“Let me get this straight,” Sam said, her mind whirling. “He basically blackmailed a fellow FBI agent and his wife into raising a kidnapped child—a child you both knew had been kidnapped—as your own. Is that right?”

“Yes,” she said, “and you have to believe me. Troy and I were horrified. He’d worked the Rollings case and had been heartbroken for them.”

“So why didn’t he return their child when he realized what Dustin had done?”

“Because he’d lose everything he’d worked so hard for if he did, and we’d both go to jail. We had three children to consider, and we chose to stay quiet even if it slowly killed us.”

“Did you know Troy knocked your son around every chance he got?”

“That’s not true! Who told you that?”

“Your son did.”

“Troy loved him! Keeping this secret nearly killed us. Troy developed ulcers that plagued him for the rest of his life. I had migraines, and when that picture came out and it looked just like Josh, Troy said he was going to come clean and tell the truth. Dustin said we couldn’t let that happen. That’s why he killed Troy. To keep the secret long enough to get out of town. Except I couldn’t leave my mother and my children...”

Sam slapped her hand on the table, making Courtney and John startle. “Screw you and your ulcers and your migraines! You took their child. Do you have any idea what you put those poor people through for thirty years while you were enjoying a life of prosperity and success?”

“Technically, my client didn’t take their child.”

Sam lacerated him with a look. “Screw you too. No deal.” Speaking directly to Courtney, she said, “You’ll be charged with accessory to kidnapping after the fact, and I hope you serve one day for every day that child spent in your family when he should’ve been with theirs.”

“I was honest with you!” Courtney cried. “You’d never have gotten all this from Dustin. I gave you the truth!”

“Too bad it was thirty years too late for the Rollings family—and for Taylor.” She walked out of the room and went straight to her office, slamming the door behind her. As she released the clip that held her hair up, she realized her hands were shaking. And the stomach she’d thought cured was looking to unload its meager contents.

Placing her hand over her mouth, she breathed through her nose until the nausea subsided, leaving her with a sick feeling that went bone deep. The men Avery had so revered were monsters, and Courtney was every bit as bad for keeping their secrets for so long.