Page 12 of Rufus

Her throat moved as she swallowed. “I— You— It— No, nothing,” she finally blurted.

One thing Rufus was confident of was the accuracy of his bullshit meter, and right now, it clearly told him Molly was lying.

As was her right if she so chose, he allowed.

But he couldn’t—wouldn’t allow a liar anywhere near his daughter or granddaughter.

He released her arm and stepped away. “I think we both know that isn’t true,” he bit out grimly. “Just as you must know I can’t allow anyone near Mia, and now Lilybeth, whom I can’t completely trust.”

* * *

Molly could see the resolve in Rufus’s hard green eyes and knew that, as far as he was concerned, this was the end of their association. That, quite rightly, Mia’s and Lilybeth’s safety and happiness came first with him. And Molly’s less-than-helpful replies just now had given him serious reason to doubt her in that regard.

Given the circumstances, even the smallest doubt in Rufus’s mind would be enough for him to no longer trust her.

He couldn’t possibly know Molly would never ever hurt Mia or Lilybeth. She would rather put herself in harm’s way than ever do that.

But Rufus saw only black and white where his daughter, and now granddaughter, was concerned, and Molly’s evasive behavior just now had put her in a gray area, if not a black one.

She drew in a shaky breath. “I had a younger brother.”

“What?”

“I had a brother,” she repeated in the face of his complete bafflement.

“I didn’t find any record of him when I—” Rufus broke off abruptly, looking uncomfortable.

“It’s okay.” Molly gave a half smile. “Mia told me you had to do a security check on me before I could start work at the shelter. Ronan was just a baby.”

“Like Lilybeth.”

She nodded. “Just a few weeks older than Lilybeth, yes.”

He grimaced. “Which is why it upset you to hold her.”

Not quite. But close enough.

Rufus shook his head. “I know that there was no official record of your own birth, but there was also no mention in the police report of a baby being found in the apartment with you.”

“That’s because my mother took Ronan with her when she left.”

“What the hell!”

Molly avoided Rufus’s gaze as she released a long and slow breath. “And the reason there was no record of my own or Ronan’s birth was because my mother didn’t like what she called ‘interfering government bureaucracy’ snooping into her life.”

“And you didn’t tell the police about Ronan?”

“No.”

“Why not? Never mind,” he dismissed before she could think of an answer. “You were only a child yourself, and you’d been abandoned and living on your own for five days and nights when the police found you. As far as you were concerned, it must have hurt to think your mother had chosen to take Ronan with her rather than you.”

There was more to it than that, so much more, but Molly had already told Rufus all that she dared. Perhaps, more than was wise.

“Would you like me to find him for you now?”

Molly recoiled. “What?” she gasped.

Rufus shrugged. “Now that I know exactly what I’m looking for, I can do another, more in-depth search for what happened to your mother and brother. We didn’t have the amount of camera surveillance then as we do now, and it might take a while, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find an archived image of them somewhere. People really don’t tend to just disappear.”

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