Page 20 of For the Love of a Boy

“As I explained over the phone, Seth has been through too much already. He may never heal from everything his father and the others did to him. To be honest, I was hoping he’d never have to be involved at all. Since Nate’s associate, Ms. Tina Klein, contacted your agency and passed on the tip, we thought perhaps that would be enough.”

Both detectives nodded. Detective Smith continued, “And we’re sympathetic to your concerns. However, we genuinely want to tear those bastards down, make sure they never hurt another kid again. Hell, we’re convinced there are adults being held there right now as well. Seth’s testimony would be vital to this investigation.”

Detective Lopez interjected, “We’ve received a handful of complaints about them over the years. Nothing concrete. Whenever we’d investigate the claims, the individuals who’d reached out either disappeared or suddenly changed their story. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find just cause to dig deeper or to serve search warrants at the education center.”

Malcolm arched his eyebrows. He believed they were all on the same side, but a couple comments Lopez had made concerned him. “Disappeared? What does that mean exactly?”

“I can’t attest to anything sinister. We were never able to discover anything alarming. From what we could tell, a couple of the students who we’d been asked to do a welfare check on had simply moved away.”

Malcolm wasn’t satisfied. “Has anyone to your knowledge ever asked for a welfare check on Seth?”

Lopez shook his head. “No. We’d never heard of him prior to Nate’s associate contacting our office. I took a drive over there and had a chat with the preacher who runs the church, ran Seth’s name past him to see if I could get a reaction. The guy hardly twitched. He gave me some vague story about Seth falling into some trouble then running off with what he referred to as ‘shady characters’.”

He glanced down at his notes. “Didn’t speak with the father. I decided to hold off on anymore prodding, hoped the preacher would accept my inquiry as no different than the other times we’d been out there. He’ll likely assume I was satisfied with his answer and the matter was dropped.”

Malcolm sighed. “I see. So, the guy made up some ridiculous story about Seth leaving the church because he was involved in something illegal. That would take the spotlight off them.”

Detective Smith leaned forward, folding his hands on the trouble. “Is the story ridiculous, Malcolm? What do you know about this kid, really know about him? Perhaps he did run off because he was in trouble. He made his way down here and found a nice, older man who would take care of him. Gave you some sob story so you’d take him in. Maybe he didn’t expect you’d carry things this far, get others involved.”

Malcolm gritted his teeth, his hands balling into fists.

Nate cleared his throat. “Uh, I’ve met Seth as well, spent a bit of time with him. He comes off as credible. I’ve seen absolutely no indication that he’s lying. He’s a wonderful young man.”

“That’s all right, Nate.” Malcolm could barely speak without growling. “Thank you, but I need to say I find this line of questioning very insulting. This is the exact reason I didn’t bring him with me today. He’s a traumatized young man. He doesn’t need anyone—especially those who profess to be helping him—to doubt the horror of what he went through. He has nightmares, panic attacks.” Malcolm snorted in disgust. “But I don’t need to justify his character or experiences to you.” Malcolm slapped his hands on the table and shoved his chair back. “We’re done here.”

Both investigators gestured for him to stay seated, but he ignored them and rose. Detective Smith jumped to his feet.

“Please, Mr. Nash. Try to take into consideration where we’re coming from.”

“I don’t need to consider shit!”

Nate interjected, “Whoa, hey now. Let’s all take a breath.” Nate turned to him. “Malcolm, let’s get through this interview. If you decide you no longer wish for you and Seth to be involved, then so be it.”

Detective Smith regarded Nate. “You realize if we continue our investigation and discover solid evidence of abuse or unlawful confinement—make any arrests—that we can subpoena Seth for his testimony.”

Malcolm shook his head, his anger ready to push him over the edge. The only thing keeping him from performing his own unlawful actions was Seth. He didn’t want his boy believing he was a violent person after all he’d endured. In truth, Malcolm wasn’t an aggressive man. But he was extremely protective, would risk anything to keep Seth from being hurt.

Nate’s expression changed from jovial guy to cutthroat lawyer in a flash. “As their attorney, you’d have to go through me first. My client won’t be harassed.”

The detectives exchanged glances. Smith sighed. “I think we’ve gotten off-track here. Our intention isn’t to go after Seth. If crime’s have been committed by that church, and we both strongly believe there have, we need to consider all angles should this case go to trial. If the church has a halfway decent defense team, they’ll try to rip any accusers to shreds.”

Detective Lopez nodded. “I’m certain that’s the reason that every time we’ve gone out there and inquired about someone, we’ve received a similar story. The missing person got in trouble, got in with the wrong people and took off.”

Malcolm scrubbed his face with both hands then shook them out. Yeah, he could see their point. Still didn’t mean he’d let them near Seth if they were going to accuse him of shit.

Detective Smith regarded Nate then Malcolm. “Can we continue? We’ll put any questions regarding the veracity of Seth’s story to the side. If we met with him, we’d probably understand better why you’re both so certain he’s telling the truth.” Malcolm glared at him and the detective held up his hands, palms out. “I know, I know. I see your point of view on this as well, believe me. I’ve dealt with many victims over the years and seen how hard it is for them to come back from trauma.”

Malcolm narrowed his eyes. He didn’t trust the detectives, but he also realized they were the only hope they had of Seth ever getting any justice.

“Fine. I’ll agree to continue under the condition we don’t discuss Seth’s honesty or setting up a meeting with him. I’m not saying an interview is out of the question, but he’d have to agree to it and that’s not happening today.”

Detective Smith nodded. “Deal.”

Everyone took their seats again and Malcolm grabbed one of the water bottles Nate had set out. He broke the seal and took a swig. When he got back home, he’d be grabbing a shot of bourbon. Malcolm swiped the back of his hand across his lips.

“All right, you mentioned…” Malcolm was still a bit worked up, so he had to take a second to recall how Lopez had phrased it. “…an education center? Is that where the conversion camp is?”

Detective Lopez tapped his pen against the stack of papers. “Don’t know. Like I said, we’ve never been able to get a search warrant based on prior complaints. But from what I know of the church’s holdings, that center would be the most likely place for one. It used to be a parochial school—different religion.”

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