Then his gaze moved to my face.
“You have children.”
I nodded.
“Two.”
“Brandon and Lily?”
My blood ran cold.
I had never told him their names.
“How do you know my son’s name?”
Alexander went completely still.
Then he looked away.
“I’ve seen him.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
“Alexander, how do you know my son?”
He slowly looked back at me.
“Because someone has been sending me photographs of your family for the last six months.”
My stomach dropped.
“What photographs?”
He reached toward a drawer beside his wheelchair.
I watched him pull out a thin black folder.
He placed it on the table.
Inside were photographs.
My apartment.
My children walking to school.
Brandon playing in the park.
Lily holding her broken doll.
Me carrying groceries.
Photos taken from a distance.
Without our knowledge.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Who sent these?”
“I don’t know.”
I flipped through them.
Then I saw one that made my blood run cold.
It showed Brandon standing outside our apartment building.
And beside him was a black SUV.
The same SUV I had noticed several times over the past few months.
I looked at Alexander.
“Why would someone photograph my children?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he opened the last page.
There was a photograph of me.
Taken only three days earlier.
Outside the café where I had applied for the caregiver job.
On the back was handwritten:
SHE’S FINALLY HERE.
My fingers went numb.
“What does this mean?”
Alexander stared at the photograph.
“I think someone wanted you to come here.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
He leaned back.
“Because this job wasn’t an accident.”
The next morning, I called the agency.
They told me something that made my stomach twist.
There was no record of my application.
No interview.
No employee file.
Nothing.
I hadn’t been hired.
I had been personally requested.
By Alexander Bennett.
Except Alexander insisted he had never seen my name before that day.
Someone had arranged everything.
Someone had known I was desperate.
Someone had known about my children.
Someone had known exactly how to get me inside Alexander’s house.
And someone had been waiting twenty years for us to find each other.
I wanted to leave.
I wanted to take my children and disappear.
But before I could, Alexander stopped me.
“Don’t go.”
I turned around.
