Chapter 17 - Laurel Comes Home
Adrian didn't run toward Laurel. He stood still, as though one sudden movement might make her vanish again.
She took off her hood. Her hair was shorter. Her face was thinner. But her eyes found Sophie first, and she let out a sound that was part laugh, part sob.
“Mommy?” Sophie whispered.
Laurel crouched. “Hi, bug.”
Sophie ran.
The two of them folded together on the floor. Adrian dropped to his knees beside them, not touching at first. Then Laurel reached for his hand.
“I tried,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“No. You don't know how hard—”
“I know you tried,” he said. “And I should have kept trying too.”
Ortiz escorted them into a private room and asked questions gently but without delay. Laurel explained that she'd escaped from a rural property after a staff member helped her. She had spent two days reaching June through old contacts, avoiding phones until she knew which numbers were safe.
“Where have you been for the past year?” Ortiz asked.
“Different places. The longest was Coldwater.”
“Why keep you alive?”
“Because they thought I knew the password to the full archive. I gave them pieces. Never all of it.”
Adrian looked sick. “You had the key the whole time?”
“The key wasn't enough,” she said. “I needed Sophie to remember the song and someone to believe her.”
I wanted to be happy. Mostly I was. But a detail wouldn't leave me alone. Laurel's archive had contained recordings from before the accident. If she had been imprisoned for years, how had she updated files as recently as last month?
I asked.
Laurel stared at me. Then she smiled without warmth.
“You're Mara,” she said. “Caleb's sister.”
“How do you know?”
“Because your brother told me what your mother did to keep searching.”
She reached into her coat and withdrew a second memory card.
“I had help from the inside. This is the part Harold doesn't know exists.”
We played the card on Ortiz’s secure computer. A spreadsheet opened, listing transfers, forged placements, and dozens of names.
At the bottom of the final page was a column titled AUTHORIZING PARTNER.
May you like
The name there wasn't Harold’s.
It was Vivienne's mother's name: Eleanor Shaw.
