Chapter 6 - THE CHILD NOBODY MENTIONED
"A little boy?"
Elena looked from Ruth to Grace.
Neither woman answered quickly enough.
Her stomach twisted.
"Whose child?"
Ruth's eyes filled.
"Your father never told me."
Elena pulled her hand away.
"Then why would you say he was bringing him home?"
"Because he asked me to help prepare a room."
Elena stared.
"What room?"
"At the old cooperative building. He said the boy needed somewhere safe until his family could come for him."
Grace sank into a chair.
"Oh, Thomas."
Adrien looked sharply at her.
"You knew?"
Grace shook her head.
"Not about the child."
Elena studied the photograph again.
The date was three days before her father disappeared.
"What happened to the boy?"
Ruth wiped her eyes.
"I don't know."
Elena felt anger rising.
Everyone kept knowing one small piece.
Everyone had kept quiet.
And somehow she was expected to assemble the life of a man she loved from scraps other people had decided she could survive without.
"Why didn't you tell my mother?"
Ruth lowered her head.
"Because your father made me promise not to discuss the child until he explained the situation."
"And when he disappeared?"
"I thought the boy had gone back to his family."
Elena stood.
"Everybody thought something. Nobody asked."
Ruth flinched.
Elena immediately regretted her tone.
Ruth had come to her for help.
She was not the person who had created this nightmare.
Elena sat down again.
"I'm sorry."
Ruth squeezed her hand.
"Don't apologize for wanting answers."
Adrien opened the leather notebook.
"There are references to St. Agnes on three dates."
He pointed.
"Thomas wrote about temporary housing, medical bills, and an unnamed dependent."
Elena leaned closer.
Beside the third entry was a small drawing.
A child's stick-figure family.
Three people standing beneath an enormous yellow sun.
At the bottom, in uneven letters, someone had written:
MY SAFE HOUSE.
Elena stared.
The handwriting belonged to a small child.
"How old was he?"
"About six," Ruth said.
Elena felt a strange ache.
She had been seventeen when her father disappeared.
Somewhere there might have been a frightened little boy whose life had collided with hers without either of them knowing.
Adrien turned another page.
There was a hospital receipt.
The patient name had been covered by a strip of correction tape.
But the payment account was visible.
Blue Harbor Holdings.
"Why would the cooperative pay a child's medical bill?" Elena asked.
Adrien considered it.
"Maybe Thomas was helping a family."
Grace whispered, "Or hiding one."
They looked at her.
She shook her head.
"I don't know. But Thomas had been frightened about something involving the waterfront crews. He said people were being used as leverage."
Adrien's jaw tightened.
"Children?"
"He never said that."
Elena looked at the drawing again.
A six-year-old child.
A safe house.
A hospital.
And a man who disappeared three days later.
She remembered her father bringing home extra groceries and insisting they keep clean blankets in the hall closet.
Her mother had complained about the expense.
Thomas had simply smiled.
"You never know who might need a place to sleep," he said.
Elena closed her eyes.
She had forgotten that conversation.
Now it felt important.
Adrien called Malcolm.
This time he placed the call on speaker.
Malcolm answered almost immediately.
"Adrien."
"Where are you?"
"At the waterfront office."
"I need you back at Bellini's."
A pause.
"Tonight?"
"Yes."
"Is something wrong?"
Adrien looked at Elena.
"We found an old hospital receipt. St. Agnes. Twenty-three years ago."
Silence.
Then Malcolm said, "That has nothing to do with the gate transfers."
"How do you know?"
"I assume you're investigating the old cooperative."
Adrien's eyes narrowed.
"I didn't mention the cooperative."
Malcolm exhaled.
"Your father asked me to handle some of those accounts. You know that."
"Then you can explain them."
"I can."
"Good. Come here."
Malcolm hesitated.
"Adrien, there's something you need to understand before you start digging through your father's past."
"What?"
"Carlo didn't keep those records hidden to protect himself."
Elena leaned toward the phone.
"Then who was he protecting?"
Malcolm went quiet.
Finally, he said, "Ask Grace."
The call ended.
Elena turned.
Grace looked devastated.
"What does he mean?"
Grace clasped her hands.
"Your father came to me the night before he disappeared."
"You said the last time you saw him was outside the restaurant."
"That was the night he disappeared. I mean the night before."
Elena waited.
Grace spoke slowly.
"He asked whether I could take care of someone if he couldn't."
"The boy?"
"I didn't know who. He wouldn't tell me."
"Did you agree?"
"Yes."
Elena looked at her.
"Then why didn't you?"
"Because nobody brought a child to me."
Adrien rubbed his jaw.
"Malcolm knows what happened."
"Yes," Elena said. "And he's been working for your family all this time."
Grace reached for the notebook.
"Let me look at something."
She turned to the first page.
Near the binding was a faded address.
Twenty-six Mercer Street.
Elena recognized it.
"The old cooperative building."
Grace nodded.
"There's a community center there now."
Adrien frowned.
"Bellini Charitable Trust owns that building."
Elena looked up sharply.
"Your family owns it?"
"The trust purchased it years ago. It funds after-school programs and a food pantry."
Elena had volunteered there during Christmas drives.
She knew the director.
A woman named Lorraine Foster.
Lorraine had been at the center longer than Elena could remember.
"She's worked there since the building opened," Elena said.
Grace studied her.
"Then she might know something."
They drove there before midnight.
Adrien insisted on bringing Marco, but Elena refused any display of armed protection inside the neighborhood center.
"People already live with enough fear," she told him.
He agreed.
Lorraine Foster met them beneath the fluorescent lights of the entrance hall.
She was a sturdy woman in her late sixties who wore reading glasses on a chain.
When Elena explained what they were investigating, Lorraine's face changed.
"You found Thomas's notebook?"
Elena stopped.
"You knew my father?"
Lorraine nodded.
"He helped establish the first program here."
Elena felt dizzy.
"Why didn't you ever tell me?"
Lorraine looked pained.
"Your mother asked us not to discuss him."
That was another unexpected wound.
"My mother?"
"She said remembering the building hurt too much."
Elena lowered her eyes.
Perhaps her mother had known more.
Or perhaps she had simply reached the end of what she could bear.
Lorraine led them into a small storage room.
On a shelf stood several labeled boxes.
She removed a flat cardboard envelope.
"Thomas asked me to keep something in case the cooperative ever needed proof of its original purpose."
Inside was a child's drawing.
The same three figures.
The same yellow sun.
But this one had names.
TOM.
BEN.
ME.
Elena looked at Lorraine.
"Who was Ben?"
Lorraine answered.
"Benjamin Price."
Adrien stiffened.
"Malcolm's son?"
Lorraine nodded.
"His six-year-old boy."
Elena looked at the drawing.
"And the third person?"
Lorraine hesitated.
Then turned it over.
On the back was a photograph of Thomas Ward kneeling beside a little boy.
Standing on the child's other side was a woman wearing a hospital identification bracelet.
Elena recognized the woman immediately.
Even twenty-three years younger.
Even with tears on her cheeks.
It was her mother.
May you like
Beneath the photograph, in her mother's handwriting, were four words.
WE PROMISED TO PROTECT HIM.
