Forsaken Duty (Red Team #9)(70)
She lowered her gaze to the fleece pullover he wore. “If I hadn’t seen what happened to Addy, I wouldn’t believe any of this was possible.” She met his eyes. “I’m ready to talk to them.”
“I’ll let Kit know we’re ready.” Angel sent a text.
Wynn’s nerves tightened as they went into the living room. Selena was the first to join them, then the others came in. Max and Greer were the last, bringing the couple who said they were her parents. Wynn studied them, bombarded by so many thoughts simultaneously. The pain of losing them, the shock of moving in with Grams, sorrow that Grams had passed just weeks before seeing them again, worry about how they’d survived the Omnis, anger that they’d chosen their jobs over her. Fear that it might not be real. Everything. It all locked her up. She couldn’t speak. Didn’t reach for their hands to return their offered handshakes when introductions were made. Joyce and Nathan Ratcliff. They used her parents’ names; they looked exactly as they had in the photo of them she had…but they weren’t her parents.
They were talking to her, but the words slipped away. She tried to recall what their eyes looked like in her memories. But what they’d seemed like to an eleven-year-old was nothing like what they seemed to her as an adult. She saw sorrow and guilt in theirs. Was that acting? Had Jafaar picked random people to have cosmetic surgery so that they looked like the old pictures of her parents? Why? Why had they left her? Why had they come back?
She looked at Angel, afraid she wasn’t ready after all. He put his arm around her. “Why don’t we all sit down?” he suggested. “This isn’t something easily understood. I’m sure it’s overwhelming to everyone.”
Wynn and Angel sat on the sofa, across from the people posing as her parents. Angel kissed her temple and squeezed her hand, then whispered, “Breathe, baby. We’ll sort this out.”
“Start at the beginning,” Wynn ordered. She rubbed her thumb over the butterfly that Mr. Edwards had carved into her palm.
The couple exchanged glances, then Joyce focused on Wynn as she started their story. “Your father and I were doing groundbreaking work in the field of gene therapy using bio-nanotechnology. We presented our work at a conference and were approached by a venture capitalist that wanted to hire us. He had deep pockets. We were tempted by his offer. His financing could take our work light years beyond where it was.”
The man continued. “We didn’t take his offer, however. There was just something off about him. His company was new. The man himself, and the principals he listed, had no history in our field or any other scientific venture. Sometimes, if something’s too good to be true, it is. We sent him packing.”
“Or we thought we did,” the woman said. “When we turned him down, things got ugly. He gave us two choices. Go to work for him, and he would spare you and Grams. Or resist and he would kill you both and still take us.”
Wynn listened intently. All of it made sense with what she now knew of the Omni world, but that didn’t mean any of it was true. She refused to be duped simply because she desperately wanted their story to be true…wanted her parents back in her life…wanted the world to be not quite so evil.
“There were so many times we tried to leave,” the woman said. “Every one of them was met with renewed threats against you and Grams. They bought a house near you. Let us see you from a distance. We went to your high school graduation. We visited your college, saw you walking around campus. Went to that graduation ceremony, too. Never were we allowed to speak to you, though there were times we walked right past you. It was hell, but it was wonderful getting to at least keep tabs on you.”
“Thirteen years,” Wynn said. “That’s how long you were gone. Thirteen years. In all that time, you couldn’t have reached out?”
“We made sure Grams had money for you,” the man said.
“Did she know?” Wynn asked.
“I wonder about that. She was presented with the trust fund for your and her support shortly after our deaths,” he said.
“That fire in the lab that ‘killed’ you,” Wynn said, using air quotes, “killed a lot more than you. It destroyed careers and ended the reputation of the business you worked for.”
The woman nodded. “It would have taken many more lives had we not cooperated. The people who had us meant business.”
“And you couldn’t get word out to the cops or the FBI or someone that you were being held against your will?”
The woman sighed. She looked at the man. “We tried. Several times. Each time, something bad happened to you or Grams. Remember Grams’ car accident? Remember the flu that sent you to the hospital? Remember Grams’ stroke?”
Wynn shut her eyes, chilled by the near-death experiences these people knew about. Still, someone doing background research on her would have turned them up. Nothing in her life had been hidden.
“So you were responsible for Grams’ stroke?” Angel asked. Wynn was glad he did, because she couldn’t have voiced that question.
“Not directly. But indirectly, yes,” the woman said.
“Explain yourself,” Owen said.
“We heard there were fighters here who are taking a stand against the Omnis,” the woman said. “We thought we had a chance to get out if we could contact you.”