“What did you just say?” I ask.
Creagan looks up at me.
“What?”
“How did you know that?”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
I take the envelope from his hand and look at it carefully.
“It doesn’t say Feathered Nest anywhere on here. All it has is the date.” My breath becomes shallow, and spots dance in front of my eyes. “You knew.”
“Emma, listen to me,” Creagan starts.
“You knew,” I repeat more loudly, taking an advancing step toward him. “This envelope has nothing on it but the date, but you said it was the last time she was in Feathered Nest. You knew. From the very beginning. Before you ever sent me undercover there, you knew my mother spent time in Feathered Nest. You knew she worked there and that I was born there. You knew all of it.”
“Emma, I need you to listen to me. Yes, I knew.”
I slam the reports down on the table and stomp toward him.
“You knew my family had links to that town, and you sent me there as bait,” I seethe.
“That’s not what I was doing. Yes, I knew about the link between your family and Feathered Nest. There’s information about it in the sealed investigation files from your mother’s death. The rescue organization she worked for has protected status. The mission wasn’t available in the publicly accessible files.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were a minor when she died, so you were never given fully unredacted information. When the murders and disappearances started happening around there and it was evident Bureau involvement was needed, I was reminded of your mother being there so frequently. She was there the week before she died. I couldn’t pass up that opportunity to create a continuous link.”
“So, you just offered me up?” I sputter. “Without giving me all the details I needed to have, you just threw me into it. Knowing I had no idea. Knowing you were lying to me.”
“Emma, that’s not what I was trying to do. I thought having you there could be a major benefit. I thought I could help to draw out the killer.”
“How comforting,” I fire back sarcastically.
“I thought it was LaRoche,” he continues. “His father was known for being crooked, and some rumors circulated around that he was violent. I thought maybe his son was following in his footsteps. But you did too. You suspected him right from the beginning.”
I glare directly into Creagan’s eyes.
“But I didn’t try to feed anyone to him,” I say in a low, threatening tone.
“She was there, Emma. Right before she died. But nobody could figure out why. She hadn’t been to the safehouses there in many years. None of them had. But a witness saw her in Feathered Nest for three days the week before she died. She stayed in the same cabin you did. According to people familiar with the town, she and LaRoche Sr. didn’t always see eye to eye. There was some friction there. He was even briefly considered a person of interest in her murder.”
I see red, but I force myself to stay calm.
“I was told no one was ever considered,” I say, biting off each word.
“The information was withheld to protect the integrity of any future investigation,” he tells me.
“Until people started dying again, right? Then you just couldn’t resist dangling me in front of the man you thought was responsible. I suppose that would be pretty poetic. Father and son police chiefs knock off mother and daughter nearly two decades apart. You couldn’t wait for that headline, could you? Did you have your press release prepared?”
“Emma, it’s not like that.”
“Screw you, Creagan.” I snatch up two of the envelopes and look at Dean and Bellamy. “Make sure these are packed back up and brought to the hotel for me.”
I head toward the door, and Creagan comes after me.
“Griffin, where are you going?”
“You might not know what my mother was doing, but I know someone who does.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Looking a little rough, Emma. You should be taking better care of yourself.”
I settle into the blue painted metal chair and glare across the table.
“I haven’t slept in almost thirty-six hours. I have flown from D.C. to Florida and back to Virginia. I don’t need to hear any of your shit, Jake,” I answer.
“Lovely to catch up with you, too,” Jake says. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here. You haven’t come to visit me once.”
“Forgive me if I’m not jumping back into the arms of the man who tried to kill me and dress up my corpse like a doll.”
“Fair enough. So, what brings you here today?” he asks, clearly amused.
I set the envelope on the table and slide it over to him. He picks it up and looks at the papers inside. The bemused smile that’s been on his face since I walked in the room disappears, and he shoves the envelope back to me.
“Did you know?” I ask.
“Do you mean, did I know your mother stole my mother and sister from me?” he asks. “Yes, I knew.”
“She didn’t steal them,” I say. “She rescued them. She is the one who took them out of a horribly abusive household.”
He scoffs.
“Don’t you think I know what kind of household it was? I lived there, too. And I was left behind. But that didn’t matter. Not to anybody in Feathered Nest. Not to Chief LaRoche Sr. And not to your mother. She came in and listened to every sob story my mother gave, then whisked her away without even a second thought to me.”
“Nobody in town knew about your mother,” I point out. “Her life was lived in other towns among other people.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.
“She worked at Rolling View Hospital as a nurse. You never told me that. You never said she worked at all, much less that she helped people,” I tell him.
“I never knew if she helped anybody
