Chapter 2 - Sophie Says I Knew
Noah would not let go of her.
Sophie held him against her chest, one hand buried in his hair.
I stood three feet away and felt as though the sidewalk had tilted.
“You knew someone locked me inside.”
“No.”
Her green eyes hardened.
“You knew the back door was chained.”
That was different.
And she knew it.
Three years earlier, the fire marshal had told me investigators found damage around the rear service door.
Possible obstruction.
Possible heat distortion.
Nothing conclusive.
I had never told Noah.
I had never told anyone outside the investigation.
Sophie knew because she had been there.
I whispered, “They said you died.”
“They told you what they needed you to believe.”
Noah lifted his face.
“Mommy, where were you?”
Sophie closed her eyes.
“Lost, baby.”
It was not enough.
But she was shaking violently from the cold.
A woman from Miller’s Diner came outside and said Sophie had been sitting there since before dawn.
She had asked whether Daniel Cross still lived in town.
May you like
My wife had returned from the dead looking for me.
And she did not trust me enough to step inside my car.
