Thousands (Dollar 4)

My throat closed up.

My eyes blurred.

My heart galloped.

What is it?

Tell me!

She patted the file. “Do you know anything about your mother? Since you last saw her the night of her charity gala?”

I shook my head, unable to unglue my eyes from that tiny grainy photograph.

Mum…

Carlyn’s shoulders slouched a little, condolences already filling her gaze.

I stiffened.

I couldn’t hold back the question. “Is…is she dead?” Numbness followed on the syllable of that awful, awful question, already protecting me from the answer.

If she was dead, I was truly alone. If she was dead…how did that make me feel? I loved her because she was my mother. But I didn’t necessarily like her. But at the same time, she represented my future, my past, and my one chance at finding somewhere safe to recover without relying on Elder or his magical floating palace called the Phantom.

Carlyn gave me half a smile. “No, she’s not dead.”

My lungs stopped working. Wasn’t that good news? Why did she sit there almost afraid to tell me the rest? When neither of us spoke, she murmured, “Something…happened when you were taken.”

My mind raced ahead, trying to figure out what she was about to say.

What happened? What could my mother have been capable of—

A blizzard howled down my spine.

I sucked in a harsh breath.

No.

It’s not possible.

All this time, I’d hoped my snatching was an opportunist deviant who spied a naïve little girl and saw dollar signs instead of a human life. But what if my mother—in all her studies and work with paedophiles and criminals—had somehow embraced the darker part of her psyche?

What if she’d sold me as an experiment?

What if she’d given me up to a monster to study my survival from afar?

The idea was preposterous and far too farfetched, but it didn’t stop the concept from morphing into a terrible nightmare of her using me as a guinea pig on how a white girl with a middle-class upbringing could survive rape and torture and mind games.

How much I could endure before I broke…

“…I’m so sorry, Tasmin.”

I looked up, shocked to find Carlyn had spoken—had delivered the truth—and I hadn’t paid attention. Fear that she wouldn’t repeat the news had me throwing myself forward, grabbing her hands with mine. “What did you say?”

She frowned at where I touched her but didn’t reprimand. “I said I’m sorry that you’ll be alone. That your family apartment was sold, your furniture auctioned off, and your childhood dismantled because of what your mother did.”

The shakes were back a thousand times worse. “And what did my mother do?”

She blanched a little before pushing the paperwork toward me. “See for yourself.” She lowered her voice. “A crime is a crime, and I will never be sympathetic to those paying for what they’ve done, but the woman in me understands why your mother did what she did. After meeting you, I can see why.”

See why what?

My fingers scrambled at the paper, tugging it close and smoothing out the curled-up corners. My mother’s photo was over-exposed and pixelated, but one proper look showed me everything I needed to.

It was a mug shot.

The board in front of her stated the date of her arrest, her height, weight, and date of birth.

Her face, so similar to mine with its button nose, high cheekbones, and wide eyes, was harsh and almost proud. She didn’t stare into the camera as a criminal—hunched with remorse and pissed at what her future held.

Hell, no.

She stared victorious and vindictive as if daring the photographer to take away her accomplishments.

Why was she arrested?

What did she do?

In no universe could I understand my mother throwing away her career. She worked in the prisons out of sick professional curiosity on what made rapists and murderers tick, but she always returned home at night. She’d go stir-crazy locked up with the same people she studied like rats in an experiment.

My eyes reluctantly left her photo, my fingers drifting to her face as if needing to keep contact even while I read the brief report.

Prisoner: 890776E

Name: Sonya Blythe

Summary of crime as follows:

Sonya Blythe filed a report on the 3rd of November 2014 stating her daughter, Tasmin Blythe, had been kidnapped from her popular charity ball held at the Baglioni Hotel near the suburb of Pimlico, London. An investigation was on-going but to no success. After the initial interviewing of all the guests at the charity ball, no new leads were forthcoming, and the case stalled.

I glanced at Carlyn. It wasn’t news to her that I was that girl. That my slave name was Pimlico after where I’d been stolen and that the missing person file on me could be closed thanks to my reappearance.

She knew that because she’d already uncovered the file on my disappearance. It was yet another reason she was on my side instead of persecuting me for stealing. She knew I was telling the truth.