Chapter 7
I found Thomas in the stairwell.
He was curled on the landing with his knees to his chest, breathing too fast.
I sat two steps below him.
Not touching.
Not trapping.
Just there.
“He gave me away,” Thomas whispered.
I wanted to say no.
I wanted to say something soft and false.
But my son had lived inside lies long enough.
“Yes,” I said.
His face crumpled.
“Was I bad?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because he was selfish. Because he wanted control. Because he cared more about his comfort than your life.”
Thomas pressed his fists to his eyes.
“I hate him.”
“You’re allowed.”
“I miss wanting a dad.”
That sentence broke me.
I climbed one step closer.
“Thomas, look at me.”
He did.
“You did not lose a father today. You lost the idea that a cruel man was ever going to become what you needed.”
He cried then.
I opened my arms.
He fell into them.
For a long time, we sat in the stairwell while my son screamed into my coat.
Emily found us later.
She sat beside him and whispered, “You can have my dad.”
Thomas looked at her through tears.
“But he’s the same dad.”
Emily nodded sadly.
“I know. I don’t want him either.”
They hugged each other.
Two children mourning the same man for different reasons.
The video destroyed Ryan’s defense.
But Dr. Price was still gone.
And the hospital records were disappearing.
St. Agnes announced a “technical breach.”
Harris called it a cover-up.
The parents of the other missing children began coming forward.
One mother, Angela Reed, came to the station with a stuffed blanket she had kept for nine years.
Sophie’s blanket.
She saw Thomas in the hallway and stopped.
Her face twisted with hope and grief.
“You were found?”
Thomas nodded.
Angela covered her mouth.
“Then maybe my Sophie…”
She could not finish.
Thomas walked up to her.
He did not know her.
He owed her nothing.
But he hugged her.
Angela sobbed into his shoulder.
That was when I understood my son had survived without becoming hard.
Bruised, yes.
Frightened, yes.
But not cruel.
Marla finally took a deal.
Not because she was sorry.
Because Dr. Price had left her to take the blame.
She gave up a cabin in Wisconsin.
A place used for transfers.
Police raided it at dawn.
They found records.
Clothes.
Old toys.
Birth certificates with changed names.
And in a locked drawer, they found a list.
Twenty-three children.
Thomas was number eleven.
Sophie Reed was number four.
Beside some names were new identities.
Beside others, only question marks.
I watched Angela receive the news that Sophie might be alive in Minnesota under another name.
Her knees gave out.
I held her as she cried because I knew exactly what that kind of hope did.
It did not lift you.
It tore you open.
That night, Thomas asked if the other children had mothers looking too.
“Yes,” I said.
“All of them?”
“I think so.”
He looked at the window.
“Then we have to find them.”
“We will help.”
He looked back at me.
“No. We have to.”
May you like
And for the first time, I saw not only the boy stolen from me.
I saw the young man he might become.
