Chapter 6 - The Price of an Answer
Claire wanted answer immediately.
Detective Sloan stopped her from pressing Ethan aggressively.
The boy had already demonstrated planning.
Whatever he knew needed verification.
Ethan asked for food first.
Claire stared.
He had entered her life through hunger.
Was hunger real?
Doctor confirmed malnutrition.
Yes.
He had genuinely gone without enough food.
His bruises were real too.
Nothing about scheme meant suffering was fake.
After eating, Ethan said:
“I don't know where Thomas is now.”
Claire’s hope collapsed.
“You just said you know what happened.”
“I know where he was.”
“When?”
“Last winter.”
“Where?”
“A house.”
“What house?”
“Gray house near water.”
“Who was with him?”
“A man.”
Name?
“No.”
Description?
Ethan gave little.
Then:
“Thomas called himself Tom.”
He would be nine now.
Did he look like photographs?
“Older.”
Scar?
Ethan touched left eyebrow.
“Yes.”
Claire noticed.
Ethan’s own scar mirrored Thomas’s.
Coincidence?
Or deliberate?
Doctor examined Ethan’s scar.
Old.
At least several years.
Not recently created.
That complicated suspicion.
Ethan said he met Thomas at temporary shelter where children without stable homes passed through.
Not official shelter.
A house controlled by man called Mr. Gray.
Thomas told Ethan about Claire.
Pancakes.
Rocking horse.
There.
That could explain all Ethan’s private knowledge.
Claire asked:
“Why didn't you tell me immediately?”
Ethan looked at floor.
“Because I thought if I said I knew him, you'd take what I knew and send me away.”
“And pretending to be him?”
“I never said I was Thomas.”
Technically true.
He called Claire “Mom.”
But after Claire called him Thomas.
He said:
“She knows my name.”
He had allowed assumption.
Claire:
“You knew exactly what I would think.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted somewhere safe.”
An understandable motive.
Maybe.
Then Lily asked:
“Why did you smile?”
Everyone looked.
“What smile?” Claire asked.
“In alley. When Mom hugged him.”
Ethan stared at Lily.
“I was happy.”
“No.”
Lily shook head.
“You looked like you won.”
Ethan’s expression hardened for fraction second.
Then he began crying.
Claire instinctively moved toward him.
Lily saw it.
That was what Ethan wanted.
Not necessarily Claire’s money.
Claire’s protection.
Her sympathy.
Her need for Thomas.
That night Ethan gave police location of gray house.
They raided it.
Empty.
But on upstairs wall someone had carved:
T.W.
Below:
DON’T LET THEM TAKE MY NAME.
Claire touched letters.
Then detective found second carving beneath windowsill.
E.W.
May you like
Ethan’s initials.
The two boys had been there together.
