Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rufus could sense Molly's reluctance as she ascended the stairs ahead of him to her apartment. The heavy way she was walking made it appear almost as if she was suffering the despair of a prisoner on her way to the gallows. Although why Molly should feel that way, he had no idea.

Rufus still hadn't been able to fathom what her mother was involved in. He only knew, from the way her money was hidden and that long-term bolt hole she'd had waiting for her on the Cayman Islands, that it must be something illegal.

But Molly couldn't possibly be implicated in those crimes. She'd been a child. Worse, she'd been a child who was eventually abandoned by that same mother.

Until today, it seemed.

Why Serena Jenkins had decided to come back into Molly's life now was anyone's guess. But the fact she had made it obvious the older woman had known exactly where her daughter was currently working and living. That she might possibly have always known where Molly was and just hadn't given a damn.

That was certainly no reason for Molly to ever think anyone would blame her for something her mother had or hadn't done. In the past or now.

Molly looked on the verge of crying by the time she turned to face him after they had both entered her apartment and Rufus had closed the door behind him.

"You—" Rufus frowned his irritation as his cell phone vibrated in his pocket to alert him to an incoming call.

"Don't answer that," Molly begged. "Let's talk first. Please!"

Rufus looked up from seeing his cousin's name on the screen. "I'm sorry, but I really do need to take this," he apologized before pressing the cell phone against his ear.

"I now believe the payment into Serena Jenkins's bank account seventeen years ago coincided with the disappearance of a very young baby from Northern Ireland named Ronan." As usual, Linus lost no time in stating the facts rather than wasting any time on pleasantries.

"What the hell…!" Rufus gasped.

"The payment was made only a day after Sarah Harper disappeared with the baby Molly told you was her brother, also named Ronan. It's going to take me a little longer to find where and with whom he was placed, but I will find it," Linus assured grimly.

Fucking hell!

"What else did you discover?" he prompted slowly, knowing there had to be more when Linus didn't immediately speak again or end the call.

His cousin released a noisy breath. "A payment went into that same account the day after Emily was supposed to have died in the car crash with Beth. The amount was withdrawn again the day before we now know Emily was found abandoned in a church in Cornwall. At the moment, this is all circumstantial. But I'm also guessing that the amount of publicity after the accident, along with the photos of Beth and Emily in the newspapers, would have made it difficult to…rehome a small baby whose photo was on the front page of the nation's newspapers."

"She wasn't one of Mia's fucking strays!" Rufus rasped furiously.

"Sorry, Rufus, I didn't know how else to put it," Linus said softly. "I had my suspicions when we talked earlier, but no concrete evidence to back it up. I still haven't put it all together yet, but those two sets of dates, at least, don't lie. And if those two payments were made in exchange for stolen babies, then there's a good chance the others were too."

Rufus's head was spinning. His vision blurred as his eyes filled with tears. The pain gripping his chest was so severe, he really felt as if he were having a heart attack this time.

What Linus was saying couldn't be right. Could it? Because if it was, then that meant Sarah Harper/Serena Jenkins was responsible for the abduction of dozens of babies.

"Since the disappearance of the babies would have been random and never in the same country or place, I'm also going out on a limb here and guessing that no sort of pattern was detected by the different authorities in those countries," Linus added.

If that was what Linus had deduced from the information he'd gathered so far, then Rufus didn't doubt that was exactly what had happened. Rufus easily guessed that his cousin was only sugarcoating those facts for his benefit.

Linus knew, Rufus's whole family knew, that he had been looking for answers for the past two years as to how Emily could possibly have survived the car crash that killed her mother.

It now seemed that his daughter had survived because, in all probability, someone had removed her from the car before the crash occurred.

No, not someone, he realized.

Molly's mother.

The same woman who had now suddenly decided to appear back in London and visit her daughter after an absence of seventeen years.

Rufus desperately needed to know the reason why she had.

* * *

Molly watched Rufus intently as he listened to whatever his caller was saying to him.

Which was why she saw the expression of complete shock on his face, followed seconds later by all the color draining from his suddenly hollow cheeks.

He'd also staggered back a couple of steps before putting his hand on the back of the couch to maintain his balance as he continued listening.

Molly's breath got stuck in her throat as she watched the increasing horror in Rufus's expression.

She couldn't know for certain, but she suspected, by the fact Rufus somehow already knew her mother was in London and that she had also visited Molly at the shelter earlier today, that whoever was talking to him now was telling him some, if not all, of what her mother had today admitted concerning the events of twenty-two years ago.

Information that would reveal how the behavior of Molly's mother had impacted so personally on both Rufus and his wife and their daughter, Emily.

How it was still doing so all these years later.

It was everything Molly would have told Rufus and Mia in the letter she had intended to leave for them to read after she was gone.

She immediately tensed, like a deer caught in headlights, when Rufus suddenly glanced sharply across the room to where she stood.

She flinched when she saw his now-gray cheeks were wet with tears and his eyes were dark and bottomless pits of pain.

And accusation?

Yes, because it was exactly as she had feared it would be.

Even if Rufus didn't blame her for her mother's actions once he knew the whole truth of what had happened, he would most certainly never be able to look at Molly again without seeing her connection to the woman who had stolen his daughter from him twenty-two years ago. Along with all the pain and despair that had followed as a result of that abduction.

"Where is your mother now?" Rufus demanded the moment he ended the call. "Do not even attempt to say you don't know," he warned her harshly.

"But I don't."

"I don't believe you."

There. This was what Molly had known would happen if Rufus were to learn even some of the events of the past. Which he now seemed to have done, judging by the suspicion and distrust she could clearly see in those haunted dark eyes.

Molly swallowed before speaking. "Who just called you?"

"My cousin, Linus."

She nodded. "And told you what?"

"That your mother is the person responsible for stealing my daughter from me," he bit out fiercely.

Molly drew in a gasping breath at the blunt delivery of that statement.

"That because of her actions," Rufus continued in a hard voice, "she's also responsible for my wife dying in a car crash, probably when Beth tried to follow her in an effort to retrieve Emily after your mother took her."

Molly gave a low groan of pain at the stark truth of both these accusations.

Rufus's eyes glittered without a hint of pity for her obvious distress. "And I sure as hell don't believe it's a coincidence that out of all the places you could have chosen to find work in London, you ended up seeking employment at the animal shelter owned by Mia. Who, it now seems, was one of your mother's victims!"

No, of course it wasn't a coincidence. But how to explain her actions without also seeming guilty was Molly's problem.

"One of them?" she prompted cagily, still not sure how much Rufus knew.

"Linus is convinced that your mother has abducted other babies over the last thirty years. He believes they could have been sold to couples wealthy enough to pay her price. Let's hope it's nothing more nefarious than that, because from the increasing deposits made into her offshore bank account, it could possibly be as many as two babies a year," Rufus bit out.

Molly was horrified. She had suspected something like this after her conversation with Serena Jenkins earlier today. But she couldn't even begin to absorb the number of babies Rufus was now saying her mother had taken.

"Is that what happened with Ronan?" Her mother had implied as much earlier, but Molly had refused to give her the satisfaction of asking for details.

"We believe so," Rufus answered her. "Linus used the dates and times you gave me to trace Ronan's origins and disappearance back to Northern Ireland. I have every confidence that by the end of the day, Linus will have also discovered exactly who adopted Ronan."

"His real parents need that information. I only need to know he's safe and happy." It was all she had ever wanted to know in regard to Mia too.

But once she'd met the other woman, it had been impossible not to stay and enjoy her friendship for a few weeks or months.

"I had only begun to guess at some of this before today," she told Rufus awkwardly.

"But your mother confirmed it when the two of you spoke earlier?"

"Some of it, yes," she admitted.

His eyes glittered. "And you didn't think all this should have been the first thing you told me when I walked in the door earlier?"