Betrayed: She Took My Son novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Dock

I stopped where I was, ten feet from the end of the dock.

"I'm not coming closer," I said. "Nobody is. Take your time."

Lacey's heel was still on the edge. The bundle in her arms had started to fuss.

Behind me I heard boots on the boards. Clayton had come down the lawn with Dot, and they both stopped at the shore end.

On the next porch, a woman in a robe had lifted her phone.

"Philip says the doctor told him," I said. "I want to hear it from you."

"Why?"

"Because I never heard anything from anyone for seven months."

She stared at me.

"What was his name?" I asked. "Your son."

"He didn't have one."

"Why not?"

"Because they took him away before I could pick." Her voice cracked in the middle.

"I held him for a minute. He was so small. He still had the little hat the nurse put on him."

Philip made a sound.

"Go on," I said.

"I was in the next room." She was crying now, and she did not wipe her face.

"They had me behind a curtain, and I could hear you through the wall," she said. "You were screaming at everyone to hurry."

"Then it went quiet. And then I heard your baby cry."

I kept my hands at my sides.

"He cried so loud," Lacey said. "Mine never made a sound. I lay there and I listened to yours, and the doctor stood over me and said, I'm so sorry."

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