“Chloe.”
Her name pulled her out of the half-sleep she’d been drifting in, curved awkwardly in the chair beside the bed.She was on her feet instantly, heart in her throat.
“I’m here,” she said, squeezing Kayne’s hand reassuringly.“I’m right here.”
His eyes found hers, still a little glassy and drug-soft, but focused.Relief flooded his face, and then, impossibly, he smiled.“There you are,” he murmured lazily.
She laughed softly, the sound breaking around the emotion clogging her throat.“You called.I answered.”
His fingers tightened around hers, weak but determined.
“Do you know why he did it?”
Chloe swallowed.“He was one of the trafficked children.”
“Damn,” Kayne murmured.
The door opened quietly, and Anja stepped in, her presence calm and steady as ever.She gave Kayne a brief nod, then looked at Chloe.
“They found Aiden’s journal,” she said.
Chloe stiffened but didn’t pull away from Kayne.
Anja’s voice was careful and factual as she delivered hard truths without sensationalizing them.“He was kidnapped young, younger than most of the others, and he was held longer.Years.”A pause.“Donald and Pam Scoggins directly abused him.”
Chloe closed her eyes as the familiar sickness rolled through her.
“He lived under the gym,” Anja went on.“But he stayed in the room upstairs with a view of the floor.The mirror was actually a hidden door that let him come and go as he pleased when he wasn’t using the tunnel entry.After the trafficking ring was shut down, after they were arrested, he stayed.When you bought it, Chloe,” she softened her voice a fraction, “he transferred everything he felt about them onto you.”
Chloe opened her eyes.
“You became the stand-in, the symbol,” Anja said.“He felt like you were taking the building from him.Plus, you had success, the life he never had.He took the job with Sandy to learn about your schedules and habits.It gave him access.”
“You didn’t steal anythin’,” Kayne murmured, low and fierce.“He was already broken long before you ever walked through that door.”
Chloe nodded slowly, even as her heart ached with the impossible weight of grief layered with guilt.
“I ran him,” Kayne said.“Multiple times.Every database we have.Aiden Kerr didn’t exist anywhere that mattered.No kidnapping report.No missing persons.Nothing that explained how deep this went.”
Anja nodded once.“That’s because Aiden Kerr wasn’t his real name.”
Kayne’s hand tightened instinctively around hers.
“His name is Shawn Pratt,” Anja said.“The medical examiner ran his prints.He got a hit in NamUS, that’s the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.”
Chloe went still.“Then who was Aiden Kerr?”
“A real boy,” Anja answered.“Adopted out of an orphanage by friends of Donald and Pam Scoggins.On paper, it was clean.A private adoption.No one knows what happened to him.Shawn was given his identity after he was kidnapped.”
The implication hung there, heavy and unspoken.
Chloe swallowed hard.“Aiden ...I mean, Shawn.What about his birth family?”
“They were located,” Anja replied.“They’d never stopped looking.They claimed his body this morning.He’ll be buried properly.”
A quiet, heavy stillness settled over the room.
“Thank you,” Chloe said finally.
