Chapter 4
Detective Harris treated the carving like evidence.
The date mattered.
It placed Elijah at the lake eleven years ago.
Alive.
Free.
Searching for us.
Marcus stood beneath the tree for almost an hour.
He kept running his fingers over the words.
MOM + DAD DIDN'T FORGET ME.
I watched him.
Then I finally said the thing I had been avoiding.
“I'm sorry.”
He didn't turn around.
“I know.”
“No.”
My voice cracked.
“You don't.”
He looked at me.
“I should have told you about the photograph.”
“Yes.”
“I should have trusted you.”
“Yes.”
His honesty hurt.
But I deserved it.
“I was afraid if I gave you hope and it was false, you'd break.”
Marcus stared at me.
“I was already broken.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“I know that now.”
He looked at the carving.
“So was he.”
I cried silently.
After a while, Marcus reached for my hand.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
But he held it.
That mattered.
Harris searched property records around the lake from eleven years earlier.
A small convenience store two miles away had once kept paper employment applications.
The current owner allowed police to inspect archived boxes.
It felt hopeless.
Then Harris called.
“We found him.”
I almost dropped the phone.
“What?”
“Not now.”
My heart sank.
“An old employment form.”
A boy using the name Eli Cole had worked there for three weeks.
The manager remembered him because he slept behind the building twice before she discovered him.
“He was homeless?”
“Yes.”
“Where did he go after?”
“She helped him contact a local church.”
“What church?”
“New Mercy Baptist.”
The church still existed.
The pastor from that time had retired, but another employee remembered a young man named Eli.
He had stayed with a church family for several months.
He asked constantly about tracing relatives.
Then one day he disappeared.
Again.
Marcus's patience broke.
“How many times can one person disappear?”
Harris answered quietly.
“Sometimes people running from abuse don't disappear.”
She looked at him.
“They keep moving because they've learned being found is dangerous.”
That silenced us.
The church family was named Washington.
Samuel and Gloria Washington.
Both alive.
They lived in North Carolina.
We drove there the next morning.
Gloria opened the door.
The moment she saw Elijah's photograph, she gasped.
“Oh, baby.”
My heart stopped.
“You knew him.”
She pulled me into a hug before I understood what was happening.
“I wondered if I'd ever meet you.”
I started crying against a stranger's shoulder.
Marcus stood frozen.
Samuel appeared behind her.
He looked at the photograph.
Then at Marcus.
“You're his father.”
Marcus nodded.
Samuel hugged him too.
We sat around their kitchen table.
Gloria placed sweet tea in front of us.
Nobody drank.
“Elijah was a beautiful soul,” she said.
The past tense terrified me.
“Was?”
She noticed.
“Oh, no.”
My heart restarted.
“I don't mean he's dead.”
“Do you know where he is?”
Gloria looked at Samuel.
Then back at us.
“We knew where he was eight years ago.”
Eight years.
Better than eleven.
I leaned forward.
“Tell us everything.”
Elijah had stayed with them almost seven months.
He worked construction.
Saved money.
Went to church.
Rarely slept through the night.
“He had nightmares,” Gloria said.
“About what?”
“Being locked in rooms.”
I closed my eyes.
New Horizons.
Marcus clenched his fists.
Gloria continued.
“He believed his grandmother was watching him.”
“She probably was.”
“He told us that.”
“Did he mention me?”
“All the time.”
My chest hurt.
“He kept a newspaper clipping with your photograph.”
I broke down.
Gloria reached across the table.
“He loved you.”
“I wasn't there.”
“You didn't know where he was.”
“I should have.”
“You were lied to.”
I looked at Marcus.
He looked away.
The guilt between us was complicated.
Some of it belonged to Mom.
Some belonged to me.
I would have to live with that.
“What happened after seven months?”
Marcus asked.
Samuel answered.
“Elijah got a call.”
“From who?”
“He never said.”
“But after that, he panicked.”
“How?”
“He packed everything.”
“Did he think Susan found him?”
“We think so.”
“Where did he go?”
“Savannah.”
I frowned.
“Georgia?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Gloria smiled sadly.
“Jasmine.”
The girlfriend.
My heart jumped.
“You knew about her?”
“He talked about her constantly.”
“Was she pregnant?”
Gloria nodded.
“She had a little girl.”
My breath caught.
“A daughter?”
“Yes.”
Marcus sat down harder.
We had a granddaughter.
“What was her name?”
“Hope.”
I started crying before I could stop.
Hope.
Of all names.
“Did Elijah see them again?”
“Yes.”
“He found Jasmine in Savannah.”
“How do you know?”
“He called us six months later.”
“What did he say?”
Gloria's face softened.
“He said he finally had something worth staying alive for.”
Marcus covered his mouth.
I cried harder.
Our son had become a father.
Despite everything done to him.
He still knew how to love.
“Do you have Jasmine's last name?”
I asked.
“Taylor.”
Harris searched immediately.
Jasmine Taylor.
Too common.
Savannah.
Age now early thirties.
Several possibilities.
Then Samuel remembered her mother's name.
“Loretta.”
That narrowed it.
A Loretta Taylor lived in Savannah.
Same address for twenty years.
We called.
A woman answered.
I couldn't speak.
Harris introduced herself.
There was a long silence.
Then Loretta asked, “Is this about Eli?”
My knees weakened.
“Yes.”
Another silence.
“Is Jasmine there?”
“No.”
“Do you know where Elijah is?”
Loretta began crying.
My stomach dropped.
“Please.”
I whispered.
“Please tell me my son is alive.”
“He was the last time I saw him.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
Hope climbed.
Seven years.
“What happened?”
“Jasmine and Eli were together for four years.”
“Were they happy?”
“At first.”
“What changed?”
“Eli became afraid again.”
“Of Susan?”
Loretta didn't know the name.
“He called her the woman who stole him.”
“That was her.”
“He thought she had found them.”
“Did she?”
“I don't know.”
“One night somebody broke into their apartment.”
My skin went cold.
“Was anyone hurt?”
“No.”
“But they took only one thing.”
“What?”
“Hope's birth certificate.”
Marcus looked at me.
Mom had tracked the next generation.
“What happened after?”
“Eli panicked.”
Loretta cried harder.
“He thought his grandmother would take Hope like she'd taken him.”
“What did he do?”
“He left.”
“With Jasmine?”
“No.”
My heart clenched.
“He left them?”
“To protect them.”
The pattern.
Always running.
Always believing distance kept people safe.
“Where?”
“He wouldn't tell us.”
“Did Jasmine stay in Savannah?”
“For a while.”
“Where is she now?”
Loretta hesitated.
“She asked me never to tell anyone.”
My heart fell.
“Mrs. Taylor, I'm his mother.”
“I know.”
“Please.”
“She spent years watching Eli look over his shoulder.”
“I understand.”
“No, ma'am.”
Loretta's voice hardened.
“You don't.”
The words stung.
But she was right.
“She watched him wake screaming because somebody called his real name in a grocery store.”
I covered my mouth.
“She watched him refuse to enroll Hope in school because he feared records could be traced.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“We're not trying to hurt them.”
“I believe you.”
“Then tell us.”
Loretta sighed.
“Jasmine lives in Tennessee.”
My pulse jumped.
“Where?”
“Knoxville.”
“And Hope?”
“With her.”
“Can you call Jasmine?”
“Yes.”
“Please tell her we only want to talk.”
“I will.”
We waited four hours.
No call.
Five.
Then my phone rang from an unknown number.
I answered immediately.
“Hello?”
A woman's voice.
Careful.
Guarded.
“Is this Claire Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Jasmine.”
I closed my eyes.
Marcus stood.
“Jasmine.”
She breathed unevenly.
“Loretta says you're looking for Eli.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“Do you know where he is?”
Another silence.
Then she said something that made my heart stop.
“He came back.”
I couldn't breathe.
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
Marcus grabbed my shoulder.
“Where is he now?”
Jasmine began crying.
“I don't know.”
“What happened?”
“He showed up outside my house after seven years.”
“Did you see him?”
“Yes.”
“Did Hope?”
“Yes.”
My tears came instantly.
“Then why did he leave?”
“He saw someone parked across the street.”
My chest tightened.
“Who?”
“He wouldn't say.”
“Was it my mother?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“Then who?”
Jasmine whispered, “A man.”
“What man?”
“He said the man worked for your family.”
Marcus and I looked at each other.
“What family?”
“He said his grandmother wasn't the only person who wanted him hidden.”
The room went silent.
I had thought Mom was the monster at the center of this.
But Elijah had been running long after her death.
May you like
Someone else had continued the secret.
Someone who still wanted our son to stay gone.
