Chapter 12
Dr. Voss still practiced downtown.
He had signed every report saying my memory gaps were permanent.
He had prescribed medication Caroline gave me for years.
Medication I had stopped taking only when Lily was born.
Or when I thought she was born.
Detective Harris obtained a warrant.
I went with him because I had to see the man’s face when the door opened.
Voss looked older than in the video.
But his eyes were the same.
Cold.
Calculating.
He denied everything.
Then Harris placed a photo on his desk.
Voss, Peter, Caroline.
The night before the crash.
Voss stopped denying.
He asked for a lawyer.
On the drive back, Harris got a call.
Peter had been seen at a private airfield.
Police were moving.
At the hospital, Claire received discharge approval under protective placement.
We moved into Ethan’s house with officers outside.
It was crowded.
Messy.
Perfect.
Lily slept in a room with Mia.
Noah refused to sleep unless I sat beside him.
Claire stayed across the hall.
At 2 a.m., I heard crying.
I found her in the kitchen, gripping the counter.
“I don’t know how to be their mother,” she whispered.
“You already are.”
“I missed everything.”
“You survived so you could come back.”
She looked at me.
“Do you hate me for not escaping sooner?”
The question hurt.
I stepped closer.
“Claire, you kept our children alive in a wall. Don’t you dare blame yourself for what monsters did.”
She cried then.
I held her.
Not as a husband reclaiming what was lost.
As a man holding the woman his life had been stolen from.
Across the room, Lily appeared.
Then Mia.
Then Noah.
May you like
They came to us one by one.
And for the first time, nobody pulled away.
