“Only I’ll be tapping out,” Sabilia said. “Craig is rearranging my bags in the car. He’ll be here in minute.”

“You’re leaving?” I asked.

“Yes, I need to. For the baby.” She patted her flat belly. “I’m so sorry for the way I treated you guys.”

“Just keep that baby safe,” Kat said, rising to give her a hug.

I wasn’t ready to accept this news, although I knew in my heart of hearts that the Queen of Hearts needed to go home. And I, the Alice in Wonderland in the real-life, scary tale, needed to say and finish the job.

“Is Cecylia ready, Rob?” Craig asked as he joined us.

“I think she is packing her last few things.”

No wonder Craig rearranged the car. If Cecylia were going somewhere, her luggage would take up all the space.

“Wait, you’re leaving too?” I said and jumped up, knocking my coffee cup over. Coffee seeped into the cracks of the table and dripped onto the patio. My coffee mirrored my feelings. Everything was slipping away.

Rob hung his head in shame, shuffling from foot to foot.“Yes, Adelina, Cecylia needs to be in the hospital with an IV. I can’t believe I didn’t see how sick she is. Mom gave me a talking to last night.”

“Of course,” I said to Cecylia,“You need to take care of yourself and the baby.”

Fifteen minutes later, our team stared at cold coffees and wondered how to navigate with the reduced-size team.

I sopped up the remainder of my coffee with a cloth napkin and said, “What’s the plan, Jim?”

If this was my calling, I didn’t need to ride in the passenger seat any longer. It was time to take control and drive. It was time for me to be the Queen of Hearts and scream, “Off with their heads!”

CHAPTER 15

ALICE IN THE REICH

The next morning, Kat and I opted for tourist outfits and another bike tour instead of our cleaning jobs. We both felt as if going to work would be deadly. Cecylia had left her makeup and the kit for our disguises behind. In case we encountered any pro-Nazi sympathizers or plain old Nazis, we both wore blonde wigs and blue contact lenses. We giggled while putting on the wigs and applying the makeup, trying to remember how Cecylia would apply it. We ended up wiping off our first attempt and starting over again.

After achieving a somewhat natural look with pink cheeks, fake eyelashes, and sculpted brows, we stopped before we hit the clown look, which we were trying to avoid. We finished our faces with some pink gloss on our lips. We wore Cecylia’s pink yoga pants and tops, as well as white tops and sneakers, and ball caps. We looked like German tourists, or Polish tourists from the city. The only problem—we didn’t speak German.

We hadn’t gotten far into the village of Sulejów when I knew something was up. The little main street was barren and eerily deserted. Where was everyone? I didn’t have to wait long to find out. A few seconds later, the clatter of heavy boots and a parade marched its way toward us in a duck-march formation. What was going on here?

The paraders wore fresh, crisp uniforms except for the last few rows, which were filled with tattered teens from the orphanage. I blinked my eyes, and my contacts swam around in circles. They hadn’t forcibly taken the teens, had they? The teens looked as if they were willing participants. I had landed in a Nazi version of Alice in Wonderland. As I glanced up and down the street, I saw frightened shop owners peeking out at the parade.

After the parade had passed, I said, “I need a roll,” and we rode across the street to the bakery. When I opened the door, the bell jingled, and an officer of rank, according to his uniform, paid for pastries and picked up his bag.

He turned and smiled at us; it was the New World Reich officer from the forest who’d shot the orphanage director.

“I hope you ladies enjoyed the parade.” He raised his bag. “Get some of these pastries; they are delicious,” he said as an afterthought.

I watched him walk to the exit. I didn’t want to say anything to the baker about what was going on until he was gone. He had his hand on the door, then he turned and took two long strides back to us.

“I was just asking the baker about a few ladies. Maybe you have seen them.”

“Seen who?” I asked, flipping my blonde hair, copying Cecylia’s habit.

“Two old cleaning women who work at the orphanage.”

I gulped. “Cleaning ladies. What did they look like?”

“Old. Rather useless. Never mind. You two lovely things wouldn’t associate with the likes of these two old witches.”

I smiled my best Cheshire Cat grin and wished I could disappear. I felt as if there were a ticker-tape across my forehead saying “It’s me!” and Kat must have had the same feeling.

“No, we haven’t seen any old cleaning ladies since yesterday,” Kat said, telling the absolute truth.

“Where did you see them?” He leaned forward on the counter, eyes emanating evil.

“Here in the village,” I said. “At least, I think it was them.” I launched into a full description of the two old ladies, complete with the hobbling.

“Yes,” he said. “That sounds like them. Where could I find them?”

“What do you want with them?” Kat asked.

“Let’s just say we have some unfinished business,” he said with an evil grimace.

Yep, he planned to kill us.

The baker came from behind the counter. “Sir, these women are tourists from America. They don’t know anything. Have another bag of pastries.” He shoved a white bag into his hand and ushered him to the door.

As soon as the front door closed, he joined us, pulled us by our hands behind the counter, and up a set of stairs to his living quarters.

“We are the cleaning women,” I whispered.

“I know,” he said. “I wanted to warn you, but I didn’t get a chance, and suddenly these men are parading down the main street.”

I glanced out the door at the deserted cobblestone street. “We saw them. We also saw some of the teens from the orphanage had joined them. When did that happen?”

The baker wrapped up a bag of rolls for us. “These men have been hosting rallies at Grandview Manor.”

“Oh, that’s what Craig was planning on attending. But he is gone. We’ve lost so many people from our team.” Kat said while paying for the rolls.

“That’s not all. They have already taken over our friend and team member’s business. They are using his car and his house.” Meaning Antoni, his best friend.

This was the most I’d heard the baker say without having to interpret for Kat. It was a long conversation with so much information to convey. The team needed to be alerted ASAP. Derek was busy setting up at Sabilia’s estate. Kasia had been radio silent, probably swooning over the counselor—was that a word anymore? It was up to Kat and me to take action and do something.

I leaned on an armchair and whispered in case the walls had ears or a Nazi was hiding in the stairwell. “Do you think we could get into one of those rallies?”

“If you dress like that,” the baker replied.

“Can you come with us?” Kat begged.

“No. I can’t. They let me stay here and run my bakery because of the service I provide. My great-grandfather was Jewish. Even though I am Catholic, it doesn’t matter to them.”

I sat down heavily on the chair I’d been leaning on for support. “How did this happen overnight? Yesterday Antoni was running his taxi service and you were baking for everyone, and it didn’t matter your religion of origin.”

The baker shook his head sadly. “No, it has been happening slowly, like it did the first time. We ignored it and hoped these people would go away.”

The shop bell jingled, interrupting our conversation.

“I must go,” he said and hurried down the steps.

Kat showed me some photos of his family while I filled her in on what the baker had said. We found the backdoor exit and slipped out quietly, down the back stairs to the alley.

“I think we should visit the orphanage,” suggested Kat. “And see what Kasia is up to.”

“My thoughts exactly. Did she come to Poland to help with the mission or flirt with the counselor?”

We were definitely on the same wavelength.

We parked our bikes in front of the orphanage. The kids had long since gone to school. I braced myself before I entered. The orphans had lost another person the previous day. Sure, he was an evil director preparing to sell them all to the highest bidder, but he was their director. They didn’t know what he had planned. One thing I knew about kids who had experienced trauma was that the bar for authority figures was set super low. That was evidenced by how many times kids would return to an abusive parent or relative.

“So you want to sell me? I’ll hang around until then,” may have been the mentality for those who read behavioral patterns well.

We walked in the front door and were immediately accosted by Kasia, who got behind us and pushed us toward the director’s office while she hissed, “That bad Nazi guy is looking for you two.”

“No, he is looking for two old cleaning ladies,” Kat said.

“We are American tourists,” I added.

“Who are suspiciously hanging around an orphanage that they are targeting,” she said as she slammed the door.

I glanced around the room, fear prickling and raising goosebumps on my arms.

“I checked for bugs. I know how to do my job.”

“We just wondered if you’ve been doing your job,” Kat said.

“What else would I be doing?” she asked with her hands on her hips.

“Flirting with the counselor,” I said.

She huffed as crimson rose up her throat. “Well, maybe. But only after I do my job. Besides, these kids are in a really vulnerable state. So many people have died and these people have moved into the village. They are hosting Nazi rallies.”

“We know about the rallies,” I said. “Your stepfather was supposed to attend one.”

“So, you know,” she said.

I added, “Did you know your mother and Craig went back to the United States?”

“What?” she said, slamming a hand on the desk. “I came here to help her, and she leaves?”

“Maybe your mother knows you are grown up enough to handle this situation on your own and help us,” Kat said.

“You’ve been watching her take down traffickers across the globe your whole life,” I added. “She needs to think about the health of the baby, your sibling.”

“Of course, you’re right,” she said slowly. “We can handle this. Can’t we?” She wiped a tear from her perfectly porcelain cheek.

“I’m sure your mother couldn’t risk coming here to say goodbye, and she appreciates everything you are doing.” I didn’t add that Kasia had come all the way to Poland and decided to hide from her mother by staying in the orphanage. That was a conversation for another time.

“I think we should attend a rally,” Kat said, redirecting the conversation back to the mission. “Jim can’t go. He’ll stick out like a ginger scarecrow.”

“Nathaniel can’t go. He looks like an Arab,” I added.

“He is Arab,” Kasia laughed. “Remember when you thought he was a terrorist?”

“Only for half a second,” I said, chuckling.

“You two have to go in the get-ups you’re wearing. Adelina, your hair is as red as Jim’s.”

It was agreed. We would meet at the rally. Kat and I said our goodbyes and decided to take a stroll around the orphanage grounds as if we were touring it. We parked our bikes and hoped we would run into some of the teens on their way home from school. Hopefully, we could find Ania and get her take on what was going on. She might be a bit more immune to the tactics of the New World Reich because she had been forcibly taken right from the orphanage lobby. We stopped at a small grocery store to grab some snacks. The owner looked surprised and waited for me to talk. When I rattled off what we’d like in perfect Polish, she opened up and shared what was going on in the village.

“These men. They came in and bought me out yesterday. It makes me so happy,” she said with a grin.

“You’re from America,” she said with a laugh after Kat attempted to ask for something.

“They are looking for young women like you,” she said and babbled on and on.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Do you know what they stand for?” I tried to ask as sweetly and non-confrontationally as I could.

“Yes, they are the New World Reich. Equal pay. Jobs for all…” she trailed off and smiled. “I won’t ever have to worry about running this little shop again. They will take care of me.”

This woman obviously had only read a fraction of whatever handbook the New World Reich handed out. She had to be sixty-five or older. I couldn’t tell. Which meant she was quickly sliding into the “worthless” category for the New Reich. This meant they would take her shop, her home, and I didn’t even want to think about what they would do to her. Instead of frightening her, I helped her bag up our snacks and paid her an extra tip.

Kat and I both smiled at her. “We’re going to the rally tonight. Are you coming?” Kat asked.

With that, she turned and trotted to the back of the store and returned, breathless, with a flyer which she shoved toward us.

“No, I can’t go. It’s for young people only. You go. Have fun. Use my daughter’s flyer to get in. She went back to Warsaw,” she chuckled.

“Heil Hitler,” she added as we stepped out the door.

A cold shiver zipped down my spine. And a quote popped out of my mouth before I could push it back down.

“When the world is turned upside down, it is the quiet heroes who emerge.” ⁠1

“Where did you learn that?” Kat asked.

“From the professor who taught me English. He used to come to the orphanage when I was a teen. He was hidden in cages at a zoo by the Zabinski’s during the war when he was a young boy.”

“Wow,” she said.

We found a bench and pulled out our waters, paprika chips, and chocolate.

“It’s happening all over again,” I said.

CHAPTER 16

HIGH CASTLE DOUBTS

“Not if we can help it,” Kat said.

“Tonight is our chance to go undercover without hiding in corners and cleaning cobwebs out of them.”

I laughed and said, “Plus we can be ourselves.”

“Well, sort of,” she patted her blonde wig and batted her fake eye-lashes.

As I opened a bag of paprika chips, the baker rushed down the street. “I have a message for you!”

“You have to have an invitation,” I interpreted for Kat. The baker was too excited to speak English.

“We have one,” I pulled it out, only to find it said-Formal attire.

“This is only for one person,” he said, grabbing it out of my hand and double checking it.

“Oh,” I said in disappointment.

“You go, Adelina,” Kat said. “You speak English and Polish,” she said, as if that finalized the deal.

“But I need you,” I said.

I looked at the baker. “Can you get a second invitation?”

“I do not know. Give me an hour. I will ask around,” he said the last sentence as he jogged back down the street toward the bakery, waving a hand in farewell.

The afternoon sun faded as we packed up and headed back to the estate to check in on the kids and mom and dad, who had been a life saver for both of us.

We lingered, pedaling slowly as we neared the lane that led to the estate.

I hit the brakes and stopped short.“Pondering how you are going to persuade your husband to let you go?”

“How did you guess?” Kat held both legs out and let the bike drift to a stop.

“I know what Jim will say.”

“No,” I said. I gripped my handlebars in frustration. “That’s what both of them will say. You need to ask Jim. I have a plan to get you in.”

The baker wasn’t able to find an extra ticket, so only one of us could get in officially. I planned to talk Kat’s way in. Or her talk me in. That might be the better plan since her English sounded native and, as a bonus, she is tall and sophisticated.

An hour later, after spending some time with the kids, we met in the library with Jim and Nathaniel, who both said absolutely not just as we suspected they would. Derek would attend as his evil overlord self, and that was enough.

At this point, I harbored some niggling doubt about Derek. He had seamlessly moved into Sabilia’s estate, played the boarding school act, which earned him a position of power by going off book and shooting a priest, thereby removing him from the principles and authority of the team. In other words, he could do anything he wanted right now. He’d positioned himself as “The Man in the High Castle.”

But how did I say this to Jim and Nathaniel? They had complete trust in him and relied on him to cause the organization to implode from the inside out. I wasn’t sure that’s what he had in mind, but I had no proof otherwise.

Father Raphael had taken to staying in his room, reading and listening to podcasts and reading books to the kids. It was as if his fake death meant he could no longer help the team. But knowing how Father had responded in past missions, he was probably feeling guilty for not recognizing his sister’s lack of faith. And that was my fault. I could have approached and talked to Sabilia about it myself, but I’d been too hung up on being offended and my right to be angry. So I placed the heavy cross on Father Raphael and he was feeling its full weight.

Instead of enjoying his time in his native country, Derek had arranged it without the permission of the team to have Father benched with a layer of guilt and shame, thanks to me. I’d given him the longest time-out known to man.

I decided to play the Derek card, since they had more faith in him than Kat and me. “Derek can keep an eye on us,” I said. If they thought Derek was the key to taking down this organization, couldn’t he watch us and keep us out of trouble? At least, that’s what I said to convince them. There was no way they could get in; we’d already covered that, and they agreed.

“We will only stay an hour,” Kat said. “You two can hide at some checkpoint off the estate property, and we’ll check in with you.”

“They’re right,” Jim said to Nathaniel. “It’s best if they go. We should stay here and do all the stuff that Cecylia usually does.”

We’d won this battle, but it was immediately followed by another.

“I’m not wearing a camera or wire or anything,” I said.

“How will we know what’s going on?” Nathaniel demanded.

“We’ll tell you when we get back,” I said, exiting the room and dragging Kat with me.

I hoped Cecylia had remembered to leave some formal wear, or we were in big trouble. She shouldn’t have overlooked it; I was sure it had never occurred to her that we would need formal gowns. When she’d left, we were still undercover as old cleaning ladies.

After checking Cecylia’s closet and finding only our spare cleaning lady costumes, I suggested, “I know where to find some dresses.”

Kat looked around the room, opening the closet one more time and scanning it,“Where?”

“At Sabilia’s estate. She has a whole closet full of them.”

“Let’s go,” Kat said.

Good, we could check on Derek. I was curious to know how and what he was doing to actually shut the whole New World Reich down.

We chose to drive a car instead of riding our bikes in the dark. I planned to borrow one of Sabilia’s cars for the event. We needed to get a move on. We had only two hours before the event.

I tried the main door of the gated entryway. It was locked. A voice sputtered out of the speaker box. “Who is it you wish to see?” As I turned to see where the voice was coming from, my face appeared, freckled and pink, on the screen.

“It’s me, Derek. Let us in. We need to grab some dresses out of Sabilia’s closet.”

“And you are?” the static-y voice challenged.

“It’s Adelina,” I answered, not bothering to hide the frustration in my voice.

“I will let the master know that Adelina is at the gate. Please wait.”

It took an eternity of thirty seconds before the voice returned.

“Master Derek says if you will be patient for a few more minutes, he will see you.”

My voice raised an octave in frustration. “We don’t need to see him. We need to get some dresses.”

Silence.

After a full ten minutes, the gates beeped and swung open. I hit the gas a little too hard and peeled out in the gravel, then slammed the brakes, giving Kat a case of whiplash. A car whizzed straight toward us, its headlights blinding me momentarily. As the white spots cleared from my eyes, I caught a quick glimpse of the driver. It was none other than the leader of the New Reich, who had murdered the director of the orphanage.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Kat said. “And not in a good way.”

“I agree.” I gunned it again and parked, all the while telling myself not to confront the alleged bad guy. I had this habit of confronting people who could, at any moment, wring the life out of me. And, bonus, I shut down when there was no imminent danger whatsoever.

“Don’t confront him,” Kat said. “Let’s get the dresses and file the information we just gathered away for later.”

I shrugged my shoulders in defeat. Kat was right.“You read my mind.”

“Actually, I was talking to myself.” Kat chuckled.

I grinned, despite the seriousness of the situation. We were about to open the door and try not to confront the man who had staged himself as “The Man in the High Castle.”It was no longer just a whisper of doubt; it had become a low, persistent thrum, resonating through my entire being, demanding attention, refusing to be ignored.

“No wonder Jim and Nathaniel don’t want us together. We’re both loose live wires.”

I pulled down the visor and checked my pink lipstick, applying some more powder to cover my fluorescent freckles.

Kat patted me on the forearm, sending the powder flying in a puff of peach air and landing on my sweater.

As I dusted it off, she continued with, “Act like you’re a dizzy woman excited to attend a formal event.”

The powder formed a set of polka dots on the cranberry colored sweater. I pulled a wet wipe out of my purse and dabbed at them. I smeared them around and finally gave up.“Our inability to act socially is exactly why we need Cecylia.”

“We can do this,” she declared.

“How’s this?” I asked as I smiled at her.

Kat giggled. “You look like the Cheshire Cat.”

“Try this,” she said, smiling and doing even worse than I thought I had.

A loud knock resounded from the window. We both jumped and screamed.

“What are you two doing out here?” Derek’s face appeared in the passenger window.

“Trying on lipsticks,” I said quickly.

“Come in and tell me what you need,” he said while opening my door.

“We just need to grab some dresses out of Sabilia’s closet,” I said, my voice squeaking in all the wrong places.

“It will only take a few minutes,” Kat added. “Adelina knows where they are.”

We hopped out of the car and hurried to the front door.

Derek was still standing at the car. I turned and yelled, “We’re going to the event. It’s so exciting. We can’t wait to get all dressed up.”

As Kat placed her hand on the doorknob, she said, “Oh yeah, we told Nathaniel and Jim that you would watch out for us.” She smiled. Hopefully, the dusky dim of the porch hid the fact that both of us were grimacing. It must have worked, because he chuckled and joined us inside.

Once inside, the giant foyer suddenly felt intimidating. I felt like an orphan again. I didn’t belong here. I swallowed my imposter syndrome and the feeling of not belonging and headed down the hall to Sabilia’s bedroom and master closet. I knew her closet was full of gowns. It was the size of my family room at home, with built-in benches and mirrors, cubbies for purses, all made out of rich walnut.

I stopped at the closet door. Instead of Sabilia’s gowns, the closet was full of men’s suits. Where the heels once were housed men’s dress shoes. And where the purses had been, there was an assortment of men’s colognes, belts, scarves, and ties.

“Oh,” Derek said sheepishly as he rounded the corner to join us in the closet. “I kind of moved in.”

“No big deal,” I answered, keeping my face forward toward the closet and his expensive tailor-made suits. I couldn’t look at him. He would see suspicion written all over my face.

Instead, a Shakespeare quote squeaked out, like a balloon leaking air. “All the world’s a stage… and all the men and women merely players…”⁠1

“You’re quoting Shakespeare?” he asked while straightening some cashmere sweaters.

“She means we know you have to play the part,” Kat said. “We get it. Just tell us where the dresses are, and we’ll be out of your way.”

He led us to the attic, four stories up, where the old servant’s quarters were. It looked as if the rooms were occupied. I didn’t see any actual humans, just turned-down sheets and a few items of clothing strewn across the backs of chairs. I said nothing.

Finally, at the end of a long hall, he opened a door, and Sabilia’s gowns had been strewn on some old trunks haphazardly.

“I’ll have someone tend to these,” he said apologetically.

“I have an idea,” he added, stepping back into the room. “Why don’t you two attend the event as my guests? It will be better cover for all three of us. All the world is a stage, as you stated, Adelina. Plus, I can keep an eye on you for Nathaniel and Jim, of course.”

I kind of had this feeling that if we said no, we would be locked in this attic room and dealt with later. So I said cheerfully, “That would be wonderful.”

“I’ll see you downstairs once you’re changed and ready.”

He left, closing the door behind him.

“I think he means we have to change in this dusty room,” Kat said, her cheeks flushed. She looked around the room and nudged my face toward a camera.

What in the world? What was he using this room for, and why was there a camera?

“I think I saw a bathroom we could change in and freshen up our makeup,” I said. We sifted through the gowns with feigned excitement for the sake of the person on the other side of the camera.

“Oh, look at this one,” she said, pulling a pearly translucent layer from a silver dress.

“Look at the gold one.”

“Oh, look at this red one.”

Although the silver and gold dresses were pretty, we both settled on red. We wanted to stand out in the crowd, and these dresses would accomplish that. We found the bathroom, changed, and touched up our makeup. After discovering no cameras, we decided talking was too risky, even here. This whole area could be bugged.

I understood the setup. There weren’t any servants living here; that was an archaic practice. Derek was hiding and monitoring people he had trafficked for the New Reich, possibly teens. I straightened my shoulders and looked in the mirror.

“This is going to be so fun,” I said, all the while wishing we had listened to Nathaniel and worn cameras and listening devices or at least brought our phones.

CHAPTER 17

THE EXPLOSIVE PERFORMANCE

Minutes later, in the car, the sweet school boy act had disappeared. In its place was Ryszard’s personality. This change triggered me and I kept sane my quoting poetry in my head along with Alice In Wonderland.

Where you believed a queen is good. You bow and say your majesty and the next thing you know she is screaming “Off with your head.”

The scene described exactly how I felt. Anger toward Sabilia spilled out all over again. As I smoothed out the top layer of my gown, I thought of her attempt to shock and scare us by bringing Derek on the ITFSC team and keeping us in the dark. Now she had abandoned us to a dark place of her own design. Derek had taken over her estate, planned on trafficking or absorbing the teens and kids into the New World Reich. He was The Man In The High Castle. Sabilia’s castle.

When we pulled up to the Grandview Manor Estate where The Grandview Accord: Rebirth of the Reich was being hosted, Derek turned to face us from the front seat and as I had said to my children before an outing a thousand times, “I’m sure you ladies know what the expectation is.”

He let the rest of the lecture be interpreted by our fear, and it worked. We did know. We former group home and orphans girls knew how to act on the stage of abusers, traffickers, or evil queen. They were all the same, really. Behave. Act like you want to be here. Smile. Don’t make a misstep.

“You wouldn’t happened to have a compact mirror,” Kat said unexpectedly.

I was still stuffing quotes and thinking about the implications of slipping up.

“What do you want a mirror for,” Derek asked with a sneer. “Are you going to crack the glass and stab me?”

Hey, that’s not such a bad idea.

“No, I just want to touch up my makeup,” she smiled sweetly.

“Use the mirror in the visor, but no funny business,” Derek warned.

The driver leaned out of the way, as Kat leaned forward in the middle of the car and pulled the mirror toward her. She touched up her lipstick and then asked for a tissue to defuse some of the bright red color. The driver handed her a a tissue.

Derek got impatient and said, “That’s enough,” while flipping the mirror back to its original position.

The event was nothing like I’d imagined. There were no bonfires for burning books. Just gas heaters strewn about the terrace for warmth. A bar, complete with bar hops, served mixed drinks and wine and champagne. A few S’mores stations littered the lawn with gas fireplaces and attendants to serve or roast a marshmallow. Everyone was dressed to the hilt. There were enough diamonds on the ladies to finance a small country.

As I took in the glitter and the lights strung across the patio and through the trees, I felt as if I’d entered a Hallmark movie directed by M. Knight Shyamalan.

“Not what you expected,” Derek said, back to his school boy charm. “This is what the New World Reich is all about. Prosperity. Beautiful people. A wonderful world for all.”

I glanced around at the faces and bodies of the guests. All young and fit. All beautiful, just like he said.

“What about the old…” I started to ask before Kat interrupted me.

Kat shoved me with her shoulder. Subtle layers of tulle beneath the silk of her gown added volume and movement, hiding her arms as she shoved her hands deep in the pockets.“You know what is great about this dress? It has pockets.”

“What?” I said. She jerked a hand out of her pocket and pulled my arm, signaling for me to stop talking. She led me away. Both our gowns swished as we elegantly glided across the patio, only tripping once.

“Enjoy the party,” Derek said as he was flagged down by the leader of the New World Reich, whom he referred to as Herr Harrington. He strode away from us in a quick cadence like a soldier.

“We need to find out who he really is,” I whispered.

“Well, we won’t be able to if we are dead. You were getting ready to challenge him, weren’t you?” Kat said, fiddling with her heel. “These things are killing me.”

“Bad habit,” I said. “I’m sorry. Let’s find a seat.”

“Look at my pockets,” she said.

“Are you going to say that every time you want me to stop talking?” I asked.

Kat elbowed me and held out her dress.“No, really. Look in my pocket.”

I gasped. “Where did you get a cell phone?”

“That’s why I asked for a mirror.”

“Kat, he’s going to miss that in a minute and we’ll be dead, just as dead as we would be if I asked where are the old people?”

“It’s not his. It’s the driver’s. Let’s go use it and then put it back in the car.”

Kat pulled me toward the house. “Let’s find a bathroom and call Jim.”

A line of women snaked outside the one main floor bathroom the hosts had opened. Guess the party planner didn’t think about the fact that you can’t have fifty women and one guest bathroom. Port-a potties wouldn’t fit in with the decor.

As Kat slipped her heels off and carried them in her hand, she suggested,“Let’s go upstairs and find an empty bedroom.”

A velvet rope stretched across the wide staircase, blocking the upper floors from guests. I slid under and tiptoed up the steps. Kat followed.

So far, so good. No alarm. No one yelled. I tried the first door I came to. Locked. I moved to the second. The door was slightly ajar, so I peeked in.

“You couldn’t have set this up any more perfectly,” said Herr Herrington. “You say Sabilia reached out to you?”

Derek laughed and took a long drag from a cigar.

“One thing I don’t understand. Why didn’t you kill the priest?”

“Wuh?” the cigar hung loosely from Derek’s bottom lip, which was about to hit the floor — a bit of ash suspended in mid-air.

He quickly righted the cigar and regained his composure.“I needed to have their trust in order to secure Sabilia’s estate.”

“I need to find those two cleaning ladies and clean them up for good,” Herr Herrington chuckled.

Derek stood and gave a heil salute.“Don’t worry. I have something in place to take care of the whole team. I can handle the cleaning ladies as well.”

Herr Herrington smiled, his vanity smoothed with Derek’s subservience. “What did you have in mind?”

“Oh, it is already taken care of. There’s a bomb. And that silly girl took the detonator and she makes one call and her whole family goes up into tiny pieces. Everyone on the ITSFC task force taken care of at the same time.”

Kat looked at the phone in her hand as if it were emitting a toxin. What did we do? I stepped back and looked for a place to escape.

I ran further down the hall, dragging Kat with me. I found an open door, pulled her in, and locked it.

I froze.

“Did you hear something?” Derek was in the hallway now. The heavy cadence meant he was coming this way. He put his hand on the handle and jiggled it. Kat and I held onto each other, not daring to breathe.

“Oh, good, they locked it,” he said and retreated down the hallway.

I didn’t dare turn the light on or use the phone as a flashlight. I didn’t want to touch the phone at all.

Kat slid the phone back in her pocket and wiped her sweaty hands on her dress.

At least we were safe for the moment. How did we escape and warn the family to evacuate? Everyone we loved was in that house. My kids. Nathaniel. Mom. Dad. I was going down a why-did-they-adopt-me rabbit-hole again. Kat shook me. Focus. We need a plan.

Someone inserted a key in the door and turned it. I frantically looked around for a place to hide. The walls were covered with bookcases, end to end. A massive desk sat in the middle of the room. At least that’s what it looked like in the sliver of moonlight streaming in the window.

I accidentally jammed a book with my elbow while twirling around in my panic. Miraculously, it gave way and opened the bookshelf to a secret room. I hoped it was a secret room and not a drop to our death. Kat and I had barely passed through and closed the bookshelf door when the door to the room we had escaped opened. I had never prayed for a bookshelf door to close quickly before and that the person on the other side didn’t know about the secret room or see it closing the last inch.

I don't know who entered the room or what the person was doing because wherever we were was soundproof. And dark. Pitch black. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I hoped this was a case of an eccentric building, a beautiful library attached to his study, not a lab where they performed experiments on people.

“If we can’t hear them, maybe they can’t hear or see us,” Kat suggested.

“Should we find a light?” I asked.

I felt my way along the way until I found a switch.

“Here goes,” I whispered.

I flipped the switch, and the room lit up.

“Are you serious? This is absolutely unbelievable.” I said, eyeing the set-up.

It looked like a command center of sorts. One wall housed clear boards full of maps. Computers. A mic and laptop.

“This is podcast equipment,” Kat and I said at the same time.

We would have been in a better frame of mind to look around if it hadn’t been for the impending doom of a bomb.

“These are maps of small villages in Poland,” Kat said.”Some of them are circled in red.”

I clicked on the laptop and it came to life. “They are recording a podcast. The title of this one is ‘Three Things the New Reich Can Do for You.’”

“That’s crazy.”

Seriously wondering who would listen to a New World Reich Podcast, I added,“I’ve never seen that title on Apple.”

“I don't think it is.” I read more of the description. I think this is a private podcast for a specific audience. Kat reported, stating the obvious.

“It’s like the America’s Future organization we dook down in the United States with a different evil twist,” she said as she examined the board.

“The teens are breeders,” I added with a gasp.“They are not only going to traffick people to run the New Reich. They are going to create in by running birthing farms.”

“It says farms?”

Kat continued to read. “No, it says centers. But that’s what it means.”

“Capture the teen girls and boys. Break them. Create the new race. Kill all the undesirables. That’s not exactly what it said, but that was my interpretation.”

“Isn’t that what Hitler did?” She asked.

“This plan is a little different in that they are targeting abandoned, seemingly unwanted teens that they will assume no one will notice are missing.”

The bookshelf creaked as it began to swing open. I lunged for the light switch and turned it off.

“I know someone is in here,”

The light flipped back on. Thankfully, it was the leader, Herr Herrington, not Derek. He didn’t know who we were and still probably thought we were the tourists he had questioned earlier.

“Thank goodness,” Kat said, rising to her feet and placing a hand on her hip. “We were exploring and got locked into whatever this is.”

“Oh, the tourists I met at the bakery.” He chuckled and moved closer to Kat, putting an arm around her waist and pulling her close.

“I see you received an invitation to the party. Let me get you a drink.”

He pulled her toward the opening and I followed.

“Would you say that you are a wealthy American?”

“She's loaded,” I said.

“Yes,” I’m loaded.

He did a once over of our gowns and figures and smiled. “After that drink, let me show you two the table where you can make a donation.”

“Sure,” she said.

Minutes later, we were sipping champagne, and I was hoping Derek observed our good-girl behavior.

But what did we do when he led us to the donation table? We had no money. We didn’t have wallets or purses, or anything that could identify us. With Cecylia gone, we did not have the backup of alternate identities.

“I have an idea,” I whispered as Herr Herrington led us to the donation table. Follow my lead.

When we arrived at the table, I removed the necklace I was wearing and handed it to the man behind the booth. He immediately pulled out the jeweler's tools and examined it.

“Family jewels?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “My donation to the New World Reich.”

CHAPTER 18

THE COMING DARKNESS

After handing over the jewels which Sabilia was probably going to kill me for,

We sipped champagne with the leader, Herr Herrington, and tried to avoid seeing Derek. He was talking to some young women dripping with diamonds, so we probably had some time to look around.

We excused ourselves, and Kat untangled herself from his arm.

“We’re going to mingle with some of the other ladies,” I pointed to a group of teens all decked out in borrowed gowns. I recognized them from the orphanage. One of them was Ania.

Kat moved slowly and carefully. I’m sure she was afraid if she jostled the phone too much it would set off the bomb.

“The good news is we have the detonator,” I whispered to her as we moved slowly to the group of teens. “I don’t think it will go off unless you call someone.So don’t call anyone and we should be good.”

“We need to call and warn them and tell them to clear the house.”

“Why do you think I’m heading to the gaggle of teens?”

I asked. “One of them will have a phone.”

I grabbed Ania’s arm and pulled her away from the group.

“Adelina,” she said brightly.

“Shhhh,” I said. “I’m undercover.”

“Do you think these are the men that tried to kidnap me,” she doubled over in laughter and teetered, catching her balance on a tree branch.

Great, she was drunk.

I decided to avoid answering the question and asked for her phone instead.

“I need to make a call and I forgot my phone,” I said cheerily.

Ania teetered on her heels and said,“Hey, everyone, this is Adelina, she was in the orphanage when I was little.”

Great. How did we silence a drunk teen and let all the teens know how much danger they were in?

I looked around the group to see if anyone was reacting in any way to the news or if there was one of them going to tattle on us. I was prepared to tackle that someone if they split off from the gaggle.

No reaction whatsoever.

“I think they are drugged,” Kat said.

“I thought she was drunk,” I said.

“I think it’s a little more than that,” Kat said, pointing to a large white semi that had pulled up at the edge of the woods. The driver and a passenger jumped out and opened the back doors. It was hard to make out what was inside the back of the semi until the driver shone a flashlight in there for a microsecond.

People.

“Kat, I think you’re right, they’re drugging these teens to take them tonight.”

I wanted to shake Ania out of her stupor, but I knew it wouldn’t work. I’d seen what drugs could do to a teen before. In fact, I’d experienced it myself when I was trafficked at fifteen years old.

So instead of shaking her, I took her purse and fished for her phone. There was no resistance from her. In fact she slumped to the ground into a pile of gauzy glitter.

I called Nathaniel and told him to get everyone out of the house. “There’s a bomb. As soon as everyone is out, call me and I’ll fill you in.”

I breathed a huge sigh of relief when two minutes later he called back and said, “We’re all driving away from the house. Tell me what’s going on. Are you safe?”

“Define safe,” I answered.

Then I filled him in with a sixty-second sound bite of what was going on.

“Here’s the kicker,” I added. “They’re taking the teens tonight.”

“When?” he asked.

“Now,” I said.

The driver and passenger from the truck had gathered a few more men and were headed our way.

“Gotta go, bye,” I said and hung up.

“What do we do?” Kat asked.

“Go with them?”

“I think we follow them,” I said.

I pulled her into the bushes and waited.

“Let’s go find a car,” I said.

Our dresses swished as we crept through the bushes towards the line of Mercedes and BMWs. Hopefully, the keys were still in one of them.

I peeked in the first car and there, lying on the driver’s console, were the keys.

“Would you like a ride,” a male voice said behind me.

I knew it couldn’t be this easy.

I giggled nervously and stepped away from the car.“No, silly me, all these cars look alike.”

The tuxedo clad man advanced toward me, reeking of cigar smoke and whiskey.“I’d be happy to take you for a long ride down a country road.”

Ew. Just then, Kat waved a set of keys and yelled, “over here sister, stop flirting and let's get home before daddy gets mad that we stole his car!”

“Thank you for the offer,” I said, pasting on my best flirty grin.

I jumped in the driver's seat and started the car. Thankfully, it was a quiet engine. I pulled over on the lane beside the woods where the semi was parked and waited.

“Do you still have the phone?” Kat asked.

“No, I put it back in her purse so we could track her.” Then my next thought clouded in like despair. “We have no Cecylia,” I said. “I should have kept the phone.”

Kat studied my face.“How much do you like our Airbnb and how sure are you that Nathaniel and Jim and everyone is out.”

“Pretty durn sure,” I said.

“How can you be so sure?” Kat wrung her hands.

“The van my parents rented just pulled up and I can see them all getting out. You go get them back in the van,” I said.

She handed me the phone. “Make a call. It's a huge diversion and you can follow the semi. We will too.”

She jumped out and lifted her dress and ran, her ultra white legs translucent like pearls in the moonlight.

I counted heads one last time and with everyone accounted for, I made a call to Nathaniel.

The ground shook as the bomb went off a few miles away. A huge fireball to my left lifted above the trees and turned into rolling gray clouds.

Good. Derek would think that we were dead instead of chasing the truck. I watched my family from behind an oak tree on the hill.

Nathaniel answered my call on the first ring.“What a way to start a conversation,” He eyed the smoke and debris littering the skyline and scanned the hill for me.

I didn’t waste any time. “Get back in the van and get away from here,” I commanded.

I said a quick prayer, grateful my family was safe. But there was no time to waste.

Nathaniel hoisted Sawyer back into his car-seat and Payton followed suit. I knew she sensed the danger. “Where are you going?” he said.

“I’m following that semi,” I answered.

After the kids were buckled in the car, he turned,“I’m going with you.”

Payton asked what the loud noise had been while Sawyer struggled at the buckle and asked to get out again.

There was a long huff, and he said, “You don’t want me to come.”

“It’s not that,” I said, “but if I die, I don’t want the kids to lose both parents.”

He continued to scan the surroundings for me.“Where are you? I’m coming to you.”

I turned and took two quick steps back toward the car.

I jumped in the car and started it. I put the car in reverse and slid it further into the woods and hung up.

Nathaniel called ten times before I turned the phone off. I couldn’t talk to him. I needed to finish this mission on my own. This was my calling. I didn’t need to involve anyone else or endanger their lives.

If I didn’t make it out alive, Nathaniel would raise the kiddos. Sawyer and Payton. I tried not to think about them or about all they had already gone through before they came “home” to us. Here I was putting them through more. All of their beloved books and favorite toys had just gone up in smoke. And I was responsible for that. I made the call, knowing a bomb would destroy our temporary home. My family had driven to the heart of the evil beast where men drugged teens and loaded them up on trucks to start a new regime. I didn’t want them to teeter over the edge and be swallowed up in the evil darkness.

Hopefully, Mom and dad would talk some sense into Nathaniel and he would head back to the United States and live out his life without me. I was spiraling, and I knew it.

The passenger door opened and, at the same time, the semi chugged to life.

“You can’t go with me,” I said, thinking it was Nathaniel.

“We need to finish this together,” Kat said. I looked over at her and smiled.

“Fix your wig,” I said, “it's lopsided.”

The gears of the truck ground and it sputtered into motion, heading down the country lane. I put the car into gear and drifted behind it, leaving my headlights off and riding his bumper so he couldn’t see us.

“What do we do when we find where they are taking them?” Kat asked.

“I don’t know. It’s time to come up with a plan.”

“Oh, by the way, Nathaniel gave me your phone. He would like you to leave it on.”

CHAPTER 19

THE FORMAL FACADE

Kat handed me the phone. I dialed Nathaniel’s number.

“I’m doing this, Nathaniel,” instantly regretting my tone.

“I knew you would,” he answered, followed by three long seconds of silence. “That’s not what I needed to tell you. I wanted to talk you out of it, sure. But there’s something else. You need to listen.”

There was a muffled scuffle on his end. “Mom, we’re going home. Real home.” Payton said.

Good. Nathaniel was taking the kids home.

“Are you coming, Mom?” she asked.

“I can’t right now. But as soon as I can.”

“I’m back,” Nathaniel said. “The kids both wanted to talk to you but Sawyer is pretty shaken up and he has gone into one of his mutism regressions.”

“I need to pay attention to my driving,”I said, making excuses. If I talked to Payton again, I would cave and turn around.

“We are going home, as Payton was saying,” Nathaniel said.

“I’ll book my flight as soon as this is over,” I promised.

“Not to that home. Not yet. The estate. That’s what I was trying to tell you. Whatever the phone detonated , it wasn’t a bomb at our house. The bomb squad gave us the all clear.”

“What? Say that again. I want Kat to hear.” I put the phone on speaker.

“I already know. We didn’t blow up our house,” Kat interrupted.

I gave her a quick glance, taking my eyes off the road for a second. It was a second too long. Something ran out in front of the car and I swerved to miss it. I saw a patch of white as I slammed on the brakes. Then a shadowy figure approached the headlights and walked the length of the car, opened the back door and hopped in the back seat.

“Wow, I don’t know how you do this. Playing for the other side is exhausting.”

Before Kat or I could respond, he said, “Go, Kat, you’re going to lose them.”

He leaned back, straightened his cummerbund and added. “No matter. I know where they are going and I’ve got a surprise for you. Take this next left. It’s a short cut.”

I was still reeling. Which Derek was the real Derek? Could we trust him, or was he acting now and playing for the other side, as he called it?

I glanced at him in the rearview mirror again. His tux jacked shifted, and a gun peeked out. He followed my gaze.

“Oh, that. All the worlds a stage and all that. I have to play the part. Kat, can you put this in the glove compartment. We may need it later.” He leaned back after handing her the gun and said. “Do either of you know how to drive a semi?”

“Just hold on a minute. Derek or whatever your name is,” Kat said. “What is going on?”

“We are finishing the mission,” he said.

“I mean what was all that back at Sabilia’s estate?”I added, emphasizing the word Sabilia.

“And the Rebirth of the Reich Event?” Kat added.

“Just playing the part,” Derek said, looking confused.

“Oh, maybe you missed the memo that you aren’t supposed to be terrorists or threaten your own team.” I said, punching the gas and hitting a few ruts in the road.

“That’s not what Damica said,” he said sheepishly.

“When did you talk to Damica?” Kat demanded.

“I’ve had several zoom meetings with her. She profiled the leader of the New World Reich Herr Herrington, and the orphanage director, who sadly, is no longer with us.”

“Oh,” Kat said.

I swerved to miss a tree. I swear this was not a road. It was more of a footpath. Whoever’s car I had borrowed was not going to be happy when I returned it dinged up. Why did I care? What did that matter right now? Derek could be leading us into a trap. Just because he said the right things didn’t mean we could trust him. Did it?

“Are you sure this is a road?” I demanded.

“Yes, mostly used for bikes and hiking, but you are an excellent driver. Keep your foot on the gas and we can beat the semi there and rescue the teens.”

“Back to Damica,” Kat said. She wasn’t convinced.

“Well, she told me that I needed to play the part even around the team that eyes were always watching.”

“Which eyes were watching in the attic?” Kat demanded.

“First of all I was kind of expecting a good job or an atta boy, I thought I did an excellent job.”

I gripped the steering wheel tighter, swerving to avoid large tree roots and branches on the path.“This isn’t grammar school or whatever you call it. We don’t threaten our team or scare them to death in dusty attic rooms.”

“That’s not what Damica said,” he said, sinking back into his seat like a sensitive child who’d been criticized. He leaned forward, “If I remember what she said correctly, there was some head slamming involved and a kidnapping. I can’t remember all the details.”

“Since Damica isn’t on the field often. That seems to be the only story she knows,” Kat said, crossing her arms.

“But is it true?”

Kat shook her head in the affirmative. It was Damica who’d slammed her head on the counter in a convenience store and kidnapped her.

What could we say? He had played the part well. So well, we believed him.

I took a micro second glance at him in the rearview mirror.“Wait, what about the bomb? You said there was a bomb in our estate home.”

“I knew Kat grabbed the phone. I put it there. Plus I knew you were hiding in the study at Grandview Manor Estate. I wanted you to hear what I had to say. I am a spy you know.”

I continued,“Oh, and…”

“Before you ask another question, I have about sixty seconds to fill you in on what’s about to happen so can we save the debrief for later?”

“Yes,” I said reluctantly.

He went on to tell us that the plan was to rescue the semi full of teens and drive them to a location where they would be safe and cared for.

Kat turned, wrestling the bulk of her dress out of the way, and looked Derek in the eye.“What about the people waiting for them? I’m sure there will be armed guards and all of that.”

“I’ve taken care of that,” he said.

As we rounded the corner of the hill and wound out of the woods and began our descent, a blackened smoking building came into view.

“That’s what you blew up,” I exclaimed.

Two men limped around the remains of the building.

“I’ve got a bit of clean-up to do,” Derek said as the car rolled up to a stop. “Hand me the gun, will you, Kat?”

She did as he asked.

He opened the car door, stepped out and straightened his suit jacket. “You may want to hide the car,” he added cheerily.

I slipped the car into gear and drifted into the woods. This guy was really good. Or demented. I couldn’t tell which.

As we waited in the car hidden by blue spruce trees, three gunshots resounded from the burning building.

Thirty seconds later, Derek opened the back door and slid in the back seat.

“See. All taken care of. When the semi arrives, I’ll take care of the driver and his man. One of you needs to drive the semi to this location,” He handed me a piece of paper with an address written on it.

Whose op was this anyway and who put Derek in charge?

“Who set this all up?” I asked, pointing to the address on the card.

“Sabilia, she made sure we had a full care facility for the teens. She’s flying someone over named Daria, from the United States to help the kids.”

“The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. ‘Off with his head!’ she said, without even looking round.”⁠1

“What?” he said. “Never mind. They’re here. Wait here while I take care of the driver and his muscle,” he waved his gun in the direction of the sound of the semi chugging up the road, and hopped out.

Three minutes later, he was back. “I’ll need the keys to the car.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Back to the party. I must go play the part.”

I handed him the keys. Kat and I walked in a dazed stupor to the semi. I dare not open the back and check on the teens in case the New Reich was hiding in the woods. Hadn’t Derek said, “eyes everywhere?”

Instead, I climbed in the cab and prayed I could drive this thing.

Kat plugged the address into the GPS and I started the machinery and shoved it into gear and we took off jerkily toward the main road and our destination.

Half an hour later, with some stops and starts, we pulled into the portico of a well-lit building. Men and women in scrubs rushed out. One of them opened the back, and they began the laborious task of unloading the cargo of drugged teens. Some of the teens, waking from the effects, struggled and fought with their saviors.

“It’s okay. You’re safe,” I said to a few familiar faces.

“Why did you take me?” Ania screamed. “The New World Reich was going to help us.”

Boy, Daria had her work cut out for her.

“No, they weren’t,” I said sadly and helped a teen down from the semi.

Daria joined us in ushering the teens inside. I wanted to hug her and thank her. But this wasn’t the time. She needs to do her job and I need to do mine.

All sorts of memories flooded my mind. When Daria had been the one in the drugged stupor. When she had passed out and been unconscious for so long, I thought she was dead. We’d lived in the orphanage together for ten years. We were best friends. It seemed so long ago and at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel as if it were today. I guess that’s how triggers affect us, making it seem as if the event is happening all over again. I felt all the feelings so intensely it was if each of these teens were Daria, dying in my arms.

I shook my head to get back into the present. As the last teen was unloaded and wheeled in on a gurney, I found a man in scrubs and asked. “Who is in charge here?”

He pointed to Daria, who was talking to an overwrought teen.

“I don’t want to bother her. Maybe you can help me.”

“I’ll try,” he said.

“I can’t drive the semi home.”

He nodded. “I’ll move it. I’m trusting Derek removed the GPS chip.”

“I would hope so,” my mouth said, but inwardly, I writhed. How did Derek end up being in charge of everything? Why had Sabilia given the blueprint for the plan to him and not to me? I hadn’t decided if I could trust the school boy turned evil minion flipped into Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. I had no idea at any given moment which persona would show up.

“Thank you,” I said, instead of what I wanted to say.

“I think I can arrange a ride,” he said and disappeared into the building.

A minute later, Antoni rushed out. “You need a ride, no? The team is back together!”

“I thought you were in Warsaw,” I said.

“Too noisy. Plus I must help the team, no?”

He jogged around the side of the building and returned thirty seconds later in a car.

He rolled down the window. “Let’s go!”

Kat had fallen asleep on a bench. I shook her awake and we piled ourselves in the back of the car. Soon we zipped down the main road towards our estate. I couldn’t wait to hug my kids, Nathaniel, and get out of the fancy garb, and into a hot bath.

After that, I planned to call Sabilia and let her know what I thought about her controlling the mission from her throne in the United States.

I awoke to Kat shaking me. “We are home.”

Yes! Antoni opened my door, and I stumbled out. What a day this has been. I may skip the bath and head straight to bed.

Kat linked arms with me and said, “I could sleep for a year.”

Antoni nudged the car into gear, waved, and drove away.

I expected the house to be dark, but instead the foyer lights shone, as well as every room connected to it.

As we entered the foyer, Jim patted Kat and me both on the shoulder and said, “We have a meeting in ten.”

He breezed by us in khakis and a button down as if he’d recently showered and dressed for the day. The only thing not pressed down was his red hair, which stood on end, like Beaker’s from Sesame Street.

“Something serious is going on,” Kat said, pointing to his hair.

“You can tell by his hair?” I laughed. I was getting loopy from being overtired and I knew it.

“I just want to take a nap. What time is it?” she said in response.

“I don’t know. Let’s get changed before the meeting.”

“Wait. It that coffee I smell? I need some of that more than I need to change.”

Kat and I spent our last nine minutes before the meeting sipping espresso in the breakfast nook while I tried to figure out what was so important. More important than blowing up the command center and saving the teens. Both of which we had accomplished. Wasn’t that enough for twenty-four hours?

Kat and I settled ourselves into seats in front of the screen in the library as Sabilia’s face appeared.

“I didn’t know this was a formal meeting,” she laughed. “You two look good as blondes.”

“What is going on, Sabilia?” I said, rising to my feet. Suddenly, I wasn’t so exhausted anymore. Only angry.

“Sorry I’m late,” Derek said, breezing into the room without breaking a sweat. “Great job Adelina and Kat.”

CHAPTER 20

STRATEGIC DETACHMENT

The wig itched. I wanted to rip it off as much as I wanted to rip off Sabilia’s head. Now, who was the evil queen? I was glad when she went back to the United States. I could forgive her at a distance and with that forgiveness came the understanding that I was in charge of the case. She had made it seem as if she had abandoned us on purpose just so she could wound me again. At least that is the way I was processing her ruling the case from a far. It was as if I’d put my trauma on tee shirt and I was seeing every interaction through the lens of past rejection. I yanked my wig off and sat down, waiting for her to respond to my question.

Nathaniel stood and pushed his chair back.“I think the more important thing right now is that Kat and Adelina saved all those teens and delivered them to the treatment center.”

“Which I arranged and set up,” Sabilia said. “Now let’s talk about next steps,” she torpedoed. She had to get the jab in. I was perfectly capable of calling Daria, who’d been my friend since I was five years old.

“No, let’s not talk about next steps,” I said as I threw my wig on a chair. “I’m going to bed,” and stomped out of the room. At the doorway, I stopped and turned and added, “I’m sure whatever you have planned, you are not really going to let us in on it. You’re just going to wait for us to be surprised so you can get the last word.”

“Give her a break, Sabilia,” Nathaniel said. “She is pretty much doing all the work on this case.” The last sentence muffled when I entered the suite and went directly to the bathroom to run some water for a bath. I slid out of the dress and draped it carefully over the slipper chair.

Once the tub was full, I stepped in and scrubbed the makeup with an angry vigor that left my face feeling raw.

I muttered under my breath, “She said this was my calling. She challenged me on that. Why doesn’t she let me do what I came to do instead of controlling every situation?”

“Are you okay in there?” Father Raphael said as he gently knocked on the door.

“What are you doing in our suite?” I demanded through gritted teeth.

“I fell asleep with Sawyer. He was afraid.”

“Why? What is going on causing him to be afraid?”

“I’ll talk to you when you finish,” Father Raphael answered.

I took my time and did some more muttering and praying while my water turned cold and my finger tips wrinkled like albino raisins.

Fifteen minutes later, I had changed into my pjs and met Father in the hallway.

“Let’s go to the kitchen.”

“I don’t want to walk through the meeting and get sucked back in.”

He directed me to a small seating area at the end of the hallway.

“How about here?” he asked.

“Why was Sawyer afraid?” I grabbed a pillow and hugged it as I sat down.

“We had to leave the house in a hurry and I’m sure he heard the word ‘bomb.’ Think of another time he had to leave his home in a hurry and take practically nothing with him.” he suggested.

“Oh, I didn’t think about the effect my calling was having on my kids. I’m just so furious with Sabilia. She is manipulating me and and running the whole op from the comfort of home without thinking about the effect it is having on me.” I finished and as soon I had spoken, I suddenly felt very selfish. Father Raphael didn’t have to say a word. My own words convicted me. “I’m wrong,” I said contritely.

“You and Sabilia have been in this power struggle since you were fifteen,” he said, shaking his head. “Now you know, she had significant trauma in her own life.”

“I know and I feel bad that coming here triggered her so much, but she is treating herself and others as if she is the queen and we are the playing cards. A quote slipped out before I could stop it:

“‘Get to your places!’ shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each other; however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game began.”⁠1

“I have two things to say,” he said, patting my knee. “One. Something has to give. Don’t let it be you. Two. Remove your feelings from the equation and focus on the mission.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

He prayed with me and I went back to my suite and climbed into my bed with Sawyer and Payton.

The next morning Nathaniel must have let me sleep in because the sun was pretty high in the sky when my eyes fluttered open. It was light and bright instead of gray.

“How about some coffee?” Nathaniel said from a chair in the corner when I stirred. More like wrestling my heavy limbs out of bed.

“That would be nice,” I said thickly.

“We are taking the day off,” he announced.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stretched my arms toward the ceiling.“Oh, but we’ve only finished the first phase.”

“Yes, and now it’s time for a break.”

I moved to a chair and waited for my coffee.

Payton and Sawyer ran into the room, piling on top of me.

“We’re going on a trip today,” Payton said. “Just for fun.”

“No school today,” Sawyer stuttered, “because of a bomb…”

“Yes,” I said hugging them both. “Let’s go have some fun today. Not talk about bombs. We are safe.”

“Because of you,”Payton said. “That’s what Mr. Derek said.”

Right in that moment, I knew I needed a day off to be with my family. If I’d written a to-do list for the day, it would say: Stop letting anger be your core motivator. Think of others and how your actions are affecting them. Have fun with your family. Be grateful.

Mom and Dad had rented a van when they arrived and used it to rescue everyone in the house last night. Was that just last night?

With the promise of a beautiful fall day with temperatures in the mid sixties, it was a perfect day for family fun.

I scurried around to get dressed so we didn’t waste any of the precious daylight. I helped Sawyer and Payton do the same. After we were all dressed in sweaters and corduroys, we grabbed our backpacks and headed to the kitchen for water bottles and snacks. Mom and Dad were eating breakfast in the dining room and didn’t look anywhere near ready to leave.

“Aren’t you going?” I asked Mom.

“No. We are going to stay here today. You go. You need family time.”

So… Mom knew I was unraveling.

I wanted to talk to her more about my calling because I realized as we loaded up the van, even though I knew I had a calling, I was letting Sabilia define it for me instead of asking someone who had a bit more, no, a lot more wisdom on the subject. Mom was not only a mother and grandmother, but she had written over a dozen books, five of which she’d completed while raising children. But that conversation would have to wait.

Today was all about connecting with my children and making sure they felt safe and enjoyed life again. It didn’t matter to me right that moment what Sabilia had on the agenda for the team or what crazy thing she’d have Derek do. None of that mattered right now.

Sawyer loved Mikrokosmos Park, a park featuring large-scale models of insects and other creatures, providing an educational experience about the micro world. He hauled his much loved guide books around, including a new edition — Insects of Poland: Field Guide, and looked up the creatures in them. Payton preferred The Adventure Park Kamieńsk with its rope courses, zip-lining, climbing walls, and other adventure activities. All in all, both were a win.

After a long day of fun and sunshine, the kids fell asleep in the van with me at the wheel.

I felt as if we’d achieved our purpose. The kids were calm and peaceful after all the walking, eating, and conversations and fun. As we pulled into the lane leading to the estate, I immediately knew something was wrong. The sun was slipping down under the horizon line. A few shadowy figures with guns lurked around the front door.

I shoved the van in reverse and backed up.

“Let me out,” Nathaniel said. “I’m armed. I’ll make sure your mom and dad are safe.”

I tapped the brake and checked the rearview mirror. Good. The kids were still asleep. A third shadow figure joined the other two. Right before my eyes, the three figures descended on the front door.

There was a tussle and a fourth figure ran toward the van as I backed up, yelling, “I got them, Adelina.”

It was Derek. Nathaniel had barely gotten his gun out of the holster, and all three figures were incapacitated.

“Are those guys dead?” Payton asked from the backseat. The headlights illuminated as I punched the gas and finished backing out of the lane.

Derek jogged alongside the van and said through the open window. “No, they’re just asleep. Tranquilizer gun,” he said, holding up the gun with a grin.

“We’re going to take these men away and ask them some questions,” he said to Payton while motioning Nathaniel to join him.

Father Raphael exited the house, followed by Jim, and together they dragged the bodies toward the pathway. I put the van back in drive and again crept down the lane to park.

“We’re going to need the van,” Nathaniel yelled.

“Fine with me,” I exited the van and helped the kids gather their things and we went inside. We spend the next hour on snacks, bath-time, story time, and bed.

As I drifted off to sleep with the kiddos, I decided whatever the guys found out while questioning the potential intruders, the answers would have to wait until tomorrow. The first thing in the morning, I planned to talk to my mom about calling.

If this day of family time had reminded me of anything, it was that making my kids feel unsafe all the time couldn’t be part of my calling and it definitely wasn’t my purpose in this season of my life. I’d spent too many months connecting with my kids and honing in on felt-safety. I couldn’t let this mission unravel all the work we’d done together. This mission was unraveling me and now the trickle down effect would immediately cause regression in my kiddos.

The question I began to ask myself is “Am I the best person for this job?” When I agreed to this mission, I thought it was my responsibility to rescue the teens that were once my Littles when I was an orphan. I had some sort of warped savior mentality that said I needed to save everyone connected to my past instead of asking-Is there someone else who can do this?

On the verge of sleep, my thoughts were most cohesive they’d been this entire mission. I rolled out of bed and grabbed my journal and wrote my thoughts down before they disappeared into dreams of queens, Cheshire cats, and playing cards.

The next morning, with my journaling exercises still fresh in my mind, I sought out my mom and shared what I’d written.

“I’m proud of you,” she said. “I don’t think you need my advice,” she added as she took a sip of her coffee. “You know what you need to do.”

“I do Mom. I’m going to take the kids home.”

“And I’ll come with you,” Mom said. “Dad too.”

“I’m going to let Sabilia and Derek handle the rest of this mission. I feel so ashamed that I dragged Kat and Jim and their kiddos halfway across the world and put them in danger.”

“They said yes,” she said.

I sipped my coffee.“I know, but I’m still going to apologize.”

“Have you told Nathaniel?” she asked, leaning over the tabled to stroke my hand.

I smiled. Mom had the ability to calm me with a loving touch.“Not yet. I was asleep when he came to bed.”

“Talk to him sooner rather than later.”

Dad walked into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

I stood and straightened my flannel PJ pants.“I’m taking the kids home.”

CHAPTER 21

UNDER THE REICH’S RULE

Two days later, Nathaniel, the kids and I were packed and heading to the airport along with Jim, Kat and their kids. Mom and dad too. After a pointed meeting two nights previous, many profuse apologizes on my part, everyone was in agreement. We should go home.

Before we left, I took the responsibility of relocating the remaining kids in the orphanage to another orphanage a few villages over. Of course, there were plans in place to do that already, but a visit from one of Father Raphael’s superiors sped up the process. Daria and her husband, Ethan, had plenty of help including the counselor the orphanage had hired. Kasia had stayed behind. I won’t go into that right now. We all know why.

Derek was pretty much on his own. He had access to the smattering of team members we’d left behind. None of them were agents. Most were tactical support or guards, at the very least. Important people but not a lot to work with undercover.

Once at the airport, Father Raphael and Jim pushed the large carts holding our mountain of luggage. Kat and I sipped coffees as we walked. Mom was a kid magnet. She told them all stories about me when I was a child and probably made some up about Kat, to boot.

I felt good about my decision. My calling wasn’t exactly what I thought it was, at least not during this season in my life. My calling right now must fit into the confines of extra time I had after being a wife, mother, and homeschooling mom. And that wasn’t much. And that’s okay with me. I’d been freed from the save the world burden and felt the strongest sense of peace I’d had in years.

When I’d resigned from the ITSFC, I’d replaced it with the Trauma-Recovery Center. After we adopted Sawyer and Payton, I’d said I would be involved in one last case. It was the right thing to do at the time. Now after leaving both the task force and trauma center behind, moving to Spruce Lake, writing another book, podcasting with Kat, and homeschooling the kids, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I’d felt I had to be the one who traveled to Poland and take down a human trafficking organization (which turned out to be much more than that).

After the luggage was checked, we move toward security. I needed a quick stop in the bathroom. We had plenty of time. Mom, Kat, and the kids joined me. It would be good to get this bathroom trip out of the way before we got into the sitting portion of the trip. It took ten minutes to help kiddos in the bathroom, wash eight little hands, and pull exactly two paper towels each at a snail’s pace. We exited the bathroom. I slipped out first, only to be grabbed by the arm. I thought it was Nathaniel goofing off, so I jerked away.

“Fight back and your family dies,” the man’s voice hissed, icy and sharp as a blade.

I turned to see Mom exiting the bathroom, and I waved her back in, hoping the look of terror on my face conveyed enough of a warning. She put both arms out to block the entrance and backed the kids and Kat back inside.

“I need Kat too,” the man said.

Where were the men in my family? I scanned the airport quickly. They sat with their backs to me, oblivious to what was going on.

“Don’t shout or signal, or they’re dead,” he growled. I tried to twist around to see who had my arm pinned behind my back, but it was impossible.

“You can’t have Kat,” I said. “You’ll have to be happy with me.” Happy. Why did I say happy? Who was this and why in the world was he so brazen to talk this way and kidnap me in the middle of the airport?

He pulled my arm harder, and it cracked. “Let’s go.” I’m going to release your arm, but you must not yell. You will follow along and come with me.”

Whoever it was, he has a British accent. Or something like it. It was hard for me to tell.

“Okay,” I said.

I whirled around and walked beside him, stealing a quick sideways glance. His uniform was intimidating, a chilling echo of the past. The black fabric was crisply tailored, with silver buttons and insignias that gleamed. The high collar and sharp lines gave him an authoritarian air, and the armband with its emblem was a stark reminder of the Rebirth of the Reich event. How did he know how to find me?

“We have your friend,” he said.

What friend was he talking about? All I could think was, is it Daria all over again? She’d been trafficked, and it was my fault.

We walked outside the building into the sunshine to a Land Rover Range Rover with tinted windows. Inside, it was cool and empty, with leather seats and high-tech control panels.

“How do I know you are telling me the truth? What do you want with me? I was leaving you alone. I was going home,” I said pleadingly.

I hoped with all my heart that Nathaniel would get on the plane and leave me here. On this mission, I hadn’t proposed that anyone use me as bait, but here I was again. The bait, except this time the people with power, had much more than a teenage orphan. They had a whole task force who would be on the hunt, which sounded great in a mystery/suspense show or novel, but it meant in real life that the stakes were much higher. Not to mention if my kids didn’t get on that plane. It could mean the end of my family.

I did the most logical thing for a girl in my position. I jiggled the door handle as the car raced down the road. No go. Trying to jump out of a rapidly moving car is the only plan I had at this point.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“You’ll find out in a few hours.”

Ummm. That’s too long. I dug for more information.

I clasped my hands together on my lap and tried to maintain my sanity. “Who are you?”

“I’m part of the New World Reich and we are going to change the world for the better.”

“Are you reciting a handbook?”

He slapped me across the face, bouncing my head off the tinted window. Blood trickled from my mouth. Wrong question.

“I suggest you don’t ask any more questions,” he said with a wicked grin.

I dabbed my mouth with a tissue I dug out of my pocket and leaned back, closing my eyes to think. I didn’t ask any more questions. The faint hum of the engine was the only sound, a low, constant reminder of the power at his command.

Two hours later, we pulled in the portico of the Trauma Recovery Center we’d delivered the teens to just a few short nights ago.

My eyes were wide with surprise. I couldn’t hide the shock. As my captor opened the door, Herr Herrington stepped forward, wearing a new gold eagle clutching a symbol of the New World Reich on his chest.

“I hope you treated our guest well,” He said, glancing at my bloody mouth and tomato-red cheek.

“Sir,” he said, shrinking into his seat, his voice trembling slightly, “the force used was necessary because she kept asking too many questions. My actions followed protocol.”

“You did not know how to answer questions?” he said with a withering look.

The kidnapper exited the vehicle and slinked inside.

Herr Herrington rocked up on his toes and said, “Adelina, I have to thank you for upgrading our center.”

“What?”

“You blew up the eye sore, of course. The one we were using for the new recruits and gifted us with this new modern one. Come let’s get some refreshments.” He turned and gazed at the building with pride.

I followed him into the building, dazed and in shock.

In the foyer, soldiers rushed around. I looked around for Daria and Kasia, hoping they weren’t locked up in some damp dirty basement, or worse, dead.

Since the recently promoted general seemed to be against the slapping behavior in response to questions, I said, “Where are Daria and Kasia?”

“Oh, your friends. We’ll get them. First, I thought we could sit down and have coffee with our great leader.” He signaled with his hand for me to walk ahead of him.

Great leader. “I thought you were the great leader,” I said, repeating his words.

“Oh no,” he said, blushing. “I’m in charge of the new recruits. But this…” He waved both arms for emphasis, “is so much bigger than bringing in a few recruits. This is world wide. I’m just a humble general doing my part in Poland.”

He smiled as if he were a child with a great report card, not a quasi human trafficker with a warped world view in a scary regime. Visions of Alice in Wonderland played in my head. I was Alice, and I’d stepped through the looking glass.

“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”

⁠1

Thankfully, I only thought about the quote instead of blurting it out loud.

He led me down a long hallway toward the sound of conversation and clinking cups and the strong aroma of coffee.

“Here we are,” he said, ushering me into a room with ornate rugs, wingback chairs around massive walnut tables in groups of four. He motioned toward a group and pulled out a chair for me to sit in. As I sat and turned to to see who was on my left.

“How did I do, Adelina?” Derek said with his school boy smile.

Was he mad or was I so terrible at my job that he had deceived me? Deceived us all?

He chuckled. “Sabilia was so bent on her revenge plan that she didn’t know I am running the show here.”

“That can’t be true.” I said as a uniform clad teen handed me a cup of coffee and bowed.

“So you were already involved…?” My thought slipped away.

He leaned forward with both elbows on the table and whispered,“I was undercover. But not here. M. I6.”

“What?” I leaned in as well so I could hear his explanation.

“Yes, Ryszard was my twin. I didn’t know it until I was older, obviously. I was going to meet him in person for the first time when you killed him.”

“I didn’t kill him,” I said, trying to sort out my thoughts and formulate a plan.

“Stop,” he said. “I know what you’re doing. Trying to formulate a plan.”

“Oh,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee to buy time.

“It’s not going to work. See all these people. They will do exactly what I say. Do you know why? I’m the new Führer” He clicked his heels together under the table.

“You know how that ended the last time?” I said, taking another sip to steady my nerves.

He stood and knocked my coffee out of my hand, sending a splash of brown on a few nearby recruits.

“That’s because the last Führer wasn’t pure,” he screamed, his veins bulged out of his neck. His skin taut and translucent.

The recruits scattered and watched the scene with morbid curiosity and fear.

This man is unhinged, and I didn’t need our profiler, Damica, to tell me that. What I need her to tell me is how to act and what to say.

He smoothed his uniform and sat back down, melting from one personality into another.

“What do you want with me?” I asked.

“The only reason you are still alive, Adelina is I want you to see the New World Reich rise to power. I want you to see my brother’s dream realized. Then I will kill you. And your friends. And family.”

As if cued by his little death speech, a few recruits ushered Kasia and Daria into the room. When I say ushered, it wasn’t like a prom or wedding procession. It meant that the recruits pushed them forward from behind with firearms poking in their back. The recruits shoved Kasia and Daria into the remaining seats in the circle.

“So,” Derek crossed his legs and leaned back. “You three will help me get the recruits ready.” He rubbed his hands together in glee.

Daria and Kasia nodded their assent.

“There. There. Don’t worry. I won’t kill you yet.” Then he stood and transformed once again. “Please clear the room so I can talk to these lovely ladies alone.”

Everyone scurried out of the room.

“Adelina, we need to do something about the red hair. I’ll get you another blonde wig.”

We sipped coffee after mine was replaced and gave each other confused looks. Derek/Führer stood and called for a car.

“Take us to my estate. I need to keep these girls with me,” he said in explanation to the general, who had insisted he guard us. As much as I didn’t want to be with Demented Derek, the way the general had said the word “guard” wasn’t something I wanted to be subjected to. Replace guard with rape and that’s what I think he meant.

Once inside the estate, Derek led us to a suite that featured three adjoining bedrooms, a living room, and a compact kitchen with a bathroom.

He joined us in the suite. I didn’t like that. Why was he coming in here? Couldn’t he assign us some teenage guards?

Once inside, he closed the door and sat down on the couch.

“How’d I do Adelina?” He said with his school boy grin.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Which Derek am I getting this time? Führer? Demented?”

“Its me. Derek,” He said

“You should have seen your face when we were led in,” Kasia laughed so hard she fell off the couch.

“This is not funny. I thought you…”

“I did a good job then? Convincing?” He asked and slapped his knee.

“Wait. I have a million questions. But first of all, What about my family?”

He smiled.“Everyone got on the plane. They’re headed home.”

CHAPTER 22

THE PUPPET GENERAL

I felt as if my head was actually spinning.

I leaned back on the couch and hugged a pillow.“You can’t keep doing this, Derek.”

Derek looked hurt and confused. “What? Doing my job?”

I threw the pillow at him.“No, I mean not letting me know what is going on. I thought you’d gone off the deep end.”

He plopped down beside me and knocked me with his shoulder.“I know. Isn’t this fun? It’s as if I’m back in the thespian club but instead of acting an hour a day, I get to do this all day long.”

“You do realize, we have a mission and you just handed our Trauma Recovery Center over to the New Reich.” I stood and retrieved the pillow.

“Reich Smeich,” he said, standing and pacing.

I sat back down and resumed hugging the pillow.“What about the New World Reich going worldwide?”

“I made that up. I promoted that flimsy excuse for a man, Herr Herrington, to a general.”

He gazed out the window as if deep in thought and then turned when I asked,

“Why did you do that?”

“Because if he thinks I’m in charge of the World Wide Reich, then he will tell me everything without question.”

“Oh,” I had a million questions, like I’d said, but for now, I needed food and sleep. One last question. “Who’s idea was it to kidnap Kat and me?”

“Sabilia’s, of course. She’s in charge of the mission, right?”

“Did I hear my name?” Kat asked as she entered the room.

“Were you kidnapped?”

Kat set her backpack down next to my feet.“No, Sabilia called me and said you needed my help. Here I am. Jim is going to the states with the kids so it is all good.”

“Lets’ get some things straight, Derek. If I stay here and help you, and that’s a big if, I’m in charge, not Sabilia.” I stood with my hands on my hips like Payton did when she was angry and wanted to control the situation.

“Okay,” he said submissively, hanging his head.

“I’m heading to the kitchen to make coffee and a sandwich,” I said as I grabbed the doorknob.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Derek said. “Remember, you’re a prisoner. We must keep up appearances. Many of the staff here are part of the New World Reich.”

“Well, then go get us some coffee and sandwiches.”

“I couldn't’ do that. I’m the Führer,” he clicked his heels together and gave a “Heil.”

I threw a pillow at his head.

“I’ll have someone bring some up right away. Just make sure you look enslaved when they deliver it.”

I threw another pillow at him.

This was ridiculous. How was I supposed to run the ops as an enslaved girl trapped in a suite?

“Does this mean I can’t go anywhere?” I asked, as he placed his hand on the doorknob to leave.

“You’ll have to stay put until I have further instructions for you.”

“Until you do? You mean until I do.”

“What about them?” I pointed to Kasia and Daria who were enjoying this exchange way too much.

“They go to work tomorrow as usual.”

Then he left, slamming the door quickly, so I had no time to respond.

“So what’s the plan, boss?” Kat said as she leaned over and patted me on the shoulder.

“I don't know yet,” I said. “Do we trust him?” I added. I felt as if Demented Derek had switched sides so many times that I didn’t know what to think. Were we really prisoners? If this were a mystery novel, I would flip to the last page and find out whodunnit. But it wasn’t. It was real life.

I couldn’t plan until I had food and coffee. Plus information out of Daria and Kasia, even if I had to hold them on the floor to get it.

Fifteen minutes later, a young recruit in a spotless uniform delivered coffee, sandwiches, and cookies. I tried to look enslaved. Sad. Mournful.

The recruit pushing the cart was lively and talkative, so that made my acting more difficult. After all, I wasn’t part of the thespian club. The orphanage didn’t have such things. But I had learned some Shakespeare quotes, which didn’t seem helpful now.

After we’d eaten, I moved to the bedroom where I planned to lie down for a nap when Kasia said, “Adelina, you have to see this.”

“What?”

“You were so busy yelling at Derek that he didn’t have time to show you this,” she went back into the living room and walked to a built-in bookcase, pulled a book out, opening a door to a secret room. Inside the room, computers blinked with Cecylia’s face. Derek leaned back in a leather office chair as a few ITSFC members hovered around the keyboards.

“Well, look who it is!” Cecylia said as I stepped into her view. “Welcome to the ITSFC.”

“I tried to tell you,” Derek said.

I grabbed a chair and plopped down hard.

“What’s the plan, boss?” Derek asked.

There were several things I did know, but just as many I didn’t. Kat joined me and stood at the clear white board, ready to jot down whatever I said. She wrote: What we know.

Good, at least she and I were on the same page. Derek seemed to have started his own book!

The general thinks there is a New World Reich spanning the globe, she wrote.

“Have you made it look as if this were true?” she asked, directing her question toward the screen.

“Yes,” Cecylia said. “I have websites set up. Social media accounts. The whole nine yards. Maryanne is here helping me.”

Maryanne’s face popped on the screen momentarily with her copper curls glowing in the ring light.

Maryanne had worked on the FBI task force with Kat and Jim as their computer whiz, but she’d gone into business for herself as an interior designer and home organizer. She occasionally moonlighted with the task force when needed.

“We have it all setup to make the general think that not only is this a worldwide organization, set on the brink of a worldwide takeover, but that he is at the top of the totem pole, right below Derek.” Cecylia explained.

“That’s genius,” I said.

Kat wrote more factors on the board.

“So what was our next move?”

How did we take down this little corner of the organization and save the kids and snuff out any sparks of the New World Reich starting afresh somewhere else?

“We have some deprogramming to do,” Daria said as she joined us. “But I can't do that now because I’m supposed to be,” she said with emphasis on the word, supposed, “endorsing the program and teaching Nazi rhetoric. If I do this for too much longer, some of these teens will stay stuck. They won’t believe me when I try to reverse the process. They will think I’m lying.”

“How much longer before they cross that line?” I asked.

“Some of them a day. Some a week. We need to end this, Adelina, the sooner the better.” She emphasized the words sooner and better.

She would know. After being trafficked, she didn’t escape unscathed. It had taken years of therapy and some serious physical toll as well. When we rescued her, her body had become emaciated and her mind was gone.

“So whatever we do, it needs to be fast.” Kat said as she drew a timeline on the board.

“What do we do first?” Derek asked.

“First, Derek, you are going back to the Trauma Recovery Center and pump the Herr Herrington for information.”

Another screen pinged and a task force member manning the keyboard turned and said, “It’s Sabilia.”

We each greeted her with a “Good morning.”

Sabilia’s face lit up on the screen.

“I see you came back,” Sabilia said. “Great job, Derek.”

I didn’t have time to tangle with Sabilia. I didn’t want to explain myself, yell at her, take the time and energy to play her game, so I said.

“Yes, I’m back and I’ve got it from here.”

I signaled to the computer guy to hang up, ending the call.

“Block her,” I added, and he complied.

So the plan was to gather more information from the general and find out who in the area is on his side. What kinds of funds he had available? Who he answered to and a list of other pertinent information.

Next, we would use said information to take the funds, take down anyone who was working with him, and then take him down. We’d return the Trauma Recovery Center to its original purpose and go home.

It sounded like a solid plan. I was relying on Derek to have a superb memory because we couldn’t risk a camera or wire on him.

With his assignment in hand, Derek left to go back to the Trauma Recovery Center. I left the command room to take a nap with visions of Sabilia dancing in my head with Derek, saying things like:

“My dear, you can’t be serious about that, it’s not the proper thing to do. But of course, if the Queen orders it, I shall have to agree.”⁠1

I knew she hadn’t finished trying to control the mission. Nor was she finished with me. Why couldn’t she just enjoy her new husband and be happy she had a baby on the way? Then I remembered she had no faith of her own. I need to be more gentle and kind to her. She thought Father Raphael could carry the faith for the family.

Since I was the link to Poland and all the horrific things that had happened to her, she was placing me in the crosshairs. I’d seen it before at the Trauma Recovery Center. A teen would place blame on sibling for not stopping them from being trafficked. The sibling would become the target of the anger and abuse instead of the trafficker, who they would defend to the end. It took a lot of work and many therapy sessions to get the teen to see the light. They were misplacing their anger and causing secondary trauma to the family. We always had to start with the victim’s feelings, whether or not they were true. The victims needed validation. Then we could move on to other issues. What did Sabilia need validation for?

Instead of falling asleep, like I intended to, I went back to the command center and asked the tech guy to call Sabilia.

“I’m sorry, Sabilia.” I knew it was she who needed to apologize to me, but I decided I needed to take the first step.

“That’s okay,” she said.

“I know you’re feeling a little out of control because you had to go home.”

“Yes, I know it was the best decision, but how can I do my job now?” she said, waving her arms around her living room. “From here.”

“You can do it. Because I’m going to fill you in on everything we know.”

For the next hour, I relayed everything we knew up to this point, every little detail from my time as a cleaning lady to us witnessing the fake general shoot the orphanage director. Then everything that had happened since then. I finished reading the white board to her.

“Adelina, you need to be careful of the general. If he can shoot someone point blank in the head, that means a few things. He either has more power than we originally thought, or he is a demented psycho or both.”

“I thought Derek was a demented psycho. I’ve been calling him Demented Derek.”

“No, Adelina. He is an actor. Through and through. There is a huge difference between acting and being.”

“How can I tell the difference?” I asked.

“Instead of trying to figure that out, I’ll get in touch with the profiler, Damica and see what she thinks.” Sabilia promised.

“Okay. Thank you.”

“And Adelina, I’m sorry I’m not there with you,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye.

“Call me when you get in touch with Damica.” I said.

I didn’t know how to respond to this weepy and contrite version of Sabilia. I think I enjoyed the fake fighting we did, jockeying for power, putting each other in place. So just for a moment, I tried to think like a mom.

“You just take care of yourself and that baby. We will take care of the rest.”

“I’ll have Cecylia send over all the info she has on the general to Damica,” she said and then hung up.

I felt as if I could sleep now, so I went back to my bed and snuggled under the covers. I must have fallen asleep for a few minutes. I startled myself awake. I fell out of bed and crawled around, looking for a clock. I found one. I’d slept for five hours. It must be the middle of the night. I decided to chance leaving the suite. I opened the door quietly and tiptoed toward the kitchen, where I hoped to find a snack.

When I rounded the corner to the hallway before the kitchen, I heard voices, so I froze.

“You said this was only going to take days, “ a male voice said.

I crept back into the shadows of the dimly lit hallway and plastered myself against the wall.

Who was speaking and whom was he speaking to? I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Derek answered. “You have to give me a few extra days, General. There are a lot of moving pieces on the chess board.”

CHAPTER 23

THE CLEARING OF DEATH

“Don’t patronize me,” the general said. “I don’t want excuses.” A click. It sounded like a gun.

“There’s no need for violence,” Derek said. “I just want to make sure we tied up all the loose ends before we move to the next village.”

“You mean the three ladies you have stashed here at your house?”

“Make that four,” Derek said. It sounded as if he were smiling. “I caught another one this afternoon.”

“How did you do that?” the general asked.

“I had the right bait,” Derek said. “Now put that away.”

I was the bait. I couldn’t believe it. Yes, I could. I knew I didn’t trust him. That was my initial instinct. All of that school-ish boy charm. That was the act. Not this other stuff. We had to get out of here. First, I needed to talk to Cecylia and see what she could dig up on Derek. Damica too. I wondered if the little command center we had off our room was being monitored. Or if I could lock the door so Demented Derek couldn’t get in for at least an hour.

I crept back down the hallway, into our room and into the looking glass. I mean the bookcase.

I mumbled to myself, “I’m sure I’m not in my right mind, but I feel that it would be very good to go home now, if only I could find my way.”⁠1

As soon as I turned the lights on, the computer screen lit up. The techs had cleaned up and gone, so I was alone. I locked the doorway to the hallway. I was safe-ish. But for how long?

“You are not going to believe what I found out,” Cecylia said from the screen. I shushed her until I found a pair of headphones and plugged them in.

“There. What were you saying?”

“All that stuff about Ryszard being Derek’s twin is true.”

“I knew it,” I said. “Wait until you hear what I have to tell you.” I filled her in on the conversations I’d overheard at the recovery center and in the kitchen ten minutes ago.

“Wait. Damica is joining me,” Cecylia said.

“Adelina, you have to get out of there.” No ‘hi’ or ‘hello,' just ‘run for your life.’” This was serious. Deadly serious.

The doorknob to the hallway entrance jiggled.

“I think Derek is here,” I whispered. “What do I do?” I pleaded with Damica.

“Act like you think he is on your side. Play the part. Act,” she said.

I went to the door and opened it.

“Oh, good, it’s you. I didn’t want any of the recruits sneaking in here in the middle of the night. So I locked the door.”

“Where are the other girls?” he asked as he peeked in.

“Asleep. I’m just catching up with Cecylia. She had an appointment with the midwife today,” as if that explained everything and hopefully shut down any more questions. I was banking on the fact that most men didn’t want to know any of the “women” stuff.

“Oh, well, goodnight.” He said, and he was gone.

I didn’t know how much more of this I could handle. This being haunted by Ryszard’s ghost-brother was much worse than Ryszard himself. I wanted to call Sabilia and fill her in on the deadliest mistake she’d ever made-recruiting Derek. It could mean the death of not only me, but her daughter, and the rest of the team.

“Make sure you fill Sabilia in,” and clicked the end call button. I had a sick feeling that Derek was hanging outside the door, listening.

I slipped back into the bedroom and climbed into bed.

Instead of sleeping, I reviewed everything Kat had written on the board in my head and wondered where and when the op unraveled. There was only one answer right now, and I’d recently forgiven her. Sabilia. In her haste to punish me and the rest of the team, she hadn’t done her homework. I pushed that thought aside.

I didn’t have the time and energy to keep forgiving her. I needed to go deeper. It was if someone had lured me here specifically. Other than Sabilia. Did someone make sure Sabilia and Father Raphael went back home? But why? Why me? Sure, I’d stabbed Ryszard. But I hadn’t killed him. He could have lived a long long after he escaped custody if he hadn’t come for me and Cecylia in the United States. Plus, Father Raphael shot him. Not me. Had Cecylia going back to the United States ruined or helped his plan? Maybe that’s what he needed a few more days for. I was the bait to bring her back. She couldn’t come back.

We girls had to get out of this house and find a safe place to gather some more of the ITSFC and bring Derek down for good.

I woke the girls and whispered that we needed to get out of here. I promised to tell them why once we were safe. But where?

Ten minutes later, we ran through the woods behind the estate, hoping there were no guard dogs and no flood lights. Or guards with guns. I will admit, my plan had a lot to be desired. But I couldn’t risk spending another minute with Demented Derek.

“Where are we going?” Kasia asked, wrapping the blanket she’d taken tighter around her torso. “I just want to be back in my nice, warm bed. At my house, I might add,” she said begrudgingly.

“You’re right. It is your house.”I said as another thought sprung to mind. “Does your mom own other houses?”

“Yes, a smaller villa.”

“Where is it?”

“About fifteen kilometers from here.”

“We can’t walk that far tonight.” Kat said.

“What about Antoni?” Daria suggested. “He has been staying at The Recovery Center.”

We changed directions and headed to the Trauma Recovery Center to find Antoni and get a ride. Someone had to let him know he was being used and that he would probably be terminated once he was no longer useful.

While we hiked the couple kilometers, I filled them in on everything I’d learned. I felt as if the entire case were a snake, constantly twisting, turning, and lying until we finally saw its true form. Liar. Death. Evil. The ghost of Ryszard risen from the ashes was more potent and evil than the original.

“Lets make a pact, right now,” Kat said.“No more trusting Derek.”

“Agreed,” we all answered.

When we arrived at the Trauma Recovery Center, I spotted Antoni’s taxi around the back. Daria volunteered to find him since the staff was used to her presence. She buzzed the main doorbell and waited.

A few seconds later, we watched her slip in the front door. We hid near the car, so we were ready to go. I hoped he would bring his wife, Aginiezka, so we didn’t have to come back and rescue her.

That’s when I heard it, a gunshot. From the woods behind the center. I ran with Kasia and Kat beside me.

“You realize we are running toward someone with a gun,” Kasia hissed.

“We know,” Kat said. “It’s part of the job.”

At the edge of the woods, a small clearing opened up. A makeshift floodlight illuminated a small circle. A man tied to a chair. Blood dripped down his forehead, hiding his eyes, covering his face, and dripped from his chin. The clothes and body shape looked familiar. Antoni. They killed Antoni.

Before I could step into the light, Kat pulled me back. “Don’t” She pointed toward where the gunshot had come from. Standing right outside the ring of light were Derek and the General.

“We need to get out of here, or we are next,” she said, pulling us toward Antoni’s taxi.

How did Derek get here so quickly? Oh yeah. He had a car. Sabilia’s car.

“Do you have the keys to your mom’s car, Kasia?” My whole body was shaking in tremors of anger and grief. I stopped and puked in the grass, with both hands on my knees. I stood and wiped my mouth on my sleeve.

Kasia looked ready to collapse. Sweat beaded on her forehead. “Which one?” she replied shakily.

“The one that Derek has been driving,” I said.

She fished in her backpack and jerked out a set of keys to the Mercedes.

Daria came running along the edge of the woods. Don’t step into the light, I prayed she heard and obeyed my thought. I only knew it was her because I recognized her stride. When she got within arms reach, I grabbed her and put my hand over her mouth.

“They killed Antoni,” I whispered.

“They killed his wife too,” she said, her voice shaking.

“Let’s go,” Kat said. I was glad she was here. She didn’t have the emotional connection to Antoni and his wife that we did, so she could think more clearly in the moment. She could prod us into action when all I wanted to do was cry, scream and maybe shoot somebody.

We piled into Sabilia’s Merćedes and Kasia pulled the car around as quietly as possible. Not quiet enough. Derek and the General barreled out of the woods, chasing us and shooting haphazardly.

Kasia pushed on the gas and said, “Hold on!”

When we were far enough away from the Trauma Recovery Center to feel as if we had a chance, headlights crept on our rear, blinding us. Kasia pulled the rearview mirror down to stop the glare as someone ate up our bumper. Kasia swerved and headed into the woods on what looked like a footpath.

“See if you two Brits can follow me. You have no idea how to drive in the woods.”

I kind of felt the same way about Kasia’s driving. The car swerved, barely missing trees, bouncing over rocks and ruts. But she kept going, and we passengers held tight to whatever we could grab.

The car behind us gained ground, and I thought he was going to overtake us. Then Kasia swerved again to miss a massive one hundred-year-old tree. The car behind us hit the tree head-on with a sickening crunch. Kasia didn’t slow to see who was in the vehicle. She zipped through the forest until we hit the main road.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To the villa for now,” I said.

“Then I’m going to get those cuss people out of my house,” she announced, except she used another word for “cuss.”

This had become personal for her. The New World Reich had awakened a sleeping giant in a Polish girl.

An hour later at the villa (still larger than Sabilia’s house back in the States), we settled in by taking baths and washing the stench of the day off. How did I wash the memory of Antoni’s blood off my hands? He’d joined the ITSFC because of me. His wife too.

Kasia took charge by calling the servants who lived in the cottage behind the house to come help us set up. The second call was to her sister to send some trusted members of the task force to set up a command center. I called Nathaniel and Kat placed a call to Jim. Of course, both of them planned to hop on the ITSFC jet with the other members and head here. Mom and Dad, and Kat’s friend Meredith agreed to look after our four kids.

Kasia updated the staff, letting them know the house would be full in a matter of twelve hours. We would need rooms cleaned, food, coffee, bedding, and all things to make the team comfortable and productive. I felt as if we were in an episode of a historical drama with all the staff bustling around.

All I wanted to do was get in bed and cry. Why had they killed Antoni? He knew nothing. He wasn’t endangering the New World Reich or their twisted trafficking operation. He just drove the taxi. A scary thought pinged my brain.

“What about the baker?” I said to Kasia. She stopped giving instructions and the color drained from her face.

“We need to save the baker,” she said.

“We need to get to him first or they will certainly murder him too,” Daria added.

“I’m going,” I said.

“You’ll never make it,” Kasia said.

I pulled a jacket over my flannel PJs.“I have to try. Give me the keys, Call him and tell him to hide.”

“Where?”

I took the keys and jogged toward the side door. I yelled over my shoulder,“In the woods. Beside the orphanage.”

A few minutes later, I zipped down the road, praying with all my might. Don’t let me be too late.

Another thought bomb exploded in my brain - Derek is killing everyone who had anything to do with his brother’s original take down. That meant Cecylia, Father Raphael, and Sabilia weren’t safe either. He’d rounded up Daria, Kasia and me. Kat was a bonus. I wondered if there was really anything called the New World Reich or if this were all an elaborate ruse. The marching recruits. The party. The wealthy patrons.

If all the world is a stage, this is just a giant act put on for me and ITSFC.

I don’t think Demented Derek counted on two women he planned to kill being pregnant. He didn’t count on everyone going back to the States. He may have thought we were calling his bluff, so he had to expand his plan and make it more elaborate.

I rounded the corner to the entrance of the orphanage and slid the car to the side of the woods and killed the lights. I parked and stepped into the woods, calling softly for the baker. I flipped on the flashlight function on my phone and aimed it downward.

“I knew you’d come,” said a voice from the shadows that didn’t belong to the baker.

Derek stepped into the beam of light, pushing the baker in front of him with a gun jabbed in his neck.

“Don’t think I won’t pull the trigger,” he said.

He stepped closer and studied my face.

“You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”

“You infiltrated the ITSFC to kill everyone who took down your twin.”

“Yes, and I had everything set up. The breadcrumbs of a new trafficking ring and all of you like homing pigeons ate up the crumbs and every word I said. Of course, Sabilia’s need for revenge against you didn’t hurt. She was more than willing to let me take the reins if it meant you suffered.”

“You really have a flair for the theatre,” I said, waving my phone around for emphasis. “This whole elaborate ruse.”

“It wasn’t all fake. I promised the general and his new little Reich that he could have all the orphans after I disposed of the ITSFC.”

The baker’s eyes looked as if they would pop out of his head like a child’s Pop-Up-Pal toy.

I knew better than to play the orphan card and empathize with him. Tell him I knew what it was like to be abandoned. Sure, that worked on TV shows, but this is real life. His intention was to kill us both. No words would stop that. Just a bullet. Thankfully, I had one in the gun I’d slipped into my belt. I let him ramble on and tell me his story and how it had all gone wrong — Sabilia and Cecylia had gone home because they were pregnant. He was going to make sure I suffered more because I quit his game and did not play until the end.

“This is the end,” he said, waving the gun around. “At least for you and the baker. It’s a shame. I love his rolls.”

CHAPTER 24

THE REICH’S NEW FACES

Derek pulled back his gun and looked at the baker just for a split second. It was long enough for me to pull out my Glock 43 hand gun from behind my back and fire. It was as if the bullet had traveled in slow motion. I prayed it hit Derek in the hand and not the baker. Derek screamed and jumped back, his weapon flying out of his hand as blood spurted into the air. I fired again, and the shot struck his leg. I achieved my goal for the moment. I didn’t want him to run. My main priority right now was saving the baker and myself.

Demented Derek cursed and fell to the ground as the baker ran toward me.

“I have some zip ties in the car,” I said to the baker. “Can you get them?”

The baker complied, rushing to my car and retrieving the needed ties. The baker didn’t know Antoni, the taxi driver, his best friend, and his wife, Aginiezka, were dead. This wasn’t the time to tell him.

Although adrenaline pumped through my veins, spiking my heart-rate and my hands were shaking, I knew the case wasn’t over. It wasn’t solved and wrapped up in a neat little bow. There was still the problem of the New World Reich. Even though Derek had used it to lure us here and insert himself into the mission, it was real. It was no less dangerous than it had been two minutes ago. It was more like a tiny spark that would, if not doused, cause a wildfire. Get one kid to believe you can offer them safety, education, and a better life and the rest will follow like children after the Pied Piper. Especially when dealing with neglected and abandoned teens. They want to be reassured that they exist and they matter, so anyone who provides those two things has power over them.

The task force physician treated Derek’s wound and placed him in a cell in the basement of Sabilia’s villa. It wasn’t actually a cell. It was a top of the line wine cellar. It would do until the task force transported him to a facility to be questioned by someone other than me.

Once the prisoner was secure, I went to bed and didn’t wake until the sun was halfway through the sky. Noon. It must be lunchtime.

The rest of the girls were in the dining room eating lunch — brown bread, cheese, and yogurt. It looked yummy, but I needed coffee first.

“Are you going to tell us what happened?” Kat asked as she spooned some yogurt on her plate.

“Yes, but I need coffee first.”

“Sit down. I’m on it.” Kat breezed by one of the staff and poured me a generous sized mug.

I took a sip as they watched with impatient tapping and staring.

“Come on,” Daria said.” Should I go to work today? I need to know what is going on.”

“It was all Derek,” I stood and paced as I poured out his elaborate plan.

“So it’s over,” Kasia said, clapping her hands together.

I stopped pacing and took a sip of my coffee before saying, “No. Not exactly. The New World Reich is real. They are targeting and trafficking orphans to build their new world order.”

“Oh,” Kasia said, her mouth frozen in the word.

“Derek used what was already happening here,” Kat said.

“I suggest you don’t go into work,” I added. “I watched the new general, Herr Herrington, shoot the orphanage director point blank.”

Kat took a swig of her coffee, choked, and slammed it down on the table. “Wait. Where’s Derek?”

“He’s in the basement.” I grabbed a slice of brown bread and spread some cheese on it. Suddenly I was starving and I couldn’t spread the cheese fast enough. I licked my fingers and the knife.

Kasia stood. “Here? In this basement?” She pointed to the floor.

I took a huge swig of my coffee to wash the heavy bread and cheese out of my mouth and force it down my throat. “I shot him twice.”

Kasia rocked back and forth. “So we have a cadaver in the basement. That’s creepy.”

“He’s not dead. Just wounded.” I took another bite of bread and cheese followed by another swig of coffee and uttered a prayer that no one freaked out.

“Oh,” she said again. She plopped down hard into her chair.

“So what’s our next move?” Kat asked.

“I know what my next move is,” Kasia said. “I’m taking back my sister’s estate. They can’t keep it. This isn’t World War II.”

“Wait,” Daria said. “Who is staying there? The general isn’t.”

“Recruits for the Reich,” I answered.

Kasia flipped her blonde tresses. “I think there should be a new boss in town.”

“Who?” I asked.

I was confused. First, we were going to take back the estate. Storm the gates. Now Kasia suggested a new boss?

“It can’t be you or me,” Kat said. “We don’t have the right features.”

“Don’t look at me,” Daria said as she tucked a blonde strand behind her ear. “I’m not on the task force for a reason. I only help with the recovery phase.”

All eyes turned to Kasia.

“Me,” she said.

I guess my fears of Kasia freaking out about the wounded Demented Derek in the basement were unfounded.

“Yes, you.” Kat said.

“I fit the profile perfectly, don’t I?” Kasia duck marched around the table.

“Your mother owns this villa and an estate. How much is her net worth?” I asked.

“Give me a number,” Kat said. “Ten million?”

“She probably has at least that amount here in houses, cars, and jewels, right?” I asked.

Kat and I had picked from piles of gowns and I knew they were worth a pretty penny. Plus the jewels. I should have known that Derek wasn’t really part of the New World Reich when he tossed them aside in the attic instead of donating them to the cause.

Of course, I was still waffling between whether he was on our side. He hadn’t made it easy.

Kasia grabbed a coffee cup and stood to pour a refill, ignoring the staff member who had reached out to assist her.

“Try that again,” I said.

“What?” she slurped her coffee.

“Play the part. Let the staff wait on you. Order everyone around. Act like you own the place.” I handed my empty mug to a uniformed maid to demonstrate.

Kasia set her coffee on the table and dabbed her mouth with a cloth napkin.“I do own it. Well, kind of.”

Kat added,“Adelina’s right. You need to act like it.

Daria nodded in agreement.

Funny, Kasia had gotten into the habit of telling me she could do whatever she wanted. She left college on a whim and ordered me not to tell her mother. Now that she had the opportunity to use that superpower, she was acting as if she didn’t possess it. Instead, she was a scared college student in fear for her life, which, on one hand, was a good thing. I mean, we had Demented Derek in the basement and he was proof that we had barely escaped with our lives. The truth is any of us could act high and mighty when we felt safe and secure. We didn’t feel either of those right now.

The trick was to convince her to act the part in order to keep her safe.

“Act like Sabilia,” Daria offered. “Storm over to your estate and take it back.”

“Yes,” Kat agreed. “But let them know you are on their side.”

“Like I’m a Nazi,” Kasia said, revelation dawning on her face.

I shook my head.“Yes, exactly.”

“Do you have group home skills?” Kat asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Well,” Kat said, grabbing her by the shoulders. “I’m going to teach you. You’re going to rock this.”

A few hours later, Kasia, wearing an outfit from her mom’s wardrobe, hopped in the Mercedes and drove to the estate.

During Kasia’s training, which had lasted all of an hour and a half, Kat convinced Kasia to take Daria along as an assistant. Daria had offered several suggestions based on her background in psychology and helping girls recover from traumatic experiences. She reversed the process and instructed Kasia to act as the traumatizer.

“Derek is better at this,” Kasia moaned.

“That’s it. Act like Derek,” Daria said.

“Be all British schoolboy?” she grumbled.

“Not exactly. Be demented when you need it. Sweet schoolgirl other times,” Daria suggested.

After Daria and Kasia left, Kat pulled me away from the ever listening ears of the staff. “Do you think we are doing the right thing?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Jim says you and I always use group home or orphanage skills.”

I posed the next question more for myself than for Kat. “What do Jim and Nathaniel do?”

“Storm the gates,” she said in a low whisper, glancing around to ensure no one was within earshot.

“That’s true,” I replied, my voice equally hushed,“But in this instance, I think that would just put out one tiny part of the blaze. We would never find the people in charge.”

Kat nodded, pressing her back against the wall and lowering her voice further. “You’re right. That’s what I had to do with America’s Future. We need a different approach.”

I shifted my stance, monitoring the hallway as I crossed my arms. “So, we know what we are doing?”

“Yes. We got this,” she said as we high fived each other with confidence.

Even with the ITSFC jet, Nathaniel, Jim, and the rest of the team we requested wouldn’t arrive until this evening.

Kat and I lounged around, recovering from the pace of the last few days, gearing up for the next phase of the mission. Agents would soon overrun the house, leaving no quiet.

I dropped the baker into a spare room upstairs to rest. We’d filled him in on the death of Antoni and his wife. He sniffled and cried briefly, but the death of his lifelong friends fueled his desire to help us. However, I didn’t feel returning to his bakery was safe.

“Hey, where are our bikes?” I asked.

Kat shifted on the couch. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe there are a few here in the garage,” I suggested.

Kat sat up and rubbed her eyes.“What are you thinking?”

“Two things: one, if I don’t move I’m going to fall asleep. Two. I want to check out the vibe of the village right now.”

Kat stood and stretched her arms above her head. “Should we travel incognito?”

I stretched and stood myself while stifling a yawn and nodding my head in the affirmative.

We donned our wigs and touristy outfits after finding e-bikes in the garage. We took off toward the village.

When we arrived in Sulejów, we were shocked to see swastikas draped over the businesses.

“Let’s stop and see how our favorite grocer woman is doing,” I suggested.

We parked our bikes on the street and entered the swastika draped entrance.

Instead of making a beeline for the checkout counter, I grabbed some paprika chips, chocolate bars, and water bottles. I didn’t want to be too obvious. Kat followed suit.

Once we’d loaded our arms with goodies, we walked to the back of the shop to check on the shop owner, only to be greeted by a muscular male teen who declared “Heil Hitler.”

I gulped and froze. I could feel a not too appropriate quote rising my throat.

Kat, seeing my distress, took the lead. “I’m sorry we are Americans. We don’t speak Polish.”

“Oh,” he said, and then he had nothing more to say. He rang up our purchases. Another teen dressed in a military uniform came from behind the curtain separating the business from the residence.

“Did they not return the greeting?” he asked, giving us the once over.

“They are American tourists,” the cashier explained.

“Soon all will greet us in the proper way,” he said menacingly as he studied my expression. Could he tell I understood what he was saying?

We hurried out of the store and stopped to check another shop, and then another. Each one was the same. The owners had been replaced by a young fit blond Nazi recruit. Some sported the uniform. These seemed to be the enforcers.

Kat and I took a break on a bench in the middle of the village to eat our snacks. A young officer stepped out of the police station. Another recruit.

As we hopped on our bikes and pedaled out of town, I said, “we have another problem.”

“I think we have two problems,” Kat returned.

“One. Where are the shop owners? If history repeats, we need to save them before they are exterminated.”

I hit the brakes, causing the bike to jerk, sending a spray of pebbles in the air. Exterminated. Is history repeating itself at an accelerated pace? Did Derek know what his plan of revenge had put into action?

“What’s the second?” I added.

“How quickly is the regime spreading? We should check the neighboring villages.”

“Agreed. But first we need to find the villagers,” I said.

We agreed it was best to return to the villa and trade our bikes for a car.

“We should search the abandoned buildings,” I suggested as we set out.

For the next hour, we drove around on dirt roads and checked every old building we could find.

We were about to give up and head back to the villa when we pulled up to a half wall that was formerly part of a building. I pressed the brake, stopped and shoved the car into park.

“Why did you stop?” Kat asked, glancing around. “This isn’t a building.”

“You would be surprised how many of these destroyed buildings still have basements intact. Let’s at least check before we go home.”

I exited the car, stepped over some rubble, and circled what used to be the perimeter of the building.

“Do you hear that?” I asked.

“What?”

“I think I heard someone yelling for help.” I ran, skirting the rubble, looking for a door. I found one that had been recently opened, evidenced by the arc of dirt that had been disturbed. I pulled it open as quietly as I could. I froze with the door halfway open and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

“Who is there?” a woman’s voice said. “Are you here to help?”

Kat must have turned her phone flashlight on. As she swept the room, she asked, “Are you alone?”

Nope. Every business owner of Sulejow must be here.

“I don’t know what you say,” the woman answered.

I responded in Polish. “I mean are the people who captured you here?”

“You mean the Nazis?” she retorted and spit on the ground.

“Oh, you are safe, Pani Helena,” I said with relief. “Kat and I went to your grocery shop and you weren’t there.”

“Do I look safe?” she spit again.

As I moved closer, she studied my face and said. “Oh, the tourists. How did you find us?”

“Actually we are part of a ITSFC, and international task force, and we are here to help.” I said as convincingly as possible.

“Then we must hurry,” a man in a tailored suit said. The tailor. “They will be back soon and they will kill us.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“They told us,” the grocery owner said. “A bunch of orphan punks. They took over our village.”

“We know,” I said, swallowing the desire to respond to the orphan punk comment. “Can everyone walk?”

There were three rather feeble people. They could ride in the car. What should we do? We couldn’t take all twenty-some people in the one car we brought. If we came back with the van, some of the Nazis may return in our absence, and that would certainly mean they would kill who was left. Probably in a more horrific way since we rescued some of their prisoners. It was time to get everyone outside and take inventory. It was 3 kilometers to the villa. If some of them could sneak through the woods and make it there, that would lessen the number of people to ride in the car.

There were a definite number of people who needed to ride in the car. Seven. I’d misjudged who could hike. It was more apparent once we were in the daylight. We might squeeze eight in the car, including me, but it wouldn’t be comfortable. Comfort wasn’t the priority right now. Saving lives was. The trip would be about twenty minutes traveling the main road.

My driving the car would not work for several reasons.“How do you feel about driving, Kat?”

“What?” Kat’s eyes grew wide as I shoved the keys into her hand.

“I need to go with the able bodies through the woods. I know the woods. Plus I speak Polish,” I explained.

“Whatever we are going to do, we need to do it now before the Nazi’s return,” she agreed, still not looking confident about driving.

With Kat and seven people stuffed in the car, I popped open the trunk and pulled out a few weapons.

“I’ll take one of those,” a fifty something man said, reaching his arm forward. “I was in the army.”

A stocky woman reached out a hand and said.,“Me too.” Her face, marked by a few scars, bore the unmistakable signs of someone who had seen combat.

Five minutes later, I was traipsing through the woods with my mini Polish army. And Kat was driving back to the villa with her own precious cargo.

CHAPTER 25

THE TRAFFICKING DENIAL

I prayed Kat would make it back to the villa safely and that we could supply all the needs of these villagers we’d rescued until we took down the New Reich.

As we traipsed through the woods, I couldn’t help but ask the grocery store owner, Pani Helena, what had changed her mind about the organization.

It was she who had sung their praises and gifted me with a ticket to their rally.

“Did you read the ticket?” Helena asked. “The promise they made for the young people. I wanted that for my daughter.”

“What about the part about Nazi’s and the New Reich?” I asked as a brushed away a branch obscuring the path.

“The New Reich wasn’t on the flyer,” she answered. “I think it said New World Order.” She shook her head and continued. “When World War II ended, we had to rebuild the village. The suffering didn’t end. My parents lived under a communist regime. All that fighting for nothing.” Her shoulders slumped, and she tripped over a branch before stopping to catch her breath. “I wanted my daughter to have a better future.”

Although the flyer had emblazoned across the top: The Grandview Accord: Rebirth of the Reich, this wasn’t the time to argue semantics. She had seen what she wanted to see.

The few military people were setting a quick pace. While I understood the urgency, some of the group couldn’t maintain the military march. I told the grocer to take a break and jogged up ahead to slow the rambunctious leaders down. I explained that not everyone was in top military form.

“Oh,” the muscular guy, who I learned was former military, Tomasz Kaczmarek. He seemed disappointed that I didn’t appreciate the brisk pace and effort.

“You know what,” I said. “We could use you on the task force to take the New Reich down,” I smiled, even though he couldn’t see it. Hopefully, he could sense my confidence in him.

“What do you say?” I asked.

“Count me in,” he said.

“Me too,” said the fifty-something veteran, “Captain Marek Zieliński,” He saluted.

The muscular woman said the same. “We want our village back,” she added. “Major Ewa Wiśniewska.”

“How about the orphans?” I asked, testing the water. The village, as poor as it was, seemed to look down on the orphanage as if the orphans were to blame for being abandoned.

I remember the days when we orphans would enter a shop in the village and be asked to leave or be followed around as if we were pickpockets. Even the baker had looked down on me until my prospective American parents had visited and ordered some rolls.

“I was in the orphanage,” Captain Marek Zieliński said.

I wanted to use a few curse words right then and there as we sat on a log waiting for everyone else to catch up after their break. I remembered this man well, a younger, thinner version of him. He ran the toy shop that my dad had purchased an art kit for me and a LEGO kit for my brother, Rob.

Instead, I swallowed the words and replied, “So why don’t you like the orphans?”

I wanted to say, Remember me, I came into your shop and drooled over all the art supplies and you ordered me to leave, more than once.

By that time, everyone had caught up. He didn’t answer, but rose to walk the last leg of the journey.

“Let’s take it a little slower,” I suggested.

As we fought our way through the undergrowth, Captain Marek Zieliński matched my cadence.

“I remember you,” he said. “You have the American parents. The first Americans who came to our village to adopt a child. People still talk about it.”

I couldn’t take it. “There was a trafficking ring set up right here and they were kidnapping, not only orphans, but teens and the village did nothing about it.”

He was silent. All I could hear were the small twigs breaking under his boots.

“Does everyone remember I helped take down that trafficking ring before my adoption?”

I could feel steam rising from my head. I was so angry.

“What is it with this village?” I added and stomped away from him, quickening the pace that I had a few short minutes ago ordered to slow.

The lights of the villa shone between the blue spruce lining the backyard. I stopped and listened. What I’d learned about missions is just when you think is going to be easy or you’re going to win, it is not. There’s always another roadblock. If you’re not expecting it, it slaps you in the face and knocks the breath out of you. It was like trying to catch shadows in a dark room; every time you dealt with one problem, another seemed to appear out of nowhere.

“Keep everyone here,” I said to the younger man, Tomasz. “I’m going to check it out.”

I crept into the backyard. Good. Kat had made it, evidenced by the Mercedes parked in the drive.

I crept to the back door of the kitchen and peeked in. The various passengers of Kat’s sat around the breakfast nook table sipping water and coffee. I tried the knob. It opened easily. So far so good.

“Kat,” I said.

“She appeared in the doorway.

“You made it,” she said. She glanced behind me. “Where is everyone?”

“I just wanted to make sure everything was clear.” I explained.

She raised her water bottle in a toast. “It’s clear. Bring them in.”

So I did. Fifteen minutes later, Kat and I had the staff preparing a tray of brown bread,cheese, and coffee. Everyone settled around the huge dining room table and chatted. The group of military people sat together and shared stories. When one of the staff served them coffee, one of them called her by name. That made me think.

How could it be the twenty-first century, and this village be stuck in such prejudice as if they were in a time warp? How many of the staff shopped in their stores or bought their newspapers? Bought their bread. Rode the taxi.

“Attention everyone,” I said, standing on a chair. Then I glanced at the staff. “Do you all know each other?”

I rotated my arm around the table like the hand of a clock. The shop owners nodded and resumed talking and eating.

“Listen,” I yelled. “We can’t take down this organization if we aren’t united.”

These people needed a come to Jesus moment and I’m not sure I was feeling Christian enough to deliver it in the right spirit. “This isn’t the Middle Ages. There is no nobility and aristocracy. We aren’t living life that way anymore.”

They looked at me with confusion written all over their faces.

“I’m really mad at you,” stomping my foot on the chair like Sawyer did when he was having a fit. I knew I was acting immature, but I didn’t care.

“Why?” said the grocery store lady, Helena, slurping her soup loudly.

“Because you could have taken down that trafficking ring when I was a teen. Only two shop owners helped. One of them is dead. Now it’s come back worse than ever.”

“This isn’t trafficking,” a man said, sopping up his soup with his bread.

“Were you promised something?” I asked. “A better future.” My voice raised a decibel with each word. “Were you taken against your will?”

You could have heard a spoon clink against a soup bowl.Or a coffee placed on a saucer. That clinky sound you don’t want to make in a fancy restaurant.

I continued my speech. “The teens who were trafficked when I was still in the orphanage were sold as sex slaves.”

Tears streamed down my face, and I swallowed a few. They tasted bitter. As I glanced at the frozen expressions, I realized these people didn’t want to hear my speech. They wanted me to shut up so they could eat and return to their businesses and prejudices and selfish lives.

The silence hung over the room like the heavy fog in the pre-dawn. It wasn’t the silence of we get it or we are thinking about it.

I felt Kat watching me. I turned to face her. The look on her face was begging me to stop. She motioned for me to get down off the chair.

I couldn’t. I had one more thing to say.

“I’m not going to save you. I’m not helping you get your businesses back. Or your village. You’re on your own.” I stepped off and stormed down the hallway. They didn’t get it and they didn’t care.

As I jogged along the hallway, I heard Kat say, “What she means is…”

I know she was trying to help, but I meant what I said. This country had so many self-inflicted wounds they were so busy licking that they can’t see the truth.

Their limiting belief was born of their history of being orphaned. Every time someone stepped in and promised to “adopt” them and help, it never turned out as they hoped. In fact, it turned out the opposite of what they were promised. Instead of coming together as a community, most people sought their own personal peace. They didn’t value the orphans because they didn’t value themselves. I knew that to be true, but I couldn’t swallow the truth. It was too painful. I understood now why it was so difficult to come back here and be haunted by my past and why Sabilia couldn’t handle it. Neither could Cecylia. I was ready to let the New World Reich take the village. Except for the children.

An hour later, I found myself in the basement, sitting beside Derek’s bed. It was if some force had pulled me here.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Why I want to kill you?” he returned.

“No. I get that. If I had a twin and someone killed him, even though that wasn’t me, by the way. I would want them dead too.”

Derek shifted and tried to get his leg in a comfortable position.“What don’t you understand?”

“How people can be so passionless?” I sipped my coffee.

He sipped the cup I’d offered him.“And you came to me for answers?”

“I usually talk to the priest, but today I feel as if I’ve gone to the dark side.” I felt so dark, I couldn’t say Father Raphael, as if saying his name was blasphemy.

He set the coffee down on the bedside table with his good hand. “How so?”

“I rescued the villagers your general kidnapped.”

“I see.”

I set my coffee down and crossed my arms. “According to what they overheard, he planned to eliminate them all tonight.”

“I see.” He picked up his coffee again and took another sip.

“But then it came to me. Those people allowed me to get trafficked when I was a teen because I was an orphan. Me and a lot of other teens.”

“What does this have to do with me?” he asked.

“I got angry. Really angry. I was up there,” I stopped and pointed upstairs. “Standing on a chair, yelling at them.”

“How did that work out for you?”

“Not well.” I took a long gulp of my coffee while I processed what I wanted to say. “They just wanted to eat their food and for the ITSFC to get their businesses back for them.” I slammed my cup down, the remainder of the coffee sloshed out on the side-table. “All but three military people, one of which chased me out of his shop multiple times when I was growing up.”

Derek paused, studying my face with a calculating gaze. “You realize I still want you and the entire task force dead,” he said, his tone cold.

I dabbed at the coffee stain with a cloth napkin, my eyes meeting his with defiance. “You realize I could kill you anytime I want,” I retorted, not breaking eye contact.

He leaned back on his pillow, his good hand resting behind his head as he smirked. “Did you have conversations with my brother like this?”

“Yes,” I replied, my voice steady, “and they usually ended with him saying he was going to kill me. So you’re a lot alike in that way. If that helps.”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “What do you want from me?” he asked, curiosity mingling with amusement.

“I want you to teach me how to act. How to win people over,” I said, leaning forward slightly.

He raised an eyebrow. “What’s in it for me?”

“You get to live a little longer,” I answered, my tone laced with dark humor.

He chuckled, shaking his head slightly. “You’re further on the dark side than you think.”

“I was born on the dark side.” I said, standing and gathering our cups.

I went back to my room to wait for Nathaniel’s arrival. I didn’t stop by the kitchen to drop off our coffee cups. Instead, I dropped them on a library table in the hallway. I didn’t want to see those people. Hopefully, Kat and the staff got them all situated and they could leave in the morning. I tiptoed past the dining hall and escaped to my room.

I must have fallen asleep because when I awoke, the sky was a pewter color it is before the sun comes up. Enough light to see shadows, but not enough to see clearly. I slipped out of bed and flipped on a light.

“Nathaniel, you made it.”

“I’ve actually been here for six hours. I was letting you sleep,” he added,

“Are you okay? I heard you kind of lost it on the villagers and then went down to chat with Derek.”

I hugged him, cried on his shoulder, and explained my frustration. He patted me on the back and let me pour it all out. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and took a deep breath.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Five-thirty. The team is out there prepping a plan. Your military people are helping,” he reassured me.

“What about the rest of the villagers?”

“Sleeping. They’re in shock, Adelina. They were kidnapped you know.”

“How about Kasia and Daria? Has anyone checked on them?”

“They’re all set up at the estate. The General is buying every word she says.”

We sat in our room for another half an hour before we made our way to the kitchen for coffee. All I wanted to do was go home. This mission was out of control. All the journaling I’d done about what and wasn’t my calling seemed like years ago. Plus, it seemed like another time when I had more say and control over my life.

“We need to talk to Jim and Kat. They took down America’s future. This organization has many common denominators,” Nathaniel suggested.

“Same promises, different label,” I replied. “You think it is as far reaching as America’s Future was?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But we don’t want it to get to that point.”

Who was to say The New Reich hadn’t set up in other villages? Taking other teens. Shop owners and businessmen by force.

“I think I need a break today,” I blurted. “Mind if I stay here and nurse my coffee then take a bike ride later?”

“Whatever you need,” Nathaniel replied. “This evening we should have a solid plan in place.” He stood and place his coffee cup in the sink and then turned and kissed me on the head. “I’ll fill you in.”

Before he left the kitchen, he caught me up on the news of the kids and the weather back at our boathouse, which just made me more homesick.

A couple of hours later, I sneaked out the backdoor and to the garage to grab a bike. I was decked out in the blonde wig and my touristy clothes in case I ran into anyone from the New World Reich.

The air was still chilly with the promise of sunshine after the fog burned off. I took off down a country road, not really paying attention to where I was going. Just enjoying the movement. It felt good to move my legs and work out some of the stress of the night before. It a was bonus not to think about the mission, which was impossible, because it is exactly what I was thinking about the whole ride.

Somehow, I found myself riding back to the abandoned building we’d rescued the villagers from the night before. As I rounded the bend to the half-destroyed wall, I heard voices. I quickly pulled my bike into the shrubs to listen.

“What do you mean they are gone?” General Herrington said.

“They are supposed to be dead,” the other voice answered.

“I had the gas rigged to release at midnight. We should be finding bodies, not an empty cellar,” he added.

The general must have hit the recruit because there was an audible groan as the man hit the ground. “Find out where they went.”

I hopped back on my bike and took off down the wooded trail as fast I could pedal and my little assist e-bike battery would go.

CHAPTER 26

REFUGEES AND UNCERTAINTY

I rushed through the front door of the villa and ran to the dining hall, where people were lounging and eating some of the baker’s lovely treats.

“Where is Nathaniel?” I asked the grocery store owner.

“He said, ‘Assemble the troops.’ I don’t understand that much,” she added.

“Oh, are you looking for Nathaniel?” Jim asked from the other end of the table. His ginger hair was a stark contrast to the blonde and dark hair of the Poles. Despite the seriousness of the situation, I stifled a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Nothing, I’m just a bundle of nerves, that’s all. But can I speak to you in private?” I requested.

He took four long strides across the enormous dining hall and took my elbow. “Let’s go down to the cellar,” he said. “That’s the only place the refugees aren’t.”

Once downstairs, he continued,“Shoot.”

“I was out for a bike ride and ended up at the abandoned cellar where they had the villagers trapped. There was a gas release set for midnight last night. The general was there, and of course, they found an empty cellar.” I explained that there were troops searching for the refugees, as he had called them.

“Good,” he said. “From a tactical standpoint, that’s good news.”

“What do you mean, that’s good news? What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

I was annoyed, and I’m sure he could sense my frustration.

“You’re a lot like Kat, you know.”

“What? And what does that have to do with our current dilemma?”

“You asked what you were going to do. I’m sure you’re used to going off like The Lone Ranger, just like Kat, but we do have an entire task force.”

“Where are they?” I asked.

“If you haven’t noticed, it’s pretty much Kat and me, plus Daria and Kasia, who aren’t trained at all. So yeah, I’ve been Lone Ranger-ing it in a village that never cared about me, except for Antoni and his wife, and they’re dead. And the man up there baking all those ingrates’ wonderful food.”

“This is personal for you.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I think coming back here to Poland was a mistake. I thought it was my calling, but I didn’t realize how much it was going to trigger me.”

“Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” Jim said. “Nathaniel is rounding up all the troops we have flying in, and we have a tactical plan.”

Poor Jim. He wasn’t the touchy-feely type. Counseling was not his strong suit. I’m sure taking the rest of the day off was as much of a benefit for the team as it was for me.

“Okay, I’m going to finish my bike ride.”

“Sounds good,” he said. “See you later.”

I grabbed my journal, Bible, a snack, and some water, stuffing them all into my backpack, and took off before anyone could intercept me.

I found a secluded spot in the forest, journaled, prayed, and cried. I read the Book of Jonah because it seemed appropriate. Jonah didn’t want to do the assignment God had given him, so he got on a boat and sailed in the opposite direction, only to get caught in a storm. The crew lost precious cargo, throwing it overboard in an attempt to save him. Finally, instead of jumping overboard, he asked the crew to throw him in. He still couldn’t do what he was supposed to do without putting the work on someone else.

The sad part of the story is that after the people of Nineveh repented and God spared them, Jonah was angry. These were Assyrians, brutal enemies of his people.

“I get it, Jonah,” I said out loud. I did get it. The villagers hadn’t accepted or loved me. I was an outcast to them. When I rescued them, all the memories of how they had mistreated me came to the surface. I couldn’t move forward until I forgave them. I thought this mission was all about me rushing back to my home village, saving the day, and everyone applauding me and saying thank you.

The truth is, there’s a lot more to this mission than that. Not only do I need to forgive them, but I also need to educate them so they don’t keep falling into the same trap of complacency. The village was still inflicting wounds from a war that ended years ago. It was time to move on, get a fresh start, and fight for the future they wanted.

I knew exactly what I was going to do next.

I packed up my things and pedaled back to the villa. The refugees were still lounging around, chatting in small groups, minus the three former military personnel who must have gone with Nathaniel.

I flagged down Kat and asked her to help me with the project.

“I promise I won’t become unhinged this time,” I said.

Half an hour later, she had everyone assembled in the dining hall, seated with apprehensive faces looking at me, probably wondering if I was going to berate them again.

I stood at one end of the buffet. “I apologize for my behavior yesterday,” I started.

“You were right,” one lady shouted. “We do not care for our own.”

“Thank you for that,” I said.

“What we’d like to do today,” Kat took over, “is to educate you so you can protect yourself and your village.”

“Are we going to become spies?” a man in his seventies near me asked.

“Yes, in a sense,” Kat said.

“Do we get weapons?” another man shouted. I think he was a little hard of hearing based on his volume.

“We will get all the details in a bit,” I said. “First, we are going to start with a little education.”

Kat had queued up an episode of our podcast that we shared about the basics of human trafficking and what to watch out for. It was half an hour long, so I’d arranged for coffee and pastries to be served. Everyone was respectful and listened to the episode. I had asked them to hold their questions until the end, and they did. We translated our episodes into Polish (and other languages) for the ITSFC task force members across the globe.

Five minutes before the episode ended, a junior member of the kitchen staff pulled me aside and said, “My brother was recruited by the Nazis, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Was he in the orphanage?” I asked, leaning in closer.

“Yes,” she replied, her eyes downcast. “I’m Gretchen by the way. I aged out and got a placement with the maid service.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to place her face in my memories. “Were you in the orphanage when I was there?”

“Yes,” she nodded, a hint of a smile forming. “Everyone was so jealous of you getting adopted and going to the United States. I was ten and my brother was six.”

What a different perspective. Here I was, wallowing in my anger over some trauma from all those years ago, and this girl had never been adopted, nor had her brother.

“We’ll do everything we can to help him,” I said, referring to Daria, who could really assist him.

While I was on the promise train, I threw out another one that Nathaniel would kill me for: “Would you and your brother like to come to the States with us when this is all over?”

“My sister too?” she asked.

“Your sister?”

“Ania,” she said with a wide grin.

“Sure,” I replied. The podcast ended, and I was the one who needed to apologize.

All those years ago, when Jim and Marge met me, I was angry that the Littles came in and interrupted our visit. Especially Ania, because she was so adorable. I shooed them out of the room so my prospective parents wouldn’t change their minds and take her instead.

Although I loved the littles and helped them every day, I only vaguely remembered the siblings. I hadn’t paid attention to the fact that Ania had a brother and a sister. Fast forward to now, none of them had been adopted. Here I was, blazing back into town on my high horse, not considering all the years these kids had lived with no hope or change in sight.

I answered a few questions about trafficking, and then we adjourned. One hour of training was sufficient. Some of the elderly needed naps, and so did I!

Tomorrow, we would cover some more practical steps for the villagers. Instead of going to sleep, I invited the young kitchen maid to my room. Gretchen joined me, and we sipped coffee as I listened to her history. Her story was all too common. It was common for sibling groups to not be adopted. Many prospective parents wanted an infant or toddler. Adopting a sibling group was asking a lot.

“I wonder,” I said, aloud.“How many American parents would like an instant family?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, many couples who can’t have children biologically but would love to have a large family. Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to adopt an instant family, meaning a sibling group?”

“Would you?” she asked.

“I did. Nathaniel and I adopted two kids. And Kat, who did part of the presentation out there, and her husband adopted two teens and then two younger kids.”

“Oh,” she said in surprise, “I thought Americans were selfish people.”

I laughed. “There are selfish people in every country, but Americans are the most giving, loving people I’ve ever met.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when something bad happens here, everyone closes up and...”

I didn’t want to harm her view of her people, but she needed to know that it wasn’t the same everywhere. She lived a life of mistreatment and neglect and probably had never traveled out of that sphere.

I paused to rethink what to say.

“I heard you last night,” she said, taking advantage of my pause. “You were so right. That’s how they treat us here in the village, like we are rotten meat. Is it like that everywhere?”

“No,” I said. “Not everyone mistreats orphans.”

I was sure she had watched the news and seen the negative portrayal of America’s Future. I couldn’t lie, plus I would not sugarcoat the truth. “There’s a world out there full of people who will love and accept you. But the most important person is you and what you believe about yourself.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

Certainly! Here’s a revised version with fewer instances of “said” and added action tags:

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed it.” I looked at her with regret.

“You couldn’t have done anything,” she replied, shaking her head.

“I could have noticed you.” I wiped a tear off my freckled cheek. “Enough sad stuff. Let’s eat these pastries the baker made.” I gestured to the plate.

She smiled and reached for a pastry. “Then I have to go back to work.”

As she took a bite, I thought to myself, I’ve got to work on Nathaniel.

After she left, I took the nap I so desperately needed.

The rest of the day was uneventful. No one stormed the gates to capture the refugees. Neither did we hear from Nathaniel, Jim, or the whole army they were promising. I wanted to check on Kasia and Daria, but I didn’t dare call them or show up.

Then I had a wonderful idea. I found Gretchen in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher.

“Gretchen, are you ready for a little undercover work?” I asked.

I explained what I had in mind. She would show up at the estate. I could drive her over and drop her at the gate. She would go in and do exactly what she was doing here—check up on things and gather information. Tomorrow, she could fill me in.

She would blend right in with her ultra-blonde hair and periwinkle eyes. No one would suspect she was undercover. No one ever pays attention to the help.

That thought led to another horrifying thought: What if the New World Reich was doing the same thing? What if we had someone on our staff who was listening and reporting back to them?

I had already pulled up to the gate of the estate. Gretchen had her hand on the handle of the door.

“Wait,” I said, grabbing her arm gently. “Do you think the New World Reich are doing the same thing?”

She looked puzzled. “What?”

“Do you think anyone on our staff is working for them?” I asked, scanning her face for any sign of recognition.

“Possible,” she replied, her brow furrowing. “I don’t know who is on their side and who is not.”

“Oh.” I let go of her arm and sighed deeply, feeling the weight of the situation settle over me.

She was out of the car, ringing the buzzer on the gate. I drove away quickly and went back to the villa. Once there, I went down to the basement to talk to Demented Derek. I didn’t want to talk to him exactly; I wanted to spy on him and see if anyone was coming down to report anything.

After chatting with him for a few minutes, I acted as if I were going back upstairs. Instead, I hid in one of the many small hallways.

I didn’t have to wait long. Ten minutes later, a young man brought his dinner tray with a side of information. He glanced around nervously before speaking.

“Adelina is sending one of the maids to spy on the general,” he whispered, shifting from foot to foot.

“Why do I care about that?” Derek asked, barely looking up from his meal. “I’m going to prison for the rest of my life. Tell someone who cares.” He picked up his fork and began eating, the clank of silverware echoing in the quiet room.

“I thought you were in charge,” the young man said, his voice tinged with desperation.

Derek sighed and set his fork down. “I’m not anymore. You’ll have to figure it out on your own.”

With that, I ran back into the room, my heart pounding. “You report to me,” I announced.

CHAPTER 27

THE FÜHRER’S HAUNTING PRESENCE

The undercover Nazi staff member turned to run, but I had a gun and made sure he knew I would shoot him.

“Take a seat,” I ordered.

“I thought you were one of the good guys,” he replied.

Derek laughed. “I’ve been teaching her my ways,” he said.

On one hand, I didn’t want to interrogate him down here with Demented Derek. On the other hand, I didn’t want to involve anyone else from the ITSFC until I was sure he was a mole.

I pulled out a chair in the makeshift hospital room. A nurse peeked in and, asked.

“Okay to do a check?”

I nodded. After she completed Derek’s checks, she left, allowing me to begin.

“Who are you reporting to?” I asked.

“I think we covered that,” Derek said.

“I’ll do the questioning,” I insisted.

“You chose my room to do it in, so you must need me here,” Derek said. “Or you don’t want other people involved. You’re going rogue, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not. I’m doing a pre-interview before involving the team.”

Why was I talking to him? I didn’t answer to him. He wasn’t part of the task force, but for some reason, I was drawn to him like a fly to a warm windowsill on a chilly fall day. I kept coming down here and buzzing around him. I suddenly felt hot and sweaty. I pulled off my sweater and took a sip of the water the nurse had left for me on the table. I poured a glass for the young man and offered it to him.

He shook his head. “No thanks.”

“But as I was saying, who are you reporting to?” I asked, taking another sip of water and waiting for his answer. I stood and paced back and forth in front of the bed.

“I thought I was reporting to him,” he pointed to Derek.

My body was swaying, and my thoughts became diluted and fuzzy.

“You?” I asked.

“Yes, me,” Derek confirmed with a grin as my body hit the ground.

I could see, but everything looked as if I were on a merry-go-round, spinning too quickly. Colors, shapes, and faces whizzed past me.

The young man rose and leaned over me.

“Not yet,” Derek said. “Give it another minute.”

A minute later, I heard nothing. It was different from other times I’d been injured on a mission or passed out. I didn’t get plunged into darkness; instead, I saw through a hazy mist. I could hear voices as if they were at the bottom of a well, shouting up to me. Movements and shapes danced around, but they were distorted as if I had drunk some sort of potion that Alice in Wonderland would have.

There was tingling in my keys. The shuffling of a body rolling out of bed, standing, and moving towards the door.

Then silence. For hours. Only the blinking of the old lights in the cellar room, which had been updated in the ‘70s and left the same for the next fifty years. The fluorescent lights flickered and hummed as if they were living things. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. There was nothing I could do but wait for the drugs to wear off. What if they didn’t? What if I was dying? Derek had escaped. He wouldn’t leave the area until we were all dead. I might die, but I was glad my kiddos were not here. As I contemplated, with what little brainpower I had left, the practice that had gotten me into this predicament—my propensity to go off on my own. Why did I always choose to be alone?

Anytime I got too stressed or overwhelmed, I went to my baseline. I couldn’t trust anyone; I handled it all myself, and I tried to handle it this time, too. The only problem with that is I never handled it well. Stop wasting time trying to figure everything out. Stop playing the blame game and admiring yourself in a pit of shame and guilt. Get your butt up and warn the others before it is too late.

I tested my hands. I could wiggle a few fingers. That’s all I needed if I could get to my phone. Five minutes later, I could wield my arm like a heavy, clumsy wooden sledgehammer. That was enough to slide my phone out of my pocket, roll over, and get my hand on it. I called the first number, my hand pulled up.

“Adelina, where are you?” Nathaniel’s voice said.

I opened my mouth to say, “I’m in the basement. I’ve been drugged,” but nothing came out. I should have tested my power of speech before I dialed. The most I could get out was a grunt, then the line went dead. I wasn’t sure if he hung up or if the service wasn’t great down here.

A hand reached out and grabbed the phone. I rolled over and saw the floating image of a nurse.

“Derek said to take this,” she said as she placed the phone in her pocket.

Her too? How many people in this house were on his side? Alone. I was alone. No one knew where I was, and everyone would be dead before I could move again.

I couldn’t let her leave. I heaved my body over and used my legs to trip her. She went down with a scream onto the hard concrete, her head cracking loudly. Blood streamed onto the floor and pooled in a small divot. Her eyes glazed over. I wasn’t sure if she was dead or if the drugs were playing tricks on me. I swung my arms towards her and landed on her torso, but she didn’t respond.

I waited another five minutes until I had regained the ability to crawl. I crawled over to her and retrieved my phone. If she wasn’t dead, she was in a coma. If she was dead, I could leave her here for now.

She groaned. Good. I hadn’t killed her. As she stirred, I took the opportunity to crawl to the hospital bed and retrieve the handcuffs. When she opened her eyes, I clicked them into place on her wrist. I secured the other half to a pole. She jerked, trying to free herself, but she was too weak from blood loss to do much more than that.

“You’ll never stop us,” she said.

“Stop who?” I asked incoherently, moving as far away from her limbs as possible in case she suddenly revived the power to kick me. I couldn’t stand yet, so a kick could incapacitate me.

“The New World Reich,” she declared.

“I thought you worked for Derek,” I said. “He wasn’t part of that.”

“You stupid girl,” she responded with a sarcastic laugh. “He is our Führer, and we will take over the world.”

I crawled out of the room and made my way to the steps. I should try calling Nathaniel again. I opened my mouth to say a few words. “Hello,” I said, testing my verbal ability. It was garbled like the speech of a stroke victim. It would have to do. I pulled out my phone—dead. That wasn’t going to work. I continued my climb up the stairs, my limbs tingling as if an electric shock were traveling up each one. I was making progress. Minutes felt like hours, but I made it to the top and opened the door to the kitchen.

I was hit with the strong aroma of fresh coffee. “Help,” I yelled out.

“Our little patient is awake,” Derek said as I rounded the corner. He was seated at the breakfast nook, sipping from a Polish pottery mug.

“What did you do with the nurse?” he asked. “No matter, she is expendable.”

It seemed as if there was no one else here. The house was oddly silent. No bustling staff. No members of the ITSFC. None of the refugees were talking.

“Oh, you’re wondering where everyone is,” he said. “We’ve taken care of the pitiful villagers. No need to worry about them.”

“What about my...” I couldn’t make the word sound like words. I sounded as if I had a mouthful of marbles.

“The staff?” he said, crossing his legs and then wincing at the pain where I shot him, or where the bullet wound was. “Most of them were part of the New Reich. You’re way too trusting, Adelina, for an orphan who trusts no one. I heard you reciting Poe the other day. Alone. You like to go it alone. Too bad you’re not alone. You have people who love you, and that’s a dangerous place to be.”

There was nothing I could do but listen. I crawled closer to the table, but not close enough that he could reach out and touch me. It didn’t matter; if he wanted me dead right now, he could shoot me or have one of his minions do it. I was completely blown away. Tricked again by the persona he could put on, but he was the Führer, and he had killed all the villagers I had rescued. And there was something else I needed to think about: my family.

“Family,” I said, which sounded more like “ham a weh.”

“Family? Is that what you’re trying to say? Yes, I plan to kill them all. I haven’t killed you yet because I want you to experience all of the emotions I did. Not only that, I want you to know it is your fault. I will let you live long enough to want to end your own life. If you don’t, I will do it for you.”

“Alone,” I said, which sounded more like “A own.” I pointed to him.

“You will be more alone than anyone, more than me.” He rose, ready to strike, and then sat back down again, changing from one persona to another in an instant. “No, you can’t provoke me. I will stick to the plan,” he said to himself more than to me. What he didn’t understand was that I was asking if we were alone; he thought I was prodding him. I had worked my way to sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“Coffee,” I said. The “C” was still too difficult for my mouth to form.

I had no problem with my thoughts now. The drug side effects were wearing off, or another side effect was mental clarity. Instead of thinking about what could happen to my family, my mind was focused on what could happen within the next five minutes.

“Of course, I can be civil.” He rose and poured me a cup of coffee.

I waited until he had placed it in front of me as if I were a dog. The time elapsed from him preparing my coffee was enough for my limbs to gain some more movement. The waves of electric shock had subsided and were replaced with a tightness. I prayed the tightness meant strength.

I lifted the cup and took a sip, which mostly dribbled down my chin.

“The drugs are still doing their important work,” he chuckled.

I let the coffee run down the front of my sweater.

“You know, Adelina, you aren’t made of the stock I thought you were when I met you. You honestly sound better on paper than you do in real life. We can’t build the New World Reich on weak orphans like you.”

“Orphans,” I said.

“That’s right, orphans. As soon as the breeding program produces the stock we need, the orphans will be of no use to us. They will be the children of the pure men, every single one of them.”

“K…ill,” I said.

“That’s right, you catch on quickly for a worthless orphan,” he said. “After they have children, we will kill them all. We will start over with the perfect race.”

He was demented. He was forgetting a few things. Number one, he was an orphan. As much as I wanted to provoke him and bring that up right now, I needed a few more minutes for my hands to regain their dexterity. The other thing he forgot is I still had a weapon. I felt it pressing against my back. I had stuffed it back into my pants before I crawled up the stairs. I took another sip of my coffee, letting some of it slide down my throat and the rest of it dribble down my chin.

Derek was talking just to hear the sound of his voice, telling me all of his plans for world domination and the New World Reich and all the things that evil world leaders say right before they’re killed. It was as if he’d written his own movie script but couldn’t see his own sad, sorry end that I was going to make sure happened. He stood to make himself another cup of coffee, and as he pushed the button on the machine, I tested my fingers on the gun.

I think I could squeeze the trigger. He was still talking as if all the world was a stage, or he was presenting his brilliant plan to the UN. I pulled the gun out of my pants and aimed it at his head. I pulled the trigger, and a glass shattered above his head. He ducked and whirled around. Before he could pounce on me, I managed to squeeze again. This time, I hit him squarely in the chest, and he fell forward on top of me. I wasn’t quick enough to roll away in time. His blood soaked my sweater as the life drained out of him. There were no last words like in the movies or plays of dearly loved ones departing the earth. There was the true-to-life death gasp when a soul leaves the body and sails into eternity. I shuddered with the knowledge of where his soul was heading; there was no hope for him now.

“Just like your brother,” I said as I tried to roll him off me.

I was still too weak, so I lay there with his dead body pinning me to the travertine tile floor in a puddle of crimson.

The front door opened, and I dared not utter a sound in case it was one of the overzealous New Reich teens who would certainly shoot me on sight. So I pretended I was dead. It could work; my arm was pinned to me with the gun in hand. So if whoever it was rolled Derek off me, I could shoot them without them having time to prepare.

“Adelina?” It was Nathaniel.

“In the kitchen,” I huffed.

“Are you...” he said as he rounded the corner. He stopped short when he saw the body and the pool of blood. He slipped in the blood as he made his way to me.

“I’m not wounded. This is...” he rolled Derek off me, “...his blood.”

He reached for my arm and pulled me to my feet. As soon as he let go, I sank back down to the floor. “I’ve been drugged,” I murmured.

“What in the world happened?” he asked, his eyes scanning my face for answers.

“That’s not important right now. I’ll tell you later,” I stammered, my mouth finally beginning to work. “First, we need to safeguard the refugees.”

“What?” He furrowed his brow.

“And the kids and Mom and Dad,” I added, my voice urgent.

“Slow down, Adelina, take a breath,” he urged, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“I can’t,” I replied. “He said they were going to kill the refugees and our family.”

“We have the refugees,” he reassured me. “They were heading them down through the woods, and we saved them.”

“Oh, did you know most of the staff was working for the New Reich?” he continued. “We have them too. Daria’s working with them later this afternoon. We have the general too.”

“You mean it’s over?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s over, Adelina. You don’t have to worry about our kids and your parents. Everyone is safe.”

I looked over at dead Derek. All of his plans would not come to fruition. Why the illusion of having one?

He followed my gaze. “It wasn’t all an illusion,” he said, as if reading my mind. “But many parts of it were.”

“I need a shower,” I said. My body was shutting down, and I knew it. The adrenaline that had carried me through and helped me work through the drugs was gone.

“Wait, I want to help Daria talk to the teens,” I said, leaning forward. the pool of blood, soaking into my skin.

“Are you sure you’re up for it?” he asked, concern etched on his face as he studied me closely.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, my hands clenching into fists at my sides, “but I have to do it. They need to know what the New World Reich really had planned for them.”

Within the next few minutes, the house filled again with a task force. Derek’s body was removed, and I went to our suite to take a shower. While the water washed the blood away, I had a thought. We couldn’t let these teens go down the drain, so to speak. Rescuing them was not enough. We needed to do what the community and the country should have done long ago: provide them with a future.

We’d seen what the New Reich had promised, and in America, what America’s Future had promised. There was a huge gap between rescuing and reconstructing their lives. We needed to bridge that gap. Kat had started an organization that was still going strong to help the foster kids in the United States. What if we could do that here?

As I toweled off, I knew in my heart of hearts that this was what I needed to do. This was my homeland; these teens were part of my family. Kat could help us with the infrastructure, and Daria could help me with the counseling. Maybe Kasia’s new boyfriend, the counselor, could help. I needed paper. Where was my phone? My mind was darting off in a thousand different directions. I grabbed a journal and wrote down everything I imagined: rescuing, resuscitating, and restructuring what would happen to these teens next.

CHAPTER 28

ANSWERING THE END CALL

It was over. At least for now. We had taken down the organization and made sure we pulled out the roots, annihilating the infrastructure so they couldn’t just pick up and start somewhere else.

Nathaniel and I stayed on for a few months until the Trauma Recovery Center was running smoothly. Kat had shared her blueprint, and we were following it.

Since we couldn’t stand being away from our kids for so long, Mom and Dad flew back over with them, and we set up house in Sabilia’s Villa. Kasia decided to stay long term and live in the estate house. I could hear wedding bells in her future.

By the time we got back to the States, Sabilia and Cecylia were both waddling around with a few short months left before they gave birth. I gave Sabilia a wide berth; it seemed pregnancy did not agree with her, and she hadn’t lost her sharp tongue. In fact, it had become sharper.

Cecylia’s morning sickness was more of an all-day sickness, which kept her confined to her home most of the time. Any smell could send her into violent fits of vomiting.

Nathaniel and I were starting the new year afresh, with plans to visit the Trauma Recovery Center in a few months and see how we could help. Kat and Jim were busy catching up on work and helping the kids acclimate to being home again. Even though it had been months, the kids had been through some significant trauma. Kat decided they wouldn’t be traveling anywhere for a good while.

Gretchen, Ania, and their brother were adopted by a retired couple. Gretchen had enrolled in some college courses while her younger siblings finished high school.

One quiet afternoon, with the snow falling outside, Kat and I sipped our coffee while the kids played. We stumbled into the subject of calling. What Sabilia had said to me in her blind rage was still bothering me.

“What do you think your calling is?” I asked Kat, leaning forward as I sipped my coffee.

Kat paused, her gaze drifting out the window before she responded thoughtfully, “If you’re asking me what my calling is this minute, then I would say to be a good wife and raise my kids. Then, if I have the opportunity, to help other foster kids.”

“Oh,” I murmured, my brow furrowing. “I think the world and some Christian circles would say to serve the foster kids first and then your kids and family.”

Kat tilted her head, raising an eyebrow. “You mean like you think it was your calling to drop everything here and go help those kids in Poland because you have a connection to them and to the orphanage?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I replied, shrugging. “But all it did was create more trauma for your kids.”

Kat nodded, crossing her legs and turning to glance at the children sneaking up behind her. She set her coffee down quickly as a teddy bear ambushed her. “And yours,” she pointed out, a soft laugh escaping her lips.

“I suppose so,” I said, my voice trailing off. “But what about taking up your cross? The verse:

‘And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.’

It sounds like you must leave your family and serve.”

Kat’s expression grew contemplative. “I think you’re taking the scripture out of context a little,” she responded, her tone gentle but firm.

“What do you mean?” I asked, leaning in.

“Jesus didn’t tell a young mother to abandon her kids and go on some huge international mission trip. In fact,” she said, her eyes meeting mine with earnestness, “he said even if a mother forgets her nursing babe, implying that forgetting your children is something evil, not good.”

“I never thought of it that way,” I said. “More coffee?”

“Yes, please,” she responded, handing me her cup. “I’ll go see what the girls are doing.”

As I walked into the kitchen, I thought of my childhood and how messed up it was. I’d always dreamed of having a family, just like I had right now. I imagined Mom sitting and sipping coffee while the kids played, the winter wind blew, and the fire in the fireplace glowed and provided warmth. The kitchen was full of snacks, bellies were full of good food, and closets were for clothes and toys, not for stuffing children and leaving them there for days on end. Here I was, living it.

Could enjoying motherhood be my calling? Being a mom, giving my kids a childhood I never had—was it that simple? Not easy, but simple. Raising kids with trauma histories wasn’t easy, especially when all three of us were triggered at the same time. But it was full of joyful moments when I watched my kids experience something I’d wished I had in my childhood.

Sometimes, when we were all sitting at the dinner table, I’d have to get up, leave, and go to my room and cry. I was so overcome with the fact my kids had food to eat. I guess joy in the ordinary was the gift of my early childhood trauma. It birthed in me an empathy I wouldn’t otherwise have.

The world shouted at me from every direction—trafficking is happening, and children were suffering. As if it were my job to save them all because someone had saved me.

Kat and I reconvened in the kitchen on the bar stools. “You know what has helped me?” Kat said. “Dissenting from the noise.”

“What does ‘dissenting from the noise’ mean?” I asked, furrowing my brow in confusion.

Kat picked up her coffee cup and took a thoughtful sip before responding. “Jordan Raynor discusses it in his book Redeeming Your Time. It’s about not just reading God’s word but also listening for His voice while tuning out all the external noise.”

“Like ignoring what’s happening in the world?” I probed, shifting in my seat.

“Sort of, but not entirely,” Kat said, rising from her stool and gesturing towards the boys in the corner. They were engrossed in building an elaborate pillow fort. “Look around,” she continued, pointing to the scene before us. “This is the world that matters most to us right now. I know what you’re thinking.”

“What’s that?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

Kat walked over to the window, her finger indicating the outside world. “You’re feeling like you need to be out there, saving all the kids who are just like you.”

“Yes,” I admitted, my voice rising with frustration.

Kat turned back to me, her expression serious. “Why don’t you start with your own kids? Focus on them. Your family is your calling right now. Stay off the news, avoid social media, and don’t keep asking Nathaniel about his cases every night.”

I agreed and said I would try staying off news apps and social media. Kat had quit her job at the library. Except for our podcast, her involvement in the ITSFC was down to zero.

A month later, during one of our many visits, she asked me how I was doing with dissenting from the noise and blocking out the rest of the world.

“I think I’m doing well. I feel better, more focused, less anxious,” I admitted.

Kat’s face softened with a smile. “That’s great to hear,” she said, placing her coffee mug down on the table. “I’ve got news, too. I’m stepping away from the podcast.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “I was about to say the same thing,” I responded with a giggle. “What’s next for you?”

Kat twirled a pen between her fingers. “I’m still writing, but it’s a different direction now.”

“Different how?” I asked.

Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “I’m writing the mystery novel I’ve always dreamed of writing.”

“That’s fantastic!” I said.

When the time came to book tickets to go back to Poland, I decided to sit this one out. “You can set up a Zoom meeting if you need me,” I told Kasia and Daria, and they didn’t.

It was crazy to think that the previous autumn, I thought I needed to go to Sulejów and save the world, and I was haunted by another Ryszard who tried to kill me and my whole family. It seems as if when you conquer your demons, inviting them back in means you have to face them again, but the stakes are higher.

Now, in the crux of the winter season, the calling died inside of me where things I thought were the driving force of my existence—saving every orphan. I wished I could. But as John the Baptist said, “I am not the Christ.”

As I wrestled my kids into their snow gear to prepare for some fun on the sledding hill, I thought about the joy of motherhood. I had thought raising my kids was an afterthought and not my main mission right now. How wrong I had been. This raising kids and loving them the way I had wished I’d been loved was a mission I longed for, and God had granted.

“Ready to go?” I said to Payton and Sawyer.

“I have to pee,” Sawyer said as I zipped up his snowsuit.

What a mission it is!

NOTES

2. GHOSTS OF THE PAST

1 1. Eugene Field, “The Duel”

3. WONDERLAND ECHOES

1 Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking Glass

4. CRAFTING THE VILLAIN

1 Lewis Carroll, “The Mock Turtle’s Song”

5. FACES IN THE VAN

1 Edgar Allan Poe

7. FRACTURED TEAM

1 Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

11. A HAUNTING REVELATION

1 Edgar Allan Poe

13. VANISHING FAITH

1 Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death”

15. ALICE IN THE REICH

1 Diane Ackerman, The Zookeeper’s Wife

16. HIGH CASTLE DOUBTS

1 William Shakespeare,”As You Like It”

19. THE FORMAL FACADE

1 Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

20. STRATEGIC DETACHMENT

1 Lewis Carroll , Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

21. UNDER THE REICH’S RULE

1 Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

22. THE PUPPET GENERAL

1 Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

23. THE CLEARING OF DEATH

1 Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathleen Guire is the mother of seven, four through adoption, former National Parent of the Year, author, teacher, and speaker. She loves connecting with readers through her website (Kathleenguireauthor.com).

For more information,

about Kathleen, check out her website and follow her on social media!

www.kathleenguireauthor.com

kathleenguire@gmail.com

https://linktr.ee/kguire

ALSO BY KATHLEEN GUIRE

If you missed it, Grab the free Adelina Novella From The Thriller Series:

The Girl Who Didn’t Exist

Then read the rest of the series:

1.The Girl Who Was Trafficked

2.The Girl Who Was Targeted

3.The Girl Who Was Blacklisted

4. The Girl Who Was Hunted