Page 8 of Silent Echo

She hung up, still reeling. She called Eli.

“You need to come home. Something’s happened.”

“What? Are you okay?”

Suddenly, she couldn’t catch her breath again. “It’s Sebastion. I think he’s alive! I saw his picture. I’m going to call the police.” She filled him in on everything she’d just discovered.

“Whoa, whoa. Hold on. I’m coming home right now. Don’t call anyone.”

She heard the skepticism in his voice. “I’m not imagining this, Eli. It’s him!”

“Okay, okay, just wait until I get there. Let’s take this one step at a time. I’m leaving now. Wait for me.”

Charlotte wanted to jump out of her skin. She looked at the screenshot she’d taken and went to the profile of the person who’d tagged the bookstore. Shit. It was a private Instagram account. She clicked the follow button and hoped the woman would click accept. It took all the restraint she could muster not to book a flight to Florida. She went to Facebook and typed inthe woman’s name. She had a Facebook profile. She went to the Messenger app and began to type:

You don’t know me, but my son went missing a year ago. I have reason to believe that he was at a birthday party at Sunshine Bookstore. Can you please contact me? Whoever has him has kidnapped him. I am desperate. I’m attaching a picture here of my son, Sebastion.

Charlotte sent a picture of herself with Sebastion taken a few weeks before the accident and included her cell phone number. Hopefully, the woman would get back to her. Another thought occurred to her. And she froze. What if the woman she’d just sent a message to was the one who had taken Sebastion, and she’d just tipped her off? She needed to slow down and think this through before making any more rash moves. She’d wait to go to the police until she had more information. The last thing she needed was for them to dismiss her as a grieving mother with no hold on reality. She would go back over every detail of that day with clear eyes. Somehow, her son had escaped that terrible fate. She was going to find out how. She got up and walked down the hall. She unlocked the door to Sebastion’s room and looked around with eyes of hope. Now she understood why she’d never been able to put his things away. She was going to bring him home.

CHAPTER SEVEN

She was already waiting in the kitchen when she heard Eli’s car pull into the garage. He ran inside and held out his hand. “Let me see the picture.”

She gave him her phone with the picture enlarged on the screen. “See. He’s right there in the green T-shirt.”

He stared at the screen for a long moment then looked at her with pity. “I’ll admit he looks like Sebastion, but the picture’s a bit blurry. I’m sorry, Char. I think it’s just a child who resembles him.”

She shook her head. “No, you’re wrong. How can you not see that this is him? Look at his leg.” She pointed. “The birthmark! It’s him. I know it’s him.”

“It’s not a clear picture, Char.” He sighed. “Let’s sit,” he said, guiding her to the chairs at the kitchen table. “Honey, you know what they said. The bus sank into the Chesapeake Bay. By the time they reached the bus it was too late, they had all drowned. There’s no way that Sebastion can be alive.”

She gave him a cold look. “I’m perfectly aware of the details of the accident. But I know my son. And that’s him in that picture. Nothing you say will change my mind. I’m going to the police tomorrow and showing them this picture. Then the bookstore will have to release the name of the woman who booked the party. I’m going to find him.”

“Be reasonable. All you’re going to do is make the insurance company dispute the claim. And for what? To chase down some child that looks like ours? I wish he were alive too. Don’t youthink I wish there were some way this was all one big mistake? But it’s not. This is only going to set you back.”

“The insurance? Are you for real? I still don’t understand why you took out a hundred-thousand-dollar policy on our child!”

“It’s whole life, and I have policies for both Harper and Sebastion. It’s good financial planning. Don’t you remember, we talked about this.” He shook his head. “It would have been a nice nest egg for Sebastion when he grew up.” His voice caught. “I never thought …”

“Well, I don’t care if the insurance company tries to take it back. How can you even bring that up?”

He sighed. “Charlotte, you know our financial situation is still precarious. I used that money to pay the mortgage payments that were in arrears and the credit card debt we accrued before I went back to work. All I’m saying is, why raise a red flag? As hard as it is to accept, Sebastion is gone. If you try to reopen the case, they could make us pay that back. We’re not in a position to do that.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “The hell with the money. I’m going to find our son. I can’t even believe—”

“Charlotte, I’ve been a patient man. I’ve been both mother and father to Harper while you’ve slept the better part of a year away.” He put his hand up. “Not that I’m blaming you. But now that you are finally functioning again, you’re chasing ghosts. That picture proves nothing. It’s not Sebastion. You have to face the cold reality that he’s gone. The first responders found the bus. It was underwater. There’s no way he survived that.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know that for sure since they didn’t find his body.”

“Remember what the report said. The bus driver wasn’t found, nor were some of the other children. He must have tried to help them get out, and they drifted off. Bodies are lost in thewater every day. What do you think? Magically, a helicopter that no one saw came and pulled him out? It’s crazy.”

But she knew in her bones that her son was alive. This wasn’t like the other times. “I don’t know how, but somehow, he escaped. We’re missing something. I’m requesting a copy of the accident report. I need to see who they identified and who they didn’t. Our son is out there somewhere, and I’m going to find him.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Eli hadn’t even said goodbye when he left for work the next day. After dropping Harper at school, Charlotte had headed straight to the Maryland Transportation Authority to request an official copy of the police report from the accident. She took a deep breath now, her hand resting on the sealed envelope, trying to muster the strength to read it. What if Eli was right? If her son really was dead, did she want to add to her grief by reading a vivid description of everything that had happened that day? She shook her head as if to empty it of her doubts and ripped the envelope open. Her heart sped up as she pulled the thick document from the envelope and read the title: School Bus Run-Off Bridge Accident, Annapolis, Maryland. She moved to the table of contents and was stunned to see that the report was eighty-five pages long. With a sinking heart, she read the first page, containing the narrative describing the accident. Seeing it all in black and white made it all the more real, and she couldn’t stop herself from imagining what it must have been like inside that bus. She flashed back to that morning, wishing with all her heart that she’d let her son stay home that day.

Her eyes moved to the narrative of the pre-accident events, which detailed the field trip that was supposed to have taken place. The last stop the bus made before the accident was at McDonald’s. Witnesses reported seeing it pull in at 10:00 a.m. and not leaving for almost half an hour. That was strange. Why would they stop at a restaurant so soon after leaving school, and why for so long?

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