Never In Another Life novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Welfare Check

I opened the door on its chain.

Two deputies stood on the landing, one young and one older, their flashlights pointing politely at the floor.

Behind them, on the stairs, with her hand pressed to her chest, stood Margo.

"Ma'am," the older one said. "We got a call from a family member that a seven-year-old boy was taken tonight by an unknown woman. Is there a child in this apartment?"

"Yes."

"Is he all right?"

"He's asleep."

"I'll need to see him."

"I'm his mother."

The deputies glanced at each other.

"Ma'am, the boy's mother is deceased," the older one said, patiently, as if to a confused patient. "Can I have your name?"

Doors were opening up and down the hall.

A man in a bathrobe leaned out from the next unit.

An old woman on the stairs below had come up to see.

I could have whispered.

I could have said it into the dark of my own room and let them sort it out in private.

I took the chain off and opened the door wide.

"My name is Kira Alcott Sayer," I said, loud enough for the stairwell. "I'm thirty-one years old. Three years ago I let everyone believe I'd drowned in Lake Michigan, and I'm alive. The boy asleep in there is my son, and nobody took him."

The old woman on the stairs put her hand to her mouth.

The man in the bathrobe said, "Huh."

Margo looked at me with huge wet eyes.

"Oh, Kira," she said. "Sweetheart. It's the middle of the night. You've been under so much stress. I only wanted to know that Sammy was safe."

"Sammy is safe."

"I called because he wasn't answering his father's phone."

"That isn't true," said a voice from below.

Declan came up the stairs two at a time and stopped on the landing.

The young deputy shifted his weight and put a hand on his belt.

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