THE MAN WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD

We left Hale stabilized for the paramedics we called from a burner phone.

Elena drove her SUV like a woman who had grown up watching getaway drivers. I sat in the passenger seat, sorting through my medical bag, preparing for the worst. Adrian sat in the back, clutching the child’s drawing of Leo to his chest.

The address on the back of the drawing wasn’t a clinic at all.

It led us to a heavily wooded suburb north of Chicago. We pulled up to a massive, gated stone house hidden behind wrought-iron fences. The red door matched the child's drawing perfectly.

“This is Thomas’s safe house,” Elena whispered, killing the headlights.

“No,” Adrian said from the backseat. His voice was hollow. “This isn’t Thomas’s house.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

Adrian pointed to a small stone statue of Saint Jude near the front steps. “Because this house belonged to Sophia. Your mother.”

Elena whipped her head around. “My mother died when I was an infant.”

“I know,” Adrian said. “But she bought this house secretly three months before the car crash. She was terrified of Anthony. She was preparing to run away with you.”

I looked at the house. No guards were visible outside.

“If Thomas is using Sophia’s secret house, he’s doing it to mock Gabriel,” I said.

We slipped through a gap in the security gate, moving quietly through the wet grass. The front door was locked, but Elena picked up a heavy stone from the garden and smashed the glass side-panel.

She reached in and unlocked it.

We stepped inside.

The house smelled of dust and old wood. But there were fresh footprints on the hardwood floor.

I followed them into a large study.

The room had been converted into a makeshift medical bay. IV stands. Monitors. And a heavy silver chair equipped with restraints.

Gabriel wasn’t here.

But sitting on the center table was an object that made Elena gasp.

A delicate, silver rosary.

She walked toward it, her hands trembling. She picked it up. “This was my mother’s. She was wearing it the night of the crash. My father said it was lost in the wreckage.”

“It wasn’t lost,” a small voice said.

We spun around.

Standing in the doorway was a little boy. Six years old. Dark curly hair. Big brown eyes. He was wearing pajamas and holding a stuffed bear.

Adrian dropped to his knees. “Leo?”

The boy looked at him, confused. “Who are you?”

“I’m… I’m your father, Leo,” Adrian choked out, reaching a hand forward.

The boy stepped back, shaking his head. “No, you’re not. My dad is tall and has scars on his face.”

Thomas had raised the boy to believe he was his own.

I knelt down to the boy’s eye level. “Leo, honey, my name is Katherine. Where did your dad go?”

“He took the angry man to the warehouse,” Leo pointed out the window toward the city. “He said they have to finish the medicine.”

Elena looked at the rosary in her hand. She noticed something.

A small, folded piece of paper was tucked between the beads.

She pulled it out and read it. The color instantly drained from her face.

“Elena?” I asked. “What is it?”

She handed the note to me. It was in Thomas’s handwriting.

Did you really think Sophia died in a random car crash, Gabriel? She didn’t. I cut the brakes. But I didn’t do it because she was running away. I did it because of what she was carrying.

I looked up at Elena.

“Elena,” I whispered.

“Read the rest,” she said, her voice entirely numb.

I read the final line out loud.

Elena isn’t your daughter, Gabriel. She’s mine.

Suddenly, the front door slammed shut.