Page 4 of One Cry Too Loud (Coastal Crime Unit #9)

I looked at the woman, at her fidgeting hands, at the way her foot tapped nervously against the floor of the pottery studio, and at the expression on her face, so open and vulnerable.

She was telling the truth. How could that be, though?

I knew Holly. She didn’t have a child. She didn’t have a daughter.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, narrowing my eyes and shaking my head. “You don’t have a-”

“I do,” she cut me off, nodding and looking at the floor of the studio. “I did. What I mean is, she’s mine biologically.” She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “I-I gave her away.”

“How? When?” I asked, remembering what VanPelt had just told me. “Cindy Masters is five years old. You couldn’t have had her in the year and half I can’t remember. So,-”

“I lied to you before,” she said, shuffling a bit. “About my past. I mean, I didn’t lie to you directly, but I did by withholding. I suppose you could call it a lie of omission.”

I saw the hurt in her eyes, the absolute hurricane of emotion that was brewing across her face.

She was about to crack, to burst open like a dam and let whatever all of this was come spilling out of her like so much water.

I had seen that happen before, though. I knew that, when a person burst, it could be hard for them to put themselves back together.

I couldn’t let that happen to someone like Holly. She deserved so much more than that.

“Hey,” I said softly, walking over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder, and giving her what I hoped was a steadying stare. “This is going to be okay. Whatever is going on, whatever is happening or has happened in the past, it’s all going to be alright. I promise you, Holly.”

She looked over at VanPelt with tears in her eyes. “I told you he was the right one.”

VanPelt nodded. “Perhaps you should tell him the rest then.”

“Wait,” I said, swallowing hard as I looked from one of them to the other.

“Before you do that, I need to say something.” I squeezed her shoulder.

“You said that you lied to me by omission. It’s important that you know that you didn’t.

That’s not what happened. You don’t owe me or anyone else an explanation for what happened in your past. It’s yours.

Whatever you did or didn’t do is yours to discuss or not as you see fit.

You didn’t lie to me, Holly. You don’t need to feel like you did. ”

“Thank you for that,” she said, brushing an errant tear from her cheek.

“And if you don’t want to tell me everything now, that’s okay too,” I said.

“I have to,” she shook her head. “You need to know everything so that you can save that little girl. So that you can bring her back to her mother.”She put her hand on mine and let it rest there. “More than that, though, I trust you Jack. I trust you with everything.”

“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Then tell me what you think I need to know.”

She stepped back and ran a hand through her light hair.

The bracelets lining her right arms shook and clinked together with the movement.

“You know I had a difficult childhood back in England. You know I had some rebellious inclinations. You know my sister died. Maybe I had those rebellious inclinations because my sister died. I don’t know.

In any event, you remember what happened. ”

“You hacked into the database of the NSA and got thrown into prison for it,” I said, recounting the story she’d told me not long after we’d met. “Eighteen months later, Kat offered you a spot on the team as a way of commuting your sentence.”

She smiled at me, just a little. “Eighteen months. That’s the same amount of time you were gone too, Jack.”

“I guess it is,” I answered. “We have that in common then. Don’t we?”

“I deserved mine,” she said softly.

“You were a kid. You made a mistake,” I answered.

“I wasn’t a kid,” she said. “I was old enough to know better, old enough to be tried and convicted.”

“You were going through a lot,” I contested.

“I know what I did was wrong. I know I deserved to go to jail for it. You don’t have to make excuses for me, Jack.” She sighed. “Especially without knowing the rest of it.”

“The rest of it?” I asked.

“When I spoke to you about my past, I made it seem like what I did with the NSA database was a one off, like it was lark or something,” she said.

“You told me that you liked pushing the envelope,” I said.

“I did,” she replied. “But I wasn’t the only one, and the other person involved enjoyed that a lot more than me. In fact, you could say that Joseph always wanted to destroy the envelope entirely.”

“Who is Joseph?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest.

“He was my boyfriend,” Holly said. “My first love actually. You know how those are.”

Kat’s face flashed before my eyes for just a moment. “I do,” I answered.

“We met in an online chatroom for people with our specific skill sets,” she said.

“Hackers?” I asked.

“We were aspiring hackers back then,” she said, almost wistfully.

“Joe was much further along than I was. He taught me a lot, and when I found out that he lived just outside of Dorset, just a little over three leagues away, we started meeting up in person.” She looked down at the floor again.

“He taught me a lot in those days. We got closer, and then we got closer. He opened my eyes up to a lot of things, a lot of things he thought were wrong with the world. He said that, if we got good enough at what we did, we could help change those things. We could make the world a better place.”

“So, you and this Joe person started hacking into things?” I asked.

“More or less,” she said. “We became the cyber version of Fred and Ethel.”

“From I Love Lucy?” I asked, arching my eyebrows.

“From Eastbourne,” she said. “They were criminals. They were basically the English Bonnie and Clyde."

“Oh, Bonnie and Clyde," I muttered. “You should have just said that.”

“We hone our skills,” she said. “We thought we were ready. I thought I was ready. So did Joe. So, when it came time to try our skills at the NSA, Joe decided it was a good idea for me to try my hand at it.”

“And when it went to hell, he left you hanging out to dry,” I said. “He sounds like a peach of a guy.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” she sighed.

“Anyway, the trial was quick and the sentencing almost just as fast. By the time I was thrown in jail, I knew I was pregnant. I knew it was Joe’s baby.

It-It couldn’t have been anyone else’s.” Another tear rolled down her cheek.

“I gave birth to the world’s most perfect baby girl in a jail.

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I had to give her up.

I was locked away in a strange country, my parents didn’t speak to me, and I didn’t know anyone here who wasn’t also serving time.

” She closed her eyes and took a moment.

“I saw her for maybe ten minutes in total. Then they brought me the paperwork. They allowed me to sign it, and that was it. It was done. I was simply a prisoner again, not pregnant, not a mother, not anything.”

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” I said gently.

“I’m not,” she said. Not really. My daughter has had a good life so far, and if me suffering in this way, making these mistakes, is what it took to bring her into the world, then I don’t regret that and I’m not sorry for it.

” She shook her head. “But we have to do something about this, Jack. We have to get her back.”

“We will,” I said. “I’m just a little confused. That’s all.”

“About what?” VanPelt asked.

“You didn’t want Kat here, which leads me to believe that she doesn’t know about your daughter,” I said. “But how could that be? She handpicked you from prison. She researched you. Birth records are public things. She’d have known about your child.”

“Not this time,” Holly said. “It was sealed by the CIA.”

“The CIA?” I balked. ‘Why would they-”

“After my imprisonment, Joe evolved,” she said. “He changed.”

“Changed how?” I asked.

“Have you ever heard of Nefarious?” She asked, her voice shaking.

“Nefarious?” I said as my eyes went wide. “You mean-”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve never been able to prove it, but I and the US government firmly believe that my first love and the father of my daughter is also the most cutthroat and terrifying cyber terrorist the world has ever known.”