Chapter 6
Police moved us that night.
Wren cried when I packed the bread from the kitchen table.
“Is Corinne taking our house?”
“No. We’re choosing another place.”
“Because I told?”
“Because she is afraid you told.”
Desmond carried the bowl inside an evidence bag to Officer Morales.
“Don’t give it back.”
“We won’t.”
The new safe house belonged to the county.
It had cameras, reinforced doors, and officers outside.
Wren hated it immediately.
“Too many locks.”
Hannah helped her choose which interior doors remained open.
Desmond drew a floor plan so both children knew every exit.
I slept on the couch between their rooms.
Three days later, police received a tip from a motel clerk.
A woman matching Corinne’s description had paid cash for a room.
Officers raided it.
They found the wig, forged identification, and photographs of our first rental house.
Corinne was gone.
A map on the wall marked Wren’s school, my office, the courthouse, and Vivian’s jail.
One location was circled twice.
Thistlewood Elementary.
Wren had not returned to school since the poisoning.
Desmond was scheduled to attend a meeting there with his teacher the next morning.
We canceled it.
The school principal called ten minutes later.
“We didn’t arrange any meeting.”
The email had been fake.
Corinne expected us to appear.
Police placed surveillance around the school.
At noon, a woman wearing a cafeteria uniform approached the rear entrance.
Morales stopped her.
It was not Corinne.
It was a former Bright Haven employee named Sheila Grant.
She carried a syringe and photographs of Desmond.
Sheila claimed Corinne threatened her daughter unless she helped.
Pike searched her phone.
Corinne had sent instructions through an encrypted application.
The final message directed Sheila to take Desmond alive but stated Wren was “optional.”
My anger frightened me.
Hannah noticed.
“You need somewhere safe to put that anger.”
“I want Corinne to feel afraid.”
“She probably does.”
“Not enough.”
“Justice is not the same as revenge.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I looked at Wren drawing on the floor.
“No.”
Hannah nodded.
“Knowing you need help is a beginning.”
She arranged counseling for me too.
I resisted at first.
Then Desmond asked why adults told children to discuss feelings while hiding their own.
I attended the appointment.
The therapist helped me separate responsibility from guilt.
I had failed to notice warning signs.
I had not poisoned Amelia or starved Wren.
Both facts could exist together.
The investigation into Corinne’s movements continued.
She used prepaid phones and cash provided by someone outside jail.
Vivian’s accounts were frozen.
Dr. Cole had no remaining access.
Pike suspected another Bright Haven employee.
The answer came from Amelia’s former housekeeper, Rosa Delgado.
Rosa had moved to Florida after Amelia died.
She called after seeing Corinne’s photograph on television.
“Corinne had a brother,” she said.
I had never heard of him.
His name was Caleb Sloan.
Vivian placed him for adoption as an infant, then secretly contacted him as an adult.
He worked as a delivery driver and had access to homes, schools, and hospitals.
Rosa once saw Caleb arguing with Corinne in our garage.
“She told him Amelia’s death would make them rich,” Rosa said.
Caleb lived forty miles away.
Police searched his apartment.
It was empty, but they found photographs of me taken outside the safe house.
A delivery schedule listed the package containing Wren’s bowl.
Caleb had mailed it for Corinne.
His computer contained searches for rural properties without security cameras.
One property belonged to Corinne’s late grandfather.
The house had been abandoned for twelve years.
Police surrounded it before sunrise.
Corinne and Caleb were inside.
A gunshot came through a window.
Officers returned fire.
Caleb surrendered after being wounded in the shoulder.
Corinne escaped through a storm cellar leading to the woods.
Police dogs followed her trail to a river.
Her coat was found near the water.
Divers searched for two days.
They found no body.
Corinne had staged another disappearance.
Before his surgery, Caleb admitted she planned to leave the country.
He gave police the name on her passport.
The passport had already been scanned at Boston Logan International Airport.
A woman using Corinne’s new identity boarded a flight to Montreal.
Canadian police met the plane.
The passenger was a stranger paid to carry the passport.
Corinne remained free.
Weeks passed.
Wren gained six pounds.
She stopped counting every slice of bread, though she still kept crackers beneath her pillow.
Desmond began sleeping in his own room.
The criminal case against Vivian and Cole moved forward without Corinne.
Vivian’s attorney offered to reveal Corinne’s location in exchange for reduced charges.
Prosecutors refused to dismiss the murder charge but agreed to consider cooperation.
Vivian requested to speak with me first.
I entered the jail interview room with Pike and Nora watching through the glass.
My former mother-in-law smiled.
“You look tired.”
“Where is Corinne?”
“She wants her son.”
“She kidnapped him.”
“He betrayed his mother.”
“He protected a hungry child.”
Vivian’s smile vanished.
“Wren was always weak.”
“She survived you.”
“For now.”
I stood.
Pike placed a hand on my shoulder.
Vivian leaned toward the glass.
“Corinne is watching the one person you never protect.”
“Who?”
“Yourself.”
She slid an envelope across the table.
Inside was a photograph of me entering my therapist’s office two days earlier.
A black circle had been drawn over my chest.
On the back were four words.
Trade yourself for Desmond.
“He is safe,” I said.
Vivian laughed.
“Is he?”
My phone rang.
The safe-house commander spoke before I could say hello.
“Mr. Cross, Desmond is missing.”
I ran from the room.
“He was in his bedroom,” the commander continued. “The window remained locked. No alarm was triggered.”
“Then search the house.”
“We did.”
Wren’s frightened voice came through the phone.
“Daddy, Desmond went into the floor.”
I stopped.
“What does that mean?”
“There was a door under his bed.”
The county safe house contained an old storm tunnel that did not appear on modern plans.
Someone had opened it from below.
On Desmond’s pillow, police found a note in Corinne’s handwriting.
May you like
You fed the wrong child.
Now choose which one gets to come home.
