Page 28 of Sebastian

Internally, I cursed my brother with every creative insult I knew. Although he was in another room, I swore I could hear him laughing.

“I use them to hide things. It discourages people from snooping when they open a drawer and that’s the first thing they see.”

Newt had come to pick me up from the hospital right after his paramedic shift, so he was still wearing his uniform. The navy-blue shirt and high-vis jacket created an odd clash of colors but couldn’t detract from his delighted smile.

“Oh, no, I don’t care about your masturbation material. But, magazines? Really? When the Internet exists? How old school are you?”

I would have normally responded to his teasing with a clever comeback of my own, but I was too tired. So, I pinched his side instead.

“Brat. I thought you were mad.”

Newt squirmed and swatted at my hand. “What would I be mad about? That you have a sex drive? I certainly hope so.”

Although he tried to be subtle, there was no missing the way his eyes flicked up and down my body. I knew I didn’t present a very impressive sight at that moment, bruised and broken, and severely in need of a shower. I was anything but sexy.

Still, if Newt could find me desirable even like this, then I probably didn’t have to worry about our bedroom compatibility.

Now, if only I could capitalize on that. We hadn’t slept together yet, but I’d been hoping our next date would provide an opportunity. That plan went out the window the moment my car went off the road.

Before I could voice any of that, Damien returned with the file. Plans for my future sex life would have to wait as I once again focused on business.

I spread out the contents of the file over the floor since there was no table near the couch. It mostly consisted of birth certificates and a few pictures. Not nearly as much information as I wish I had.

“I keep an eye on certain Internet forums where people ask for help, just in case there’s anything interesting. A woman is looking for her daughter, so I reached out to her.”

I pulled out a record of our private messages to prove I was telling the truth and handed it to Damien.

“Her name is Layla Thomas. She was seventeen when she got pregnant and decided to give the baby up for adoption. A few years later, she wanted to check up on the girl and see how she was doing. It was a closed adoption, so she had no way of finding the kid, and every appeal she made to the courts was ignored, so she hired a private investigator. The person she hired discovered that there was no record of the adoption. In fact, there was no record of her daughter ever being born.”

This time, I handed Damien the largest stack of papers in the file containing birth records of every child born in the state of Louisiana on the correct date. Layla Thomas and her daughter were nowhere to be found on that list.

“After discovering that, the investigator suddenly dropped her case with no explanation, and she couldn’t get anyone else to take the case, either. I had a feeling something was going on, so I volunteered to look into it.”

Damien sighed as he leafed through the pages. “Of course you did. There are kids involved. So, what have you found so far?”

I shifted in my seat and flinched when the movement jostled my leg. “At least a dozen similar cases of children put up for adoption who just disappeared from the system. So far, I’ve only been focusing on Louisiana, but for all I know this could be happening all across the country.”

The paper slapped against the floorboards when Damien threw them down. “Why didn’t you take this info to the authorities, or Mason, or at least come to me?”

“Because I didn’t have any solid proof. It would be easy to write this off as a clinical error and forge a few documents to cover it up. I needed something more substantial. The night I was attacked, I went to meet the administrator for a hospital where multiple children had disappeared. They claimed to have information for me, and that was the only time they could meet. But they never showed up. After everything, all I’ve got is a few missing records.”

I could practically see the wheels turning in Damien’s head as he studied the contents of the file. We’d worked together for so long that I was certain he saw what I saw.

“If kids are going missing on this large of a scale, then it must be an organized group.” He sorted through the pages again, slower this time. “There aren’t a lot of reasons to kidnap this many kids except...”

He trailed off, obviously uncomfortable, so I finished the thought for him.

“Except for sex trafficking.”

Damien nodded, one hand stroking over his beard. “But the real question is, why attack you now? The meeting with the administrator was obviously a trap to lure you out, but why? Killing someone is a drastic measure. You must have gotten closer to the truth than you realized, and it scared them.”

He scooped up the papers and stuffed them back in the file. “I’m going to go over this and see what I can uncover. Then I’m going to send a copy over to Mason. Some of the FPA’s contacts might have more information. Is this everything you have?”

“You’ve got three months of work in your hands. There’s also a jump-drive taped to the inside of the file. That holds a digitized record of everything I’ve uncovered so far.”

“All right. Perfect. That saves me transcribing it all for Mason.” He tucked the file under his arm then pointed a finger at me. “You should not have been working on this alone, Brother. You know that.”

I ducked my head, knowing he was right. I just hadn’t wanted to go to anyone with it until I knew I was right.

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