“Quinn.”
One word. But the tone—the fear in it—made my stomach drop. I turned to her instantly. Her eyes were wide and panicked. I looked at the kids. All of them were there, except Quinn. I checked under the podium, the spot he often hid in to escape the cameras, but it was empty.
Michelle spun fast, scanning the floor, the aisles, every corner of the room.
“Quinn?” Her voice broke, sharp and terrified. “Baby, where are you?”
Her sudden panic stunned the crowd. Cameras swung toward us. Reporters stood. The whole room tipped from quiet to alarm in seconds.
“Quinn?” she called again, louder this time, edging toward a scream.
Then: “Mommy?”
He unwound himself from a flag at the edge of the stage, looking confused.
Michelle was on him in an instant, scooping Quinn up so quickly he gasped. She held him the way you do when relief hasn’t caught up to fear.
“We’re done,” she said, her voice shaking but firm as she walked past me and the podium, dozens of cameras capturing every step. Her tears fell freely, and the reporters finally got what they’d been waiting for.
I knew then they’d taken their last picture of Michelle.
When we pulledinto the driveway after a near-silent five-minute ride home, nobody waited for anyone else. We scattered like fragments of the same blown-apart family. Michelle linked up with Melanie and disappeared into the bedroom. Emma and Keith went to their rooms. Kyle was already in his. The two youngest gathered in front of the television, our most reliable babysitter these days. It killed me how far we’d strayed from the happy, hectic family we used to be. God, I wanted to fix this! To stitch us back together. To bring even a sliver of peace into this house again. But everything hinged on Jake coming home and, with each passing day, that was slipping further out of reach.
My first stop was Kyle. Not only to check on him, but because I’d been staying in his room since Mitch left. Jake’s narrow twin bed wasn’t ideal, but it beat the couch, which was where I’d been ever since Melanie arrived the day after the kidnapping and stepped right into Michelle’s emotional space. I had my issues with it, and the distance between Michelle and me was growing, but Melanie was keeping her upright, and that gave me the space to focus on finding Jake. For now, that had to be enough.
I knocked as I pushed Kyle’s door open. He was sitting on the edge of the mattress, shoulders rounded, eyes down. His good hand rested in his lap, his fingers curled around something small, but he closed his fist the second he noticed me.
“You doing all right?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“Whatcha got there?”
His eyes flicked up. “Nothing.”
Something about how fast he said it told me it wasn’t nothing.
“Kyle, show me what’s in your hand.”
Slowly, he opened his fingers, revealing a skull ring—the cheap plastic kind you’d find in a vending machine by the supermarket exit. Ah. Okay. It was nothing. I totally read that wrong. These last two weeks have trained me to be ready for the worst.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked, trying to play it off.
“Walmart. It’s Jake’s. I got one too. A stupid puppy. He got the cool one, of course.”
I smiled. That sounded about right. Jake was charmed… until he wasn’t.
Kyle looked so small now. So young. He and Jake together had always been so…much. But alone? It was like someone had let all the air out of him. I sat beside Kyle and put an arm around his shoulders. We stayed like that, quiet, both missing the boy who filled our lives with light.
“I’m sorry,” Kyle said, his voice catching. “I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry.”
His pain cut right through me. I tightened my grip on him. “I need you to hear me, Kyle. You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s nothing you need to be sorry for.”
He wouldn’t look at me, closing his fist around the skull ring again and squeezing it tightly enough for the cheap edges to leave marks on his skin.
“You’re wrong. It’s my fault. I’m the one—”
Kyle looked up, tears in his eyes, and I saw it then.
