My Son Is the Secret That Will Break Them novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Cora Brings Cookies

Cora arrives with gifts and a form that would make Arlo a ward of the pack, and Torin arrives with a bath thermometer and counts backward to Arlo's birthday.

Cora knocked on our hotel door at four o'clock with a tin of cookies and wet eyes.

I had not told anyone the room number.

My investigator, who was sitting by the window with his laptop, raised his eyebrows at me.

"Thea," Cora said, and her voice cracked on it. "Oh, Thea, you look exactly the same."

She wore a pale cardigan and held the tin against her chest with both hands.

She was small, blonde and sweet, and she looked like a woman who had cried in the elevator.

"Hello, Cora."

"I made these for the little one. Is he allergic to anything? Nobody could tell me."

I looked at the tin.

Everyone in Tidewatch had been telling me for years how fragile she was, and standing in the doorway, she did look breakable.

I let her in, because I wanted to see what she'd come to say.

Arlo sat up on the bed with his blanket in his lap and stared at her.

"This is Arlo," I said.

"Hello, Arlo." She crouched to his level. "I'm Cora. I knew your mommy when she was little."

"She wasn't little," Arlo said. "She's always tall."

Cora laughed too brightly and set the tin on the bed.

Then she turned to me, took a folder out of her bag, and began to cry again.

"I know I can't fix what happened. Nobody told me how bad it got until it was over. But I want you home, Thea. I want the boy safe. The council will let this all go if you sign today."

She slid the folder across the table.

On top was a release.

It returned five years of my frozen bloodline stipend, in one payment, the moment I signed.

Under it was the registry form.

I read it all the way through, because reading fine print is my job at Mercer & Veil.

On the second page, in the box for the child's paternal line, someone had typed: Unknown.

Below that was a second box.

It declared Arlo a ward of the territory until he reached majority.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I think there's a typo."

"It's only a formality." Cora touched my wrist. "It protects him. If nobody can name a father, the pack can take care of him. I'll take care of him."

My investigator turned his laptop a few degrees toward the folder.

He had already photographed both pages.

"You are very kind," I said. "I'll file my own form at the registry."

Her hand stayed on my wrist a moment too long.

"Of course," she said. "Whatever you think is best."

There was another knock.

It was three even taps, the kind a man makes when he has decided exactly how loud to be.

Cora's face went soft and eager.

I opened the door, and Torin stood in the hallway holding a paper bag.

He still wore the black shirt, buttoned to the throat.

He looked at me, then past me at Arlo, and for one second his face stopped being administrative.

"I brought this," he said.

He took a bath thermometer out of the bag.

It was the floating kind, shaped like a yellow duck, with a red line at one hundred and four.

"The estate healer also asked for care notes," he said. "I can wait."

The room went quiet.

I had made up the bath rule to make him feel stupid in an airport.

He had spent his afternoon buying a duck.

Arlo slid off the bed and crossed the carpet.

"Is it for me?"

"It's for your bath," Torin said, and crouched so his eyes were level with Arlo's. "It tells you when the water is right."

Arlo took it in both hands and turned it over.

"It's a duck."

"Yes."

"Mom said I get rashes."

"I know," Torin said. "She told me."

"I don't get rashes," Arlo said. "But I like ducks."

Behind me, Cora stopped smiling.

She picked up her folder and her tin, kissed Arlo's head before I could stop her, and said she'd see us all at dinner at the riverside house.

Torin held the door for her.

Then he said to me, very evenly, "Walk down with me. I need to tell you where to park."

"I don't have a car."

"Then I'll tell you where the car should be."

My investigator watched me without a word.

I left Arlo with him and the duck and went out into the hall.

The elevator doors closed on the two of us.

For four floors, neither of us spoke.

Torin watched the numbers, and I watched his reflection in the steel doors.

He had gotten older, and his hands were tight on the paper bag.

At the lobby he reached out and pressed the button to hold the doors.

"His birthday is in twenty-three days," he said.

My mouth went dry.

"I didn't tell you his birthday."

"No." He finally looked at me. "But I can count backward, Thea."

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