“He’s not…”
“He’s the best source of information that we have, and you know it,” Black pointed out. “I know that he’s your kid. And I know that you want to protect him, especially after no one has his entire life. But you have to think about putting these women behind bars. Because if they’re not, they have a right over him. You don’t.”
He didn’t have to say “because you’re supposed to be dead.”
I’d heard it loud and clear.
I had no way to fix this. No way to make it all right.
I could only do what I was doing.
And that didn’t seem good enough.
Twenty-Four
Rated B for bitch.
—Sage’s secret thoughts
Sage
“Look at this,” Romeo twisted his computer around.
We all looked at what he had pulled up on his screen, and I frowned. “What’s that?”
“Doctor’s visit in Bozeman,” he said. “What’s the medical jargon mean?”
I read over the ER visit notes and felt my gut clench.
“Broken ulna. Head contusion. Possible TBI,” I read. “The doctor called child protective services. Parents found out and fled. They used a false name, so they were never able to follow up.”
“How’d you find this?” Romeo asked his brother-in-law.
“Facial recognition software thanks to NSA. National Security Agency,” he answered my question before I could ask. “I searched through everything with Nadine’s and Brooke’s faces. Anything they’ve done over the last seven years should be here.”
Apollo had just admitted to hacking the NSA.
That was nuts to me.
I wiped at my tired eyes and went back to the medical records that I was reading.
“They used their close medical facilities at first,” I said to no one in particular. “Bumps. Bruises. Broken arms. Concussions. All of it blamed on sports. But they stopped going to their close facilities when one time Nadine Wood blamed a broken arm on soccer, and it wasn’t soccer season. The doctor got suspicious and confronted her. Never went back.”
“And none of these doctors followed up?” Mable asked.
“Not a one,” I answered.
“Jesus,” Mable muttered. “Mandatory reporters, my ass.”
“Kid’s arm has been broken four times. Two right, two left.” Apollo tapped away on his computer. “What else?”
We spoke for another thirty minutes before Mable said, “Let’s break for coffee. I’m about to crash.”
I was, too.
So I got the coffee and used that time to walk around and loosen my limbs.
I wondered if Gentry had gotten any sleep.
