Page 55 of Justice Denied

She scurried to comply, returning quickly with two officers. When Seth explained the woman was impersonating an FBI agent, one of the officers handcuffed her and began Mirandizing her. He retrieved his phone and apologized for the disruption before handing the false agent’s phone and badge to the other officer.

He came to Jetta, who had returned to her chair, adrenalin pulsating through her body at how much she had revealed without a second thought.

“The badge is real, but Agent Keen is out on maternity leave.”

“How did you know she wasn’t a real agent?” Jetta felt all kinds of stupid for missing that. Was she doomed to repeat her mistakes in judgment the rest of her life?

“It seemed too soon. Your mom’s only been gone a few hours, and usually the FBI doesn’t get involved in adult kidnappings unless they have reason to believe the victim has been taken across state lines or there’s been a ransom demand.”

What he said made sense. “I should have known she wasn’t a real agent.”

He crouched beside her chair and took her cold hands in his, rubbing them lightly. “Don’t beat yourself up. Your focus was on your mother and her safe return.”

Now that Seth was here and the false agent gone, Jetta replayed the conversation. “You know what was strange?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “I could have sworn she was surprised to hear about some of the things that had happened. Not Mom’s kidnapping, but her eyes widened slightly when I mentioned Bingley’s poisoning and the raccoon’s death.”

Seth moved to the chair the agent had occupied. “That is weird. If she was here to find out what we’d learned, you’d think she would have known about the attacks designed to make us stop our searches.”

“Exactly.” The aroma of Chinese food wafted toward her. “You brought Chinese?”

“Yes, sweet-and-sour chicken and Mongolian beef, with rice and egg rolls.”

Her stomach growled at the mention of the food. “I’m starving.”

“I forgot to bring plates.” He started to rise but she waved him back.

“Let’s be decadent and eat directly out of the cartoons.”

He hesitated but then nodded. “Sure.” He got them paper cups of water from the supply in the bathroom while she unpacked the food. Soon they were eating and sharing the main courses. By mutual agreement, they avoided talking about the fake FBI agent and her missing mom but instead discussed their favorite books. Seth read widely, more fiction than she’d expected, so they’d had a rousing debate on the merits of different genres.

Jetta set down her chopsticks. “I’m stuffed. Couldn’t eat another bite.”

Seth dug around in the bag. “Good thing there are no fortune cookies.”

“Those never have fortunes anyway, but weird sayings like, ‘Take advantage of your opportunities,’ and ‘You are kind and friendly.’” A burp surprised her. “Excuse me.”

“No worries. My mom always burped more when she was expecting.” Seth stuffed the empty containers into the plastic bag.

“I didn’t know you had a brother or sister.” She handed him her cup.

“I don’t.”

The anger behind the denial startled her into probing deeper. “But you just said your mom—”

“She lost the babies.” Seth wouldn’t look at her, but the rigid set of his shoulders told her how upset he still was over the deaths of his baby siblings in utero.

His hands fisted, crinkling the plastic bag. “No, she didn’t lose them. They were taken from her.”

ChapterTwenty

Seth tied the bag and tossed it into the trashcan, glad for the distraction to get his emotions under control. He couldn’t believe he’d shared that much with Jetta, but the truth had popped out when she’d asked her innocent question. The urge to tell her the rest of the story welled up inside him. “The first one was supposedly an accident, if you can call keeping my mom drunk for weeks even while knowing about the pregnancy an accident. The second time she gave into the pressure from the father to have an abortion. The third time, she was nearly seven months along, but babies can’t withstand hard punches to the abdomen.”

“I’m so sorry.” Her eyes grew wet with tears. “How old were you?”

“Old enough to know what was going on and young enough to have no power to change things.” He huffed out a breath, as images of the blood and his mother’s screams overwhelmed him. “Until the last one.”

He wanted to take back his words, but now that he’d begun to tell the darkest of his secrets, one he had never shared with another living soul, he couldn’t stop. “His name was Hunter Thomas, and he ruled our little patch of earth as his own kingdom. He ran drugs, girls, you name it. If it was illegal, he took a cut. For some reason, Hunter took a fancy to my mom. Not sure why because drugs and booze had made her too skinny, I thought. But she was the most beautiful and exotic creature I’d ever seen, with her long, honey-colored hair and big brown eyes.”

Seth sank onto the chair as the story spilled out, his attention not on Jetta but on the pictures flipping through his mind. “At first, it seemed good to have Hunter around. He treated Mom better than her previous boyfriends and tolerated my presence too. But when Mom became pregnant, things started to change. The larger Mom’s belly grew, the more Hunter was absent, which made Mom sad. When Hunter did come around, they would fight something fierce, mostly with words, although he occasionally slapped her.”

---