Page 33 of Rufus

“Such a pity you had to grow up and lose some of that doll-like cuteness,” Serena then said in a bored voice. “You didn’t eat very much, and you were a quiet little thing, but there was simply no point in keeping you with me any longer when you could be of no further use to me.”

Looking at the other woman, her makeup perfect, her clothes expensively tailored, and wearing those damned red-soled high-heeled shoes, had only confirmed for Molly that Sarah had simply walked away seventeen years ago to take on this other persona. That she had done so without so much as a second thought for the daughter she had left behind. The daughter who was no longer cute enough to assist her in her illegal endeavors.

How much of this did Rufus already know?

Because it was obvious from his guarded behavior since his arrival earlier that he knew something.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rufus could sense Molly’s reluctance as she ascended the stairs ahead of him to her apartment. The heavy way she was walking made it appear almost as if she was suffering the despair of a prisoner on her way to the gallows. Although why Molly should feel that way, he had no idea.

Rufus still hadn’t been able to fathom what her mother was involved in. He only knew, from the way her money was hidden and that long-term bolt hole she’d had waiting for her on the Cayman Islands, that it must be something illegal.

But Molly couldn’t possibly be implicated in those crimes. She’d been a child. Worse, she’d been a child who was eventually abandoned by that same mother.

Until today, it seemed.

Why Serena Jenkins had decided to come back into Molly’s life now was anyone’s guess. But the fact she had made it obvious the older woman had known exactly where her daughter was currently working and living. That she might possibly have always known where Molly was and just hadn’t given a damn.

That was certainly no reason for Molly to ever think anyone would blame her for something her mother had or hadn’t done. In the past or now.

Molly looked on the verge of crying by the time she turned to face him after they had both entered her apartment and Rufus had closed the door behind him.

“You—” Rufus frowned his irritation as his cell phone vibrated in his pocket to alert him to an incoming call.

“Don’t answer that,” Molly begged. “Let’s talk first. Please!”

Rufus looked up from seeing his cousin’s name on the screen. “I’m sorry, but I really do need to take this,” he apologized before pressing the cell phone against his ear.

“I now believe the payment into Serena Jenkins’s bank account seventeen years ago coincided with the disappearance of a very young baby from Northern Ireland named Ronan.” As usual, Linus lost no time in stating the facts rather than wasting any time on pleasantries.

“What the hell…!” Rufus gasped.

“The payment was made only a day after Sarah Harper disappeared with the baby Molly told you was her brother, also named Ronan. It’s going to take me a little longer to find where and with whom he was placed, but I will find it,” Linus assured grimly.

Fucking hell!

“What else did you discover?” he prompted slowly, knowing there had to be more when Linus didn’t immediately speak again or end the call.

His cousin released a noisy breath. “A payment went into that same account the day after Emily was supposed to have died in the car crash with Beth. The amount was withdrawn again the day before we now know Emily was found abandoned in a church in Cornwall. At the moment, this is all circumstantial. But I’m also guessing that the amount of publicity after the accident, along with the photos of Beth and Emily in the newspapers, would have made it difficult to…rehome a small baby whose photo was on the front page of the nation’s newspapers.”

“She wasn’t one of Mia’s fucking strays!” Rufus rasped furiously.

“Sorry, Rufus, I didn’t know how else to put it,” Linus said softly. “I had my suspicions when we talked earlier, but no concrete evidence to back it up. I still haven’t put it all together yet, but those two sets of dates, at least, don’t lie. And if those two payments were made in exchange for stolen babies, then there’s a good chance the others were too.”

Rufus’s head was spinning. His vision blurred as his eyes filled with tears. The pain gripping his chest was so severe, he really felt as if he were having a heart attack this time.

What Linus was saying couldn’t be right. Could it? Because if it was, then that meant Sarah Harper/Serena Jenkins was responsible for the abduction of dozens of babies.

“Since the disappearance of the babies would have been random and never in the same country or place, I’m also going out on a limb here and guessing that no sort of pattern was detected by the different authorities in those countries,” Linus added.

If that was what Linus had deduced from the information he’d gathered so far, then Rufus didn’t doubt that was exactly what had happened. Rufus easily guessed that his cousin was only sugarcoating those facts for his benefit.

Linus knew, Rufus’s whole family knew, that he had been looking for answers for the past two years as to how Emily could possibly have survived the car crash that killed her mother.

It now seemed that his daughter had survived because, in all probability, someone had removed her from the car before the crash occurred.

No, not someone, he realized.

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