While I was on vacation with my cousins, my phone lit up with one message: “Get on a plane home. Don’t tell your parents you’re coming.” When I landed, an attorney and two investigators

he say?”

Martin’s face twitched.

Elaine whispered, “Martin, please.”

He looked at me with twenty-one years of buried panic burning behind his eyes.

“He said her name,” Martin said. “He said, ‘Natalie. Help Natalie.’”

My entire body went numb.

“He asked you to help me,” I said. “And you stole me.”

Martin’s eyes flashed. “I had just lost a son.”

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