Chapter One
Axton
None of this seems real.
Somewhere a few rooms away, in this same police station, Naomi is being questioned about the kidnapping of my son. I want to tear through the walls to get to her, to grab her and make her tell me what the hell is going on.
Where is he?
Why did she do this?
I came dangerously close to being thrown into a cell myself when I tried to do just that, so I’m keeping myself together as much as I can as I wait in this office with Dani.
“I just can’t believe this,” Dani says for the hundredth time. “She wouldn’t. She’d never take him away from you. From us.”
Rage and frustration threaten to overtake me, and I take a deep breath. “She’s his aunt. All this time, she was related to him and never said a word.”
“I don’t understand it.” She lays her head in her hands.
I do. I may not know all the details, but I understand perfectly. Everything is a lie, a manipulation. And it worked. She played her part to perfection, making me believe she loved him. Fuck, I even thought she cared about me. How stupid could I be to let her work her way under skin I’ve grown so thick? I knew better. “She’s been planning this from the beginning.”
“She loves him. I’ve seen how she loves him. And how much she wanted him to love you. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Love,” I sneer. That’s what fucks everything up. Love is a controlled demolition of your soul. And you know. You know it’s happening. They’re taking over, becoming someone you can’t live without. You’re giving up fragments of yourself in trade for pieces of them, but when it’s over, you don’t get those fragments back.
My son is the last person I’ll ever love.
“Fuck,” I shout, getting to my feet and pacing the room. “It’s been hours! Why don’t they tell us what the fuck is going on?”
The door pops open a second later and Agent Hems enters, followed by Agent Roberts. “Did she tell you what she did with him?” I demand.
Calmly, Agent Hems takes a seat on the desk chair, while Agent Roberts leans against the desk. Agent Hems gestures for us to sit on the small sofa. “Naomi is being questioned but hasn’t provided anything useful at this time. However, we do have the full results of the DNA workup.” Agent Hems looks me in the eye. “What do you know about the child’s maternal grandmother?”
I’m thrown off for a moment by his question. Maternal? Deidre’s mother? “I don’t know anything about his mother’s side of the family, other than they’re all dead.”
The agents glance at each other before he speaks again. “What makes you think they’re dead?”
“The Child Welfare Service. They made it clear I was the only choice.”
“Can you remember exactly what they told you?”
Closing my eyes, I try to roll back time in my head, struggling to remember on such stress and little sleep. Finally, the words fall into place. “They said I was the only family he could be placed with. That he’d go into foster care if I refused.”
Agent Hems nods. “The only family suitable to raise him, Mr. Todd. That doesn’t mean the rest are deceased. Just unfit. The Child Welfare Service should’ve informed you of any family he has, but it’s not the first time I’ve seen them overlook something. They’re overworked to say the least.”
Before I can respond, Dani pipes up. “Why are you asking about the grandmother? Did she take him?”
Agent Roberts picks up a file he had placed on the desk. “The DNA in the gray hair found in Caden’s room shows it belongs to the maternal grandmother. If she’s never been in your house—”
I’m on my feet in half a second. “I didn’t even know the bitch existed! Of course she hasn’t been in my house!”
“Then she is the main suspect at the moment. We’ve managed to track down her name and address—assuming it’s current—plus the make, model, and plate of her car. We have an APB out on the vehicle and the names and descriptions have been added to the Amber Alert. It doesn’t appear anyone is home at her house, but we have agents in place, sitting on it in case she returns.”
Agent Roberts cautiously lays a hand on my shoulder, halting my pacing. “We know who she is. It won’t take long to locate her. Just hang on. We’re almost there.”
Dani sniffs and wipes her eyes. “If she has him. If she hasn’t left him somewhere or…” She shakes her head and snatches a tissue out of the box on the desk.
An officer taps on the door and Agent Roberts steps outside the office. My gaze never leaves them as a file is handed over and words are exchanged out of our earshot. Long seconds tick by before he steps back inside.
“What? Did they find him?” I demand.
“No, we’ve received the report from Child Welfare. The only living relative they were aware of was his maternal grandmother, Beverly McFarland. There’s no record of Naomi. Beverly petitioned for custody but was denied.”
“Denied for what?” I’m terrified of the answer. If Hatch is with this person, and she was too unfit to even be considered as an option when her daughter died, what kind of situation is he in?
His lips press together, and my fear grows at his reluctance. “She was convicted of child abuse and neglect. Deidre was removed from her custody at age nine. She also has a history of mental illness.”
I don’t know how much more of this I can take. “Let me talk to Naomi.” She’s going to tell me what the fuck she’s up to and where my kid is right now.
“We can’t allow that. Other than her relationship to the boy, we have no evidence she was complicit in the kidnapping. Yet.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Dani groans. “She was hired through an agency. Could it just be a coincidence? Maybe she didn’t know?”
“That he was her sister’s kid?” I snap. “Get fucking real. She’s in on this. She wormed her way in and stole my son!”
“But they drugged her,” Dani argues, in a small voice.
“And they killed Jake. Why leave her alive? Because they could just knock her out, no harm done, and make it look like she’s a victim.”
Dani peers up at the agents who watch our discussion with impassive expressions. “So, Beverly McFarland is Naomi’s mother?” She glances at me. “Because that’s not what her background check turned up.”
“No, they have a father in common.”
“Naomi said her dad abandoned them, then died later,” Dani says. It sounds more like she’s thinking out loud, trying to connect the dots in her head. Struggling to find a solution that doesn’t include Naomi being guilty.
There’s nothing more I want than for that to be the case. But it isn’t. It’s too much to be a coincidence. She wanted the job because of Caden. It was a means to an end. She just didn’t think her DNA would be checked against his.
“We don’t know her level of involvement and since she’s asked for counsel, we can’t question her any further until her lawyer arrives. Let me get a car to take you home and—”