Raising Innocence: A Rylee Adamson Novel(5)

Snorting, one corner of my lips lifted. “I doubt that very much.”
He seemed unfazed by my rudeness. One by one he laid out the paper-clipped piles on the table in front of him. “These children were all stolen from hospitals, all within the last two years.”
I couldn’t stop my ears from perking up. Why hadn’t I heard about this? Something like this would have been all over the news. Bending, I scooped up the papers closest to me, thumbing through them. Six months old, in the hospital for not even twenty-four hours before going missing. Youngest of three. Sophia. That was almost a full two years ago; she must have been one of the first.
“There seems to be a strong correlation between the illnesses that the children came in to have treated and whether or not they get kidnapped,” Agent Valley said, leaning back in his chair. I crouched to the ground and flipped through another pile. Age, four years. Oldest of two. Benjamin. There was nothing about why he was in the hospital.
Age, two and a half. Only child. Jasmina.
Age, three weeks. One of two twins. Elana.
Age, five years. Middle of seven. Kent.
The list went on; there were over twenty children missing.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what the correlation is?”
I spread the papers out, unable to stop myself from caring, even knowing that Agent Valley was manipulating me. “I suppose you’ll tell me eventually. If not, it doesn’t really matter. I can find them.”
“So sure of yourself,” he said softly.
I lifted my eyes to his. “It’s one of the few things I’m sure of in my life.”
Alex came trotting in from the kitchen, Giselle clinging to his collar. Neither one said anything to Agent Valley. They just went back to sitting on the window seat, staring out into the night sky.
The agent watched them, shaking his head ever so slightly. “I don’t know how you can live with a werewolf.”
My eyes narrowed, anger surging. What would he think if he knew O’Shea was a werewolf now? “Easier than living with some asshole with an overbite.”
His face flushed from his head down to his collar, his lips tight, and a vein bobbing in the side of his face. For a brief second, I wondered if all FBI agents were required to have a vein in their face or neck that reacted when pissed off; like a mood thermometer.
Fuck, I really knew how to make people hate me. Was it just me or were all Trackers like that?
Maybe I should mellow out a little. At least, I could try. “What’s the connection between all these kids?” I brushed my finger along the edge of their names, wishing I had a picture of one of them so I could Track them right now.
“They’re terminal.”
My brain froze, and I slowly lifted my head. Agent Valley was sombre, his eyes full of grief.
“You mean like as in cancer?”
“Amongst other things.”
I quickly scanned the papers and picked up the first one, Sophia. I held it out to him. “How long did she have?”
The agent took the paper and glanced at the name, not even consulting with another sheet before he answered. “Three months. Even if whoever took her had all the medical supplies they needed, she’d be dead by now.”
Rocking on my heels, I looked at the papers with a new angle. “So you’re telling me that not one of these kids is living? That they’re all dead?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
I stood up and backed away from the agent and his piles of papers. There were times I went after a child and they were already dead, or they were killed before I could find them. Just one downside of being a Tracker. But going after these kids, this many dead? Shit, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that, to put myself through seeing that many parents grieving, to feel the depth of sorrow that only a child’s death brought on. Besides, it wasn’t like they didn’t know the fate of their children. They knew they were dead, long past. Harsh, but true. A shiver ran through me and I could almost see the group of parents clinging to one another, crying, begging for mercy on their babies. No, this was not something I wanted to do.
“I think I’ll pass. You know their fate. You don’t need me.”
Agent Valley leaned down and scooped the papers up one by one, slipping them back into his file folder. “I thought you might say that.”
Moving back, I crossed my arms again, feeling like a fucking heel. But, there were times that even I wasn’t strong enough. Weakness, hadn’t I just bitched at myself over being weak? But this was different. The body I could conquer, the mind . . . all I could see in my mind were the parents, their sorrow, and then perhaps their condemnation. In my mind, they looked like my own parents as I was accused of murdering Berget, my little sister. They’d believed the worst of me and that had etched itself in my soul.