“Sorry. You’re right.”
Blade clears his throat. “I’ll have Mace start digging. I’m sure he’ll find nothing on Eloise. We’ll track down Larkin and find out everything we can about Westin.”
“Thanks. Oh, Eloise would like to meet June. I suspect she’s going to nap for a while. Can I call you when she wakes up?”
“Yes. That’d be great. June is nagging me every five minutes.”
“How not shocking,” I joke.
“Mace has a computer, phone, and e-reader ready. Should I have him bring them to you?”
“That would be great, thank you.” I end the call, pocket the phone, and head for Eloise’s open door. I don’t hear her moving around, so I’m not surprised when I step through the open door and find her sound asleep on the mattress in the corner.
She takes my breath away. She’s wearing a purple outfit now, curled on her side, clutching the doll she slept with last night. I can’t seem to step away. I feel the urge to watch her for a bit.
She’s definitely stunning. Like cover-model pretty. No wonder people have always treated her differently. Some people are just born with good genes. Though apparently her mother didn’t have a good common-sense gene. She left her newborn in a rest stop bathroom.
I cringe. I guess it could have been worse. At least the chances were high that someone would find her quickly. The woman could have dumped her in a trash can. I shudder.
I guess I should be grateful that my Little girl’s mother made it possible for me to find her twenty-two years later. I wish Eloise hadn’t had such a rough life, but I’ll do everything in my power to make sure the rest of her years are filled with safety and joy.
When a knock sounds on my front door, I back out of the room, pulling the door almost closed so Mace and I won’t disturb her.
I jog over to the door, checking the peephole before opening it and stepping back. “Come on in,” I say in a low voice.
“Sleeping?” he whispers.
“Yeah. She needs to sleep for about four years.”
Mace cringes. “I got the gist from Blade. I’m so sorry for everything she’s been through.”
“Thanks.” I take the pile of electronics from him and walk toward the kitchen area to set them on the table.
“Blade says she’s super intelligent.”
I nod. “Off the charts. I’d love to see her education records, just out of curiosity. She lived with twelve foster families in eighteen years, which means she was yanked from school to school nearly every year, probably in the middle of the semester on occasion.”
Mace’s face tightens. “So sorry. I’ll find her records. You know her grades won’t tell you a thing about her intelligence, though. She might have been defiant. A lot of kids who are misunderstood or ignored or even misdiagnosed don’t do well in their classes. Her IQ could be off the charts, but she might have tanked her exams.”
“Yeah, I doubt it. She’s a pleaser. She likes to learn, too. I suspect she kept her head down and did everything she was supposed to do.”
“And she didn’t finish high school, right?”
“No. She was trafficked before she graduated. I assume you’ll find her listed as a runaway, if anything at all. She was already eighteen when he took her. The man who blackmailed and trafficked her knew what he was doing. He preyed on her because he could make her look like a runaway, and since she had no blood relatives and had officially aged out of the system, the police wouldn’t have even taken a report. Technically, she’d been free to walk away whenever she wanted.”
“The system sucks. Blade says Larkin trafficked other women, too?”
I nod. “No idea how many. Eloise doesn’t know either. Larkin used Westin’s mountain cabin as a stopover between abduction and sale, but he stopped using that particular location after Westin kept Eloise.”
“Got it. I’ll get to the bottom of it.” Mace gives my shoulder a squeeze and heads for the door.
Chapter Eighteen
Eloise
* * *
“Where do you think you’re going, Ellie Bellie?”
