Page 10 of Claimed by Him

“You have enough money to get the scar fixed even if insurance won’t cover it,” I pointed out.

“So why haven’t I?” She finished my question.

I nodded.

“Valid question.” She took a drink of water before answering. “I see my scars as proof that I survived some very hellish circumstances.”

She brushed her fingers over her cheek where I noticed another scar, though this one was fainter. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it if she hadn’t drawn attention to it.

“I like that,” I said. I tugged at my shirt, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “I’ll take some water, if the offer still stands.”

“It does.” She got another bottle of water and handed it to me. “How much do you know about me?”

“Basically, what a quick internet search could tell me,” I said. “And I have a feeling you know exactly what that would turn up.”

“I do.” She gave me an approving nod. “Between the trial and marrying Rylan, I knew people would be looking into me. I had to leave enough of the truth to satisfy most people.”

I made an educated guess. “But I need to know more than that for whatever it is you want me to do.”

“You do.” Her smile faltered. “Will you be able to handle it? Listening to me tell you some pretty dark shit?”

In the back of my head, I heard the scratch-scratch scratching of a branch against aluminum siding.

“I can handle it.”

“Then here it goes.” She let out a slow breath and nodded. “My mom doesn’t deserve to even be called a human, she was that horrible. She’d had an awful childhood too, but I can say with some authority that people can get beyond it and not treat their kids like shit.”

I really hoped that was true.

“She was born Anna Newbury, but I knew her as Helen Kingston. She was twenty-three when I was born, but I wasn’t her only kid. Just the only one she kept. As far as her official record shows, she had ten others. One died of SIDS, and the last one was stillborn. The rest went into the system.” She went to take another drink and realized the bottle was empty. “I don’t know why she kept me.” She glanced at me, a bitter smile on her face. “I mean, I know why she did it. I just don’t know why I was the one she picked. I’ve made my peace with it. More or less.”

I hadn’t been through the same things she had, but I could see a kindred spirit in her, someone I might actually be able to talk to who’d understand some of what I was going through. Maybe once this case was done, I could try it. Right now, I had to be professional.

“That’s actually why I decided that it was time.” She suddenly looked nervous. “I’m at a good place now, about what I’ve been through, about who I am. I’d thought for a while that I’d found a healthy place, but after everything that happened four years ago, I knew I still had shit I had to deal with before Rylan and I even considered adopting.”

Now the angry boy made sense. Him calling her by her first name. His age.

“We have a daughter too,” she said with a smile. “Diana. She and Jeremiah are brother and sister. We didn’t want to break them up. Not with everything they’d been through.”

At that moment, I made a promise to myself that the next time I was feeling down about things I’d experienced, I’d remember this discussion to keep things in perspective.

“Anyway.” She ran a hand through her hair and leaned back. “They’re the reason I want to do it. If there’s any way I can have a relationship with my brothers and sisters, I want it. And if they’re the sort of people my kids can be around, I want them to have that too.”

“You hired me to find your siblings?” I considered her for a moment, and then asked, “Why a PI rather than tracking them down online?”

“I spend enough time on the computer as it is,” she said with a smile. “If I tried tracking them down like that, I’d get caught up, neglect things around here. If you get to a point where you need my help, I’ll do it, but I want you to do the heavy lifting.”

I nodded. “All right. I’d like to take some notes on what you know.”

“No need,” she said. “I’ve got everything I know printed out. It should give you some places to start.”

And that was it. I had a new case to work.

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