The Match (Wilde, #2)(102)

Wilde nodded.

“The FBI was always trying to turn anyone close to this family. No one ever accepted because we all knew that the family would find out. Then they’d kill you slowly. But your father and I, we were crazy in love. I decided to risk it. What other choice did I have? So I went to the FBI. They promised your father and I witness relocation if I got them more information. They sent me back to live with the vile man. I wore a wire. I stole documents. I got them more info. But then something went wrong. Very wrong.”

“They found out you’d turned?”

“Worse,” Sofia said. “The vile man found out he was not your father.”

The room seemed to hush. In the distance, Wilde heard the whir of a lawnmower.

“How?”

“Someone in the FBI leaked it to him.”

“What did you do?”

“I got a heads-up, so I just jumped in the car with you and drove away. I called your father. A friend of his had a house by a lake we could use. No one would find us. That’s what I thought. So you and I, we ran here. I was afraid to call the FBI. They’d been the leak. But we did know George Kissell by then. I called him when we got to this house. He said to sit tight. So I did. Except the vile man found us here first. He came with three other men. I saw them pull up right out there, right where George is parked now. The vile man came to the door and started pounding on it. He had a knife in his hand. He started screaming about how—”

She stopped, her chest hitching.

“—how he was going to slit you open right in front of me. I was so scared, desperate. You have no idea. I’m standing right here, right where I am now…”

Her eyes looked off as though she were back and seeing it.

“The vile man is coming in, trying to break the door down. What can I do? So I hide you under the stairs. I tell you to stay quiet. But that’s not enough. The door gives away. The vile man bursts in. All I can think is that I need to get him away from you. I scream as loud as I can and I run upstairs. The vile man follows. That’s good, I think. He’s not downstairs. He’s farther away from my son. I get to a bedroom window. He’s right behind me. So I jump out into the hedges. I want to get them all away from you. You’re safe in that closet. So I run across the street and into the woods. The vile man and his men run after me. That’s good. They won’t find you. Maybe they’ll think you’re with me. I run. It’s dark. At times I think I can actually escape them. But then what? I can’t lose them because then they might give up and go back to the house and find you. So I keep running and sometimes I’ll even make a noise so they stay close to me. I barely care if I get caught. Because if I do, if they kill me, you’ll still be alive. I don’t know how long we do this. Hours. And then…then they catch me.”

Wilde realized that he was holding his breath.

“The vile man starts to beat me. He broke my jaw. I can still feel it crack some days. He kept pounding on me and demanded to know where you were. I told him I lost you in the woods. I told him to keep looking for you because you ran ahead of me. Anything—anything—to keep them from going back to that house. I don’t know how long they had me. I passed out. At some point, your father and the marshals showed up. The vile man and his henchmen ran. I remember your father wrapping his arms around me. The marshals wanted to take me to the hospital, but I said no, that I needed to get back to the house, to get back to you…”

Sofia Carter just shook her head. The tears started flowing.

“We searched for you. But you were gone. The vile man started burning the world down to find us. The marshals said we had to go now.” She looked at Wilde, and his heart broke. “The marshals took us away. I let them in the end. We were given new identities and relocated. You know this. We had daughters of our own. It’s the weird part of the human condition. We are forced to go on. What else can we do?”

Now the tears started coming down harder.

“But I abandoned my son. I should have stayed. I should have kept combing through the woods looking for you. I should have done it for weeks or months or years. My baby boy was alone, lost in the woods, and I gave up looking for him. I should have found you. I should have rescued—”

And then Wilde moved toward her, shaking his head, and let her fall into his arms.

“It’s okay,” he whispered.

Through her sobs, she kept repeating, “I should have saved you.”

“It’s okay,” Wilde said, holding her closer to him. Then: “It’s okay, Mom.”

And when Sofia heard the word “Mom,” she sobbed even louder.





Chapter

Forty-Three



Oren worked the barbecue because that was the kind of guy he was. Laila was in the kitchen. Wilde sat on an Adirondack chair in the back with Hester. They looked out into the woods from the backyard of the house that Hester and Ira built over forty years ago.

Hester drank a white Chablis. Wilde had an Asbury Park Brewery ale.

“So now you know,” she said.

“Most of it.”

“What?”

“Some of what she said—there were holes.”

“Like?”

He and his mother had talked more, but suddenly George Kissell was there telling them time was up. The danger, he said, was still real. Wilde wasn’t sure how much he bought that, or if he bought that when that little boy was found in the woods, his parents didn’t hear about it or put it together.