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“My sperm donor is in jail,” Mav told Reese.
She pulled him to the couch, sitting close enough their thighs could have been glued together. Pappy sat on the edge of his chair while Cash stood behind the couch with one hand on Reese’s shoulder and one on Mav’s.
“Start at the beginning,” Reese told him. “Tell me everything.”
“Pappy was fixing up Cash’s nose when I came down to get something to eat. I told him not to worry. I would ride the bus. Nothing seemed out of the norm on the bus until I got off at school. Mr. Woodson was waiting for me. I knew I didn’t do anything wrong, but he wanted me in his office. I was pissed, but I didn’t say anything. I just followed him.”
“Are you telling me that your principal, Mr. Woodson, knew you were at the school? You had a meeting with him in his office?” Officer Franks interrupted.
“Yes,” Mav answered. “When we got to his office, Dad was in there. He signed some papers and handed Mr. Woodson an envelope full of money. It was a lot of money.”
Franks fired off some texts on his phone.
“Oh lord, that asshat sighed you out of school, and the principal took the money to look the other way,” Reese fumed.
“They wouldn’t let me call you,” Mav continued. “I knew it wasn’t right, but they told me to shut up and go along with it if I knew what was good for me.”
“Oh, Mav,” Reese grabbed his hand, squeezing it in hers, waiting for him to tell them more.
“He had a hold of my arm dragging me out the front door. He forced me into his car and then drove off. He was going to drive us back to North Carolina, where grandpa was waiting for us.”
“The first time he stopped for gas, I made a run for it. It was only a couple of hours away from here, I think. I don’t know where we were. I was running, and he drove up behind me. He opened the door of the car enough to knock me over. I rolled down the road a little bit, but before I could get back up, Dad was there. He had a gun pointed right at me. He tied my hands and feet, then put me in the trunk of the car.”
Reese sucked in a breath listening to Mav. She could see the bruises and scrapes lining his arms and a gash along his hairline. Reese knew he had more injuries under his clothes. She would look at those later. Right now, all she wanted to do was sit beside her son, soaking up his presence after the nightmare they went through.
“He stopped for the night at some cheap motel. Dad told the guy running the place I was a dangerous runaway. He was taking me back home to go back to juvey. The guy never said a word to anyone when I got out of the trunk. I thought all night about getting away, but my sperm donor pulled the bed in front of the door. He spent all night bitching about how dirty the place was. Like fifty bucks was going to get him an awesome room.”
“He hit me over the head with his gun the next morning because I wouldn’t get back in the trunk. He must have hit me pretty hard because it gets fuzzy. When I woke up, I was in the trunk, but my hands and feet weren’t tied.”
“I remembered that day at the garage,” Mav turned to Cash. “The little foreign car that had the taillight problem. You made me get in the trunk to take the light apart because I am smaller than you.”
“I remember,” Cash cleared his throat.
“I took the assembly apart from the back. It was just like the other one. The wires came right apart. I left the lights off for a while, thinking someone would pull us over. When they did, I would make a lot of noise, and someone would find me. We went for a long time, but nothing happened.”
“He stopped for gas. I banged on the trunk until he threatened to shoot me. I got scared because he didn’t seem too sane. I wouldn’t put it past him to pull the trigger,” Mav struggled.
“It’s okay, Mav,” Reese assured him, pulling him into her arms again. Rocking him like she had when he was little, Mav calmed.
The chimes of Franks’ phone went ignored by everyone but him.
“I tried everything I could think of to get the trunk to unlatch, but nothing worked. I went back to the lights. Putting the wires together and pulling them apart real fast, I got them to blink. I made them blink until I thought they were going to wear out.”
“Finally, I heard a siren. Someone pulled us over. When the car stopped, I waited until I could hear them talking, and I started beating on the trunk again. I yelled as loud as I could. I kept on kicking at anything I could, so they had to hear me. When the trunk popped open, the officer guy helped me out. The sperm donor was cuffed and sitting on the ground beside the road.” Mav shook his head in disgust, remembering. “He was more concerned about his thousand-dollar pants than he was about me being found in the trunk of his car.”
“The officer asked me a bunch of questions and took me back to their station. The FBI came. They asked the sperm donor a lot of questions. A doctor came to look at me.”
“I wanted to call you because I knew you would be worried, but they wouldn’t let me. They said grandpa was still out there, and they were looking for him. I waited at the station forever.”
“I am sure they had their reasons,” Reese patted his hand in reassurance when all she wanted to do was throttle the nearest agent for making her wait longer.
“I am not sure what happened, but some lady came. She yelled at the agents for keeping me there and not letting me call you. When she was done yelling, they hustled me into a car and brought me home.”
“I love you so much,” Reese whispered, trying not to cry again. “I am so sorry this happened to you.”
“That is one heck of a kid you have there,” Franks marveled, looking up from his phone. “Hell, a lot of adults couldn’t have gotten themselves out of that situation.”
“What happens now?” Reese asked.
