Chapter 1
“Your house? Claudia, you have no idea whose house you are in.”
Claudia hit the floor and stared up at me as though age had made me harmless sometime during the years she had known me.
It had not.
Ethan was still shaking inside my coat. I could feel every tremor passing through his little body while Mark stood several feet away, avoiding the eyes of the son he had left outside in a snowstorm.
I looked at my son.
“Nine hours?”
Mark swallowed.
“It wasn’t supposed to be that long.”
That answer nearly made me lose control again.
Not denial.
A scheduling problem.
I carried Ethan toward the fireplace and wrapped him in the thickest blanket I could reach. One of my men knelt nearby with warm towels while I checked the child’s feet myself.
Red.
Cold.
Small enough to fit inside one of my hands.
Ethan grabbed my sleeve.
“Grandpa?”
“I’m here.”
He looked toward Mark.
“Dad said Claudia decides.”
My eyes lifted.
Mark’s face changed.
“Decides what?”
Ethan pressed closer to me.
“If I eat.”
Silence.
“If I sleep upstairs.”
My breathing slowed.
“If I get shoes.”
Claudia pushed herself upright.
“He’s making things up because you’re rewarding him.”
I stared at her.
Then Ethan whispered:
“She took Mommy’s key too.”
That stopped me.
“What key?”
Mark looked at Claudia.
She looked at him.
Wrong reaction.
May you like
My grandson had just told me this was not only about punishment.
Something belonging to his missing mother was involved.
