Chapter 15 - THE CHILD WHO NEVER CAME HOME
Thomas did not remember walking to the parking lot.
Daniel found him standing beside his car, keys in hand, unmoving.
“Thomas?”
Thomas looked up.
“Claire was pregnant.”
Daniel’s face changed.
“Are you sure?”
“Helen said it.”
Daniel exhaled slowly. “She could be manipulating you.”
“She was smiling.”
That was worse.
Helen never wasted smiles.
Detective Quinn confirmed it two hours later.
Claire’s medical records, sealed in the old case file, showed she had been ten weeks pregnant at the time of the crash.
The report listed it clinically.
Pregnancy noted.
Thomas stared at those two words until they blurred.
He had lost Claire.
He had lost a child he never knew existed.
And Robert had called it a problem solved.
When Thomas told Rebecca, Samuel, and Jacob, he did it in the living room beneath Claire’s favorite quilt. Mrs. Alvarez, who had agreed to stay with the family temporarily, stood in the kitchen making soup none of them could eat.
Rebecca cried silently.
Samuel asked, “Was it a boy or girl?”
Thomas shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Jacob whispered, “Can we name the baby?”
Thomas’s heart broke again.
Rebecca looked at him. “Mom would want that.”
They sat together for a long time, offering names like tiny candles in darkness.
Finally Jacob said, “Hope.”
No one argued.
So the baby became Hope.
That night, Thomas carried an old rocking chair from storage into the children’s room. Claire had used it with all three of them. He placed the framed photo of her on the dresser.
“We talk about Mom here,” he said. “Whenever we want.”
Samuel touched the frame.
“And Hope?”
“And Hope.”
For the first time, the children slept without asking whether the door would stay open.
Downstairs, Thomas opened Claire’s letter again.
Protect that kindness.
His phone buzzed.
Detective Quinn.
“We identified the number Robert called the night Claire died,” she said.
Thomas stood.
“It belonged to a mechanic named Leon Vance. He worked at a private garage that serviced foundation vehicles.”
L.
Thomas closed his eyes.
“Not Lydia.”
“No,” Quinn said. “Lydia may have been another victim.”
“Where is Leon?”
There was a pause.
“That’s the problem,” Quinn said. “He disappeared the morning after Claire’s crash.”
Thomas looked toward the stairs where his children slept.
“Find him.”
“We’re trying.”
May you like
Thomas’s voice turned cold.
“So am I.”
