Run to Ground(4)

“Thank you for your help, but I need to go now.” She tried and failed to force a smile. “Job hunting to do.” She turned to leave.

“Ms. Young.” Automatic courtesy made her stop and look over her shoulder. “No matter what lawyer you hire, you will never get legal custody of your brothers and sister.”

Her entire body jerked as if he’d stabbed her. It wasn’t only the shock of realizing that Mr. Espina—a stranger, and a terrifying one at that—was aware of her family’s situation. She’d never allowed herself to consider that she might fail to get custody. Hearing the words out loud was more horrible than she’d ever imagined.

“How did you… What?” she wheezed, her hand pressed to her chest.

Mr. Espina gestured toward her recently vacated seat, and she managed the few steps back to the table and plopped down on the bench. Her knees had gone even more wobbly, and she knew she had to sit before she fell.

“As you said, you could’ve made it worse for my brother. I appreciate that you didn’t.”

Her stunned brain didn’t register the words for a minute. Confused, Jules stared at him. “Then why aren’t you helping me?”

“I am helping you.” He pulled out his cell phone and tapped at his screen. Even the way he did that screamed aggression. Jules’s cell chirped from her purse. Instead of checking the text, she kept her gaze fixed on Mr. Espina. “Call Dennis Lee. I just sent you his number. He’ll get you what you need to take your family…elsewhere.”

“Take?” she repeated, knowing she sounded dazed. The conversation felt surreal.

“Ms. Young.” His gaze sharpened as he leaned forward slightly. It was the most engagement he’d shown for the entire meeting, and she mimicked his posture before she realized what she was doing. “Your father’s Alzheimer’s is getting worse. Your stepmother is not a good person. Your brothers and sister are in a bad situation. You need to get them out.”

“But…” Her voice lowered until barely any sound escaped. “Kidnapping?”

“Sometimes you have to trust what you feel in your gut to be right, even if others are telling you it’s wrong.”

The idea was overwhelming, terrifying, and wonderful, all at the same time. For years, through countless frustrating, futile, expensive custody battles, Jules had followed the rules. It had gotten her nowhere. Her siblings were still stuck in hell, and Jules was broke and desperate enough to work for criminals. Maybe it was time to change the rules. Maybe, if she started playing dirty, her family could win for once.

Maybe instead of working for criminals, she should become one.

“It’d never work.” The tempting dream of just stealing her brothers and sister away crumbled. “There’d be an Amber Alert. Their pictures—my picture—would be everywhere. We wouldn’t even make it out of the state before someone would recognize us. My stepmother would paint me as a monster. No one would believe that she…” Jules couldn’t finish the thought. It was too awful. “I’d go to prison, and the kids would lose their last hope of escape.”

Mr. Espina didn’t look bothered. “I’ll have a talk with your father’s wife. After that, she won’t report the children’s disappearance.”

“Uh…what kind of talk?”

“Nothing violent.” He seemed amused by her wary tone. “I’ll just make her aware that I have information she won’t want getting out.”

Jules clenched her hands into fists. “That won’t work. She won’t care. I’ve been trying to get people to believe me for years, but Courtney has the perfect-mother act down.”

His unruffled expression did not waver. “It will work. I have video.”

“Video?” Her stomach lurched. “You can’t make that public. Sam…”

He raised a hand, and her objection trailed off. “The threat will be enough. She won’t go to the police.”

Jules studied his face as she chewed the inside of her lip. “She won’t just let them go. She’ll hire private investigators if she has to.”

“If that happens, you’ll deal with it.”

“I… Yes.” His calm certainty brought a trickle of optimism. She could deal with a PI, just one person searching for them, rather than every member of law enforcement, every concerned person who saw their pictures on TV or the Internet. Mr. Espina’s threat just made kidnapping—as crazy as it seemed—a viable possibility.

“Ms. Young.” She was jerked out of her thoughts as Mr. Espina pushed a laptop case across the table toward her. Jules’s gaze bounced from the bag to his face and back again as she tried to figure out what he was doing. “As thanks for what you did for Luis. He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s my brother, and I love him.”