Serial Escape
Page 25
The thought gave her the strength she needed to talk about what she’d discovered. And she reminded herself that Griffin already knew all about her father. There would be no surprises for him in the Matthews family background.
“It has to be about my dad.” Even though they had to be spoken, the words burned her throat. For an instant, she thought she saw a flare of sympathy in the green depths of Griffin’s eyes. But it disappeared within seconds, if it had ever been there at all, and his professional demeanor returned. “About RevitaYou.”
“When you came to the CI office a few days ago, you told us that you were not involved in your father’s con.” Although his voice was nonjudgmental, his gaze probed her face. “You were very determined to make sure that we knew that.”
She gave a bitter little laugh. “Are you giving me a chance to retract my statement?”
“Do you need one?”
She shook her head. Hard. “I was not involved in RevitaYou. Not at any stage. The first time I heard about it was when your team started blasting out warnings on social media and I saw the links to my dad. I only knew about it after it was declared potentially toxic.” He didn’t respond, and she sighed. “I don’t know how to convince you that I’m telling the truth.”
Griffin was silent for a moment or two, then his gaze dropped to Maya. The baby was rubbing her teddy bear against one cheek, her eyelids drooping sleepily.
“If I represent you, we would be in a unique situation. One that calls for total honesty.” He looked back at Abigail. “And the truth is that you can’t convince me that you didn’t know about your dad’s scamming people out of their investments in a toxic supplement.” She winced, and he gave her an apologetic smile. “I’m sure you’d rather I told you that up front and moved on to what’s important.”
She sucked in a breath. “Which is?”
He nodded at Maya. “Your little girl.”
For the first time, tears filled her eyes. “Can you help me?”
“I can try.” He drew a legal pad and a pen toward him, then pushed a box of tissues toward her. “I need the name of your caseworker and any other details you can give me.”
It hadn’t occurred to her until now, but Griffin Colton was a very good-looking man. He had the sort of tall, muscular build that fit his expensive designer suit to perfection. And his dark blond hair, sculpted cheekbones and chiseled features were more rock idol than lawyer. But it was those eyes that captured her attention. They were dark green, with the shifting colors and moods of an evening forest. As he smiled, they looked like sunlight on new leaves.
“This may sound like a silly question, but do you mind if I order pizza?” he asked. “If you join me, we can eat while we talk.”
* * *
“Goodness.” An hour later, Abigail looked down at the empty pizza box in surprise. “I didn’t even know I was hungry.”
Griffin smiled and pointed toward the stroller. “And that little lady has slept through everything.”
He liked the way Abigail’s face changed when she looked at Maya. It was as if a switch had been flicked and she lit up from within. Had anyone ever looked at him that way? He’d entered the foster system at the age of seven when his mother died. He knew his mom had loved him, and his foster parents, Graham and Kathleen Colton, had cared deeply for him. But that look? He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen it until now.
“Ah. She likes her sleep.” Abigail smoothed down the blanket she’d used to cover the baby’s legs. “But she’ll wake up hungry.”
“It’s not relevant to the case, but why did you foster her?”
She was quiet for so long he wasn’t sure she was going to answer. When she finally turned away from Maya to look at him, the sadness in her eyes hit him like a punch to his gut. “Maya is my best friend’s daughter.”
“I’m sorry. This is clearly painful for you—”
She shook her head. “I live with her loss all the time. Talking about it doesn’t make it harder. Veronica Pérez and I met in high school. We had a lot in common.” A slight smile twisted her lips. “Her parents were from Cuba, and my mother was Cuban, too. Her father worked away a lot. My mom had left my dad by that time and, although I lived with him... Well, I didn’t see a lot of him. Veronica and I became each other’s family. Our friendship stayed just as strong throughout our adult lives.”
As she was talking, her hands twisted in her lap and her eyes focused on a point outside the window. “Sixteen months ago, Veronica came to see me and gave me some devastating news. She had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.” Abigail turned to look at Maya. “But there was another bombshell. She was also pregnant.”
“Her partner...?”
“She didn’t have one. Maya was conceived during a drunken one-night stand. When Veronica contacted the father to tell him about the pregnancy, he offered to pay half the cost of an abortion but flatly refused to have anything else to do with the baby. She told him about the cancer, and he said his position hadn’t changed.”
“Even if he could have been made to accept his parental responsibilities, he doesn’t sound like the right person to care for a child.” Griffin’s expression was grim.
“That’s what I said.” Abigail nodded her agreement. “And Veronica was an only child with no other family. Her parents had died in a car crash years before. There was no one else.”
“Didn’t her doctors advise a termination?”
“She wouldn’t consider it,” Abigail said. “The only treatment available to her was palliative, and she was determined to refuse anything that would affect her baby’s chances of survival.”
“Even so, you made a life-changing decision when you took her child.” The words couldn’t adequately express how much his opinion of her had changed. She was Wes Matthews’s daughter. As far as the RevitaYou investigation went, that meant he should regard her as the enemy. But Griffin knew how it felt to be ripped out of a home as a child. He knew the damage it had caused to his developing identity. Even though he’d found a loving home with the Coltons, his ability to form bonds had been damaged beyond repair.
That was why Abigail’s generous heart touched him so much. She had given Maya everything. A home, a mom, the love every baby so desperately needed. She had given the little girl an identity.
“I didn’t have to think about it. Veronica would have done the same for me.” She gave a soft laugh. “But you’re right. For someone who hadn’t given children a thought before this, suddenly becoming a mom has been life changing.” She pointed to the bulging bag that had been the cause of her earlier embarrassment. “Just getting out of the door is like mounting a polar expedition.”
“What happened to Veronica?” He wasn’t sure how tactful it was to ask for details about the brave woman who had carried her baby knowing she wouldn’t live to see her grow up.
“She died when Maya was three months old.” Abigail hitched in a breath. “Although she was very ill during that time, the three of us got to spend some quality time together. After her death, Maya went through the foster system.”
Griffin tapped his pen on the desk. “Presumably, if the adoption has been proceeding, the father has given his permission?”
“Yes. That was agreed while Veronica was still alive.” She frowned. “There haven’t been any problems. Until now.”
“Okay.” He was surprised by how much he wanted to make this right. The families were important, of course, but usually his motivation was the child’s well-being. This time, his focus was equally divided between Abigail and Maya. He checked the time on his cell phone. “It’s late and I may not get an answer but let me see if I can contact your caseworker.”
Griffin knew most of the caseworkers in the city and he had a vague recollection of John Jones as a young, earnest man who worked hard for the children in his care.
Although he didn’t say it to Abigail, becau
se it sounded boastful, he also knew that his own reputation went before him. If the name Griffin Colton came up on a cell phone display—there wasn’t a caseworker alive who would ignore it.
Sure enough, John Jones answered almost immediately. Griffin put him on speakerphone so Abigail could hear the conversation. “Mr. Colton? Hi, what can I do for you, sir?”
“I’m representing Dr. Abigail Matthews. She tells me that the adoption proceedings for her foster daughter, Maya, have been put on hold. I’d like some more details about that decision, please.”
He was aware of Abigail’s dark gaze fixed on his face as he waited for a reply. In the stroller, Maya murmured quietly in her sleep and waved a chubby hand, as though signifying her own impatience to learn more.
“Um. This is maybe something we should discuss face-to-face.” Jones sounded uneasy.
“If the issue is the situation with Dr. Matthews’s father, we can talk openly about it.”
“No, the RevitaYou situation is not the problem,” Jones said. “The reason her paperwork has been put on hold is that I’ve received information that Dr. Matthews is being investigated as part of her clinical trials to halt the effects of memory loss.”
From the way she half rose from her chair, it was clear that this information was news to Abigail. Griffin raised a hand, signaling that he would deal with it. To his relief, although she looked pale and tense, she remained silent.
“Do you have any details about the investigation? And who made the allegation?” he asked.
“I don’t have any information about who made the allegations. All I know is that the suggestion is that the doctor has been using an illegal enhancement compound—” There was the sound of Jones turning pages as though he was consulting notes. “A designer, non-FDA-approved drug called Anthrosyne. It appears that, instead of merely halting memory loss, Dr. Matthews has been attempting to boost some of her participants memories in order to gain recognition for her work.”
“Can you expand on that?”
“Well, uh... the allegation is that, if Dr. Matthews successfully boosted the memories of her subjects, she would gain considerable attention among her peers. But, of course, she would have been playing with people’s lives for her own gain.”
Abigail gasped and shook her head but when she tried to speak no sound emerged. Worried for her well-being, Griffin quickly ended his call with the caseworker and went to crouch in front of her.
“Are you okay?”
“It isn’t true.” She clutched his hand. “There must be some mistake. I’m working on a research project called Mem10, which aims to halt memory loss in Alzheimer’s subjects. I’ve never even heard of Anthrosyne until just now.”
“We’ll find out what’s going on.” If this was an act, it was the best he’d ever seen. “But right now, you have something more important that needs your attention.”
As he finished speaking, Maya, who had been starting to stir, sat up straight. Hurling her teddy bear to the floor, she gave them an accusing glare and, opening her mouth wide, let out a wail.
Blowing her nose on one of the tissues she still had clutched in her hand, Abigail nodded. “You’re right. She comes first. She always will.”
Copyright © 2020 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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ISBN-13: 9781488064180
Serial Escape
Copyright © 2020 by Melinda A. Di Lorenzo
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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