Chapter 4 - The Son I Couldn’t Reach
I called back.
The number was disconnected.
Detective Morales traced the signal.
It had bounced through three towers before disappearing.
Professional work.
Not something Cassandra arranged alone.
Elijah stared at her.
“You told me Noah was at the lake house.”
“He was.”
“With your brother?”
“For a while.”
“What does that mean?”
Cassandra smiled faintly.
“It means you should have paid more attention to the children you collected.”
Elijah’s face reddened.
Morales stepped between them.
“Mrs. Blackwood, you are being detained.”
Cassandra looked at me as officers handcuffed her.
“You think Toby’s whisper made you powerful?”
“No.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because you’re afraid he’ll remember more.”
For the first time, she looked away.
Toby was transferred to intensive care.
I stayed beside him until dawn.
Elijah remained outside the room.
He was not allowed in without police supervision.
At 5:40 a.m., Toby’s eyes opened again.
I removed the breathing tube after confirming he could breathe independently.
He cried weakly.
I held his hand.
“You’re safe.”
He looked around.
“Where’s Noah?”
My heart stopped.
“You know Noah?”
He nodded.
“He was at our house.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Elijah entered with Morales.
Toby recoiled.
Not from Elijah.
From the sound of Cassandra shouting in the corridor as she was moved.
I leaned closer.
“Did Noah stay in your room?”
“In the blue room.”
“What happened?”
Toby closed his eyes.
“Cassandra said we were playing hide-and-seek.”
Elijah whispered, “She made them hide?”
Toby shook his head.
“She made Noah drink sleepy juice.”
The toxicology team tested a cup recovered from the mansion.
It contained the same sedative found in Toby’s blood.
Toby continued.
“Noah woke up.”
“What did he see?”
Tears formed in the boy’s eyes.
“Cassandra talking to the man with the silver ring.”
“What man?”
“He said Noah was worth more alive until Friday.”
Friday was three days away.
Morales asked why.
Toby did not know.
Then he said something worse.
“The man hit me because I called Mom.”
He looked at me.
Not Cassandra.
Me.
I had never met him before that night.
Yet he called me Mom.
I asked gently, “Why do you call me that?”
Toby touched my hand.
“Noah said you’re the good mom.”
I looked away before anyone saw my face break.
Morales received a message.
The house security footage from the previous afternoon had been erased.
But a doorbell camera across the street captured a black van leaving the mansion.
The plate belonged to a private medical transport company.
One owned by Cassandra’s family.
The van’s destination history showed one location.
St. Gabriel Children’s Research Center.
May you like
A facility that officially closed two years earlier.
👉 Toby remembered Noah being drugged and taken away, and the abandoned children’s center offered the first real chance to find him alive.
