Valerie Hansen - Family In Hiding

Grace clapped her hands to get their attention. “That’s enough.” She pointed to her elder son. “You go use the upstairs bathroom,” she told him. “Beth, you use the one off the guest room. And no muddy messes, you hear? I want those sinks spotless when you’re done.”

Beth waited until her brother had started to turn away, then made a face and stuck out her tongue.

Grace had to smile. Kids. What would she do without them?

There had been times, particularly lately, when she’d questioned every choice she’d made since her marriage—except when it came to deciding to have children. It wouldn’t be easy raising them alone. She’d have to find a job and probably sell the house. But they’d get by. Even if Dylan was out of the picture, she knew he’d still help support them. He had never been stingy.

“Unless he ends up in prison for what he did,” she muttered, stepping into the yard in search of her three-year-old.

“Brandon? Where are you?”

Although he didn’t answer he was easy to find by following the sound of his giggles. Standing on tiptoe, he was splashing in a concrete birdbath, clearly delighted as water flew in all directions.

“Well, at least you’re cleaner than I expected,” Grace said, scooping him up from behind and carrying him toward the house with the wettest, muddiest parts turned away from her green silk blouse and designer jeans.

She kicked off her sandals at the door and carried the little boy to the kitchen sink where he obligingly held his hands under running water.

His giggling was infectious. “You are one dirty kid, you know that?” she said between soft laughs.

“Kyle helped me,” the child replied.

“I’m sure he did.”

Grace reached for paper towels to dry off her youngest. Kyle had never been an easy child and the older he got, the more he tested her patience. He had been acting even worse since Dylan had sat everyone down and told them he was leaving. Beth had wept and Brandon had sniffled. Kyle, however, had merely stood there, jaw clenched and eyes flashing, glaring at his parents.

The boy was angry. Grace understood. She wasn’t pleased with the way things had worked out, either, but there was no way she’d ever be able to forgive her husband for always putting his work before his family no matter how much they needed him at home.

Dylan had had a good job with a prestigious law firm and had been on his way up the corporate ladder, just as they’d planned, but somewhere along the way he’d lost sight of the underlying reasons for his hard work. And now? Who knew? It wasn’t only that he’d destroyed his own future, he’d ruined his entire family’s, too. Thrown it away as if none of them had ever mattered as much as making a lot of money.

It was always the money, first and foremost. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d fed the children, then eaten a burned dinner alone because Dylan had been too involved in some hot-shot business deal to bother to come home as promised.

Truth be told, her husband had been absent so often there was little difference between their present situation and the times when he’d still lived there.

Grace sighed. That wasn’t quite true. Back then, she’d always had hope he’d eventually show up. Now she knew he was gone for good. And once their divorce was final, probably the only times she’d encounter him would be when he picked up the kids on visitation days.

“Well, it is what it is,” she murmured, setting her youngest at her feet and taking his hand. “Come on, honey. Let’s go get you some clean clothes before lunch.”

“I want a boy cheese sandwich,” Brandon said, making his mother smile at the inside joke. He’d mistaken the word “grilled” for “girl” and had refused to eat the melted cheese sandwiches until Dylan had realized the problem and changed the name of the toasted treat.

“Okay,” Grace said. “I’ll cook you a boy cheese and Beth can have a girl cheese.”

Kids. No matter how heavy life got, they were always able to lift her spirits and remind her that the most important job she had was being a mother.

The telephone began to ring again.

Grace ignored it.

Kyle rounded the corner into the kitchen and passed his mother at a run. “I’ll get it. Maybe it’s Dad.”

“Well, if it is, tell him I’m busy.”

The boy’s enthusiastic expression twisted a figurative knife in Grace’s stomach as he snatched up the receiver with a breathless, “Hello? Hello, Dad?”

Grace saw Kyle’s expression sober. Heard him say, “Nah. He’s not here.”

She paused. “Who is it?”

Kyle was hanging up. “Some guy. He said he wanted to talk to Dad.”

“Well, don’t worry. I’m sure he can reach him at the office if it’s important.”

The child’s cheeks were rosy, his eyes wide. “I hope not. He sounded real mad.”

“How could you tell? What did he say?”

With a quick shake of his head, Kyle answered, “No way. If I talked like that you’d wash my mouth out with soap.” He eyed the phone. “That was one scary dude.”

* * *

Dylan had spent the previous week in custody, being interrogated by local police as well as the U.S. marshals and FBI. By the time he’d learned enough to accept his own culpability, he’d been forced to accept the wild claims of the former missionary who had recently broken the disturbing truth to him by telephone. He was in deep trouble, legal trouble, and it looked as if there was no way out other than to confess and ask for mercy.

“Look, I’ve already told you,” Dylan insisted, facing the authority figures who kept asking the same questions over and over. “I don’t know anything about any kidnappings. I had no idea there was anything criminal about where those babies came from. For the most part, the paperwork was impeccable. I certainly had no indication a crime was involved in the cases where there were some minor omissions.” He stared at the St. Louis police detectives and other nearby officers, willing them to understand the rationale behind his prior behavior.

Like it or not, the fine line between merely doing his job versus being an upstanding citizen had blurred over time. Finding himself on the wrong side of the law had triggered an unwelcome surge of well-deserved guilt and had led Dylan to do some serious soul-searching.

“Did you tip somebody off?” one of the detectives asked.

“How could they have? You’ve had me isolated ever since you picked me up.”

“Then why were there were no records of any of the questionable adoptions in your office files by the time we convinced someone there to look for them?”

Dylan frowned. “There weren’t?”

The dark-haired young woman who had been introduced as U.S. Marshal Serena Summers shook her head. “No. None. Can you explain why that is?”

“No.” Dylan was truly at a loss. “Are you sure?”

Nobody laughed at his ridiculous question, leaving him with the disappointing conclusion that someone had disposed of any incriminating evidence. That was that, except...

He cleared his throat, determined to make his interrogators take notice. “Look. It doesn’t matter what happened to the originals. I have copies of everything that passed through my hands regarding those adoptions you’re asking about.”

“Where?”

“In my office. I can go get everything you need.”

“And you expect us to let you waltz out of here, just like that?”

“If your people couldn’t locate my private files, I’m the most logical one to retrieve them. Otherwise, they might disappear like you claim the other records have.”

“He has a point,” a detective offered. “Once we have to actually serve the subpoena, all the suspects will be alerted.”