Kane licks his thumb and turns a page. “So they sold the babies?”
Webber nods. “Yep. Only managed to locate around fifty percent of them.”
“And there were ninety-something babies born right?” I ask, trying to recall the specific number.
“Ninety-seven in total that we managed to get confirmed. There’s likely more but without the victims and witnesses we can’t know for sure.”
“How much was our daughter sold for?” Kane asks through gritted teeth.
Webber looks at me for reassurance. He’s an agent but Kane intimidates him. Unsurprising. Kane is a force to be reckoned with. Webber is an old man now, he’s in his early sixties and it’s starting to show. But he’s damn good at what he does. Not to mention he is so compassionate. He’s the only person that could get through to me in the beginning. He brought me back to the light when there was no light in my darkness to be found.
When I was in the federal institution, he visited almost every day or as often as he could. He brought me magazines and clothes and dinners his wife made. Without him I might never have found enough of my mind to reach freedom.
“They seem to have had a points system for babies based on their skin color, ethnicity, cuteness, for example. But they often had buyers waiting for the baby to be born who were willing to take it no matter the looks. An illegal practice and a lot of the parents who purchased babies are in prison.”
A flare of hope lights up in Kane’s eyes.
“They don’t know anything. It was all anonymous and well-planned. Any footprints left behind, were erased and well.” Webber douses his hope but he looks sorry for it. “You can’t contact these families. Do you understand? Some are innocent. Some genuinely believed they were dealing with a legitimate adoption agency and assumed the fee they were paying was to the mother of the child. An illegal activity in itself but not one punishable by law when all other circumstances are taken into account. People desperate for a family will do desperate things.”
“So she could be out there with loving parents somewhere,” I say to Kane because it is the only comfort I find in times like this.
He keeps looking at the pages.
“Some kids weren’t so lucky,” he growls. “This one was located when she was four. Sex trafficking.”
Webber nods. “Those are the ones we struggle to find the most. There’s no paper trail at all.”
My heart stops beating as it always does when I think of that scenario for our child.
“Oh my God,” Kane breathes, his hands balling into fists. “How likely is it that she’s one of those.”
“Most of the kids that we located were with loving families.”
“How likely?” Kane demands of Webber who looks uncomfortable for a moment, and of course distressed.
“I’d say a twenty percent chance.”
Kane brings his fist down on the table and glowers at me. “If she’s in the hands of a trafficker and you didn’t pull me in to help you find her, we’re done. We should have made this nationwide. We should have gone to every newspaper.”
“You can’t,” Webber barks. “As frustrating as it is, the children involved are already at risk because of what happened to Righteous Hill and its supporters. They might kill the children so there’s no evidence of their existence if they panic and think we could be onto them. Or sell them on, or leave the country, or worse. We have tried to keep this as low key as possible. I understand your frustration Mr. Jessop, but this isn’t just about your kid. We have forty kids in the wind that need our help and just one word to the press could fuck up the rest of their lives.”
“What kind of life do they have if they’re with a fucking pedophile?” Kane yells, standing now.
“Stop!” I shout back, standing and placing my hand on his chest, not the tattooed side.
His heavy breathing makes his chest rise and fall visibly. I keep my hand on it until he forces it away with a powerful shift of his upper body.
“There should be something in the media,” Kane snarls. “Anything. Such as… if you were adopted between the dates of X and X, please contact Detective Dipshit of Chicago.”
Webber’s eyes narrow. “I have done everything in my power to find your child.”
“Except notify her fucking father.”
“I couldn’t legally do that.”
Kane laughs coldly and directs his anger my way. “I feel fucking sick. Tryna to forgive you for this, Immy, running out of reasons to justify your choices.”
“Justify her choices?” Webber hisses, his dad side coming out in my defense. I sink into my seat, suddenly feeling like piggy in the middle. “You have no idea the mental torment she endured in that hell hole, boy. You have no idea the solitary burden she has taken by keeping this to herself. You have no idea the mental torment she has put herself through to find this child.” He places his hands on his desk and his glare gets harsher. “You wouldn’t have been able to do shit. You still can’t do shit. Because unfortunately your daughter’s sale was processed by Father Righteous himself which means it would have been a very high price and an anonymous buyer. Kept tightly under wraps. Not a single person working in that hell hole knew what happened to that baby. I questioned them all. Not just me but my colleagues too. They had no reason to lie about this baby and not the others.”
“What about babies registered at around that time?” Kane asks, sounding just as frustrated as before. “There has to be somewhere we can start?”
“Do you know how many babies were registered at around that time? In the same county let alone the same state. Chances are she was sold out of state and there’s no way to prove that they didn’t have the kid themselves… you can’t just go around asking for DNA tests without a judge’s order and he’d need evidence.”
“Or she,” I needlessly put in because I don’t know what to say.
Kane looks ready to throw the desk out of the window.
Just when I think he’s about to blow, due to the reddening of his face and the tightening of his fists, he storms past me and snarls, “I need a breather.”
Webber and I both watch him go and keep watching through the glass panel on the door long after he has slammed it shut behind him.
“He seems like a decent guy,” Webber says with no ounce or anything but honesty in his voice. “Reckon he’ll look after you.”
“I reckon.”
We don’t smile, neither of us are smilers, but we do look back at the files on his desk and I swiftly add, “Thank you for all the work you did for me over the years.”
He rolls his eyes; he doesn’t take compliments very well. Neither of us do.
I flick through the pages of the huge folder and scan each document that I’ve already scanned a hundred times. He lets me look at it whenever I get in the mood. He says you can never read an unsolved case too many times, there’s always something to be seen that has been missed.
I’ve read it that many times I know all the names of all the kids that have been found already. I know the temporary stand in names for all those who haven’t been found. Flipper included.
The door opens behind me with a rattle and Kane takes his place by my side.
“We good?” I ask him softly.
He grabs my head and pulls my forehead to his lips. “Yeah, babe. We’re good. Let’s find our kid.”
“See?” Webber states, looking directly at me and I know he’s referring to his proclamation on Kane being a good guy.
Webber lets us take the folder into the adjoining room where Kane and I spend four hours non-stop discussing each case and page. He reads them thoroughly and I watch him exhaust himself with all the new information. I recognize his posture and his expression to match my own. I look and feel that way every time I look at it too. It’s all too familiar.
“He really has put shit together,” Kane comments.
“Not just him, there’s an entire team dedicated to these kids. Flipper included.”
“Flipper,” he utters, stoppi
ng and placing his hand over my stomach. “Fuck. We should’a been more careful, Immy.”
“I took my pill.”
“You were always forgettin’.”
He’s right. “You knew that and you still kept putting it in me without a rubber.”
“I didn’t say you should’a been more careful, I said, we,” he responds with a wry smile and I silently decide that yes he did actually refer to us both and not just me. “Bet you’re not on anything now either, let me fuck you on that carpet ungloved.”
“It’s not like we stopped to discuss it.”
“We should. We always did as teens.”
I almost laugh because for all the discussions we had about being safe, we rarely were.
I roll my eyes. “Well, don’t worry your pretty hair off. I get the injection every three months.”
His eyes darken and his mood follows their depth. “How fuckin’ often you getting dicked in order for you to need the injection every three months?”
“Never you mind,” I reply with not small amount of attitude.
“Ungloved or gloved?”
“Kane I’ve literally slept with maybe two people since you, both were desperate drunken mistakes and yes I used a condom.” I shove him away from me, stand and stretch. “I get the injection because it stops my periods. I like not having periods.”
“Your periods used to make you a bitch.” He stands too and yanks me into his hard body.
“That’s so true I can’t even begin to find it in me to deny it.”
He chuckles, though it’s tense and the weight of the situation shows in his smile.
“How many girls you bedded then, Mr. Judgy?” I think back to when he said he only lets girls have his dick but not his heart, though not in that exact way of wording, but absolutely the same meaning. “If we’re travellin’ that path I deserve to know how many times you’ve caught crabs from some low-brow bar in Austin.”
“You been watchin’ me, darlin’?” he jests, grinning with his perfect teeth and devilish eyes.
“Kane Jessop, you answer me now before I assume the worst.”
“Had an on and off fling with a woman for a coupla years, nothin’ serious. Maybe three before her. Been busy. Don’t disrespect women, don’t do the dive and ditch. If I’m gonna fuck a girl, unless she’s shit in bed, I’m gonna fuck her again.”
I feel my entire body become a frosty block of cement.
“Didn’t date nobody though, only ever dated you.”
“Yeah and you complained.”
“That’s not fuckin’ true.”
I narrow my eyes. “You wouldn’t even take me to homecoming!”
“Biggest mistake of my life.” His admission has me blinking with surprise. “Trust me. Ain’t a night that went by that I didn’t regret not dancing with you while you looked so fuckin’ pretty in that dress. Did I ever tell you that?”
I shake my head, thinking back to that night and the nights that followed. We weren’t right after that.
He voices almost my exact words. “I fucked up. Things weren’t right. I should’a been a man and let my girl have a good night without the drama I created.”
“That was the night I said that thing I said about you ruining my life, I’ve never been able to forget it. We never really spoke about that.”
He sighs and holds me tighter. “Thought it was that night that pushed you away. You stopped fuckin’ me, stopped talkin’ to me like you did before. Once upon a time I’d tinker with your bike and listen to you go on non-stop for hours, but then that night happened, and I couldn’t even get you to tell me what you ate for breakfast. Didn’t bring it up because I was worried about what you was gonna tell me.” Laughing gently but bitterly he goes on, “Thought for sure you were fucking around with Marshall behind my back. Both of you were moping around after he left you that night. Thought you were heartbroken.”
“I was, you ruined my friendship and put me in a position where I had to choose you over him when he was innocent. I shouldn’t have chosen you but I loved you too much, couldn’t stand the thought of losin’ you.”
“Maybe if I hadn’t been so shit to you, you might’a come to me when you thought you were pregnant.”
“I was just scared you’d get mad and think I did it on purpose.”
He frowns, looking down at me with a stern expression. “That the only reason?”
I consider lying but I promised him I wouldn’t do that anymore. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted a baby. Needed to figure that out before I came to you with it. Thought if I made a decision on my own it wouldn’t matter what you told me you wanted.”
“That’s fair,” he utters, wetting his lips when he looks down at mine. “Whatever the fuck happened, we’re gonna get through this together, yeah?”
“Reckon we can handle it?”
“So long as I keep takin’ my breathers and you keep suckin’ my dick.”
I laugh, though there’s sadness to it, there’s also genuine happiness that I haven’t allowed myself to feel in so long. “You’re an idiot, Kane Jessop.”
“And I still ain’t seen a girl prettier than you, Imogen Hardy.”
“You mean it?” I ask breathlessly as I go up onto my tiptoes.
Grinning, he presses his lips to mine and slides his tongue into my mouth without waiting a moment. I hum, happy to be in his arms, happy to feel something other than despair and longing. Dreamt of being right here with him so many times, and now I have it I’m not sure how to handle it.
“Let’s spend another hour mulling this shit over.”
“Take as long as you need.” I kiss his jaw and guide him back to his seat and when he sits I rub his shoulders. He’s incredibly tense. Understandably so.
“Before I forget,” he says and digs into the inner pocket of his jacket. “You left this at my dad’s.”
It’s the letter from Mee-maw. I immediately scowl at it, feeling no small amount of hatred for the dead cow.
“Burn it.”
“You should read it; you’ll always wonder what it said if you don’t.”
“Fuck off, Yoda,” I comment, snatching the envelope from his hand. I tear the letter into two, then four, then eight, and I keep going until it’s nothing but uneven strips which I then sprinkle into the trash. “Trust me. There’s nothing she’s got to say that I want to hear.”
“Babe.”
“If I have to read her apology, it might send me into an early grave. She doesn’t deserve the chance to ask for my forgiveness. I will never forgive her and I don’t want to be guilted into it.”
“Fair enough.” He pats his thigh. “Sit with me.”
Tense and agitated, I do just that, perching myself on his leg and resting my arm along his shoulders. “Do you think it’s weird that we’re just so comfortable around each other like we were back when we were kids?”
“Naw.” He pops a piece of gum into his mouth and I take the one he offers.
Naw is all he says on that question and I have to laugh because it’s just so Kane Jessop.
Back Home
The Next Day
I wake in Kane’s arms despite the fact he took the couch. I asked him to, said I needed time to adjust, but then I woke up and couldn’t sleep. As though sensing it, he knocked on my door and stood in the doorway, eyes locked with mine in the darkness.
“I’m comin’ in,” he whispered.
“Okay,” I whispered back and shuffled up the bed to make space for him.
“Don’t go too far,” he warned and when the bed dipped under his weight, I found myself against him. I love that he wants me as close to him as I want him to me, despite the fact that I also don’t want him too close because it’s going to be harder making him move in the end. “Webber said we can go back tomorrow.”
“He did.”
“We’ll do that, but first you gotta call Poppy.”
“Okay.”
Kane calls her the moment we finish breakfast that he made me eat. Ca
n’t remember the last time I ate breakfast.
“You gotta work today?” Kane asks as the dial tone sounds through the kitchen space.
I nod. “Got a client in for a six-hour sitting.”
Kane whistles long and low. “That’s gonna smart.”
“Guy’s tough as nails.”
“So am I,” he puts in needlessly which makes me grin.
“That goes without saying.”
We share an affectionate look.
“I’ll go back and look through the files while you work,” he murmurs right as Poppy answers with a friendly, “Kane Jessop, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Poppy-Rose,” Kane replies. “How have you been, darlin’?”
My jealousy instantly rears its ugly and nostalgic head. He knows I don’t like it when he calls other people under fifty darlin’. Not even Poppy-Rose. But by the flash of his eyes I just know he did that on purpose.
“Got someone here who wants to talk to you,” Kane puts in, his tone gruff and amused.
“Oh my God… is she there?” Her tone is all but a shriek. “You’re pulling my dick, right? You’re winding me up?”
“I’m here.” I chew on my lip and stare at Kane’s phone resting on the countertop.
“Are you kidding me?” I can hear the emotion in her voice. “I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!”
And now she’s pissed, maybe even hysterical. Rightfully so. Just hearing her voice has me feeling every kind of emotion.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? You were like my sister my entire life and then you just fucking vanished!”
“It’s a long story.” Kane, for support, wraps his arms around me from behind. I quickly add before she can question me further, “How are you? What have you been up to?”
She pauses, I know she wants to get madder, but she doesn’t. I hear her exhale right before she answers, “So much actually. How much time do you have?”
“Not enough. I have to be at work in forty minutes.”
“Well then, I guess for now I can tell you I’m happy, I’m safe, I have the love of a great guy. We just got engaged and now I’m settled in my career we umm… yeah. Things are moving at a steady pace. You?”
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