“Wait,” Gael interrupted again. “Are you telling us the FBI sanctioned revictimizing minors?”
The room was silent.
“It’s a common practice, Agent,” Lin said defensively.
“It’s disgusting,” Gael spat out.
Talon interrupted. “I think everyone agrees, Gael. Unfortunately, this practice led to some huge stings recently.”
“Playpen,” Jake said quietly, and Eli knew he would have clasped Gael’s hand under the table. He curled his own empty ones into fists. He heard the small sudden inhale from Daniel and glanced over, but Daniel was looking down at his half-filled mug.
Everyone had heard of Playpen though. It was one of the largest darknet hosts of child pornography and shut down in 2015. The main criticism of the FBI was that the site was officially allowed to stay open for two weeks after they had hacked in to ensure its creators were caught. Some said that the FBI had known for longer, and Eli wouldn’t be surprised. He remembered one dad on TV saying the cops had ridden roughshod over his complaints. Insisted his daughter would still be alive if they’d have acted right away, then blamed it on the feds.
“And it was reopened, renamed, and successfully shut using similar methods just recently,” Finn added.
“We don’t have any reason to suppose our problem is in any way linked, and it’s on a much smaller scale, but even one is one too many,” Lin added.
Eli fiddled with his nail. The sting focused him.
“So, tell us what you have at the moment,” Jake said.
“Are you okay with this?” Sawyer muttered.
Eli nodded and looked up. There was no way he would get away this time. “And it’s definitely Caffrey and not his brother?”
“We reconfirmed it with DNA,” Wright answered.
Talon’s eyebrows raised. “Without consent. That won’t screw any prosecution?”
“No,” Daniel answered for Lin. “I’m guessing you used a discarded cup for example?”
Lin nodded his agreement.
“They do that on cop shows all the time,” Adam said.
“That’s because once someone discards something, they lose the right to privacy on it,” Daniel explained. “But most people assume they get the DNA from saliva, but saliva doesn’t contain DNA. It’s the skin cells from your lips they’re after.”
“I believe the only problem is making sure—proving—it was that cup. You couldn’t get it out of the trash for example,” Finn said.
Eli really didn’t care. It wouldn’t get that far. “Then what do you want from me? If you’ve identified him, what can I do?”
Lin paused. “He’s still fostering children—well, one child.”
Eli froze. “Who?”
“Kai Malone.” Lin opened a folder and passed around a picture. Every single person in the room fell silent, and it was only when he looked at his copy, Eli understood why. The fragile-looking boy with dark brown skin and stunning darker brown eyes had a scar on his left cheek in exactly the same place as Eli’s.
“He’s just turned eight. The Caffreys fostered him six months ago from a group home in Atlanta.”
“Do you know what his abilities are?” Daniel asked.
Lin shook his head. “We spoke to the manager of the home and she said Kai was a loner. Didn’t get on with the other kids in the home. Never seemed to have friends. The only thing he could do was find things.”
“Find things?” Talon clarified.
“One of the older children lost a school book. Said he was going to get detention if he forgot to return it because this was his third incident. If he got detention, he would miss being able to play in the football game. End of the world. You know the sort of thing. Anyway, Kai says it was put in the laundry by mistake, and sure enough it was with the dirty clothes. Except the kids then thought Kai had taken the book himself trying to curry favor. A similar incident happened two weeks later and Kai knew where the item was. Then one of the boys took something of Kai’s apparently to see if he could find it, and Kai went to the boy’s bedroom, calmly felt under the bed, and retrieved it. The manager then banned them from doing anything else. A week later the Caffreys turned up and immediately applied to foster Kai.”
“You have to get Kai out of there,” Eli choked out.
“That might prove difficult,” Lin snapped and walked to the large screen on the end wall and hooked up an iPad. “Seeing as how he ran away from the Caffreys last night.”
Eli gaped. So that was why they were here.
“Caffrey’s wife is distraught and blaming the cops. She says the visit spooked him, and Kai was convinced he was going to be removed from their care and that’s why he ran.”
Eli wanted to run himself, but he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away as the screen flickered. He felt a touch on his arm, and it was sufficient for him to wrench his gaze away and glance at Daniel. “You don’t have to do this,” Daniel said quietly.
For a second Eli was amazed that it was Daniel of all people—who knew him the least—that had said anything. Eli pulled his arm away from Daniel’s reach, ignoring the words, and looked at Finn, who was watching him, concern written all over his face.
Which made him angry. Caffrey had taken enough. He didn’t need people feeling sorry for him. It would be Caffrey they would pity when he was through.
“Eli.”
Eli stared at the house. He knew he was supposed to get out of the car, but he couldn’t seem to get his legs to work.
“Eli, we’re here.”
Eli forced his attention to where Mr. Ramsay stood holding the car door open. He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to think about his mommy, or how he hadn’t been able to wake her up this morning. Or how when he’d answered Mommy’s phone and it had been the lady from the store where Mommy worked to ask where she was. Eli had told her, and then things had happened fast. Before he knew it, the cops had come in and tried to make him go with them, and that was when he had cried.
So Mr. Ramsay had come and got him and asked him lots of questions until his tummy hurt.
They’d said Mommy had to go somewhere and he couldn’t go with her. And then Mr. Ramsay had finally brought him here. Mr. Ramsay said it was a nice place, but Eli just wanted to go home.
A big man appeared by the car and made Eli get out. Mr. Ramsay had gone, and the man had asked Eli if he was hungry, and Eli had said no. He didn’t want to eat. So the man had shrugged and said that was fine, but Eli must be tired after such a long day, so he ought to go to sleep. Eli hadn’t wanted to do that either, but somehow after he’d drunk the milk he had done.
He didn’t think he’d had a nightmare that first night. It had started the next night, and every single one after that for two years.
“We have no evidence of anything but a tenuous connection. At the time of the fire, he was classed as a victim.”
“What the fuck?” Sawyer spluttered out. “How the hell—”
“They blamed me.” Everyone turned to Eli.
“Blamed you for the fire?”
Eli nodded. “They were too busy making sure it never happened again. No one was interested in why it had happened in the first place.” Eli stood up abruptly. He just couldn’t deal—