Chapter 4 - The Fire Escape
Mara screamed Micah's name so hard her voice broke.
I reached the bedroom first.
The window was open six inches.
Cold air poured in.
No Micah.
Mara shoved past me.
“Micah!”
Then a small voice answered from below.
“I'm here.”
He was sitting on the fire escape one floor down, hugging his knees.
I climbed out before anyone could stop me.
The metal was slick.
My dress shoes were useless.
“Don't move, buddy.”
“I wasn't leaving.”
“Good.”
“I just wanted quiet.”
That sentence hurt more than it should have.
I climbed down.
Micah looked at me with those gray-blue eyes.
“Mom cries when she thinks we can't hear.”
I sat beside him.
The city hummed below us.
“She has a lot going on.”
“Because of you?”
“Some of it.”
He nodded like that made sense.
Children are terrifying that way.
They accept the truths adults spend years decorating.
“Are you our dad?”
“I don't know yet.”
“You look like us.”
“I noticed.”
He touched the back of his neck.
I did the same without thinking.
Micah smiled.
“See?”
I laughed once.
Then I nearly cried.
Back inside, Mara wrapped him in a blanket and kissed his head over and over.
Gerald stood near the door.
I had forgotten he was there.
“Talk,” I said.
He shook his head.
“Not here.”
“You don't get to choose.”
“Actually, Adrian, if you want the boys safe, I do.”
Mara went still.
“What danger?”
Gerald looked toward the children.
“Your father discovered someone had been moving money through Whitaker charitable accounts. Millions. He suspected the scheme went back decades.”
“What does that have to do with my sons?”
“Everything.”
He glanced at the flash drive.
“Your father copied records. Mara became involved by accident.”
“I worked at one of the foundation clinics,” she said quietly.
Gerald nodded.
“She saw payments that didn't match patient records.”
I stared at her.
“You never told me.”
“You called me a liar when I told you I was pregnant.”
Fair.
Gerald continued.
“Your father hid Mara and the boys after someone broke into her apartment.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Gerald's phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His face changed.
“Don't answer,” Mara said.
He answered.
Listened.
Said nothing.
Then he hung up.
“We need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother just reported four children kidnapped from a restaurant.”
Mara stared at me.
“She did what?”
Gerald grabbed his coat.
“The police are on their way.”
I looked at the boys.
Four small faces.
Four versions of mine.
And suddenly the question wasn't whether they were my sons.
May you like
It was whether my own mother was trying to take them from me before I could prove it.
