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I muttered a curse. It shouldn’t have surprised me, not when I knew what she’d done to Jenna, but I could apparently still be shocked by how much of a monster Helen was.
He lifted his mug but didn’t take a sip. “I talked her into putting the baby up for adoption.”
“I spoke with a social worker who confirmed as much,” I said. “But I’d never be able to get details without a warrant.”
“Why do you want details?” His guard came up again. “Are the children’s fathers coming forward?”
I debated for a moment, then answered, “No, their sister. Half-sister. The one Helen kept.”
“She wants to find the kids?” He sounded genuinely surprised.
“My client would like to have the opportunity to get to know as many of her siblings as she can. She’d like a relationship with them if at all possible but will settle for the knowledge that they’re safe.”
The waitress returned with our food, and we both fell silent as we ate. The fact that Harry blamed Marcy for his ‘retirement’ could’ve made him bitter and unwilling to help. Instead, I was getting the impression that he wanted to do whatever possible to make sure that Marcy’s kids didn’t suffer any more ill effects from their mother’s choices. His reluctance to talk was because he wanted to protect them, not himself.
“I checked up on the kids she had while in the program,” he finally admitted. “The first couple years anyway. I wanted to make sure they were being treated well.”
My heart picked up speed. “Does that mean you know where they are?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, kid. I know a few things here and there, but I don’t have an address for any of them. I paid a social worker to give me what she could without getting herself into too much trouble. Not much, but enough to know that the kids were okay.”
I pulled out my notebook and pen, my meal forgotten. “All right. What can you tell me?”
* * *
As I drove backto Fort Collins, I vacillated between frustration and satisfaction. My trip hadn’t been useless. I’d gotten information that I couldn’t have found anywhere else, and I was confident that I’d be able to use it to find Jenna’s brothers and sister. It wasn’t the lack of even more details that had me frowning.
Harry had taken the brunt of the responsibility for Helen’s escape, but in my opinion, it had been the justice system as a whole that had failed Jenna. Helen might have given the names of some men who’d raped Jenna and those who’d been involved in the recordings she’d helped make, but I couldn’t understand how anyone had been okay with making a deal with her, let alone letting her be the one to decide whether or not to keep the children who’d been born while she was in WITSEC.
Three children for certain, but one of the new things I’d learned today made me think that there might be a fourth out there.
Helen’s appearance in Fort Collins wasn’t the first time she’d slipped Marshal custody. Eight years ago, Harry had caught Helen hiding a third pregnancy. She’d been furious enough that he’d suspected she was up to no good. His suspicions had been confirmed when she’d taken off a few weeks later. He’d been embarrassed enough by her getting past him that he’d looked for her himself rather than telling his superiors that he’d lost her. Two weeks later, she’d returned, no longer pregnant. She told him that she’d taken a trip with a couple friends and had forgotten to tell him. While on the trip, she’d gone into labor. The baby had been stillborn.
Worried about his job, he’d let the matter go, but he hadn’t ever really been able to forget. Even now, he suspected that the baby hadn’t died, but hadn’t done anything about it. He’d been too much of a fucking coward then, and he was still one now. My original thought that he’d been protecting the kids had only been partially right. Covering his own ass had been more important than doing the right thing. If Clay hadn’t given me Harry’s name, I doubted he would’ve told anyone the whole story.
Yet another reason I hadn’t been able to thoroughly enjoy the fact that I’d gotten a good lead on the other kids.
I just needed to remember to take things one step at a time. I’d do everything in my power to find every one of the kids, but it was going to be a long process. I couldn’t let myself get discouraged, or I’d never get through it.
* * *
I’d found her.At least, I was fairly certain that I had.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at my computer screen, reviewing the facts that Harry and twelve hours of research had brought me. I’d worked until the early hours of the morning, managed a couple hours of restless sleep, and then got up just after sunrise to continue working.
The girl had turned thirteen on August seventeenth. The name Marcy Wakefield was on the birth certificate, and the father had been listed as unknown. While the father’s race hadn’t been recorded either, Harry had been present when the girl had been handed over to Child and Family Services, and he’d been able to tell me that whoever the man was, he’d given his daughter milk chocolate skin and raven-black curls.
Harry had also told me that the girl had been named Stacey, and shortly before the adoption proceedings were concluded, her family told the social worker that they would be moving to Loveland, Colorado after everything was finalized. That had been the last he’d heard other than a general report the following year that she was doing well.
That information had been enough for me to find Stacey Johnson, daughter of Elliot and Roberta Johnson, a resident of a city less than thirty miles south of where her sister had been living for years. She was an eighth-grader in the local high school and had started an anti-bullying campaign that was now in its second year.
Those particular details had been revealed by something so technologically simple that I hadn’t needed to contact Jenna to do her hacking thing. I’d done a social media search. It’d taken a while to weed through all the possibilities, but it’d been worth it. Once I’d gotten everyone’s names, it’d been relatively simple to find an address.
Scarily simple, actually.
I was suddenly grateful that I’d never gotten into the whole social media thing. It would’ve been far too easy for reporters to track me down here.
I printed out the page and then looked at the time. Mid-afternoon. I was already exhausted, but I wouldn’t be able to rest if I knew I had this information here and Jenna had waited for years for it.
