Chapter 7
We found Elliot first.
He was two and a half now.
Living at a Cross caretaker property forty miles from the estate.
Healthy.
Well-fed.
Confused.
The woman caring for him believed Rebecca had abandoned him.
Walter told her that.
Of course.
When Rebecca arrived, Elliot did not recognize her.
That moment destroyed everyone in the room.
Rebecca crouched.
He hid behind the caretaker.
She started crying.
Not loudly.
Worse.
Quietly.
“I’m his mother.”
The caretaker went pale.
She had no idea.
Important.
Not every person inside a corrupt system understands what the system is doing.
I refused to turn ignorance into collective guilt.
Rebecca sat on the floor.
No reaching.
No forcing.
Elliot stared at her.
Eventually he approached because she had brought the same blue blanket he slept with as a baby.
He touched it.
Then her hand.
Small beginning.
Molly was harder.
No Cross residence had her.
No caretaker.
No school under her name.
Gordon claimed he did not know.
I believed him.
Walter did.
He smiled when I confronted him.
Not because he enjoyed my fear.
Because he still believed information gave him bargaining power.
“Restore my authority.”
I stared.
“And you tell me where Molly is?”
“Yes.”
There.
A five-year-old as currency.
Exactly the man I now understood.
I moved closer.
“You think this ends with negotiation.”
He lifted his chin.
“You need me.”
Wrong.
I called Rebecca into the room.
Walter’s face changed.
She looked at him.
No scream.
No attack.
Just one sentence.
“Where is my daughter?”
Walter looked away.
Rebecca smiled bitterly.
“He does that when he’s scared.”
Interesting.
She knew him better than I did.
Then she said:
“Ask about the summer school.”
Walter’s face went white.
I turned.
“What summer school?”
Rebecca had heard the phrase during one controlled phone call.
Molly told her:
“Grandpa Walter says I’m going to summer school where parasite kids learn gratitude.”
There was no Cross summer school.
But there was an old lakeside camp.
Closed publicly six years ago.
May you like
Still owned by us.
I knew exactly where to go.
