Chapter 2
The paramedics arrived before I stopped shaking.
Oliver refused to let go of my hand.
I did not make him.
No one would ever force my child to release safety again.
Victoria stood near the staircase while officers questioned her.
She tried crying.
She tried fainting.
She tried saying Hannah was unstable.
But the recorder sat in Detective Clara Reeves’s evidence bag, and Victoria’s own voice had already betrayed her.
“I was protecting this family,” Victoria snapped.
I looked at her.
“You locked my son in a wall.”
She flinched.
Not from guilt.
From being said aloud.
My father, Edmund Vale, arrived ten minutes later.
He was seventy-eight, silver-haired, elegant, and powerful enough that judges stood when he entered rooms.
I had trusted him my entire life.
When he saw Oliver alive, he did not look relieved.
He looked angry.
That broke something inside me.
“Arthur,” he said. “Do not make a scene.”
I laughed once.
My son had just been pulled out of a hidden chamber, and my father was worried about manners.
Oliver hid behind me.
“Grandfather knew,” he whispered.
Edmund’s jaw tightened.
“Children imagine things.”
Hannah stepped forward.
“He recorded you.”
The hallway went silent.
Detective Reeves looked at Edmund.
“We’ll need your statement.”
He smiled at her like she was staff.
“You will need a warrant.”
She smiled back.
“Already called for one.”
For the first time in my life, I saw fear in my father’s eyes.
Not much.
Just enough.
Oliver was taken to the hospital.
Malnourished.
Dehydrated.
Weak lungs.
Old bruises.
Sedative traces in his blood.
I sat beside his bed and watched him sleep with my hand on his blanket.
Hannah stood at the window.
“I’m sorry I didn’t find him sooner.”
I shook my head.
“You found him.”
She wiped her eyes.
“He kept tapping at night. I thought it was pipes. Then I heard him say your name.”
I looked at my son.
Three years.
He had been inside my house.
Inside my walls.
May you like
Calling.
And I had not heard him.
