Chapter 5 - A HOUSE WITH LOCKED WINDOWS
Lewis did not let me go to the blue house. She sent officers and told me to stay with Noah. I knew she was right. I still spent the next hour pacing between two chairs while he slept under a blanket.
When Lewis returned, her face gave nothing away.
“Ben wasn’t there,” she said. “The second car is registered under a false name.”
“Was anyone inside?”
“No. We found clothes that appear to belong to Noah, school worksheets, and a lock on the outside of an upstairs bedroom door.”
I gripped the back of the chair.
“We’re documenting everything,” she continued. “We also found a map marked with places you’ve lived.”
Five years of searching, and someone had been tracking me.
“Did you find anything about Daniel?”
“A box of his belongings. I need you to identify them.”
She showed me photographs instead of bringing the box in. Daniel’s old watch. A blue flannel shirt I’d bought him. The leather wallet he carried the day he took Noah.
I had spent years trying to decide whether Daniel had died by the river or chosen to disappear. Looking at that wallet, I still couldn’t tell.
In the last photograph lay a child’s drawing. Two stick figures stood on opposite sides of a bridge. One had a red hat.
“That’s Noah’s drawing,” I said. “He always gave Daniel a red hat.”
Lewis flipped to a photograph of the back. A message had been written in Daniel’s handwriting:
I SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT HIM BACK.
For a long time, I could only stare.
June returned with an update: the preschool records, old photographs, and identifying marks all supported that Noah was my son. A court would address custody, but Noah could stay with me tonight under an emergency arrangement. Lewis explained what came next. I heard only the part that meant I could take him home.
Noah woke while June helped me sign papers. He watched me with that careful expression children learn when adults have broken too many promises.
“You’re coming with me,” I told him. “Lily’s there. Rachel, too.”
“Will Ben know where you live?”
“He may. The police are helping us stay safe.”
He held out his hand. I took it.
As we reached the station’s front doors, my phone rang from an unknown number. Lewis asked me to put it on speaker.
A man’s voice said, “You found our son.”
May you like
I had not heard Daniel speak in five years.
Then he said, “Don’t take Noah home.”
