The Boy on the Missing Poster
Chapter 03 - The Boy on the Missing Poster
Claire called Detective Maria Alvarez from the diner.
Seven years earlier, Alvarez had been a young detective working her first major missing-child case.
Now she arrived twenty minutes later with silver beginning to show in her dark hair and disbelief written across her face.
Eli nearly bolted when he saw her badge.
Owen stopped him.
“She’s okay,” he said. “My mom cries every time she sees her, so she has to be nice.”
Alvarez looked at Claire.
“You told him that?”
“I’ve been busy.”
For the first time all afternoon, the tension broke.
Only for a moment.
Alvarez sat across from Eli.
She asked simple questions.
Where had he slept?
Who was June?
Did he remember living anywhere before her?
Eli remembered fragments.
A yellow room.
A wooden train.
A dog that barked whenever the doorbell rang.
A man singing badly while making pancakes.
Claire turned away when he said that.
Daniel.
Her husband could ruin any song ever written while cooking breakfast.
Alvarez noticed.
She asked Eli if he remembered a last name.
He shook his head.
Then Owen spoke.
“What about Captain Blue?”
Claire stared at him.
“What?”
Owen pointed at the photograph on her phone.
“The stuffed rabbit.”
Claire's breath stopped.
Noah had owned a blue rabbit with one missing button eye.
He had named it Captain Blue.
The police had never released that detail.
Claire leaned toward Eli.
“Do you remember a blue rabbit?”
Eli went completely still.
His eyes filled before he could stop them.
“One eye was black.”
Claire began to cry.
“And the other?”
“Gone.”
Alvarez closed her notebook.
The room went silent.
She arranged emergency child services placement while DNA testing was expedited.
Claire fought every instinct in her body when she learned Eli could not simply go home with her.
“He may be my son.”
“He may be,” Alvarez said gently. “But tonight we follow the law.”
Claire wanted to hate her for saying it.
Instead, she nodded.
Before Eli left with a social worker, Owen handed him his scarf.
Eli looked confused.
“You’ll need it tomorrow.”
“How do you know you’ll see me tomorrow?”
Owen shrugged.
“Because my mom doesn’t quit.”
Eli looked at Claire.
For one brief second, something softened in his face.
Then he was gone.
Claire sat in her car afterward and called her husband.
Daniel answered on the fourth ring.
“Hey. I'm about to board.”
“Daniel.”
He immediately heard something in her voice.
“What happened?”
Claire stared through the windshield.
“I found a boy.”
Silence.
“A boy?”
“He has Noah’s birthmark.”
Another silence.
Longer this time.
Too long.
Claire gripped the phone.
“Daniel?”
When he finally spoke, his voice had changed.
“Where did you find him?”
Claire slowly straightened.
She had expected disbelief.
Shock.
Maybe anger.
She had not expected that question.
Not where are you?
Not are you sure?
Where did you find him?
Claire whispered, “Why does that matter?”
May you like
Daniel said nothing.
And for the first time since finding Eli, Claire felt afraid of her own husband.
