AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Molly’s gaze zeroed in on a bowl of wrapped mints on the counter. She reached for one and held it up so he could see. “Like this?”
“Yes. They made my tongue burn.” He gripped Molly’s wrist. “Why was I here? I don’t understand.”
30
The revelation that Elias had been to The Big Wheel Inn changed everything. He’d been told all his life that he’d never left Firelight Ridge. But clearly, he had.
Upstairs in one of the rooms they’d booked, Sam stood guard at the window while Molly gently told Elias about Ani’s suspicions.
“You mean I’m not a Chilkoot?”
“No no, that’s your name, and they’re your family. But you might have had another family before them.”
“The dreams. They’re real. Those other people.”
She nodded.
“Did the Chilkoots take me away from them? Is that why I was scared?”
“Maybe, but we don’t know anything for sure. There could be a perfectly innocent explanation. Maybe you’re part of another branch of the family, and they wanted you to live in Alaska and grow up with the Chilkoots. It doesn’t mean that something bad happened. You understand?”
Sam wished he knew a way to shield Elias from the pain and confusion he was experiencing. But this was his life. In the end, the truth was always better.
“Where’s my other family?”
Sam stepped forward. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll reach out to a man who might be able to help figure that out. But I won’t call him unless you say yes.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s an FBI agent. That’s the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
It took a while to calm Elias down from that bombshell.
“They’re out to get us! They hate us,” he kept saying.
Sam patiently explained that the agent’s job was to investigate criminals, and they had to follow certain laws, and that Agent Bradley would consider it his job to protect Elias, not hurt him.
“He has access to a lot of information. We call them databases.”
Molly added, “We’ll both be with you the whole time. I’m a lawyer, did you know that? I’ll make sure that he follows all the laws he’s supposed to. I’ll be like your guard dog.”
After a time, Elias decided that his desire for answers outweighed his fear of outsiders. “He can come, if Molly is there.”
Sam could understand that request. Molly had a confident and capable aura about her that anyone would find comforting.
And, in his case, exceptionally sexy.
Agent Bradley arrived about an hour later. Sam had never met him in person before. He was older than he’d expected, somewhere in his sixties. He’d heard through the grapevine that Bradley had requested the Blackbear posting because he liked fishing.
He gave both Molly and Sam a cursory nod and turned his attention to Elias. Sam knew he must be salivating at the chance to interrogate an actual member of the Chilkoot family.
“Molly is a lawyer who works with kids. She’s going to be acting in loco parentis,” Sam told the agent, before he launched into any kind of interview.
“Not in an official capacity,” Molly said quickly. “I’m not a member of the Alaska Bar, at least not yet.”
Sam’s eyebrows lifted. Was she contemplating becoming one? Interesting.
“Is that really necessary?” Agent Bradley asked. “Elias isn’t in any kind of trouble.”
