“Now, Miss Mullins, can you walk me through your relationship with Brent Sparks?”
Leanne talked for an hour. McIntyre took meticulous notes, asked careful questions, and did not flinch once. By the end, her face had gone grim.
“This is enough for an arrest warrant on Brent for assault and unlawful imprisonment,” she said. “Probably Edna Sparks too, for the burns. The drugging is trickier until toxicology confirms everything, but we’re working on it.”
“They’ll lawyer up immediately,” Gene said.
“Let them. I’ve arrested rich people before. They bleed just like everyone else when you cut through the shields.”
After McIntyre left, promising updates, Gene sat beside Leanne until she drifted off. Even in sleep her face looked troubled. He stepped into the hallway and called Marcus back.
“How’d the meeting go?”
“Good, actually. They want to move forward. They’re excited about the pharmaceutical project. How’s Leanne?”
“She’ll survive. Marcus, I need to ask you something. How would you feel about putting the pharma doc on hold for a few months?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going after the Sparks family, and I need your help.”
“Gene… we’re so close to—”
“I know. I’m sorry. But this is my daughter. They tortured her, Marcus. And I think they’ve done it to others. This could be the biggest story we’ve ever told.”
There was a long silence.
Then Marcus said, “What do you need?”
Gene smiled without humor.
“Everything we’ve got.”
Two days later, Leanne was released from the hospital with strict instructions to follow up with specialists. Gene had already transformed his home office into a command center, covering the walls with photos, timelines, maps, and connection charts.
Marcus arrived carrying his laptop and three boxes of files.
“I reached out to Paula Chun’s sister,” he said as he set up. “She’ll meet with us. She’s been waiting for someone to ask about Paula for two years.”
“Good. What about the other former employees?”
“Two agreed to talk off the record. Three aren’t responding. One threatened to call a lawyer if I contacted her again.”
“Fear or complicity?”
“Could be either.”
Gene had spent the previous forty-eight hours building a profile of the Sparks family and their empire. What he had found was ugly. The Spark Centers generated roughly fifty million dollars a year across five locations. They specialized in long-term residential treatment for addiction, trauma, and mental health issues. Their client list was private, but public clues hid in society pages and charitable donation records: CEOs, politicians, family members, celebrities seeking privacy.
The centers were licensed. Accredited.
But one thing stood out. State inspections were always scheduled. Always brief. The same inspector handled all five locations.
Dr. Nathan Snyder.
A psychiatrist who had left private practice ten years earlier to work for the state licensing board. Gene checked Snyder’s finances. Three years earlier he had bought a vacation home in Aspen for $1.2 million in cash—on a civil servant’s salary.
“Add Dr. Snyder to the corruption map,” Gene said.
Marcus nodded.
McIntyre had gotten her warrants, but the arrests had gone sideways. Brent and Edna turned themselves in with a team of expensive lawyers. They were processed and out on bail in four hours. Their statement to the press painted Leanne as mentally ill and Gene as an overprotective father who had violently assaulted a respected family.
Worse, Judge Patterson—one of the names Kent had thrown around that night—issued a restraining order barring Gene from contacting any member of the Sparks family.
McIntyre had called that morning, furious.
“The DA is waffling. Says it’s he-said, she-said. Brent’s lawyers submitted evidence of Leanne’s mental instability. Fake medical records, but well forged.”
“What do you need?” Gene had asked.
“A pattern. More victims. Something that makes this impossible to ignore.”
So Gene went looking for them.
He identified forty-three former Spark patients who had died in the previous five years by suicide, overdose, or accident. Forty-three was high, but not impossible for treatment centers serving high-risk populations. What made it suspicious was how many of those deaths came after patients tried to leave treatment early or filed complaints.
Gene started making calls.
Some families hung up. Some cried. Some got angry. But three of them talked.
A mother in Phoenix whose son had died of an overdose three weeks after leaving the Scottsdale Spark Center.
“He was doing so well,” she said. “Two years sober. Then he went to Sparks for what they called a wellness tune-up. He came out paranoid, agitated. They said it was relapse, but Alex swore he hadn’t used. Two weeks later he’s dead. The autopsy said he injected enough fentanyl to kill a horse. My son was terrified of needles. He would never inject anything.”
A father in Santa Fe whose daughter died in what was ruled a hiking accident after trying to escape the Spark Center there.
“Melissa was an experienced hiker,” he said. “They said she fell. But when I finally saw her body, she had bruises consistent with a struggle. I tried to push for an investigation. The sheriff shut me down. Said the medical examiner ruled it accidental.”
And a sister in Tucson whose brother died in his apartment two weeks after filing a complaint with the state licensing board.
“David left a note,” she said, “but it didn’t sound like him. The handwriting was his, but the words… they talked about guilt and shame. David never felt guilty. He was angry. He wanted justice.”
Gene documented everything: names, dates, circumstances. Patterns emerged. Patients who complained or tried to leave early. Families who pushed back. Deaths ruled quickly as suicide, accident, overdose. In every case, the investigations had been brief, tidy, conclusive.
“They’re killing people,” Leanne said quietly from the couch where she was recovering.
“That’s what they do. They break people down in those centers, and if anyone tries to expose them, they make them disappear.”
“I think you’re right,” Gene said. “But I need proof. Suspicion isn’t enough.”
His phone rang.
