Page 6 of 2nd Strike
This confuses me. “Huh?”
She rolls her eyes as if I’m dense. Maybe I am. “We’re helping the kid—we, as in you and me.” She waggles a hand between us. “We’re a team, that’s how we work. Stop with the nonsense about shielding me. I helped with Ethan’s case all those years ago; I’m as much involved with it as you are, and minor or not, he’s our client. He’s not a stranger who walked in off the street. In my book, this is simply a continuation of the original case. We’ll involve them if and when the time comes, but until then, Ethan is our first concern.”
I love my sister and her viewpoint on so many things, but I score extremely high in the responsibility department. Part of me wants to run over and throw my arms around her for the support; the other wants to protect her at all costs.
“If this is screwed up, and he isn’t their son, I could be in big trouble, Meg. I’m not taking you down with me.”
As in, I’ll ruin my outstanding reputation, look like a failure in front of the world, lose JJ, and potentially send Schock Sisters Investigations down in flames.
Somehow, I know she’s reading my mind. She feels the low grade panic I’m fighting.
Her face softens. “Why didn’t the Havers do a DNA test when you found Ethan?”
“Everyone urged them to, but we had the kidnapper’s confession and your age progression sketch was a close match.”
On the seven-year anniversary, Carl had been involved with a nationwide missing kids’ organization. He went to the FBI and asked if he could get an age progression drawing to take on the show, hoping to bring media attention once more to his quest. Meg was well-known for her skills and my boss sent Carl to her. Her sketch got us the tip about where Ethan was living.
She nods. “The next door neighbor recognized him from my work, right?”
“When we confronted Amelia Norris, she admitted kidnapping him. She’d been his babysitter. Claimed his mother didn’t want him, but after her confession, she committed suicide.”
Meg snaps her fingers. “That’s right! She shot herself in front of Ethan, didn’t she?” A shake of her head and a sigh. “The boy needed therapy and had a hard time adjusting to his new life with Carl and Lily. No surprise.”
I ache for him, even now. “The media attention was overwhelming and Lily insisted he was hers. The evidence backed it up.” I shrug. “We couldn’t force them to perform DNA tests.”
“How could this be your fault, then? If anyone is to blame, it's Carl and Lily."
I lean on the railing, grabbing the rope my sister has thrown me. “The thing is, these are famous people with a story the world loved eight years ago and still does. The FBI will look for a scapegoat and so will Carl and Lily. Since I’m no longer with the Bureau, they’ll throw me under the bus, sure as I’m standing here. It was my first case as lead investigator, and I know I did everything by the book, as did the rest of the team, but if he isn’t their child, we now have two mysteries to solve—who is the real Ethan Havers, and who are the parents of the boy who came to our office tonight? Without the kidnapper, we don’t have answers to either.”
“Then that’s where we start,” she says. “Until we determine for sure Ethan is not who we believe him to be, we start with the crime that occurred—the kidnapping—and focus on learning more about Amelia Norris. No one can stop us from doing that, and she’s the key to both mysteries.”
The FBI didn’t worry too much about her—the kidnapping was solved, the boy returned. Happy ending, closed case. Move on to the next hundreds of open kidnapping cases.
I still remember how I walked on air for weeks after that. I’ll never forget the joy on Lily’s face when I accompanied the social worker to deliver Ethan to their house. He was scared and very shy, but when she knelt down and opened her arms to him, he fell into them like he’d known her his whole life.
How could henotbe her son?
“Do you still have the notes from that case?” Meg asks.
“You know I do.” I have file cabinets of my personal notes on all the FBI cases I worked. They’re organized alphabetically and by year, cross-matched and color-coded, in my spare bedroom. “I’ll get them out and take them to the office in the morning.”
“Good. Get some sleep.” Meg unlocks her front door. “If we end up needing a lawyer, we’ll get that DelRay woman. She’s an ass-kicker.”
“Jackie?” We worked a case with the defense attorney a few months ago, and that title is putting it mildly. Again, I could hug my sister. “You’re brilliant. I’ll give her a call first thing tomorrow, see if I can put her on retainer, just in case.”
Meg yawns but pauses before she goes inside. “What did JJ want?”
What does he always want? I almost say it out loud. Instead, I skirt the idea he wanted to come home with me to celebrate the fact I’m still alive and he looks like the star he is in the judicial world because Meg and I caught a serial killer with his help.
I also don’t mention the soul-sucking kiss he laid on me in the parking lot. “I scared him pretty bad today taking on Billy Ray. He wanted to double check I was okay. That’s all.”
The mention of the killer makes Meg shiver. “I hope the bastard rots in prison. I’m glad JJ came by to check on you.”
She winks and goes in, calling, “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” I mumble and let myself into my side of the duplex. I reset the alarm, lean back against the door, and close my eyes.
My home is dark and quiet, the first peace I’ve had in a while. I should take a hot bath and go to bed, get some sleep like Meg instructed. The next few days will most likely be chaos.
