Finding Eden(72)

That last part had my blood pumping swiftly through my veins, but I nodded. What other choice did we have? This is not like last time. This is not like last time. The last time we'd been in a police car for reasons we didn't entirely understand, we'd been coerced, tricked—and we'd been led straight to hell. This was different.

Carolyn came rushing into the room and introduced herself to the detectives. Molly must have told her they were here. "Does my daughter need a lawyer?" Carolyn asked, her eyes darting between them and Eden. I noted that she hadn't mentioned me.

"If she feels more comfortable having her lawyer present, he can meet us at the field office," Agent Rivera said.

"Mom," Eden said, "they just want to close out our case." She looked nervously at me.

Carolyn shook her head. "I'll have my lawyer meet you at the office. It'll make me feel better. It's the smart thing to do."

The detectives nodded and Eden looked annoyed, her lips pressed together as she squeezed my hand.

"Do you want to call a lawyer, too, Calder?" Agent Rivera asked. I glanced at Eden and shook my head and then glanced at Carolyn.

"I don't have anything to hide," I said.

My nerves spiked again as we were escorted to Carolyn's driveway, where a police car waited. This is not the same, this is not the same, I kept repeating. Just the sight of the police cruiser alone made my fight or flight instinct kick in and I pulled Eden to me. She gripped me back. Whether she was scared, too, or whether she was holding me so tightly because she knew I needed it, I wasn't sure. I had thought I had let go of some of the fear of the police after sitting through the questioning about Acadia recently. But in that moment, anxiety assaulted me because I didn't understand what was happening. Once again, I felt like everyone except me had the upper hand.

We sat huddled together in the back of the cruiser as the officer in front drove us to the downtown field office, the agents following behind. I could only imagine that if my blood pressure had been taken right then, it would be sky high.

When we got there, we were hurried in a back door and brought into a small room with nothing more than the table we were sitting at, two chairs, a TV in the corner, and another table with a coffee maker and coffee making ingredients sitting on it.

I scooted my chair closer to Eden's and held her hand under the table. "Are you okay?" I asked, looking at her and forcing myself to take a deep breath.

She squeezed my hand. "Yes, I'm okay. Are you?" She looked worried.

"I will be," I said, managing a small smile.

The door opened and our heads turned in unison as Agent Glenn walked into the room.

He nodded at us as a woman walked through the door right behind him. Agent Glenn said, "This is Agent Malloy. She'll be interviewing Eden."

I frowned and glanced at Eden. "I thought we'd be interviewed together."

"It's easier if we interview you separately," Agent Glenn said. "And it will go a lot more quickly, too. Plus, Eden's lawyer just arrived."

Eden leaned over and kissed my cheek, squeezing my arm. "It'll be fine. I'll see you right outside, okay?"

I let out a harsh exhale. "Okay." I turned to Agent Malloy, "She'll be close by?"

Agent Malloy smiled. "Yup, right next door. It shouldn't take long." I frowned, but nodded and the agent escorted Eden out the door. Eden gave me a small, encouraging smile before she walked out.

I looked back at Agent Glenn. He came and sat down in a chair at the end of the table, directly to my right.

"Calder, I appreciate you being willing to give an additional statement to us. We're happy to be able to close a case that so many of our agents were involved in back when Eden was taken." He looked at me very directly. "We haven't found any evidence that you yourself were abducted from a different family, but I know that you've indicated you believe that to be the case."

I cleared my throat. "I do, but I don't have any concrete evidence. Mostly comments from others who are no longer able to shed any light on what they said to me. Truthfully, Agent Glenn, half the time I don't know what to think."

He nodded. "Please, call me Floyd. And I know, we're having trouble, too. There are no records of those who lived at Acadia, other than the ones Hector kept on the council members. As you already know, it's been three years, but we still haven't identified so many of the adults, and identifying the children who were born there posed even more of an impossibility. As far as society knows, they never even existed."

My heart clenched with pain. I felt responsible for that. "If I would have come forward years ago . . ." I trailed off.

He shook his head. "You wouldn't have been asked to try to identify the bodies. They weren't recognizable." He looked pained. "The list you gave to the police of all the children you remembered, their ages and descriptions, was very helpful. And between you and Eden, you accounted for all of them. We can at least give some of them names now." He studied me for a minute and then stood up and went to the TV in the corner and pressed a few buttons, bringing a remote control back to the table with him. "We don't have the most advanced technology here." He laughed. I forced a small smile back, my heart still pounding way too quickly in my chest.