Chapter 15 - Behind the Red Door

The federal team arrived quietly, in ordinary cars with no flashing lights. Hannah insisted that Rachel stay with her children. Bear, who knew the roads around the annex, gave an agent a map of delivery entrances and blind corners.

Rachel didn't like waiting, but she could finally see the difference between being pushed aside and being protected by a plan she understood.

At 5:40 a.m., agents approached the old county records annex. Through a surveillance feed, Rachel watched a pair of guards leave by the loading gate. An investigator lifted the latch on the red door and disappeared inside.

Two minutes later came a voice through the radio. "We've got three minors. Alive. Need medical assessment."

Rachel pressed a hand over her mouth.

The children were found in a basement office with cots, bottled water, and fresh blankets. Their doors were locked from the outside. One boy asked whether his mother knew where he was. An agent said they were working on that, and kept his promise not to guess.

Sloane wasn't there. Neither was Thomas.

A boy at the annex asked for his blue coat. It was still on a hook beside the locked office. An agent retrieved it before bringing him outside, and the boy clutched it even though the morning was warm. When Rachel heard that detail later, she understood why she had to keep fighting. The horror was not only the forged documents. It was every small comfort the children had learned to ask permission for.

The only adult in the office was a terrified clerk named June Adler. She carried a binder of transport schedules and begged for an attorney.

Hannah spoke to June from the hallway. "You have the right to legal counsel. Those children also have the right to go home. Tell us what immediate danger they're in."

June pointed to the ceiling. "The buses aren't leaving from here. They use the river terminal. This building is just where they fix the paperwork."

"When's the next transfer?"

June checked her watch. "Six thirty."

An agent radioed the terminal unit. No answer came back.

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Then Bear's phone rang. Sloane's voice was calm.

"You brought the government to my front door," he said. "Now watch what happens at the river."