Chương 3
Every improvement made Natalie more frightened. Hope created something else to lose.
At eleven, Rourke appeared through the glass and waited until she came out.
“Your sister has an attorney on the way,” he said.
“My mother’s attorney.”
“Probably.”
“What did Vanessa say?”
“Not much after she saw the evidence bag.”
“And my mother?”
“She says you’re using this incident to punish her for family disagreements.”
Natalie laughed once. The sound startled her.
Rourke watched her.
“She said that before you asked what happened to Eli?”
“She has asked about his condition. Repeatedly.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
A woman in business clothes approached from the elevators, carrying a leather folder and wearing the expression of someone already being inconvenienced. Evelyn appeared behind her, followed by Vanessa. A uniformed officer directed them toward a private consultation room before they reached the ICU corridor.
Natalie recognized the attorney as Marjorie Vale, who had handled Evelyn’s property dispute with a neighbor over six inches of hedge. Evelyn had described the case for years as a defense of principle. Daniel had once said Evelyn collected principles whenever she needed a respectable name for winning.
Rourke followed Natalie’s gaze.
“Do you know the lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“Good lawyer?”
“Expensive.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It’s usually my mother’s answer.”
Rourke nodded toward the empty family room. “There’s something else.”
Inside, a television mounted near the ceiling showed a cooking program with captions and no sound. Someone had left a half-finished puzzle on a side table. The edge pieces made a blue rectangle around an empty center.
Rourke closed the door.
“When officers searched the yard, they found one of Eli’s socks inside the shed.”
Natalie sat without meaning to.
“The shed was locked,” he continued. “Your mother provided a key. She said no one had entered it for months.”
“Was it his?”
“It matches the one he was wearing.”
“What was he doing in there?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
The room tilted slightly. Natalie placed both hands flat on the table.
“Was there blood?”
“No.”
“Anything else?”
“Some signs that someone small had been inside recently. Disturbed dust. A plastic storage bin shifted near the door. Smears on the inside panel.”
“He was locked in.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“The sock was inside. He was outside behind it. The dinosaur was beside it.”
“I understand.”
“No, you’re saying the words separately because separately they sound less terrible.”
Rourke leaned back. He did not defend himself.
Natalie looked at the muted television. A woman in a bright kitchen lifted a finished cake and smiled at someone offscreen.
“What kind of lock?”
“Standard exterior latch and padlock.”
“Could a child open it from inside?”
“No.”
The answer was quiet.
Natalie stood and reached for the door.
Rourke stood too. “Where are you going?”
“To ask Vanessa.”
“You’re not.”
“That is my son in there.”
“And this is an active investigation. Your sister has counsel. Anything you say could make her stop talking entirely.”
“She already stopped.”
“She reacted to the dinosaur. That matters.”
“It doesn’t tell me how long he was locked in a freezing shed.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
Natalie opened the door.
Rourke did not touch her, but he stepped into the doorway.
“You can protect him by staying here,” he said.
“I protected him by leaving him with them.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“It’s what happened.”
His expression changed then, not into sympathy exactly, but recognition.
“Guilt is going to offer you a lot of jobs today,” he said. “Most of them won’t help your son.”
Natalie hated him for being right in a sentence she would remember.
She returned to Eli’s room.
Near noon, his fingers moved inside hers.
At first she thought it was her own pulse. Then his thumb dragged weakly across her skin.
“Eli?”
His eyelids fluttered.
A nurse came quickly, then Dr. Rowan, then another doctor whose name Natalie missed. They asked Eli to open his eyes, squeeze a hand, move his toes. He did some things and not others. His breathing changed. His mouth tightened around the discomfort of the tube.
Natalie stood back because they needed room.
When he finally opened his eyes, he looked at the ceiling rather than at her. His gaze drifted without focus. She said his name once, and his eyes moved toward the sound.
There was no recognition at first.
Then his brow creased.
“Mom,” he breathed around a dry throat.
The word nearly ended her.
She leaned close but did not crowd him. “I’m right here.”
His eyes closed again.
“Where’s Moss?”
The nurse looked at Natalie.
“He’s safe,” Natalie said.
Eli swallowed. His face tightened.
“Don’t let her put him out.”
“Who?”
His eyes opened halfway. Fear passed through them before exhaustion pulled them shut.
“The cold lady.”
His heart rate rose on the monitor.
Dr. Rowan touched Natalie’s shoulder. “No more questions.”
“I didn’t—”
“I know. Let him rest.”
Eli’s fingers clung weakly to hers.
Natalie sat until he slept.
By afternoon, the confrontation in the corridor had begun traveling through the family in altered forms. An aunt in Arizona texted Natalie that Evelyn had been unfairly barred from seeing her critically ill grandson. A cousin asked whether police were involved because of “some misunderstanding.” Someone sent a prayer-chain message addressed to the entire extended family. It named Evelyn as the person who had saved Eli’s life.
Natalie read that line twice.
She called the cousin who had started the chain.
“Who told you my mother saved him?”
There was a pause. “She said she found him.”
“A neighbor found him.”
“Oh.”
“Behind her shed.”
Another pause, longer this time.
“I didn’t know that.”
“No one knows anything yet. Stop sending messages.”
“We were only trying to support you.”
“Then support me by not repeating her version.”
The cousin became wounded. Natalie could hear the shift as clearly as a door closing.
“I understand you’re upset.”
May you like
“My child is in intensive care.”
“That’s why I’m not going to take your tone personally.”
