Chapter 4

Ethan' s denial hardened into a vicious, desperate cruelty. He refused to believe Barney. He refused to believe I was dead. He was convinced this was all an elaborate performance, a conspiracy by a dying town to extort him.

"You want to play games?" he snarled, his eyes sweeping over the crowd and landing on Matthew, who was hiding behind Barney' s legs. "Fine. We' ll play."

He snapped his fingers. Two of his security guards grabbed Matthew. The boy struggled, kicking and screaming, but he was no match for them.

"No!" Barney yelled, lunging forward, but another guard slammed him to the ground.

The men dragged Matthew to the tallest building in the square, a two-story, derelict hardware store. They hauled him up the rusty fire escape to the roof.

The townspeople gasped in horror. Nicole, still in her wheelchair, watched with a faint, almost imperceptible smile.

Ethan stood in the center of the square, looking up at the roof.

"Jocelyn!" he screamed, his voice raw with rage. "This is your last chance! Show yourself, or your bastard son pays the price!"

His men dangled Matthew over the edge of the roof. The boy' s small body twisted in the air, his cries echoing through the silent square.

"Look, Matthew!" Ethan shouted up at him. "Your mother is a coward! She' s watching you die, and she won' t do a thing to save you!"

I screamed. A soundless, soul-tearing shriek of pure agony. I rushed at Ethan, my spectral hands passing through him like smoke. I was powerless, a prisoner in my own nightmare, forced to watch my child be terrorized by his own father.

"I' m going to count to three," Ethan announced to the sky. "If she' s not down here by the time I' m done, you drop him."

"One!"

Barney struggled to his feet, blood trickling from his lip. "Don' t do this, Lester! For God' s sake, he' s just a child!" He tried to run toward the building, but the guards kicked his legs out from under him, and he collapsed in a heap.

"Two!"

Matthew' s cries turned to whimpers. He was so small, so fragile. My heart, the one that no longer beat, shattered into a million pieces.

"THREE!"

The security guard on the roof let go.

Matthew fell.

A collective scream ripped through the crowd.

At that exact moment, two things happened at once.

A black sedan screeched to a halt beside Ethan. One of his investigators jumped out, a file in his hand, his face pale with shock.

"Mr. Lester! The DNA report! It' s a match, sir! The boy... Matthew... he' s your son!"

Simultaneously, another man ran up from the direction of the hill.

"Sir! We found it! We found the grave! It has her name on it... Jocelyn Clark."

The world fell silent. The only sound was the sickening thud of a small body hitting the hard-packed dirt.