Chapter 2 - Someone Followed Them From Prison
Ethan leaned forward and slapped the divider.
“Change of address.”
The taxi driver looked back.
“You said Westbrook.”
“Not anymore.”
Sarah was still on the phone.
“Ethan, where are you?”
“You first.”
“What?”
“Where is Rachel?”
“I don’t know.”
“She called you last night.”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“She used a blocked number.”
“Four years gone and suddenly she calls the night before I get released?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sarah inhaled hard.
“To warn me.”
“About what?”
A horn sounded behind the taxi.
Ethan looked through the rear glass.
Black sedan.
Two cars back.
His jaw tightened.
“Driver, take the next right.”
Sarah heard him.
“Is someone following you?”
“How do you know anyone would?”
“Ethan.”
“How?”
“Because she said they would.”
Noah sat beside him, holding the empty sandwich bag against his chest.
His face had gone quiet.
Kids knew when adults were lying.
They also knew when adults were afraid.
Ethan lowered his voice.
“What exactly did Rachel say?”
Sarah whispered:
“She said if you saw Noah outside the prison, you had to walk away.”
He closed his eyes.
The note.
Same message.
Different words.
“Did she send me the warning note?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who else knew?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Did she ask about Noah?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Sarah started crying.
“She asked if he still liked peanut butter.”
Ethan looked at his son.
Noah heard.
His fingers tightened on the bag.
“That’s why you brought the sandwich?”
Noah nodded.
“Aunt Sarah said Mom used to say Saturday lunch mattered.”
Ethan’s pulse kicked.
Sarah said, “I never told him she called.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Noah whispered, “Mom always said that.”
He remembered.
Two years old.
Maybe not the words.
Maybe the ritual.
Rachel used to write SATURDAY LUNCH on the fridge calendar.
Ethan would make sandwiches.
She would take Noah to the park.
Tiny family habit.
Meaningless to everyone else.
Perfect as a code.
“Sarah, tell me everything.”
“I can’t on the phone.”
“You already did enough on the phone.”
“Not this.”
The black sedan moved closer.
Ethan told the driver to turn again.
Then again.
The sedan stayed with them.
The driver muttered, “Your friends?”
“No.”
“I don’t need trouble.”
“You’ll get an extra twenty.”
“I said cash?”
“You’ll get all forty if you lose that car.”
The driver looked in the mirror.
Then grinned.
“Should’ve said that first.”
He cut through a yellow light.
The sedan stopped behind cross traffic.
Ethan exhaled.
Noah smiled for the first time.
“That was cool.”
“Don’t learn from this.”
“Okay.”
They reached a crowded supermarket.
Ethan paid the driver.
He and Noah entered through one door, crossed the store, and exited through another into a busier street.
No sedan.
At least not visible.
Ethan called Sarah again from outside a pharmacy.
“Give me an address that Reed doesn’t know.”
She went silent.
There.
“Why did you react to his name?”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
Noah looked up.
“Who’s Reed?”
Ethan ignored the question.
Sarah whispered, “Come to Aunt Linda’s old house.”
“My mother’s place?”
“It’s empty.”
“Reed knows it.”
“He thinks it was sold.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No.”
Another lie.
Ethan rubbed his face.
“Send the address anyway.”
“It’s the same address.”
Of course.
They took two buses and walked the last six blocks.
Ethan checked windows.
Cars.
Corners.
Prison had taught him how to feel watched.
That didn’t make him good at escaping it.
It just made him aware of how little control he had.
Sarah opened the side door before they knocked.
She grabbed Noah first.
“You scared me to death.”
Noah mumbled against her shoulder.
“I left a note.”
“You signed my name.”
“I know.”
“That’s not a note. That’s a felony.”
Ethan almost laughed.
Sarah looked at him.
Her face changed.
Six years had put lines around her mouth.
Gray in her hair.
Fear in her eyes.
Not shock.
Not reunion.
Fear.
“You look terrible.”
“So do you.”
She nodded.
Fair.
“Inside.”
The house smelled like dust and closed windows.
His mother had moved to assisted living two years earlier.
Nobody had told him the property stayed in the family.
Noah went to the kitchen.
Sarah waited until he was out of earshot.
Then slapped Ethan.
Hard.
His head turned.
He looked back at her.
“Feel better?”
“No.”
“Then don’t waste another.”
“You took him through downtown with someone following you.”
“He came to the prison alone.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“I found out when the school called.”
“After five days?”
“He told them he was sick and kept leaving after morning attendance.”
Ethan stared.
The kid was terrifying.
Sarah lowered her voice.
“Rachel said this would happen.”
“What?”
“That Noah would find a way to get to you.”
“How does Rachel know our son after four years gone?”
Sarah’s eyes filled.
“Because she never stopped watching him.”
Ethan’s breath stalled.
“Explain.”
Sarah walked to the living room.
She opened an old sewing cabinet.
Inside were envelopes.
Dozens.
Some sealed.
Some opened.
Different postmarks.
Different handwriting styles on the outside.
Noah Walker.
Birthday cards.
Ethan touched one.
Inside:
Happy seventh birthday, Bug.
The handwriting was Rachel’s.
He knew it instantly.
A tiny heart replacing the dot over the i in birthday.
She had done that since high school.
His knees almost gave.
“You told everyone she abandoned him.”
“I had to.”
“Who told you that?”
“Rachel.”
He looked at her.
“She was working with federal investigators.”
Ethan laughed once.
“No.”
“She found something after your conviction.”
“What?”
“Records from the garage.”
“What records?”
“Vehicle titles. Payments. Police reports that didn’t match.”
His chest tightened.
“Reed.”
Sarah nodded.
“She believed Marcus Reed planted evidence in your case.”
Ethan sat.
He had said that six years ago.
His lawyer called it anger.
The prosecutor called it desperation.
Reed called it pathetic.
Sarah continued.
“Rachel took the files to a federal contact.”
“What agency?”
“She never told me.”
“Why?”
“Because she said local law enforcement was compromised.”
Noah appeared at the doorway.
“Is Mom a cop?”
Both adults froze.
Sarah wiped her face.
“No, honey.”
“Is she alive?”
Ethan looked at Sarah.
The question belonged to him too.
Sarah closed her eyes.
“I think so.”
Noah stepped forward.
“You said you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know for sure.”
“You lied.”
Sarah flinched.
Noah ran upstairs.
Ethan stood.
Sarah grabbed his arm.
“Give him a minute.”
“No.”
“He just learned his mother might be alive.”
“And his dad walked out of prison today.”
“That’s exactly why.”
Ethan pulled free.
“You don’t decide when I father him.”
Sarah’s face hardened.
“You lost that right when you went to prison.”
The words hit.
She regretted them immediately.
Ethan stepped back.
“I didn’t commit that robbery.”
“I know.”
Silence.
He stared.
“What?”
“I know.”
“You spent six years acting like you believed I did.”
“I spent six years keeping Noah alive.”
Ethan’s hands curled.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Sarah looked toward the stairs.
Then opened a drawer beneath the sewing cabinet.
She removed a photograph.
Polaroid-style print.
Recent.
Three weeks old.
Rachel.
Older.
Thinner.
Standing across the street from Noah’s elementary school.
Baseball cap low.
Sunglasses.
But Rachel.
No question.
Ethan’s legs went weak.
He turned the photo over.
Black marker.
DO NOT LET ETHAN TRUST CALEB.
Ethan stopped breathing.
A car door slammed outside.
Sarah’s face drained.
Noah shouted from upstairs:
“Uncle Caleb!”
May you like
CUT.
