Chapter 3
Sarah arrived forty minutes later.
I recognized her before the officers finished opening the security door.
She had changed.
Of course she had.
Nine years had changed all of us.
Her dark hair was shorter, exhaustion sat beneath her eyes, and she still wore navy hospital scrubs.
But when she saw me, she stopped walking.
“Mark?”
I stood.
Her face lost its color.
“What are you doing here?”
Then she saw Evan.
Everything else disappeared.
“Oh my God.”
She ran.
Evan came out of his chair so quickly that the blanket around his shoulders fell to the floor.
“Mom!”
Sarah dropped to her knees and pulled him against her.
“What happened?”
Evan started sobbing.
She touched his swollen cheek.
“Who did this?”
Evan buried his face against her shoulder.
“Ryan.”
Sarah froze.
I watched disbelief cross her face before terror replaced it.
“No.”
Evan clung tighter.
“He locked me downstairs again.”
“Again?”
Her voice broke on the word.
I saw the exact moment she realized this had been happening while she was gone.
She looked at me.
“Where is Ryan?”
“In custody.”
“For what?”
“Start with chasing your injured son into a police station.”
Sarah stared at me as if she could barely understand the sentence.
Then Detective Brooks entered.
“Mrs. Cole, I need to speak with you.”
Sarah stood but kept one hand on Evan.
“I’m not leaving him.”
“You don’t have to.”
Maya led us into a family interview room.
Technically, I should not have been there.
Sarah insisted.
“He stays.”
Maya looked at me.
I understood the warning in her eyes.
I was family now, not law enforcement.
Sarah sat across from us with Evan beside her.
“Tell me everything.”
Evan’s voice was tiny.
“Ryan gets mad when you work late.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
“He said you were asleep when I called.”
“He takes my tablet.”
Her eyes opened again.
“He told me you broke it.”
“I didn’t.”
“What about the basement?”
Evan looked at his hands.
“I’m sorry.”
Sarah immediately moved closer.
“For what?”
“I tried to tell you.”
Her face crumpled.
“When?”
“Lots of times.”
Sarah stared at him.
“You said you hated the basement because it was creepy.”
“Ryan was standing behind you.”
The silence that followed felt unbearable.
Sarah covered her mouth.
Evan kept talking.
“He said if I told you, you would go away too.”
“Too?”
Maya asked it gently.
Evan nodded.
“Like Dad.”
Sarah looked confused.
Then Evan pulled the bracelet from my hand and held it out.
“Dad gave me this.”
Sarah’s expression changed.
She didn’t breathe.
“Where did you get that?”
“Daniel gave it to me.”
She stood so abruptly that the chair tipped over.
“No.”
“Mom—”
“No.”
Her eyes went to me.
“This isn’t funny.”
“You think I would joke about Daniel?”
“He’s dead.”
“We never found a body.”
“He disappeared nine years ago.”
“Evan saw him seven months ago.”
Sarah shook her head violently.
“No. Somebody lied to him.”
Evan started crying.
“He knew the song.”
Sarah stopped.
“What song?”
“The pancake song.”
Her knees seemed to weaken.
She sat again.
Daniel had written that stupid song after Sarah burned pancakes during one of their first weekends together.
I remembered because he sang it at Christmas until Mom threatened to throw him outside.
Sarah looked at me.
“You know it.”
“Yes.”
“No one else knew.”
“I know.”
She turned toward Evan.
“What did he look like?”
Evan described him.
A little thinner.
Hair longer than in the photograph Sarah kept in an old drawer.
A scar near his right eyebrow.
Daniel got that scar when he was twelve after crashing my bicycle into a fence.
Sarah began shaking.
“He’s alive.”
She said it like a prayer.
Then anger flooded her face.
“He’s alive.”
This time it sounded like an accusation.
“Where has he been?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nine years, Mark.”
“I know.”
“I was pregnant.”
“I know.”
“I thought he abandoned me.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
Sarah wiped tears from her cheeks.
“Three weeks after Daniel disappeared, I received a letter.”
“What letter?”
“He said he knew about the baby. He said he didn’t want this life.”
My heart pounded.
“Daniel would never write that.”
“I know that now!”
Her voice cracked.
“But I was twenty-four, pregnant, alone, and terrified.”
“Do you still have it?”
Sarah looked away.
“Ryan does.”
Maya leaned forward.
“How did Ryan get it?”
Sarah’s answer came slowly.
“He was the one who brought it to me.”
There it was.
The first real crack.
“How did Ryan know Daniel?” I asked.
Sarah looked surprised.
“They worked together.”
Daniel had worked construction during the year before he vanished.
I remembered coworkers.
I remembered supervisors.
I did not remember Ryan Cole.
“He told me he and Daniel were friends,” Sarah said.
“They weren’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Daniel told me about every idiot he worked with.”
Despite everything, Sarah almost laughed.
Then she looked toward the door where Ryan was being held somewhere beyond the hallway.
“He started checking on me after Daniel disappeared.”
“How long before you dated him?”
“Almost two years.”
“And married?”
“When Evan was four.”
Maya wrote something down.
“Did Ryan ever discourage you from contacting Daniel’s family?”
Sarah’s cheeks reddened.
“Yes.”
I stared at her.
“He told me your mother hated me.”
“She did.”
Sarah flinched.
I regretted the words immediately.
“But Ryan helped that happen,” I added. “Mom believed Daniel ran because of you.”
“Ryan told her that?”
“I don’t know.”
Yet.
Maya’s phone rang.
She stepped outside.
While she was gone, Sarah whispered, “There’s something else.”
I waited.
“About six months ago, I thought someone had been inside our house.”
My pulse jumped.
“What happened?”
“A kitchen window was unlocked. Nothing was stolen.”
“Did you tell Ryan?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I was imagining things.”
Evan looked up.
“That was Dad.”
Sarah turned.
“What?”
“I saw him.”
“Inside?”
Evan nodded.
“He came at night.”
My skin prickled.
“Why didn’t you tell us that before?”
“Dad said Mom couldn’t know yet.”
Sarah looked devastated.
“What did he do?”
“He hugged me.”
Evan’s lips trembled.
“He cried.”
Sarah cried too.
Then Maya returned.
Her expression told me something had happened.
“We have the warrant.”
I stood.
She looked directly at Sarah.
“Mrs. Cole, officers are entering your home now.”
Sarah gripped Evan’s hand.
Maya continued.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“We ran Ryan Cole’s name against older reports connected to Daniel.”
My chest tightened.
“And?”
“Ryan was interviewed nine years ago.”
I stared at her.
“I never saw that report.”
“It wasn’t in the missing-person file.”
“Where was it?”
Maya’s eyes hardened.
“In an assault report filed the night Daniel disappeared.”
Sarah whispered, “Daniel was attacked?”
May you like
Maya nodded.
“And Ryan Cole was the last known person seen leaving the hospital with him.”
