Chapter 2
I took Thomas to the nearest cafe because his lips were blue from the cold.
Emily held his hand the whole way.
He did not let go.
Every time a car passed too close, his shoulders jumped.
Every time a man raised his voice inside the cafe, he flinched.
I ordered soup, hot chocolate, and every pastry behind the glass because I did not know what else to do with the terror in my hands.
Thomas sat across from me, hunched over the bowl.
He ate too fast.
Then stopped.
Like he expected punishment.
“You can eat,” I said softly. “All of it.”
His eyes searched my face.
“She said I was greedy.”
“Who?”
He looked down.
“Aunt Marla.”
My heart slammed.
I did not have an Aunt Marla.
But I knew a Marla.
Marla Whitaker.
She had been a nurse at St. Agnes Hospital the night Thomas disappeared.
The night they told me my son had died after a sudden infection.
The night they refused to let me see his body because, they said, it was “too traumatic.”
I had screamed until my throat bled.
My husband at the time, Ryan, had held me in the hallway and said, “Laura, we have to accept it.”
Accept it.
I had accepted a closed casket.
A signed death certificate.
A tiny grave.
Now my dead son sat in front of me with soup on his chin.
Emily whispered, “Do you remember me?”
Thomas looked at her.
“You were a baby?”
She nodded slowly.
“I was one.”
“She showed me pictures,” he said.
I froze.
“Who showed you pictures?”
“Aunt Marla. She had a box.”
“What pictures?”
He pointed at Emily.
“Her. You. Dad.”
My stomach twisted.
“Your father?”
Thomas nodded.
“Ryan.”
The cafe sounds faded.
Ryan.
My ex-husband.
The man who left two years after Thomas’s funeral because, according to him, grief had made me impossible to live with.
The man who remarried fast.
The man who rarely saw Emily unless it was convenient.
The man who had stood beside me while I buried an empty coffin.
My phone was in my shaking hand before I realized I had grabbed it.
I called Detective Harris.
He had handled Thomas’s missing infant case before the hospital declared it a medical death.
He answered on the third ring.
“Laura?”
“My son is alive.”
Silence.
Then his voice changed.
“Where are you?”
I gave him the address.
Thomas grabbed my wrist.
“No police.”
His panic was instant.
“Please. She said police bring kids back.”
I moved beside him and wrapped one arm around his shoulders.
“No one is taking you back.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re right,” I whispered. “But I promise I will fight anyone who tries.”
Emily climbed into the booth on his other side.
“I’ll fight too.”
Thomas looked at her like she was strange.
Then, slowly, he leaned into both of us.
Detective Harris arrived twenty minutes later with a child services advocate named Nina.
He froze when he saw Thomas.
His face went pale.
“Dear God,” he whispered.
“You believe me?” I asked.
He looked at the scar near Thomas’s chin.
“I remember that scar from the hospital file.”
Thomas stared at him.
“You looked for me?”
Harris swallowed.
“For a long time.”
I placed the hospital bracelet on the table.
Harris photographed it.
Then he turned it over.
There was writing on the inside.
Tiny.
Faded.
Numbers.
A date.
And one name.
Ryan.
I could not move.
May you like
Harris looked at me.
“Laura, where is your ex-husband?”
