Chapter 20
I always put my music on shuffle, then get annoyed when it doesn’t play the song I want.
— Maven to Auden
MAVEN
“ Let me get this straight,” I said again as my best friend stared at me with wide, shocked eyes. “ My DNA was listed in the National Database for assumed abducted children.”
She nodded.
“ And my photo lines up with one that they predicted I would look like as an adult,” I continued.
Athena nodded again.
“ And I have parents out there somewhere?” I continued.
“ Well , not parents,” she said. “ You have a grandmother who’s almost a hundred years old. Your parents died about a year ago in a car crash in Chile while they were on vacation. You have several siblings, though.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“ I do?” I squeaked.
“ Let’s go back to the part where you told us you searched her DNA ,” Auden suggested. “ How did you confirm?”
“ I run a lab,” she stated. “ I know my work is correct. I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that it’s correct. But just to be sure, I went ahead and ran another sample just to check. It’s the same.”
She handed over a set of papers that showed the genetic match.
“ And here’s the police report,” she said. “ It says she went missing at the age of three from Gatlinburg , Tennessee .”
“ My sister is there right now,” I mused. “ Dorsey is there visiting friends.”
That was a weird coincidence, wasn’t it?
“ When this match popped,” she said, “the authorities there were notified. I …” She looked at me, then at Auden . “ I don’t know how this will work. If the authorities there are notified, won’t they notify the authorities here since this is where she’s listed as living now? And if they call DPD , won’t they alert her father?”
My father.
My father had abducted me?
What the fuck?
Then my stepmother’s words right before she’d lost it came back to me. The ones she’d said when I’d threatened to go to the media about what my father was doing to me.
And then you just had to move out of the house, then open a business that’s become so public just to spite your father’s rules.
At the time, they’d sounded so weird.
But now…
I should’ve never married your father. This is too much.
I looked over to Auden . “ What kind of in do you have with your current police department?”
“ The kind of in that has me starting on Monday .” He shook his head. “ Get dressed. Pack a charger. We’re all going to Sunnyvale PD . I have to give my dad a call.”
I looked at Athena .
She nodded, and I got up on numb legs and headed to the bedroom and caught up my charger from beside his bed. I then grabbed my sweatshirt and headed back into the living room where I slipped my feet into my sandals.
Athena and Auden met me at the door. Auden was on the phone, but he gestured for me to head outside.
I did, and we were out the door moments later.
When we arrived at the police station in Sunnyvale , my stomach was in knots.
Germaine met us at the door, and as a group we headed inside.
We were led straight to the captain’s office.
He gestured for us to take a seat, but I offered him my hand. “ My name is Maven .”
He was a tall black man with a short-cropped beard.
He had eyes the color of toffee and reminded me of someone I couldn’t quite place.
“ Wow , you look exactly like Shemar Moore off of SWAT ,” Athena said.
That was why he looked so familiar.
SWAT was one of Athena’s favorite shows.
“ I get that a lot,” he said. “ My name is Brooks Kurosaka .”
“ Chief Kurosaka ,” Auden held out his hand for him to shake. “ We have a dilemma, and I’m not quite sure what to do with it.”
We spent the next fifteen minutes explaining everything.
Well , Athena and Auden explained. I sat there numbly and listened to them speak.
Abducted .
I’d been abducted.
“ Let me see what I can find,” Brooks said.
Five minutes later he was leaning back in his chair, eyes on the screen.
“ Marina Semyonov ,” he said. “ Close to Maven .”
My brows rose as a niggle of memory struck me for a half a breath before it slithered away.
“ Age three. Abducted from Gatlinburg , Tennessee . Parents , Josey and Wayne Semyonov . Grandmother , Jessa . Siblings — Nastya , Shasha , Milena , and Dima . Went missing while on a family vacation in Gatlinburg ,” he read, then his head turned toward me, then back to the screen. “ Yeah , no denying who you belong to.”
He twisted the computer screen until I could see, and my breath caught.
Not only did I look just like my ‘mom’ but I looked like I could be twins with Nastya and Milena . Though they were quite a few years older than me.
“ Was I the baby?” I wondered.
“ Yes ,” he continued to read. “ By about five years.”
Wow .
That sucked.
“ How do we make this official?” Athena asked. “ I know that we’re going to have to do another DNA test and all; they’re not going to trust mine.”
Brooks reached his arm up in the air and rubbed the back of his neck.
“ DNA test needs to be done ASAP ,” he said. “ Through official channels.” He looked at Auden then. Auden , who I just realized, had a hold of my hand and was squeezing it tightly. “ We can’t go accusing the chief of the Dallas Police Department of kidnapping without having proof.”
I glanced toward Auden , who let up on the squeeze of my hand. “ What’s going to happen there?”
“ What’s going to happen is he’s not going to come anywhere near you,” he said. “ You’ll keep staying with me. We’ll get the DNA test done ASAP . And we take it one step at a time.”
I swallowed my nerves and my questions.
They didn’t have the answers I sought, and the only people who did couldn’t be informed yet.
“ Okay ,” I breathed. “ Okay .”
“ So , I’m assuming by this most unfortunate news that you’re going to need some time off before you start?” Chief Brooks asked, staring at Auden .
I answered for Auden .
“ Absolutely not. One , my ‘father’ doesn’t know where I’m at. Not officially. Two , I have a bakery to open. Three , we’re not putting our lives on hold because of this.”
Athena looked at me then. “ But don’t you want to wait to put in a new business? I mean, what if you want to go home?”
I was already shaking my head, worried that Athena wasn’t going to like the answer.
“ Home is here, Attie ,” I told her. “ Home is where you are.” I looked over to where Auden was. “ Home is where Auden is, too.”
Auden closed his eyes at those words, and it was then that I realized maybe he was somewhat worried about what I was going to do with this new information.
“ Oh ,” Athena looked down.
I reached for her hand with my free one and said, “ When you find your sister, and she makes the same decision, we’ll work through that together.”
Athena looked at me with hope in her eyes. “ You promise?”
“ I promise.”