Chapter 23
The room went silent.
Vincent.
Dead?
Unconscious?
Transport?
I stared at Harold.
“What are you talking about?”
Harold looked at Detective Morales, who was already on speaker.
She answered before he could.
“Vincent was transferred for a medical evaluation last month after claiming chest pain. During transport, he became unresponsive. He was treated and returned to prison.”
“And no one told me?”
“It was not deemed relevant to your safety at the time.”
I laughed.
Hard.
Empty.
“Not relevant?”
Ethan’s face turned pale.
I immediately lowered my voice.
“Sorry, buddy.”
He hugged the wooden train.
Detective Morales continued.
“The recovered adult survivor claims she saw Vincent at a Blackwood property two nights after that transport.”
My blood went cold.
“That’s impossible.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“We are verifying.”
Harold stood.
“Was there a body check? Fingerprints? Cameras?”
“The prison records show he returned. But we now believe Blackwood associates may have compromised the transport team.”
Vincent had been sentenced to life.
Without parole.
I had watched them take him away.
I had believed one nightmare was locked forever.
Now the floor under that belief cracked.
Ethan whispered, “Is Vincent coming back?”
I knelt in front of him.
“I don’t know what happened yet. But you are protected.”
His eyes filled.
“That’s not the same.”
No.
It was not.
My father looked sick.
“Malcolm would not risk freeing Vincent unless he needed something.”
“The ledger?” I asked.
“Or Ethan.”
I pulled Ethan closer.
No.
Not again.
Never again.
The adult survivor’s name was Nora Ellis.
She had been taken through a Blackwood Foundation program when she was twelve.
Now thirty, she had escaped years earlier but remained hidden out of fear.
When she saw Malcolm arrested, she came forward.
She told investigators Vincent had been used by Malcolm before.
Not as a son.
As a weapon.
A violent secret Blackwood men pointed at people when money failed.
If Vincent was loose, he was not free.
He was working.
The prison confirmed something horrifying within forty-eight hours.
The man in Vincent’s cell was not Vincent.
He was another inmate with similar features, placed after a transport swap.
The records had been falsified.
Two transport officers disappeared.
One was later found dead.
The other became a fugitive.
Ethan stopped sleeping again.
So did I.
Harold’s condo became a fortress.
My father moved in despite my hesitation.
“I owe you protection,” he said.
“You cannot repay fifteen years with a gun by the door.”
“No,” he said. “But I can stand there tonight.”
I let him.
Maybe because I was tired.
Maybe because I wanted to see if he would stay when danger came.
Vincent sent his first message three days later.
Not to me.
To Ethan.
A small package arrived through a courier.
Security intercepted it.
Inside was a torn piece of Ethan’s old stuffed bear from before the fire.
Not the new one.
The one Vincent had once taken.
I thought it had burned in the apartment.
It had not.
There was a note.
Still my little witness.
Ethan did not see it.
Thank God.
But he saw my face.
“What?”
“Nothing you need tonight.”
He frowned.
“You say tonight when it’s bad.”
I sat beside him.
“You are right. It is bad. But it is adult bad, and I am handling it.”
“Is it about Vincent?”
I could not lie.
“Yes.”
Ethan pressed his lips together.
Then he said, “I want to learn what to do if someone tries to take me.”
My heart broke.
But I said yes.
Not because I wanted him to live afraid.
Because skill can quiet fear.
Detective Morales arranged child safety training.
Not scary.
Practical.
Passwords.
Safe adults.
Emergency calls.
How to yell.
How to run.
How to describe a car.
Ethan took it seriously.
Too seriously.
At the end, he asked the officer, “What if the bad guy is family?”
The officer looked at me.
Then back at Ethan.
“Then you still run.”
That answer mattered.
Meanwhile, Malcolm’s lawyers claimed Vincent’s escape had nothing to do with him.
Then Nora Ellis identified a Blackwood security man from a photo lineup.
Then phone records placed that man near the transport route.
Then a hidden account paid both transport officers.
The case tightened.
Malcolm sat in custody.
Vincent moved somewhere outside the law.
And we waited.
Waiting ended on a rainy afternoon when Harold received a call from an unknown number.
He answered on speaker.
Vincent’s voice came through.
Rough.
Familiar.
Nightmare made sound.
“Put Daniel on.”
I looked at Ethan.
He was in the next room with headphones on, watching cartoons under my father’s watch.
Harold nodded.
I took the phone.
“I’m here.”
Vincent laughed softly.
“You keep surviving. It’s irritating.”
“What do you want?”
“My father’s ledger.”
“Malcolm has enough charges.”
“Not Malcolm,” Vincent said. “Arthur. The real one. Your father kept a second ledger.”
My eyes moved to my father.
He went pale.
May you like
Vincent continued.
“Bring it to the old sawmill by midnight, or I tell Ethan what really happened to his mother.”
