Sixth Grave on the Edge

He was talking as though he’d read it from a police report. “But you know, then? You know who your biological parents were?”

“Yes. As I got older, I started remembering more and more. Most of it didn’t come to me until I was in prison, but slowly I remembered their names. That was it. That was all that came to me.”

“Then how did you put all of that together?”

“I hacked into the FBI database and read the reports.”

“You hacked the FBI from prison?” When he simply lifted an arrogant brow, I shook my head, astonished. I’d forgotten how good he was at those things. “What happened after that? If Mrs. Foster abducted you, why did she then turn around and … and, what? Have someone else abduct you back?” I struggled to understand. “That makes no sense.”

“It was one of those cases where everything just kept going wrong. After Mrs. Foster took me, she convinced her husband it was meant to be. But they could hardly just show up with a three-month-old baby. So they left the state, moved around for a bit until they ended up in Albuquerque, which was weird on a whole other level.”

“Why?”

“Because my biological parents were supposed to move here. It was why I chose them. Then, after I’m abducted, I end up here anyway?”

I leaned against the thick lamppost. “That can’t be a coincidence. What happened next?”

“The Fosters were here for a while. They’d met the neighbors. Joined a church. Started making friends. But Mr. Foster’s family started getting suspicious. They wanted to see him. They never liked his wife and were worried she was dangerous, so they planned a trip to visit. And since the Fosters suddenly had a child the exact age of the abducted child from their state, they realized they’d get caught. So, they sold me.”

“They just … up and sold you? Like, on eBay?”

“That is one piece of the puzzle I haven’t quite figured out yet. Maybe Mr. Foster met someone who helped them. Who knows? Either way, I think the plan was just to sell me and be done with it, but a neighbor saw a suspicious-looking man leave out the back door with me. She thought I was being kidnapped, so she called the police. They showed up, the Fosters panicked and said, yes, their baby was gone, and the rest is history.”

“Reyes, this is insane. What about Mr. Foster’s family? They didn’t catch on that he’d also had a mysterious child abducted?”

“Believe it or not, it never reached them. Children are abducted all the time. How many have you seen, especially from across the country? Even today, during the age of information, we hardly ever see the faces of missing children. Did you know there are over two thousand people reported missing every single day? How many do you see in the news?”

“Still,” I said, completely taken aback, “how did the cops not make the connection? You had the markings, the map to the gates of hell on your skin.”

“Yes, but when I was born, they were very light. So light, they were impossible for the na**d eye to see. They grew darker as I got older. By the time the Fosters sold me, they resembled a very light birthmark. Nothing like they are now.”

I lowered myself onto a box just as the first drops of rain fell from the sky. “This is just insane. The Fosters seemed so nice on paper and in their interviews.” I shook an index finger, remembering what Sack had said. “Agent Carson said her father got a bad feeling from that whole case, like something else was going on that he couldn’t quite put a finger on.”

“Sounds like he was a good agent.”

“You were going to end up here anyway? So that we’d grow up together and go to the same schools?”

He packed up the tools he’d carried out and looked up at the sky. Droplets of rain left tiny rivulets on his face and arms. “My biological father was going to be transferred to Albuquerque. But after I was abducted, they decided to stay in North Carolina and hope the police found me. They never left.”

I jumped to my feet. “They’re still there?”

“Yes.”

“Have you gone to them, Reyes?” I stepped closer as he looked down at me. “Have you told them who you are?”

The expression he gave me stopped me in my tracks. “Why would I do that?”

“Why would you—?” I stopped, flabbergasted he had to ask. “Reyes, they should know that you’re okay. They have the right to know that.”

“They have a right to live out their days happy and none the wiser.”

I could not believe any of this. “Why would you leave them in the dark like that all these years?”

The heat of his anger warmed the cool drops of rain as they fell softly to the ground. “They aren’t my real parents, Dutch. You know that.”

“But you chose them.”

“I chose the woman to be a vessel, that’s all.”

There was more to it than that. I could feel the mixed emotions swirling inside him. I could feel anger and resentment and doubt. “That’s not entirely true,” I said to him.

His emotions were too strong to block, and that angered him even more.

He turned away from me to pick up the toolbox, but I stopped him, took his hand into mine, brought it to my face to caress it. “Reyes, you have to tell them. You have to ease their pain. Their uncertainty.”

Raindrops dripped off his impossibly long lashes, his dark eyes glittering underneath them. “Why would they want me, Dutch? What would it do to them to know my true identity?”