Chapter 286

Evelyn Laurent cradled the tiny ice cream cone, tentatively licking the melting treat. The cloying cream dissolved on her tongue, but couldn't warm the chill in her heart.

Margaret Hill had promised to buy her a new dress before leaving, instructing the six-year-old to wait obediently at the alley's mouth. Evelyn clutched the half-melted dessert until twilight swallowed the streets.

The chloroform's pungent scent assaulted her senses before she could even cry out "Mommy."

Her lashes fluttered now as fingertips absently traced the faded woven charm bracelet. The locket's engravings had blurred with time, much like that deliberately forgotten summer in her memory.

The kidnapping had been an orchestrated abandonment from the very beginning.

"Evelyn?"

Ethan Sullivan's palm enveloped her icy fingers, warm and steady. He saw the storm clouds swirling in her eyes, dark as the sea before a tempest.

"Just old memories." She returned the bracelet to its velvet case, the metallic whisper against silk unnaturally loud. "Like how this token came into my possession."

Dead leaves skittered from the alley's locust tree, triggering the memory of her fifth day in captivity—the kidnappers' frantic arguing. The Lowells had never intended to pay the ransom.

Ethan suddenly turned her shoulders toward him. "Don't." His thumb brushed moisture she hadn't realized escaped her eyes. "Those monsters belong in hell."

A startled laugh escaped her. The winter wind scattered her hair, revealing the pale scar along her neck—a souvenir from the barbed wire during her escape.

"Is your car warm?" She changed subjects, spotting the Paxil box peeking from his trench coat. The antidepressant was painfully familiar.

Ethan fumbled to conceal it, only to freeze at her quiet confession: "I'm on Zoloft too."

Two fractured souls stood beneath the streetlamp, their shadows merging into something whole. The woven bracelet gleamed dully in the moonlight—a timeworn witness to their shared scars.