Rose could only laugh. Poison talked like being nice to someone was against her morals. Rose wouldn’t be surprised if she was as squeamish about the concept as normal people were about torture.
“Take a picture of him and I need a clean fingerprint, please.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to get you his fingerprint?” Poison snapped back at her at the same time that a picture message came through.
“Don’t worry, baby. I got it,” Rose heard Kitty say in the background. A moment later, another picture came through.
“Give me a few minutes and I’ll get back to you. And Poison?Tryto be nice, okay? Wouldn’t kill you. Kid probably hasn’t been shown much compassion in the world. Most of us who start out this young haven’t.”
Poison snorted. “You forget who shares my bed, MV. Not exactly the Poster Boy for reform.”
“I am far too incredible as is to even attempt at reform,” Kitty replied, completely unapologetic.
“You keep telling yourself that, Kitty Cat,” Poison grumbled, unimpressed.
Rose shook her head, concentrating on her search rather than their bantering. As Oscar entertained himself by putting an overturned cup straight down into the water and then releasing the air to make fart sounds, Rose looked into Bobby Gallo. Atthirteen, he’d been in and out of foster homes since he was seven years old. There were also two failed adoptions on his record. For two separate families!
The fuck?
Rose dug deeper, wishing she had her laptop or tablet instead of just her burner phone. She switched over to another command, trying to run a tracer key through the laughably poor security protocols that protect the Department of Child Services. Sure enough, there were two different families who were interested in adopting Bobby, but he was considered a perpetual runner. One family didn’t look for him beyond a week after the third time he’d run away from them, while the other family barely had him a day before they returned him like an unwanted purchase.
“Poor kid,” Rose murmured to herself. She looked to her right where her son was obliviously innocent to the world around him. If something happened to her tomorrow, what would become of Oscar? Would he be a random child, lost in the sea of unwanted and unloved children?
Looking as to the reason he kept running away, she finally discovered a report from a social worker when he was nine that explained he kept trying to find his mom. Not exactly unusual for a child, especially one that didn’t have an everyday parental figure.
But further looking showed a very different story.
When Bobby was seven, his mom was arrested for murdering his stepdad. Accusations went round and round that the stepdad was sexually abusing Bobby, but since no physical evidence could be found, the “theory” was dropped. The mom went to prison, her public defender failing to prove her claim of self-defense and protecting her child.
“Let me talk to him.”
Poison and Kitty’s bickering on the other end of the line stopped at her modified voice interrupting them.
“You want to talk to the kid?” Poison clarified, clearly confused.
“Yes.”
She was already opening another end-to-end encryption chat.
“Um, hello?”
“Bobby, you don’t know me, and you have no reason to trust me, but I need you to tell me the truth. Did your mom lie at her trial?”
“How… How do you know about that?” Christ, he sounded so fucking young. Rose could hear the uncertainty and the fear in every word.
WiseWave620: What’s up?
Gl!tch.OS: Might need to hire your guys.
She switched back to the phone call.
“I know everything about your mom’s trial. The only thing I don’t know is if she lied. Did she?”
She switched back to the E2EE chat with Keys.
WiseWave620: If you even TRY to send me a penny of your money, I will… Well, I can’t threaten a woman, but I WILL be pissed. What do you need?
“No, she didn’t lie.” There was hesitation in Bobby’s voice, but also certainty. And shame—like what his stepfather had done to him washisfault. Or maybe it was because his mom was suffering in a prison for doingexactlywhat she should have done—what Rose would do—to protect her child. “She told the truth.”
