Page 66 of Love Me Steadfast
“Morgan and Theo too?”
“Theo’s my best friend. And Morgan…all of us looked out for her when we were kids.”
He gives a thoughtful hum. “Looked out for her how?”
“She liked to push boundaries and take risks. Sometimes it got her in trouble.”
Another hum. “I know you can’t share anything protected, so I won’t ask, but…there’s a couple of things that stand out… I mean, Morgan’s got this horse rescue, and hundreds of acres. How’d she get a hold of all that land? An operation like that isn’t cheap. My family’s beenrunning cattle for three generations, so feel free to ask me how I know.”
“I think the property was an old horse breeding and riding facility. Morgan started working there in high school, kind of like a work study program? She got school credit for it, or something.” I rub my forehead in thought. I only know bits and pieces of this story from Zach and Sofie. Morgan started the horse rescue when I was still in Eugene, focusing on football. “Maybe the owner left it to her? Or she inherited money or something?”
“Maybe,” he replies, though his tone is laced with doubt. “Any idea what caused the sudden shift in her mental health?”
I release a heavy sigh. “I wish I could help you there, but I don’t know.” I think back to that one-minute conversation in the cereal aisle months ago. Was Morgan struggling then or did life throw her a curveball—this trigger Ballard’s hinting at?
The tones go off from inside the building. “Hey, I gotta run.” I hurry inside, mentally shifting gears.
“I’ll email you those names, and my direct line,” Ballard says, barely audible over the rumble of engines kicking on and the shouts from the guys suiting up. “Call me anytime if you think of anything.”
I jump into the ambulance with my shift partner, Linden. “I missed most of the broadcast. What’ve we got?”
He pulls out of the station. “A fifteen year old female in active labor at the Gold Nugget Motel,” he says.
Fifteen?I flip on the lights and sirens, unease trickling into my gut.
Rumsey gives me a side-eye. “Ever deliver a baby?”
In EMT training, we spent exactly one whole afternoon on the subject. Ask any firefighter about the type of call they dread and it’s almost always about a laboring mother in distress. The stakes are just so fucking high.
“Uh, negative,” I tell him.
The Gold Nugget is just off the freeway, behind a largeand brightly lit gas station with an attached parking lot for long haul truckers to crash out. It’s not exactly seedy but it’s not vacation material either.
I check in with our dispatcher, Sam, as Linden turns into the motel lot.
“She’s in room 108,” Sam rattles off. “Deputy Hayes is on scene. There’s a young male with the girl in labor but no info on him.”
The Gold Nugget looks even more outdated up close. Thin gold letters on the doors and flimsy-looking doorknobs and yellowing curtains in the windows. Above, from the second story, a handful of spectators in their pajamas are leaning over the twisted metal railing, gawking.
Zach’s rig is parked just past the room, but my initial relief that he’s here vanishes the second we back up to the walkway and he slips outside, eyes tense. He peels off his nitrile gloves as we meet up at the back of the rig. “Something’s not adding up here,” he says, breathing fast. “Apparently the kid with her is her brother. They were trying to make it to a great aunt’s place in Driggs. They’re both scared, and not just because she went into labor early.”
Forty minutes of terrifying chaos later, Mom and baby have been safely handed off to Evergreen’s ER and I draw my first deep breath since we pulled up on scene.
Zach calls as Linden pulls away from the hospital, and I put him on speaker. “My hunch they were running from that cult was correct,” he says over the hum of his engine.
I wondered the same thing. Last year, Sons of Eden, a quasi-religious cult from up north, bought up a bunch of land and has since built it up into a small community. Rowdy’s been at odds with them almost constantly for everything from poaching to illegal logging on public lands.
“The girl was forced to marry some church elder,” Zach continues. “The brother was about to get kicked out.”
I wince. This is child abuse. “Kicked out?” I ask as the details settle. “What for?”
“Because boys grow into men,” Linden says from the driver’s seat. “And the elders want the girls to themselves.”
“That’s fucked up,” I say.
Linden runs a hand through his hair. “They’re called lost boys.”
“I’ve got Protective Services involved,” Zach replies with a heavy sigh.
