Chapter 10
Anna called again the next morning.
This time I answered.
Silence first.
Then:
“Richard?”
My throat tightened.
“Anna.”
She started crying.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
Like someone who had rehearsed being found and still did not know what to do when it happened.
“Is Ethan safe?”
“Yes.”
Pause.
“Tell me yourself.”
I put the phone beside him.
“Mommy?”
The sound Anna made broke every person in the room.
Ethan climbed into my lap.
“Mommy, Grandpa came.”
“I know, baby.”
“Claudia bad.”
Silence.
Then Anna said:
“I know.”
Mark stood several feet away.
He looked destroyed.
Good.
Not because suffering was justice.
Because truth should cost him something.
Anna gave us a location.
A small rented house in Vermont.
She had stayed away because Claudia convinced her Mark would take Ethan and that I would support him.
She contacted Ethan secretly only after learning Claudia planned to move the boy permanently into her control.
“How did you know?”
Anna answered:
“Margaret Doyle.”
A former Whitaker housekeeper.
Retired.
Still friendly with staff.
One quiet older woman had done what every powerful adult failed to do.
May you like
She listened.
And she found Anna.
