The Extractor Read online

  If you’ve been following our story, then you know that Mark Ellington is the final remaining shareholder of The Company, since Noah had killed Jonathan Hughes the other night. As long as Ellington was still out there, he was a threat.

  “So, what are you going to do with Mateo?” I asked.

  Luke had performed a “mini-interrogation” on Mateo once we’d arrived back at the old farm house that night. Luke’s interrogation had forced Mateo to admit that he’d been recruited at age fourteen, had been subjected to tests and injections in the lab just like we had, and had undergone training similar to what we’d gone through. Luke had assured me after the interrogation that Mateo didn’t give off a deceitful vibe. But I still didn’t trust the kid. He was an outsider.

  Luke didn’t trust anyone who wasn’t a part of our unit, so his interest in Mateo was a bit of a shock. He obviously felt sympathetic toward the kid, which I could understand. I felt sympathetic toward Mateo, too. But not enough to risk putting myself and all my dreg brothers in danger. I hoped Luke wasn’t making a mistake by allowing Mateo to come with us.

  Luke huffed. “Take him with. Why? That going to be a problem?”

  Luke kept a wall around his heart so thick that even I wasn’t always able to penetrate through it. Luke rarely let people in, and he hardly ever showed his emotions. As his dreg partner, I knew him better than anyone. So his uncharacteristic behavior toward Mateo made me a little uneasy. What was going on with him? Was he losing his edge? I didn’t get a different read on him. He was the same old Luke. Sarcastic. A smart ass. Cold and aloof.

  Unless he was hiding something from me.

  “You trust him? You sure he’s not spying on us for Ellington?”

  I had sensed Mateo looking at me oddly a time or two, and sometimes, I caught dark looks from him. It was possible he was more like Tony, keeping people at a distance by giving off mean vibes. Truthfully, no recruit was left unaffected by his experience with The Company. Mateo’s experience may have unleashed his bad side. The kid seemed pretty harmless, but I would remain wary and keep my distance. I would let Luke deal with him, as he was better at reading vibes than I was.

  The damn kid better not interfere with my plans.

  Luke snorted. “If he’s spying on us for Ellington, then he’s a very dead kid.”

  “You can trust me,” Mateo responded urgently. Luke apparently had me on speakerphone and Mateo was listening to our conversation. “I don’t want anything to do with those assholes who kidnapped me. You guys freed me, so I’m totally loyal to you.”

  Maybe I was being too hard on the kid. Luke would know if Mateo was being dishonest, so if he trusted the kid, then I should, too.

  “Okay, he can come along, as long as he stays out of the way. The next exit heads into Medicine Park, the town where my mom lives. I’m taking it. But I don’t want the other dregs to know. They won’t like it.”

  “I agree,” Luke said. “I’ll call them and tell them we decided to take a little detour and will meet up with them later.”

  “Thanks, man.” I disconnected the call and watched for the exit.

  My mother was just minutes away. My heart raced. Anticipation swept through me. I was aware that The Company could be watching her, waiting to see if I showed up. If I went to visit her, I could well put her in danger. She could well die because of me.

  But that didn’t stop me from wanting to see her. She was my mother, after all. My mother. And I needed answers. I wanted to know what had happened all those years ago.

  Luke and the other dregs had been my only family since The General had recruited me at age thirteen. That was fourteen years ago. I hadn’t seen my mother in fourteen years. I had forgotten about her for most of that time.

  Now that I knew she was alive and real, I had to see her.

  Questions swirled in my head. Questions I intended to ask her when I saw her again. What would cause a mother to hand her child over to the devil? Had I meant so little to her? Or had they forced her to give me up?

  I inhaled deeply, slowly exhaled. I was about to meet my mother again after fourteen years.

  I had no idea what was about to happen. Would this decision come back to haunt me later? Would it be my downfall or my destiny?

  Every action has a consequence. Yet, despite all my years as a dreg, I never could have imagined what would come next.

  Or how the events that unfolded would change us all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Liz

  “Liz! I found him! I found him! Finally, I found my boy!”

  Glenda barreled into my office and slapped a computer printout on my desk. “Look! It’s him! That’s my boy! That’s my Ryan!”

  I was on the phone with an angry guest and shook my head at Glenda, holding up a hand to let her know I was busy. She sent me an impatient look, and paced away from my desk as I finished up my call.

  “Yes, Mr. Daniels. I will see that housekeeping brings you fresh towels immediately. Please accept my apologies.” I set the receiver back on the hook with a sigh. “That man is a nightmare. He expects fresh towels in his room twice a day.”

  “Then we give him fresh towels twice a day.”

  I groaned. “Yes. The customer is always right. Even if he’s a pompous ass.”

  We exchanged a small smile. Glenda owned a local inn that was highly popular during the summer months. I’d worked for her for the past two years as her business manager. I also did her bookkeeping, since I had a degree in hospitality management and one in accounting. Now that winter was well underway, the visiting tourists had dwindled down to only a handful per week. This was the time of year that Glenda spent every spare moment searching for her son. With very few guests this time of year, Glenda had nothing to do but miss her son and diligently continue her search for him. She seemed to think I wanted to be involved in these searches, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her I believed it was futile, and that she was crazy to spend huge amounts of money hunting for the tiniest clue to her son’s whereabouts.

  A son that was likely dead.

  Glenda pointed urgently at the paper. “Look! It’s him!”

  I lifted the piece of paper to study it more thoroughly. The printout was a wanted poster. A wanted poster? Really, Glenda? She was getting a little too obsessed now. The man in the photo had dark hair and light amber-colored eyes. Late twenties? He was extremely handsome, his features almost pretty, though still very masculine. Glenda thought this was her son? I couldn’t deny the man was gorgeous, but a felon?

  Glenda had been searching for her son for fourteen years. She’d hired one private investigator after another, but no one had found even a trace of him. He’d simply vanished.

  I sighed. “Uh, Glenda, it says this man has a $50,000 bounty on his head and is considered to be armed and extremely dangerous. He’s a criminal.”

  “Well, I know that’s what it says, but I don’t believe it. That’s my Ryan. Look at him! He looks just like me!”

  I continued to study the printout. The man in the photo did indeed look like Glenda. Now in her early fifties, Glenda was still an attractive woman with dark hair and light brown eyes. I glanced at Glenda, then back at the man in the printout. “Yes, he does look like you,” I conceded, “but it says he is a dreg and that he is called The Extractor. What’s a dreg?”

  “Well, Mary told me that’s what they call the discharges,” she informed me. “Dregs. Normally they are killed, but my Ryan escaped. He and some others got away. That’s why they are being hunted. That’s why he has a bounty on his head. He’s not a criminal. But I’m guessing he knows too much. He knows things that the government doesn’t want the rest of the world to know about.”

  Glenda was starting to sound delusional. Sympathy tugged at me. I was not a mother, but I could certainly feel for this woman who had been searching for her son for so many years. Glenda still believed her son was alive and that someday she would find him again. It was heartbreaking every time she showed me a possible ne
w lead. Because each time, she ended up being disappointed.

  I shook my head. “Glenda…who’s Mary?”

  She lowered her voice, as if someone might overhear, though we were the only two people in my office. “Mary is my secret contact in The Company. I met her years ago, not long after they stole Ryan from me. She said I wasn’t alone, that there were other women like me whose sons had been taken away. We kept in contact over the years, an email or a brief phone call here or there, and then, just last week, she finally told me everything she knew about my Ryan, that he’d escaped with some other guys about a year ago, and that The Company has been hunting them ever since. All I know is her first name. I’ve never met her in person. She said she doesn’t know where Ryan is, but that she suspects he’s still alive. She emailed me this flyer and told me it’s my Ryan. She said she didn’t know if The Company created the poster or if someone else did.”

  Glenda didn’t really believe all that garbage, did she? If Glenda’s secret contact had been messing with her all these years, playing on her weakness, then that was so cruel. I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone hurting Glenda like that. She was a sweet, kind-hearted lady. As her friend, it was my duty to protect her from people who might be out to hurt her.

  “Has this woman demanded money from you? Payment for information she leaks to you?”

  Glenda gasped. “Of course not! Mary is my friend. She only wants to help. But she’s afraid to meet in person, afraid The Company will kill her if they find out she’s been associating with me. So she stays under the radar.”

  I pressed my fingers against my temple. The entire story sounded farfetched. Like a con artist feeding on Glenda’s weakness. “Are you sure she didn’t charge you anything for the information? Did she expect that you provide something in return?”

  Glenda lifted her chin. “I told you no. Mary wouldn’t do that.”

  I sighed. “How can you know what she’s telling you is the truth? I hate seeing you getting your hopes up yet again. What if you only end up being disappointed?”

  Glenda plopped into a well-worn brown leather chair and pulled it up to my desk. “Ryan’s father was the one who kidnapped him fourteen years ago. Did I tell you that? He was one of the founders of The Company. He was a high-ranking government official. A five-star Army General. That’s why he was able to get away with the things he did. He was an evil man I foolishly thought I was in love with once a long time ago. But he died a few months ago. And then this wanted poster popped up. And Mary did some digging, and told me everything that she’d found out. So it has to be true. This has to be my Ryan.”

  She reached across the desk and grabbed my hand. “Liz, you’ve got to believe me. This–” she smacked the printout that I’d set back on the desktop, “–is my son. This is my Ryan. I know it is.” Her bottom lip trembled. Her eyes welled with tears.

  I groaned softly, my heart pinching. “I don’t know, Glenda. If your son is a criminal, then don’t you think it would be best not to make contact with him?”

  She reared back. “My Ryan is a sweet boy. He would never harm another person. He’s not a criminal. I know he’s not. I feel it deep in here.” She tapped her chest. “A mother’s intuition.”

  Or a mother’s denial…

  I cleared my throat. I couldn’t imagine going through what she had. Her son was all she talked about. How could I encourage her in this pointless search for her son who was likely dead?

  “The boy you knew was not a criminal,” I said gently, “but you don’t know the man he is today. How can you be absolutely sure this is him?”

  She lifted her chin. “Because I know my son. This is him, I tell you. It’s my Ryan. It has to be him.”

  Glenda was certainly determined.

  “What is it that you plan to do with this flyer?”

  She looked me in the eye. “I already called the number, but it was disconnected. I researched the area code and found out it is a Georgia number. So, I’m going to Georgia to try to find my son.”

  “What?” Now it was my turn to be shocked. “Glenda, you can’t do that.”

  She lifted her chin. “Oh yeah? Watch me.”

  Exasperation swept through me. Then worry. “What about the inn?”

  She shrugged. “You’re here. And there aren’t many guests this time of year. You can handle it.”

  I couldn’t let her go to Georgia on this fruitless search for her son. “Glenda, you can’t just take off for Georgia. It’s a big state. How do you even know where to look?” Glenda was only going to end up broken-hearted once again. How could I be a part of that?

  She pointed to the flyer, jabbing her finger at the phone number at the bottom. “The area code is from Atlanta. So that’s where I’ll start.”

  I sighed. “There’s got to be nearly half a million people living in Atlanta.”

  She lifted her chin. “Then I’ll ask half a million people if they’ve seen my son.”

  I shook my head, then snatched up the flyer and studied the man’s face more closely. The fact that he bore a striking resemblance to Glenda couldn’t be denied. What if this man truly was her son? What had he done to make someone issue a bounty on him? Wouldn’t that just break her heart even more if she found him, then had to watch him being dragged away to prison?

  “Why don’t you think on it for a few days before you make the rash decision to head to Georgia?” I suggested gently. “Then, if you’re absolutely positive that this is something you have to do, then I’ll try to hold down the fort until you get back. I really don’t want to see you get your hopes up for nothing again, Glenda.”

  Her eyes welled with fresh tears, then she crumpled forward, putting her face in her hands as she leaned on the desk. “I have to find him,” she whispered. “All these years, he probably thinks I abandoned him. He probably hates me. But I didn’t have a choice. I have to explain to him what happened. Don’t you see? I can’t let him think I didn’t want him.”

  Guilt slammed into me. Hell. She truly believed the man in the flyer was her son. Arg!

  I gently patted her hand.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. You’re right. If you believe this man is your son, then you should follow all leads to find out if he truly is. If you want to go to Georgia in search of him, then I’ll support you. I’ll keep the inn running until you get back. Whatever it takes, I’m here for you.”

  She lifted her head, wiping at a tear. “You’d do that, really?”

  I forced a smile. “Yes. Who am I to say whether or not you should search for your son?”

  Glenda rose from the chair. “Oh, thank you, Liz! I’m going to pack a bag. I plan to leave first thing in the morning.”

  I came around the desk and gave her a hug. “Good luck, Glenda. Please, be safe. And keep me posted, okay? I worry about you.”

  She hugged me back, tightly. “You’re a good friend, Liz. Sometimes, I wish you were my daughter.”

  My chest swelled with emotion, my own eyes welling with tears. “What a sweet thing to say, Glenda.”

  She released me and stepped back, letting out a wobbly laugh. “Okay, then…I’ll be off.” With a nod, she hurried from the room.

  Was I a bad friend to encourage her in this endeavor? Should I have done everything in my power to stop her from going?

  I turned away, noticing that she’d left the flyer sitting on my desk. Before I could take it to her, Carma appeared in the doorway to my office.

  “Hey. My shift is about to end, and Rachel said she’s running late. I have plans after work, so I was hoping you might stay and wait for her so I can leave.”

  I tried to hide my irritation. Managing the desk clerks meant I sometimes had to fill in. “Sure. I’ll hang around until Rachel shows up.”

  Since my office was just to the right of the front reception area, I could hear people coming and going if I left my door open. I could work and still check guests in after Carma left.

  With Glenda about to hea
d out of town for who-knew-how-long, the running of the inn would fall entirely upon my shoulders. Though we didn’t anticipate a lot of guests this time of year, walk-ins weren’t uncommon. I could handle it.

  Carma left a few minutes later. I settled behind my desk and opened the spreadsheet I’d been working on earlier. This would keep me busy while I waited for the nightshift clerk to arrive.

  I didn’t anticipate much excitement in the next few minutes.

  But moments later, three strangers walked into the inn.

  And one of them looked just like the man in the wanted poster.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ryan

  “How do you want to do this?” Luke asked.

  We’d stopped in at the restaurant/bar next door to the inn and had dinner and drinks first. I’d needed sustenance and a little liquid courage before heading next door to see my mother. Now that I was here, I wasn’t exactly sure how to approach her. What did I say?

  Hi, Mom. Remember me? And by the way, why did you hand me over to a monster?

  What if she didn’t remember me?

  Right…a mother who didn’t remember her own child?

  Okay, but what if she ordered me to leave? What if she wasn’t even here?

  If she wasn’t here, then I would book a room and stay until I was able to see her. If she owned the place, then she would have to make an appearance eventually, right?

  I tossed back the rest of my beer and rose, knowing I couldn’t put it off forever. “Just follow my lead. I’ll do all the talking.” I glanced at Mateo, who was unusually quiet. “And you stay back out of the way, kid. I don’t even want to know you’re there.”

  Mateo lowered his gaze. “Sure. No problem.”

  I checked the time on my phone. Nine p.m. I headed outside with Luke and Mateo right behind me. It was slighter colder here in Oklahoma than it had been in Georgia, and tonight the temperature was only about thirty-two as we walked across the parking lot to my mother’s inn next door.