Forsaken (The Found Book 2) (2 page)

“Then please give me back my keys.” Annie held out her hand. The whole day was surreal. It was a month before she was due to deliver. Her thesis was a week away from being done, and it felt like her life was over. That kind of thinking was unacceptable. She needed to take control. She had her daughter to consider.

“Well, Miss Newman, you can drive. But the roads from here to Shiprock are icy. Are your tires studded? We just wanted you to be safe.”

Damn, he made sense.

“Annie, you need to call her Annie, Rafe. She’s our daughter now.” Wanda said as she came up and wrapped her arm around Annie’s shoulder.

“No, I’m not, what are you talking about?”

“Don’t panic, we’re not kidnapping you, this is totally your decision. But know from this day forward we consider you our daughter. We would have whether you were carrying our granddaughter or not. We don’t understand the choices our son has made, but he has much love for you, and therefore we have much love for you. You are part of our clan, our family, and our hearts.” She studied their faces and read the truth in what she said. For the second time that day Annie started crying.

“Miss Newman, I mean Annie, please don’t cry.”

“Hush Rafe, these are good tears. She knows she finally has a home.” Wanda pulled her into the warmest hug she could remember.

Annie rode in the Natani’s car to Shiprock. When they got to their modest adobe home, the moving truck wasn’t there. Instead an older woman was standing in the doorway, looking very elegant in a long caftan and boots.

“Mom. What are you doing here?” Rafe called out.

“A good question, since my son didn’t see fit to tell me he was bringing home my granddaughter and great-granddaughter.” The woman ignored her son and hugged her daughter-in-law before standing in front of Annie.

“Welcome Annie Newman. My name is Shilah Natani. I am your grandmother.” For the second time Annie was engulfed in a pair of loving female arms. This time Nell kicked out, surprising her and the older woman. Shilah broke away, and rested her hand on Annie’s belly. “And you little one, welcome. What is your name?”

“Her name is Nell.” Annie smiled, loving the fact Shilah treated Nell as an actual person, because in her eyes, Nell was a person, she just hadn’t come out to meet everyone yet.

“Welcome Nell, I am your great-grandmother.” Annie felt her baby kick in obvious excitement. It was like when she ate a piece of chocolate, or the few times she had gotten lost in a daydream about Seth. Nell was extremely sensitive, just like her Daddy. Tears formed for the third time but she willed them away. She was
not
going to ruin the joy her daughter was feeling at that moment.

“Granddaughter, it is going to be all right. This too shall pass.”

Annie looked into the eyes of a woman who though not related to Seth by blood, really seemed to be his grandmother. Maybe there actually was hope.

“There is reason to hope. Trust me.”

Nell kicked again against this woman’s hand, as if she too was telling her to believe. Annie’s tears dried up.

“You are right. I am blessed.”

“You don’t believe it yet, but you will. You are strong my granddaughter. We don’t understand everything, but you need to know my grandson loves you.”

“I can’t Grandmother. I can’t hold onto that, it will break me. But I can believe in all of you. I can believe in Nell, and I can believe in myself.”

“That’s enough for now.” Shilah Natani pulled her towards the house, and they sat down while Wanda made hot chocolate. Again Annie felt Nell’s pleasure.

“I wonder where the moving truck is, I need to call them,” Rafe said as he pulled out his cell phone.

“It’s at my house,” Shilah stated. “The only room here, is Seth’s old room. Annie wouldn’t want to stay in it. It’s best she stays at my house.”

“Mom.”

“Shilah…” Wanda started.

“Annie, what do you think of that idea?” the older lady asked as she covered Annie’s hand with hers. Why was she so drawn to her? She turned her hand over and grasped it, like she would a lifeline.

“I would love to stay with you Mrs. Natani.”

“Please call me Grandmother, or Shilah whatever you are comfortable with.”

Annie thought it over. Her mother had abandoned her when she was six. She had never had a grandmother. Again, looking into this woman’s eyes was like looking into a part of Seth. Even though he had abandoned her as well, it was like a part of him was still with her.

“Grandmother. I want to call you Grandmother.” Nell kicked in agreement, and Annie gave a wan smile, the first smile since reading the awful letter.

“You’ll do Annie Newman.”

****

Hearing Nell cry, Annie, folded the repaired letter back up, and placed it back into the book of poems that Seth had given her. She would have thought the pain would be less after all this time, but it still seemed to hit her just as hard. But something had changed, it was almost as if the paper, the ink, the very handwriting itself were imbued with something that allowed her a connection with Seth, something that allowed her to feel his heartbreak as well.

Chapter Two

Seth looked around the conference room, his stomach churned as his level of disgust and hatred grew. He’d been undercover for almost two years now and married for almost a year to a woman who he despised. Every day his soul died a little more, but he managed to console himself with the fact he was making a difference. He was stopping drugs and guns from making their way into the United States. He was almost finished, only one or two months away from bringing down his wife’s father and the Labado Organization. One or two months and he would be free. And now this.

“Beautiful aren’t they?” Labado asked as he leaned in next to him. They sat next to one another in the plush leather seats of the executive conference room. They were watching a stylized PowerPoint presentation given by Labado’s executive assistant, Leslie Gordon. Leslie had been with him since the start of his business and she was his right hand.

“This is Dawn, she will be celebrating her nineteenth birthday next month. She was acquired two weeks ago in Alabama.” Seth looked at the beautiful Hispanic girl on the screen, she had obviously been threatened in order to come up with such a horrific smile.

“This next one is a favorite of mine. I don’t think I’m going to auction her off,” Labado whispered.

“This is Tamara, she just turned twenty-one and she is another one who responded to our ad for an overseas modelling job.”

“Just look at her Carson, she’s gorgeous.” Between the man’s foul breath and the presentation, Seth was going to throw up all over the mahogany tabletop. Finally the lights went up and everyone clapped. Seth forced himself to do the same. He schooled his features to mimic those of the other men in the room. Lust and avarice. It’s what he did, it’s what he had always done. He could blend in, people always thought he was on their side, their friend, their buddy.

****

He remembered asking his parents about his ability to blend in when he was nine years old. He had grown up in Shiprock, New Mexico the adopted son of Navajo parents. He went to a normal public school. There were jocks, geeks, kids who did drugs, Hispanic kids, white kids, and Native American kids. Somehow, no matter the clique, Seth Natani was welcomed with open arms. He blended.

“It has something to do with you being
found
,” his grandmother finally told him. They were out in the desert having a picnic, sitting on the hood of her old station wagon, watching the sun set. This is where they always came, and was where they first met.

“Grandmother, does it ever bother you I’m not your real grandson?” Seth remembered watching his grandmother and liking the way she really stopped to consider his question.

“Seth, in some ways I like it even better, and it makes me feel bad. But it’s the truth. I feel like you
chose
us. I feel blessed that you
found
us.” Seth had giggled at her cleverness at the use of the word found. The
found
children were a group of children who had appeared the same day in different parts of the world, naked, with no knowledge of their past. Seth was lucky, his arrival didn’t garner any publicity.

Other
found
children were not nearly as lucky, and they were targets of different fanatical hate groups. Seth knew because of his connections in the DEA. Only his adopted mother, father, grandmother and Annie knew he was
found
.

“I thought being
found
meant I could learn languages,” young Seth had said to his grandmother.

“It’s true, it is an ability you and the others share. You hear a language and you immediately learn it. It is an amazing skill, a gift. Like the boy Michael Lonehawk who can ride any horse. Perhaps you have another gift Seth, perhaps you have the gift to blend in. Perhaps you are like a chameleon, huh?

“But it makes me false, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it mean I’m a liar?”

“Have you lied?”

“No! I’ve done nothing, the other kids just think I’m like them.”

“Then you
are
a chameleon. This is not a bad thing. It is your nature. It is another skill to be used, like your skill with languages.”

****

Use it he did. Now deep undercover, doing what he thought was the right thing, he realized he had as much chance as stemming the flow of a river as stopping these men. They might stop one of their revenue streams but they would just find another, more sickening one.

“Carson, are you listening to me?”

“Sorry Thiago, I was off in my own little world.”

“I bet you were,” the other man leered. “I was asking you which one appealed to you, since everyone knows your lovely bride doesn’t.”

“I hear you Thiago,” Tomas Benitez roared from across the table. “You offer Carson no one. He has my Portia and she is woman enough for any man. I demand a grandson. You no good motherfucker, you better do your duty by my daughter or I will...I will…have you killed.” The old man was now the color of eggplant. Seth relaxed, he was much more comfortable having this argument than he was being offered a sex slave.

“How can I be a motherfucker, if I am supposed to be fucking your daughter?” Seth asked in a reasonable tone of voice.

“Don’t be smart with me you asshole. I saw how you treated my baby the other night. She was so vulnerable, and you treated her like a whore. I should have you taken care of.”

“Then how are you going to have a grandchild old man? You know I’m the only man she is willing to spread her legs for.” At least he had been. Portia Benitez became fixated on him a year and a half ago. In the beginning he’d used it, thinking it was a perfect way into the inner circle. He hadn’t realized what a psychotic bitch she was. Now he wasn’t quite sure what she was capable of, and it worried him.

“Shut your mouth, don’t say such disgusting things about my daughter. She is a princess and should be treated with respect.” Seth wanted to say more, he wanted to see if he could push the old man into having a stroke. But even with his ability to always remain friends with people he might end up pushing his father-in-law to his limits.

Thiago Labado must have thought the same thing, because he stepped in. “Tomas,” he soothed, “of course I would not think to provide Carson with a woman when he has your lovely daughter waiting for him at home.” Seth watched as his father-in-law calmed down and relaxed into his leather executive chair. All of the others in the room also relaxed. Nobody liked it when the three most powerful men in the organization were arguing, ultimately it could eventually trickle down and be bad for their health.

Ms. Gordon stepped in. “I have arranged for refreshments in the connecting room, as well as a surprise, gentleman. I think you will be pleased.” Seth repressed a shudder. Leslie Gordon was five foot eight, and some would say beautiful. She had been plucked, tucked and enhanced to the nth degree, making the most of what little God had given her. Even her voice was a well-modulated fake. Seth’s ear, picked up the twang of Kentucky erased to sound like a well to do East Coast person. Everything about her grated on him.

“I see you staring at Leslie. Perhaps that’s where you heart lies,” Thiago whispered as they moved to the adjoining reception room. “She’s beautiful and smart. After dealing with Portia, I could understand her appeal. Did you know this whole new venture was her idea? She was the one who came up with the idea of luring girls with the overseas modeling contracts. It’s brilliant. Nobody raises a red flag when the girls are gone for months. By then it’s far too late.”

Seth prayed for an escape to this galling conversation, but he hadn’t anticipated something worse.

“Gentlemen, I have provided many hors d'oeuvres and champagne for your enjoyment. But the finest treat is the caviar I had flown in today, and such a delicacy needed to be displayed in a special manner.”

A white-coated waiter wheeled in a table with a young naked woman smeared with the caviar. Beside her were wooden knives and crackers. Leslie went first, and scraped some of the spread from the girl’s areola, causing her to wince and whimper.

“Beautiful Darcy. No more than that. If you scream tonight, if I hear more than a moan or a whimper, you will be whipped again. Do you want that?” The girl shook her head, the blonde hair catching the light. Leslie caressed her cheek, and bent down and kissed her lips.

“If you’re very good, you will spend the night with me.” Leslie turned to the men in the room. “Gentlemen, help yourselves.” Seth watched as tears leaked out of the sides of Darcy’s eyes. He wanted to cry as well.

Chapter Three

The idea someone might want to kidnap, or worse, hurt or kill her daughter was unbelievable to Annie. But that was her new reality. They had been in hiding for over five months now because Nell was Seth’s daughter, and Seth was one of the
found
. At first, when Seth had explained it to her, Annie hadn’t understood what it meant, so she had investigated on the internet.