Page 102 of Running to You

“I don’t know. I don’t remember…a lot. What I’m telling you happened months ago. After Jed got suspicious, he had Gil and Elliot remove the copy machine from the office, claiming it was broken. But I had the evidence I needed at that point. I just had to figure out how to get out.”

“They wouldn’t let you leave?”

“Technically, I could leave the property whenever I wanted to. I’d borrowed cars to run errands many times. But I didn’t own a car. I could have bought one, but—”

“That would have raised their suspicion,” he guessed.

“Exactly. The day I ran into you in Salt Lake—”

“I knew you were in trouble.” He slammed a hand on the steering wheel. He could still see the fear in her eyes. “I should have grabbed you and gotten you out of there.”

“I wouldn’t have gone with you.” Her words were quiet.

“Why? You just said—”

“There was nothing, nothing I wanted more than to…” Her voice faded. “Anyway, that day, I’d just left the hospital and—”

“For what? Were you hurt?”

“Everything’s fine. I had hoped to drive myself, but when I asked to use a car, Jed had Gil and Elliot drive me.”

“But they weren’t there when you came outside. You said they were circling the block. We could have disappeared.”

“There were things I needed. I couldn’t leave yet.”

“What things? What could have been more important than getting away?”

“Evidence.”

“You said—”

“There was more than what I put in that file, stuff I hadn’t known about before. I learned later that not all of Jed’s women had been willing participants.”

“He was raping them?” This just got better and better.

“Or…manipulating them, but not all of them were happy to be having his children. He wouldn’t let them leave once he got them pregnant.”

“How’d you figure that out?”

“Some of it is speculation, I admit. But the files told me a lot. The girl I helped escape? Her family had quit paying months before she left. Jed was amassing followers. I think he bled them for everything they had, then just…kept them. I overheard one of the girls saying how glad she was that Jed had convinced her to stay, how lucky she was that he’d chosen her.”

Lucky. Right.

“There was a hidden drawer in his office desk,” Eliza said. “I walked in once when he was sliding something into it. The way he jumped—like I’d caught him in the act—had me wondering. He slammed it shut and locked it. It took me weeks to get access when nobody was looking and pick the lock to see what was inside.”

He imagined her in there, looking over her shoulder, worried about getting caught. What would have happened if she had been? He reached across the space and took her hand again, needing the connection. A reminder that she was safe. “What was it?”

“DNA tests. Proof that he was the father of twenty-two babies.”

Twenty-two.

Sam couldn’t comprehend the mind of a man who’d do such a thing.

“That’s how he was keeping the women there,” Eliza said, “even those who wanted to leave. He told them they could leave, but the babies were his.”

Sam wasn’t proud of the words that came to mind.

“I had to get those records, Sam. I couldn’t copy them. I had no camera or smart phone to take pictures of them, and the copy machine was gone. I couldn’t leave without them.”