Chapter 5
Warren took down the name Jonah Blake.
Then she asked Evan why Caleb would be listed that way.
I put the call on speaker.
Evan hesitated. I heard a door close on his end.
“My father arranged the admission,” he said. “He told me Caleb agreed to it.”
“Did you see Caleb agree?” Warren asked.
“No.”
“When did you learn where he was?”
“A week after he disappeared.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“For five weeks you watched me look for him,” I said.
“I thought he was safe.”
“You knew he was locked away under another name.”
Evan breathed hard into the receiver.
“Caleb found the insurance claims. My father said he was threatening to release private company records. He said Caleb was exhausted and needed help.”
“Caleb would have called me,” I said.
“He asked me to.”
I closed my eyes.
“Did you tell him I was looking?”
“No.”
Warren took the phone and asked Evan where he was. He said he had gone to a lawyer’s office. She arranged to speak to him formally and ended the call.
I wanted to throw the phone across the room. I set it on the table instead.
Nia moved closer.
“You got the name,” she said. “Now they can find him.”
The officers went to the recovery center that evening. Warren warned me it could take time to determine what Caleb had been told and what authority the center believed it had.
At nearly midnight, my phone rang.
They had found a patient registered as Jonah Blake. The man matched Caleb’s description. He was being taken to a hospital for an independent assessment.
I sat on Nia’s kitchen floor and cried so hard I could not answer.
“He’s alive,” she said, kneeling beside me.
I repeated it until I could believe it.
Warren called again an hour later. Caleb had asked for me by name.
Nia drove. At the hospital, a nurse led me to a quiet room. My brother sat on the bed wearing clothes that were too large for him. He was thinner than the last time I had seen him.
When he saw me, his mouth trembled.
“Maya?”
I crossed the room.
For six weeks, I had imagined finding him. I thought I would ask a hundred questions. All I could do was hold him.
“I’m here,” I whispered.
He gripped the back of my coat.
“I thought you believed them.”
“Never.”
“They said Evan told you I’d gone away.”
“He lied to both of us.”
Caleb pulled back just enough to see my face. “Are you safe?”
“Yes. Warren is outside.”
He looked toward the door before relaxing.
A doctor came in to explain that Caleb would stay for observation. She asked him whether he wanted me present while he spoke to investigators. He said yes.
Caleb told Warren he had copied records showing George’s company reported equipment lost after moving it to buyers through a second business. When Caleb questioned the entries, George demanded the copies.
“I told him I’d go to the police,” Caleb said. “He said I wouldn’t make it there.”
My stomach dropped.
Caleb described being driven to the vacant office for what George called a meeting. He had tried to leave. Two men kept him there until a car arrived to take him to the center. He did not know what George had told the staff.
The doctor stopped the interview when Caleb grew tired.
Warren promised to return in the morning. She told us officers were preserving records from the center and speaking to its staff.
Once she left, Caleb reached for my hand.
“I thought about you every day.”
“So did I.”
“I heard somebody outside my room say my sister had stopped calling.”
“I called until your voicemail was full. Then I kept calling.”
He looked down. “I’m sorry I gave you the envelope without explaining.”
“You gave me a way to help find you.”
He smiled faintly.
In the hallway, I found Evan waiting beside his lawyer. He stood when he saw me.
“Is Caleb all right?”
“He’s alive.”
Relief crossed his face.
I wanted him to feel it. I also wanted him to understand what his silence had done.
“He asked me whether I’d stopped looking,” I said.
Evan stared at me.
“They told him that,” I continued. “He believed it for weeks.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You knew enough.”
His lawyer touched his arm. Evan did not move.
I went back to Caleb.
He was sleeping. I sat in the chair beside his bed until morning, listening to him breathe.
When he woke, he looked at me first.
“You’re still here.”
May you like
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He closed his eyes again, and his hand remained wrapped around mine.
