Life Blood --XII---Page 40

Which went a long way toward explaining why he didn't want Children of Light to be featured in my film. And the Guatemalan colonel who'd just trashed my home was almost certainly in on the operation. Alex Goddard might be a New Age miracle worker
rediscovering ancient Native American herbal cures, but he also was running a very efficient money machine.

Still, the big question kept coming back: Where did he get all
the babies? To extract any more information about that from
Quetzal Manor, I'd have to break into an office somewhere, and I
wasn't quite up to that yet. I didn't have the nerve of Colonel Jose
Alvino Ramos.

"Tell you what, Tara, I think I'm out of here." I was returning
the Betacam to its bag. Nothing I'd shot was remotely broadcast
quality, but I did have proof of what was going on. My
"undercover" investigation was making some headway.
        "Okay." She sighed her expression increasingly glazed.
        I took one last look around the room, at the row of bassinets,
 then gave her a parting pat and headed for the exit.
        "Look," I said turning back as I reached the door. "Don't say
anything to anybody about me being here tonight, okay? Can we
just let it be our secret?"

"Sure, whatever." She shrugged absently. Like, why not.

"And Tara, do yourself a favor. Get out of this place."

"But there's nowhere else I can go," she said sadness in her eyes. As I slowly closed the door, the last thing I heard was the sound of the Beethoven sonata dying away.

What a day . . . and night. As I walked down the hallway

carrying the camera bag, I tried to process my new information. I'd
just seen some of the most incredibly lovable babies ever. That
part of it was a beautiful experience, one that pulled at my
heartstrings more strongly than I'd ever imagined something like
that could. The part that troubled me was, the babies were so
alike, so fair, and . . . they all could have been perfect siblings for
Kevin and Rachel.

No, I told myself, surely that was my imagination. Though they did look amazingly related. . .

As I moved across the parking lot, I thought I saw a

movement in the shadows just inside the entry archway, a quick change in the pattern of dark. Was it Ramala or one of the girls, I wondered, or was it just my paranoia?

Keep walking, I told myself. Lose yourself in the snow. The

only way they can stop you from exposing this racket now is to kill
you.

When I got back to my car, I gazed up at the imposing turrets of Quetzal Manor one last time, wishing there was enough light to film them, and collected my thoughts. Was the story about the babies being orphans or abandoned children or "whatever" really true? I didn't believe it, not for a minute.

But as Carly Grove said, Alex Goddard could "make it

happen." The problem for me was, he wouldn't tell me where he got the children, and nobody I'd talked to so far seemed to want to know, not really.

I wanted to know.