“She was furious,” Grace spoke up. “She called the house right after she got Anna’s letter. She threatened and demanded. She said she wanted money or she’d take Seth. I told her she was wrong.” Grace looked over, held Seth’s gaze. “He’s ours now.”

She’d sold her son, was all Sybill could think. It was just as Phillip had said. All of it was just as he’d said. “You have temporary guardianship.”

“It’ll be permanent shortly,” Phillip informed her. “We intend to see to that.”

Sybill laid the papers back on Anna’s desk. Inside she was cold, brutally cold, but she linked her fingers lightly on top of her purse and spoke evenly to Seth. “Did she hit you?”

“What the hell do you care?”

“Answer the question, Seth,” Phillip ordered. “Tell your aunt what life was like with her sister.”

“Okay, fine.” He bit the words off, but his sneer was wobbly around the edges. “Sure, she knocked me around when she felt like it. If I was lucky, she was too drunk or stoned for it to hurt much. I could usually get away, anyhow.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter in the least. “Sometimes she got me by surprise. Maybe she hadn’t been able to turn enough tricks to score. So she’d wake me up and pound on me a while. Or she’d cry all over me.”

She wanted to turn away from that image, as she’d turned away from the desperate strangers in the waiting area. Instead she kept her gaze steady on Seth’s face. “Why didn’t you tell anyone, find someone to help you?”

“Like who?” Was she stupid, Seth thought? “The cops? She told me what the cops would do. I’d end up in juvie and some guy would use me like some of her johns wanted to. They could do whatever they wanted once I was inside. As long as I was out, I could get away.”

“She lied to you,” Anna said softly while Sybill tried to find words, any words. “The police would have helped.”

“She knew?” Sybill managed. “About the men who tried to . . . touch you?”

“Sure, she thought it was funny. Hell, when she’s stoned, she thinks most everything is funny. It’s when she’s drunk that she gets mean.”

Could this monster the boy spoke of so casually be her sister? “How . . . Do you know why she decided to contact Professor Quinn?”

“No, I don’t know anything about it. She got wired up one day, started talking about hitting a gold mine. She took off for a few days.”

“She left you alone?” Why that should horrify her, after everything else she’d heard, Sybill couldn’t say.

“Hey, I can take care of myself. When she came back, she was flying. Said I was finally going to be of some use. She had some money—real money, because she went out and scored a lot of dope without hooking. She stayed stoned and happy for days. Then Ray came. He said I could come with him. At first I thought he was like the guys she brought home. But he wasn’t. I could tell. He looked sad and tired.”