Chapter 4
I did not sleep.
I sat beside Lucas with my phone in my hand until the sun came up gray behind the curtains.
Every sound outside made me turn.
Every passing car.
Every footstep.
Every gust against the porch.
At seven, Detective Morales arrived with Detective Chen and a folder under his arm.
His face told me the news before his mouth did.
“There is another document,” he said.
I stood in the kitchen, gripping the counter.
Lucas was still asleep in the living room.
“Show me.”
Morales hesitated.
“I want you sitting down.”
“I have spent years sitting down while that family lied to me. Show me.”
He placed the paper on the table.
My name was there.
Claire Whitmore.
My signature.
Or something pretending to be it.
The document granted temporary decision-making power over Lucas to Vanessa Whitmore in the event of my emotional instability.
The date was three weeks after Elliot’s funeral.
I stared at the signature.
It looked like mine.
Almost.
But the C curved wrong.
The W was too sharp.
And my hand had been shaking so badly after the funeral that I could barely sign a sympathy card.
“I didn’t sign this.”
“I believe you,” Morales said.
Two words.
Simple.
They nearly broke me.
I covered my face.
“No one has said that to me in so long.”
Detective Chen sat across from me.
“We have a forensic document examiner reviewing it. But there’s more.”
Of course there was.
There was always more.
“The notary is Vanessa’s personal assistant.”
I laughed once.
It sounded dead.
“Of course.”
“She disappeared last night.”
I dropped my hands.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“Apartment empty. Phone off. Car gone.”
Morales watched my face.
“Her name is April Snow.”
I knew that name.
Thin woman.
Quiet.
Always standing two steps behind Vanessa with a tablet.
“She was at the reception,” I said.
Chen nodded.
“She signed the staff complaint too.”
I looked toward the living room.
Lucas had turned in his sleep, clutching the blanket beneath his chin.
“How many people helped her?”
Morales’s voice softened.
“We’re going to find out.”
But I heard what he did not say.
Enough.
Enough people helped Vanessa hurt my son.
Enough people watched.
Enough people signed.
Enough people stayed silent.
At nine, Lucas woke up.
He found me in the kitchen with the detectives.
His eyes went straight to the folder.
“More bad papers?”
I hated that he understood that.
“Yes,” I said. “But this one is fake.”
He climbed into my lap like he was smaller than eight.
I wrapped both arms around him.
“Did they fake me too?” he whispered.
“What?”
“When Aunt Vanessa said I was dangerous. Did they make people believe it?”
I swallowed.
“They tried.”
He pressed his face into my shoulder.
“What if people still believe it?”
I held him tighter.
“Then I will stand in every room until they hear the truth.”
His little fingers dug into my shirt.
“And if they don’t?”
“Then I’ll get louder.”
For the first time in two days, he almost smiled.
Morales’s phone rang.
He stepped into the hall.
When he came back, his expression had changed again.
“We found April Snow.”
“Alive?”
“Yes. At a motel outside Trenton.”
“Did she talk?”
“She asked for immunity.”
I felt sick.
“What did she say?”
Morales looked at Lucas.
I understood.
“Baby, go brush your teeth.”
Lucas stiffened.
“No.”
“Lucas.”
“No more whispering when it’s about me.”
I opened my mouth.
Then closed it.
He was right.
I had let too many adults talk over his life.
I looked at Morales.
“Say it.”
Morales crouched so he wasn’t towering over my son.
“April says Vanessa ordered the photograph taken.”
Lucas’s face went pale.
“The leash one?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She wanted proof that you were hard to manage.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I know.”
Lucas looked at him carefully.
“You weren’t there.”
Morales nodded.
“That’s true. But I’ve watched the video. I saw you try to get away. I saw adults stop you. That is not you being bad. That is you asking for help.”
Lucas’s lip trembled.
He looked at me.
“He believes me.”
I nodded, crying now.
“Yes.”
Morales stood slowly.
“April also said Vanessa was afraid Elliot had discovered money being moved from Lucas’s trust.”
I gripped the back of the chair.
“How much?”
“Millions.”
My vision blurred.
“From my son?”
“From accounts tied to him, yes.”
I thought of Vanessa’s charity galas.
Her art purchases.
Her renovated wing of the mansion.
Her lectures about my modest rental house.
I wanted to break something.
Lucas whispered, “She stole from Dad?”
Morales answered, “From what your father left for you.”
Lucas stared at the floor.
Then he said something that made my heart split.
“But I would have shared if she asked nicely.”
The room went silent.
Detective Chen turned away.
Morales cleared his throat.
“That is a very kind thing to say.”
Lucas looked up.
“Is that why she hated me?”
I pulled him into me.
“No, baby. She hated that she couldn’t own what belonged to you.”
That afternoon, we were moved to a safe house.
Morales said it was temporary.
Lucas packed one backpack.
He chose three shirts, his stuffed whale, and the old photograph.
I tried to take it from him.
He shook his head.
“It proves I wasn’t lying.”
I crouched in front of him.
“You don’t need proof for me anymore.”
“I know,” he said.
But he put it in the bag anyway.
At the safe house, I received a call from a blocked number.
This time, Morales told me to answer on speaker.
A man’s voice came through.
Low.
Controlled.
Familiar enough to make my skin prickle.
“Claire.”
I stopped breathing.
It sounded like a ghost.
“Who is this?”
Silence.
Then:
“It’s Elliot.”
The phone slipped from my hand.
Lucas froze.
May you like
The voice spoke again, shaking now.
“Please don’t hang up. I’m alive.”
