“You were injured.”
“Yes.”
“How badly?”
“Enough.”
His anger fought instinctive concern.
He hated that.
Elena continued.
“They said the threat was immediate. They told me you and Sophie would be relocated after my stabilization.”
Jack whispered, “Nobody came.”
“I know.”
“I never got a call.”
“I know.”
“I filed a missing-person report.”
Elena looked down.
“I know now.”
“Now?”
She nodded.
“The federal marshal handling my case was Thomas Keane.”
Jack did not recognize the name.
“He told me you refused relocation.”
Jack stared.
“What?”
“He said you were furious I had endangered Sophie. He showed me copies of custody filings.”
“I never filed anything.”
“I know.”
“He told me you wanted no contact.”
“That is insane.”
“I know.”
“You believed him?”
Elena flinched.
“Yes.”
Jack stepped backward.
That hurt more than he expected.
“You believed I would take Sophie and disappear?”
“I had just been nearly killed.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
“I know.”
“No, Elena.”
Jack’s voice cracked.
“You don’t.”
He looked toward the house.
“For six months I slept on the couch because I thought if you came home, I needed to hear the front door.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Jack continued.
“I called hospitals in four states.”
Tears filled his eyes now.
“I called morgues.”
Elena covered her face.
“I didn’t know whether you were alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I buried nothing because there was nothing to bury.”
“Jack—”
“Then the letter came.”
He stared at her.
“Three months after you disappeared.”
Elena lowered her hands.
“What did it say?”
Jack laughed painfully.
“You really don’t know.”
“No.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then crossed the garage.
Opened a metal cabinet.
Behind tax receipts and Sophie’s school documents sat a small fireproof box.
Jack unlocked it.
Removed a worn envelope.
He had not touched it in two years.
Elena recognized her name typed on the return label.
Not her handwriting.
Jack handed it over.
She unfolded the paper.
Read.
Her face broke.
I can’t live this life anymore.
I never wanted to be a mother this young.
Please don’t look for me.
Sophie will have a better life with you.
Elena’s hands shook violently.
“No.”
She read farther.
I’m signing away whatever rights I have.
Tell her I’m sorry when she’s old enough.
“No.”
She looked up.
“I did not write this.”
Jack’s jaw clenched.
“It had details only you knew.”
“Keane knew everything.”
“How?”
“He interviewed me for weeks.”
Elena pressed both hands against the page.
“He knew our arguments. He knew Sophie’s sleep problems. He knew I was afraid I’d be a bad mother.”
Jack remembered.
Elena had struggled after Sophie’s birth.
Not with love.
With fear.
Fear of doing something wrong.
Fear of repeating her own mother’s mistakes.
She sometimes woke to check Sophie’s breathing five times a night.
Keane could have weaponized that.