David took a seat in the chair at the end of the table, the coffee in his cup sloshing as his hands shook. “I’m sitting. What could possibly be any worse?”
Agent Gonzalez started to open a new folder but stopped. He folded his hands and looked up. “We received positive identification on the teen male this afternoon. In truth, we got it this morning, but I made them recheck. It didn’t make sense.”
David leaned forward with his forearms on the table. The hesitancy from the confident agent unnerved him. His nerves were tingling. “Out with it.”
“The boy in that grave has been positively identified as Jaxon Lathan, the son of Harold and Heather Lathan and the brother of Connor Lathan.”
Outside the window, a car drove down Main Street with its radio up loud. The bass notes rattled the window panes. David stared at the agent, disbelief numbing him. “That can’t be.”
“That’s why I requested an extra review. The DNA has confirmed it beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
David leaned back, the chair creaking under him. “But the kid… I looked at him myself. He looks just like Jaxon.”
Roxanne nodded. “I know. I saw him. He looks like an older version of Jaxon. But you said yourself he was different. We all commented on how different he was. We just chalked it up to the experience.”
“But his parents… and his brother… they…”
“Did the same thing you did.”
“What? Saw a boy who resembled their son and said it was him?”
Roxanne slowly shook her head. “Saw a boy who they were told was their son and then looked at him and agreed. The power of suggestion is strong, especially since they’ve been wanting it to be true for ten years. They saw the differences. Mentioned them. Just like we did. But they accepted them because they wanted to. It made their nightmare end.”
David hung his head. “And now I’ve got to restart their nightmare.”
“Their nightmare was not knowing. Now, they’ll know. But it’s going to be one helluva jolt.”
He slammed his fist down on the table. “We really do have Brian Rini all over again, don’t we? Some impostor wandered in and claimed he’s been held captive all these years.”
He pushed away from the table and marched over to the window. He imagined the agony of telling Heather and the confrontation with Jaxon or whoever he was. But the vision crumbled as he thought through the boy’s story. “But he’s not like Rini, is he? That guy deliberately lied, and his story fell apart because he didn’t have any real details to prove he was Timmothy Pitzen. He acted suspicious from the beginning, refusing fingerprinting and DNA. And he had no specific knowledge of where he had been held or how he got away.”
He turned to face them. “But Jaxon—this kid, whoever he is—was there. He had to have been there to give us such details. He led us to the house with his description. Has the damaged hands to prove he escaped by beating his way through a wooden door. None of us have any doubts he knew where the house was and what it looked like. He has the significant, deep wounds consistent with abuse. He was a victim. So why lie about who he is?”
Roxanne answered, “The profilers suggested two possibilities. One is simply that he wants to be Jaxon because wherever he came from is somewhere he doesn’t want to go back to. Remember, all of the victims were kidnapped when they were left alone at a very young age. Some of them came from homes like Heather’s, a working mom doing everything she can and being forced to leave her children alone because she doesn’t have another choice. But some of them also came from homes where the parents never cared and were even abusive, like Bethany’s. Maybe he listened to Jaxon’s stories and wanted to be him.”
“And he didn’t think we would figure it out?”
“If we didn’t have DNA science, we wouldn’t have figured it out. He fooled you, fooled his brother, fooled even his mom. And remember he probably went there when he was five or six or seven, the same as all of the others, so he would have no reason to understand how DNA works.”
David settled back into his chair. “You said two possibilities. One is he lied about being Jaxon to avoid going back where he came from. What’s the other possibility?”
“That’s the hard one. Maybe he genuinely doesn’t know where he came from. Maybe he was taken so young, he doesn’t have a memory of before. If so, he embraced the only memory he has… his best friend’s. Maybe he actually believes he’s Jaxon Lathan.”
“Lovely. So this poor kid is either from a place so bad he will do anything to avoid going back to it, or he’s from a place he has no memories of. Either way, it’s not good.” He drummed his fingers. “Please tell me we’re running his DNA.”
Roxanne nodded. “We’d set it aside to run all of the others. What was the point? But now it’s the top of the list. They’re working it as fast as they can.”
David cradled his head in his hands. “In the meantime, what do I do with the kid? I’ve got to tell Heather what we know.” He turned his focus to Gilman. “Track down the kid’s psychiatrist. I need her quick. And that kid’s gonna really need her.”