CHAPTER 5 — The Boy Behind the Glass
The next morning Arthur arranged a meeting with the FBI.
Special Agent Daniel Cross placed several photographs across the table.
Each one showed Nathan during the last six months of his life.
Restaurants.
Parking garages.
Hospitals.
Every picture included the same person standing nearby.
Sometimes wearing sunglasses.
Sometimes dressed as hospital staff.
Sometimes disguised as a maintenance worker.
Ryan Bennett.
Olivia stared at the photographs.
"He was following his own brother?"
Cross nodded.
"Almost every day."
"And according to phone records..."
"He called Eleanor immediately after every meeting Nathan attended."
Arthur folded his arms.
"This wasn't inheritance."
"This was surveillance."
Cross slid over one final photograph.
Nathan stood outside an elementary school.
Holding the hand of a little boy.
Noah.
Olivia's eyes filled with tears.
Nathan had never abandoned him.
He had been protecting him.
Cross lowered his voice.
"We tracked the school."
"Noah disappeared three days later."
"No paperwork."
"No foster records."
"No adoption."
"He simply vanished."
Arthur whispered,
"Someone erased him."
That afternoon Olivia returned home.
Gabriel was asleep upstairs.
The baby monitor sat quietly beside her.
Until...
Static.
Then...
A woman's voice.
Soft.
Calm.
Almost cheerful.
"Such a beautiful baby."
Olivia sprinted upstairs.
The nursery window was open.
Curtains fluttered in the wind.
Gabriel was still there.
Safe.
But something else wasn't.
Nathan's wedding ring.
The ring she always kept beside the crib...
Had disappeared.
In its place lay a single white rose.
Wrapped around the stem...
A handwritten note.
WE CAN REACH HIM ANYTIME.
Olivia collapsed into the rocking chair, clutching Gabriel.
Someone had entered the nursery without making a sound.
Someone wanted her terrified.
And it was working.
May you like
That night...
She agreed to meet Eleanor.
