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Kelly grimaced. “My mother is the last person on earth anyone should take parenting advice from. Just look at Zeph and Jonathan and me. None of us are exactly the poster children for healthy, thriving adults. I’m having babies to feel the love I never felt from her. Jonathan is a full-blown alcoholic, though he hides it well. And Zeph…”
There was no need to go into my sins. We all knew them.
Kelly reached back and squeezed my knee. “I think she talked your biological mom into thinking you were better off without her.” She shifted to aim her words at Lyric. “And I think that’s probably what she would have tried to do with you too. You remind her of Zeph’s mom. Low-income family. A small child who she perceives to be in danger…”
Lleyton had been particularly quiet, taking all this in, but now he spoke with conviction. “Lyric is the best mom in the world. It doesn’t matter where she lives or how she makes her money. She loves Amelia. She sacrifices everything for her so she can have the opportunities she never had. Hell, if anyone is the shitty parent here, it’s me.”
Kelly patted him sympathetically on the shoulder, but I just shook my head. “It doesn’t matter how good any of us are as parents if we can’t get them back. Where the hell would Mom stash a child, possibly two?”
Kelly shook her head. “I don’t know. She runs the meetings in the church meeting room, but there’s no way you wouldn’t have seen Toby if she were keeping him there somewhere. They aren’t in the house. That would have been too risky with all of us there for the party.”
“Call her,” I demanded. “If she’s taken Amelia, she won’t answer a call from me. But she’ll answer one from you. There’s no reason for her to think you’re with us.”
My sister nodded and rifled through the bag on her lap, pulling out her phone. She punched the screen a few times before holding it to her ear. She put a finger to her lips, telling the rest of us to keep quiet.
Lyric sniffed, and I gently wiped tears from her cheeks. “We’re going to get her back. I promise,” I whispered to her.
She didn’t get a chance to answer, because Kelly’s voice sharpened. “Mom! Hey, what are you doing?”
There was a pause, and I strained to hear my mother’s reply, but there was nothing. I imagined she wasn’t confessing to kidnapping though. Kelly nodded a few times, then tried again. “I really need to speak to you. No, it needs to be in person. And now. Please, Mom, I’m desperate. I really need your advice. I’m already in the car, just tell me where you are, and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
There was more talking on my mother’s end, and then Kelly burst into tears. “Mom! Please! I need you. I’m scared I might do something I’ll regret. Again.”
Until that moment I’d had no idea my sister was such a good actress. The anguish in her voice accented the tears suddenly welling in her eyes. But then she froze, a smile widening her mouth. She flipped us a thumbs-up. “I’ll be there soon.”
She hung up, and her smile flattened into a grimace. “She’s at the Saint Paul of God mental institute the church runs. Apparently working a shift, but I don’t believe that for an instant. I could hear a child crying in the background. What would a child that age be doing somewhere like that?” She twisted her fingers around on themselves. “That’s no place for children. I spent a week there as an adult, and it was terrifying.”
I glanced at her in shock. “You did?”
She nodded, pulling back a sleeve to reveal a scar across her wrist that made my stomach turn. I’d never noticed it before. If she wore short sleeves, she always had an arm full of bracelets.
She ran her fingers idly across the old, faded scar. “See? I’m just as messed up as you are, little brother. I just hide it better.”
I ground my teeth. “I wish you’d told me. I would have been there for you.”
She gave me a soft smile. One that showed me the sister I remembered from when I was a kid, before she’d gotten married, moved out, and we’d drifted apart. I remembered something else about the mental institution run by the church. “Father Byron is the head priest assigned to running Saint Paul of God. He knows everything that goes on there. Whatever Mom is doing, he’s in on it too.”
“Then we have a place to start,” Lyric said, determination straightening her spine. “If I find out he had anything to do with it, I won’t stop you twice.”
I nodded at her, making a silent promise.
If Byron had even the tiniest part in any of this, then he was as good as dead.
32
ZEPH
Saint Paul of God was about as pretty as the local prison. It was a long, rectangular building in dire need of a high-pressure wash and a gardener. Dirt and mold covered the once white walls, and weeds grew wild in what had once been garden beds. The complex was on a large block of land, hidden away down a narrow private road. Nothing about it invited people to come too close. I’d been told more than one ghost story about the place as a kid growing up. Even as an adult, the place gave me the heebie-jeebies. There was little happiness here. It was the place people dumped family members when they were at their wit’s end and couldn’t take the pressure any longer.
“This does not seem like the sort of place that would be good for anyone’s mental health,” Lyric murmured, staring out the window.
“Almost ironic that this is where Mom would bring your daughter, considering she has got to be having some sort of mental episode to be kidnapping children.” Kelly shook her head sadly. “I’m so sorry for my part in all of this. I was so horrible to you.”
Lyric looked away. “Now isn’t the time.”
Kelly nodded, dropping her head. “I understand. If it were one of my kids, I wouldn’t forgive me either.”
Lleyton parked the car in the visitor parking lot and twisted around. “Do we have a plan? I doubt your mom will come out if she sees you or Lyric. Maybe you should stay in the car.”
