The boy was speaking in the background, almost like the phone wasn’t against his ear. I couldn’t make out the words. Yes, he sounded younger, weaker, more fractured than Jake, but he wasn’t crying. Not really. There was no hitch, no break. It sounded rehearsed. I couldn’t tell if he was scared or pretending to be.
“Please—if this is a joke, it’s not funny.”
Any hope Scott had evaporated with my words. “Hang up! Don’t play this game. It’s just another sicko!”
“I don’t know, Scott. It sounds like him, but he’s talking like a child, calling me Mommy.”
“It’s not him, Michelle,” Scott said, already calling our contact at the FBI on his phone. We had a script to follow for this exact scenario.
Then the voice came back, closer now.
“I’m bleeding?”
It came out like a question, as if he’d just realized it himself.A shiver ran through me. If this was a prank, it was convincingly done. The coughing started again, wet and labored. No one was that good.
This could be Jake, and until I knew otherwise, I would treat him as my son.
“Where are you bleeding?”
“Everywhere,” the boy said, still coughing. “He stabbed me.”
My breath caught. “He stabbed you?”
Scott reacted instantly, repeating the information to the FBI. I held the phone to his ear so he could hear the coughing for himself. His expression shifted. Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure either.
I took the receiver back. “Stay on the line with me. The police are coming.”
There was a pause. Then came words that stole the air from my lungs.
“Do you remember me?”
Tears filled my eyes. How could he think we’d forgotten? “Of course I do, baby. I could never forget you.”
“Don’t engage him,” Scott warned. “Not until you ask the question. Remember what they taught us.”
Scott was talking about the question the FBI had drilled into us. The one only Jake could answer. But if I asked and he couldn’t—
I’d lose my only connection to him.
Scott took the phone from my hand, put it on speaker, and said, “Jake—what nickname did you give JimSuey’s dog?”
No answer. Just shallow, uneven breathing.
Scott turned back to his phone, addressing the FBI. “He’s not answering.”
“Give him a second,” I said.
“Michelle.” He rested a hand on my shoulder. “Jake would know.”
“Not if he’s injured and confused,” I said. “They said kids can regress. And you know, they usually hang up by now.”
I leaned closer to the speaker, my control slipping despite my effort to hold it together. “Honey, just tell me what you named JimSuey’s dog, and then we can come get you. Just try to remember for me. Please.”
There was movement on the line. His breathing grew louder, closer, like his mouth was pressed to the phone. He said something, but it came out garbled, swallowed by another violent cough.
“What did you say?” I asked, barely holding myself together. “I couldn’t hear you. Say it again.”
The pause stretched. No one moved. We stood there listening to him breathe, to the wet rattle in his chest, to the sound of a child fighting for air.
