Free Yesterday's Gone (Two Daughters Book 1) by Janice Kay Johnson Page A

social media sites until someone had said to a young woman, “Your picture is online.” He smiled and stepped aside, motioning Bailey to join him. “Meet Hope Lawson.”
    Again questions flew before she could open her mouth. Again he waited for quiet and said, “She’s prepared a statement.”
    Poised
had been a good word to use for her, Seth thought. Given her background, it was hard to understand where she’d come by so much strength and confidence. Confidence that hid a whole lot of damage and a mess of insecurities, he suspected, but the beautiful woman who gazed calmly at the roomful of people and cameras had one fine facade.
    “I do not remember the abduction itself,” she began. “I spent the next five years with a man I do remember. I presume he was the one to take me, although he might have acquired me from someone else. Eventually, he abandoned me in a motel room in Bakersfield, California.” Head high, she looked around. “By then, I no longer remembered my name or family. He had taught me to call him Daddy. Authorities were unable to locate him, but assumed he was my father. I was placed in the foster care system, where I was fortunate enough to have some fine people to help me heal.” She talked about graduating from high school and working a variety of jobs before deciding to get a college degree. “A part of me was afraid to walk into the sheriff’s department and say, ‘I think I’m Hope Lawson.’ I wasn’t at all sure I really was, and also...acknowledging it forces me to face a great deal from my past. I know you have questions, and I will answer some, but not all. I ask you to respect my right to privacy.”
    The questions flew. She did answer some. Seth answered others. Yes, he told them, Bailey had that day submitted a sample for a DNA test, but along with the obvious family resemblance and Bailey’s memory of her background, a birthmark had solidified their certainty that she was Hope. Karen did most of the talking for the Lawsons, but Eve told everyone there how thrilled she was to have Hope home.
    “After I came to live with the Lawsons, I felt incredibly lucky. But I was always conscious of a hole in our family. Hope was missing. Somewhere, I had a sister out there. Now—” she aimed a shy but warm smile at Hope “—she’s home.”
    Truth
, Seth thought,
but not all of it.
    Tears ran down Karen’s face. Kirk swiped some from his own cheeks. Cameras caught it all.
    At last the sheriff stepped up to the podium again and made a plea for everyone to respect the Lawsons’ need for privacy and space to move ahead with their lives. Trying for unobtrusive, Seth opened the door at the back of the stage and signaled for the family to fade back.
    The moment he’d closed the door, Karen burst into sobs. Looking helpless, Kirk put his arms around her. Eve hovered close, murmuring comforting words, while Bailey stood apart looking helpless and awkward.
    “I’m so happy!” Karen wailed, and Seth sort of understood. Twenty-three years’ worth of agony, despair, guilt and hope—yeah,
hope
—had all been released today to fly free.
    Whether she liked it or not, Bailey Smith now had a family, with all the complications that entailed.

CHAPTER FIVE
    “M OM TOLD ME you need a place to stay,” Eve said in a low voice her parents wouldn’t hear. “That Seth insists you move out of the hotel.”
    They had been ushered into a conference room in the public safety building to wait for the tumult to die down so they could all slip away.
    “He thinks some members of the press might be staying there,” Bailey agreed. “That they’re all going to try to get me by myself. I packed and checked out earlier.”
    “You can stay with me if you want.” Eve sounded offhanded, even abrupt. “I don’t have a spare bedroom, but I do have a pullout couch.”
    Bailey tilted her head, assessing the sincerity of this woman whom she’d barely met. Eve was trying to hide it, but, if Bailey read her