“Did she ask for more money again? Is she coming here? Did they let her out of jail?”

“No. Come sit down. We’ll explain everything.” She shook her head at Cam before he could speak and locked her eyes with Phillip’s as she guided Seth toward the table. He had more firsthand information, she decided. It was best that it come from him.

Where the hell was he supposed to start? Phillip dragged a hand through his hair. “Seth, do you know anything about your mother’s family?”

“No. She used to tell me stuff. One day she’d say how her parents were rich, really rolling in it, but they died and some slick lawyer stole all the money. Another day she’d say how she was an orphan and she’d run away from this foster home because the father tried to rape her. Or how her mother was this movie star who gave her up for adoption so she wouldn’t lose her career. She was always changing it.”

His gaze shifted around the room as he spoke, trying to read faces. “Who cares?” he demanded, ignoring the soft drink Grace set in front of him. “Who the hell cares, anyway? There wasn’t anybody or she’d’ve tapped them for money.”

“There is somebody, and it seems she did tap them for money off and on.” Phillip kept his voice quiet and calm, as a person would when soothing a frantic puppy. “We found out today that she has parents, and a sister.”

“I don’t have to go with them.” Alarm rang in his head as he surged out of his chair. “I don’t know them. I don’t have to go with them.”

“No, you don’t.” Phillip took Seth’s arm. “But you need to know about them.”

“I don’t want to.” His gaze flew to Cam’s, pleaded. “I don’t want to know. You said I could stay. You said nothing was going to change that.”

It made Cam sick to see that desperation, but he pointed to the chair. “You are staying. Nothing is going to change that. Sit down. You never solve anything by running.”

“Look around, Seth.” Ethan’s tone was soft, the voice of reason. “You’ve got five people here, standing with you.”

He wanted to believe it. He didn’t know how to explain that it was so much easier to believe in lies and threats than in promises. “What are they going to do? How did they find me?”

“Gloria called her sister a few weeks ago,” Phillip began when Seth sat again. “You don’t remember her sister?”

“I don’t remember anybody,” Seth muttered and hunched his shoulders.

“Well, it seems she spun a tale for the sister, told her that we’d stolen you from her.”

“She’s full of shit.”

“Seth.” Anna drilled him with a look that made him squirm.

“She conned the sister out of some money for a lawyer,” Phillip continued. “Said she was broke and desperate, that we’d threatened her. She needed the money to get you back.”