Page 7 of Silent Echo

Harper didn’t answer, and when she glanced over, Charlotte saw that she was crying.

“Harper …”

“I miss him too, you know. You’re not the only one.”

Charlotte reached out to pat her hand, but Harper snatched it back. “I know you do. I’m sorry if seeing his room still there makes you uncomfortable, but can you understand? I’m not ready.”

“Whatever.”

They rode in silence the rest of the way home, Charlotte’s short-lived feeling of well-being completely gone. She couldn’t seem to do anything right anymore. She pulled into the driveway, and Harper bolted from the car and went into the house. Charlotte rested her head on the steering wheel, breathing deeply, telling herself it would all be okay. At times like these, she wondered if her family would be better off without her. Eli could find some nice woman to marry who would give Harper the attention she deserved. Bake cookies with her, take an interest in her hobbies, and do more than pay lip service half-distracted. “Don’t be stupid,” she said out loud. Tomorrow. She’d pack up the room tomorrow. It was the least she could do for her only remaining child.

The next day, still thinking about her conversation with Harper, she stopped at the grocery store. She’d bake chocolate chip cookies. They were Harper’s favorite. When was the last time she’d baked anything? She walked down the baking aisle and grabbed flour, baking powder, and chips. As she was about to push the cart forward, she looked up and froze. Her heart began to pound furiously. She dropped the bag of chocolate chips in her hand and ran toward the little boy at the end of the aisle. It was Sebastion! She touched his shoulder and he turned around.

“Can I help you?” A woman ran up to her.

Charlotte swallowed the lump in her throat. Of course it wasn’t him. “I’m sorry. I thought your son was someone else. Iapologize.” She backed away. The woman was still looking at her with suspicion. Then the tears came, and she ran from the store, leaving her cart in the middle of the aisle. It was happening again. Just when she began to feel somewhat normal, her mind played tricks on her. Would it ever end?

CHAPTER SIX

She got as far as taking down the posters on the wall. But when she went to the closet and pulled one of Sebastion’s sweaters down, she began to cry uncontrollably. Eli had offered to do it with her, but she needed to go at her own pace and sort through things herself. He would just pack it all up efficiently and she couldn’t bear that. She sat down on the bed and looked around the room. It felt wrong to dismantle it. This was too hard. She couldn’t do it. So instead, she drove to the hardware store, bought a deadbolt lock, watched a video on YouTube on how to install it, and did so. She’d always been technically inclined, much more so than Eli, who couldn’t hammer a nail properly. She felt a sense of accomplishment when she put the key in and locked the door. Problem solved. Now none of Harper’s friends would go in there.

She was behind on her research, so she went into the office with a strong cup of coffee and opened her laptop. Navigating to Facebook, she saw that she had some friend requests from old colleagues and high school and college friends. She accepted them and spent some time looking at their pages. Then she remembered the other reason she’d gotten off social media. Everyone seemed so happy and complete. Beautiful pictures of family holidays, babies being born, vacations. It made her loss feel even larger. Sighing, she shut the laptop and leaned back in her chair, summoning the memory of their last family vacation.

They’d gone to Rehoboth Beach the last week of summer. Every year, they rented the same house right on the beach.Charlotte loved sleeping with the sliding doors open and listening to the crashing waves. Both Harper and Sebastion loved the beach, and they’d spend all day building sandcastles and playing in the surf. Harper had brought a friend with her, and the two girls walked the beach every day, shyly smiling at cute boys, trying to act older than their twelve years. Sebastion, only four, was happy digging in the sand and playing in the small wading pool Eli would bring down every morning and filled with ocean water. It was simple and wholesome, and Eli insisted she take some time to read her book while he watched over Sebastion. He was great in that way, so unlike many of her friends’ husbands, who believed childcare was the mother’s responsibility. Her friends always came back from their vacations needing a vacation. But she and Eli had worked out a rhythm and balance that gave them each time to relax. Sebastion had been delighted when his digging yielded sand crabs, and he’d run over to her, excited.

“Mommy, Mommy, crabbies. Can we cook them?”

She laughed. Even at his young age, he was a true Marylander who’d had his first taste of steamed blue crab at age two.

“No, sweetie, those are different kinds of crab.”

“Oh, I’ll put it back.”

They’d had their photo taken by the young guy selling telescope photos. It was the last picture ever taken of the four of them.

She stood up and stretched, pacing briefly to try to center herself. She needed to focus. She watched two more videos on social media trends then picked up her phone and opened Instagram. She was following a little over four hundred accounts right now—a mix of authors, bookstores, and publishers, to get a sense of what the ads targeted to that segment looked like. She scrolled through posts of book covers, writing advice, television series, quotes, and more books. She liked the book-related poststo see how that would affect the algorithm and narrow down the sponsored content she saw. After an hour, her eyes began to blur as she clicked on a story from a bookstore in Florida. Her heart sped up, and it took her a minute to absorb what she was seeing. She scrolled back down and stared. A group of kids sat in a circle, being read to by someone in a Cat in the Hat costume. Her eyes rested on a little boy half turned away. Could it be?

She took a screenshot and enlarged the photo. It looked exactly like Sebastion. His hair was shorter and his face thinner, but otherwise he was a dead ringer for her son. But of course, this wasn’t the first time she thought she saw him. It seemed like she saw him everywhere. She’d been told that was common. She studied the picture again. A surge of hope soared through her. They had never found some of the children’s bodies, Sebastion’s among them. Had he somehow survived the crash? The boy in the picture was wearing shorts and a T-shirt she’d never seen. She zoomed in farther and that’s when she noticed the strawberry birthmark above his knee. At least, she thought that’s what it was. Enlarging it made it a little bit blurry. Yes, she was sure, it was the same shape as the one on Sebastion’s leg! Itwashim—a little older, but undeniably her Sebastion. She broke out into a cold sweat. Grabbing a pad of paper and a pen, she clicked on the account’s profile. The Sunshine Bookstore in Rosemont, Florida. It looked like a small independent bookstore. There was a username on the bottom of the photo; @rebeccabronson had tagged the bookstore. She opened the laptop, found the bookstore’s website, and dialed the number.

“It’s a beautiful day at Sunshine Books.”

“Hello, yes, may I speak with your social media person?”

“That would be me. Social media person, manager, owner. How can I help you?”

“Well, this may sound crazy, but I just saw the picture on your website and I was hoping you could tell me when it wastaken.” Charlotte didn’t know why, but something kept her from disclosing the truth.

“Which picture?”

“The children being read to by the Cat in the Hat.”

“I’m sorry, who is this?”

“My name is Charlotte Fleming, and my son has been missing for a year. He was in that photo.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s horrible. It was a birthday party last week. I don’t feel comfortable giving out the name of the person who booked it, but if you call the police, I’d be happy to release the information to them. You understand, I have to be careful these days.”

Charlotte resisted the urge to press, realizing it might do more than good. “Okay, I understand. Of course. The police.”

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