The boys cried out.
I crawled away on my hands and knees until four small bodies collided with me.
“I told you to stay hidden,” I sobbed.
Jonah clung to my neck.
“You promised you were coming.”
I held all of them at once, shaking so violently I could barely breathe.
Across the hall, Daniel was forced onto his stomach and handcuffed beneath the portrait of his decorated grandfather.
His eyes found mine.
Even then, even with blood at his lip and officers around him, he smiled.
Not wide.
Not victorious.
Just enough.
“You still don’t know,” he said.
Marlowe hauled him up.
“Know what?” I asked.
Daniel’s smile deepened.
Before he could answer, Patrick began laughing from the floor.
It was a broken, panicked sound.
Then he looked at me with red eyes and said the sentence that turned my blood to ice.
“Ask her about the fifth birth certificate.”
