For several seconds, all I could hear was the ceiling fan clicking above us.
Someone was watching the house.
David said it as if he were discussing weather.
I looked from him to Richard. Neither man appeared surprised by the statement. Chloe held her son against her chest and had gone pale.
“Who is watching?” I asked.
David rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to understand that Liam leaving may have been the safest thing he could do.”
“Then why didn’t anybody tell me?”
No answer.
I pulled my suitcase handle upright.
David frowned. “Where are you going?”
“To find him.”
“Sarah.”
“Move.”
“You don’t know where he is.”
“I’ll start with the restaurant.”
Something flickered in his face.
Too quick.
But I saw it.
“You know where he works.”
“Of course I know.”
“Then you know where he lives.”
“No.”
“You’re lying again.”
David lowered his voice. “I am trying to keep you out of something.”
“That worked beautifully.”
Richard stepped forward. “Sarah, listen to him for once.”
I turned on him.
“For once? I spent twelve years listening to your son. I listened when he said I was imagining financial problems. I listened when he said I was overreacting to his affairs. I listened when he told me our divorce would be easier if I stopped asking questions. I’m finished listening.”
David flinched at the reference to our marriage.
Good.
I wanted at least one sentence to land.
I left the house carrying the cookies because abandoning them somehow felt worse. Outside, the air smelled of salt and hot asphalt. The gray SUV remained at the curb.
“Whose car is that?” I called over my shoulder.
Nobody answered.
I photographed the license plate.
Then I drove to the restaurant where Liam worked.
The dinner rush had not started yet. A young hostess recognized his name and pointed me toward the kitchen. A manager emerged a minute later, wiping his hands on a towel.
“You’re Liam’s mother?”
“Yes.”
His face softened.
That frightened me.
“Is he all right?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“He’s been picking up extra shifts. Nights mostly.”
“Do you know where he’s staying?”
The manager hesitated.
“If he asked you not to tell me, I understand. But I just came from the house he was supposed to be living in and found my ex-husband’s family there.”
The man studied me for another second.
Then he said, “Wait here.”
He returned with a folded paper.
“Liam left this with me two weeks ago.”
“For me?”
“He said if a woman named Sarah Mitchell showed up asking questions, I should give it to her.”
My hands went cold.
Liam had anticipated me arriving.
Or feared it.
I unfolded the page.
There was no letter. Only an address and three words.
COME ALONE. PLEASE.
The address was forty-three minutes away.
I called Liam again before leaving the parking lot.
Voicemail.
Then I texted him.
I’m coming. Tell me if I shouldn’t.
No reply.
The address led inland, away from the bright waterfront neighborhoods and tourist hotels. The houses became smaller. Salt-stained apartment buildings stood beside auto shops and laundromats. By the time my navigation told me I had arrived, I was staring at a three-story brick building with rust around the gutters.
This was where my son had been living while my ex-husband’s relatives occupied his beach house.
Anger almost carried me up the stairs.
Fear slowed me down.
Apartment 3C had no name beside the buzzer.
I knocked.
Nothing.
I knocked again.
“Liam?”
A lock moved.
Then another.
The door opened three inches.
My son looked through the gap.
His face changed instantly.
“Mom?”
Every complaint I had prepared vanished.
He had lost weight.
There were dark circles beneath his eyes, and his hair was longer than usual. He wore an old college sweatshirt I recognized from high school and kept one hand hidden behind the door.
I pushed it open.
“What happened to you?”
He hugged me before answering.
Not the quick, embarrassed hug he usually gave me in airports.
He held on.
Hard.
That frightened me more than the house.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered.
“I couldn’t.”
“You could always tell me.”
“No.”
His voice cracked.
“Not this.”
I stepped inside.
The apartment contained almost nothing. A mattress lay directly on the floor. There was a folding table, two chairs, a mini refrigerator, and grocery bags stacked beside the wall. No television. No decorations. No photographs.
Liam locked the door behind me.
Then he slid a chair under the handle.
I stared.
“Who are you afraid of?”
He went to the window and checked the blinds.
“Did anyone follow you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
“Liam.”
“What car are you driving?”
“A rental.”
“Where is it?”
“Outside.”
His face tightened. “We may have to move it.”
I reached for him.
He stepped away.
Not from me.
From the window.
“Your father told me somebody was watching the house.”
Liam gave a short, humorless laugh.
“Dad said that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s convenient.”
“What does that mean?”
He walked to the mattress and pulled a battered black notebook from underneath it.
The cover was bent. Several pages were swollen as if they had gotten wet. Elastic bands held loose papers against the back.
“What is that?”
“Everything I could document.”
“About what?”
He did not answer immediately.
Instead, he studied my face with an expression I had never seen from him before.
He was deciding how much truth I could survive.
I sat on the folding chair.
“Start anywhere.”
He remained standing.
“Did you go to the beach house?”
“Yes.”
“Who was there?”
“Chloe. Her boys. Richard. Then your father.”
Liam shut his eyes.
“Did Dad know you were coming?”
“He claimed he didn’t.”
“He knew.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying things like that.”
“Because I don’t know.”
He opened the notebook.
The first pages were filled with dates, addresses, license plates, names, and small observations written in his cramped handwriting.
Dad asked about Mom’s passport.
Chloe asked where closing documents were.
Dad said Mom approved paperwork.
Gray SUV outside campus.
Same SUV outside house.
County record changed.
I stopped at the final line.
“I saw the county record.”
Liam’s eyes lifted.
“So you know.”
“I know David’s name is on the house.”
“That’s not all.”
“What else?”
He pulled a cracked laptop from beneath the bed.
While it started, I asked the question I had been avoiding.
“Did your father hurt you?”
Liam stared at the screen.
“No.”
“That took too long.”
“He never hit me.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
His jaw tightened.
“He wanted me scared.”
I moved my chair closer.
“What happened?”
Liam opened a folder on the laptop.
Three weeks after I bought the beach house, David had begun asking him casual questions. Where did I keep the insurance paperwork? Did I save copies of closing documents? Was the property eventually going into Liam’s name?
“I answered him,” Liam said.
“Of course you did. He’s your father.”
“He told me you were planning to transfer the house earlier than expected.”
“I never said that.”
“I figured that out.”
He clicked another file.
A scanned legal document filled the screen.
QUITCLAIM DEED.
My name appeared on one line.
David’s appeared on another.
At the bottom was a signature that looked almost exactly like mine.
Almost.
The S was wrong.
The ending stroke was too careful.
Someone had practiced it.
I leaned toward the screen.
“When was this filed?”
“Eight months ago.”
My voice sounded distant even to me.
“I never signed this.”
“I know.”
“Who notarized it?”
Liam enlarged the document.
Melissa Grant.
The name meant nothing to me.
“It gets worse,” he said.
I looked at my son.
“How much worse?”
He swallowed.
Then he turned to another page in the notebook.
“Dad knows I found the deed.”
