Page 7 of Silent Echo
CHAPTER SIX
S he got as far as taking down the posters on the wall.
But when she went to the closet and pulled one of Sebastion’s sweaters down, she began to cry uncontrollably.
Eli had offered to do it with her, but she needed to go at her own pace and sort through things herself.
He would just pack it all up efficiently and she couldn’t bear that.
She sat down on the bed and looked around the room.
It felt wrong to dismantle it. This was too hard.
She couldn’t do it. So instead, she drove to the hardware store, bought a deadbolt lock, watched a video on YouTube on how to install it, and did so.
She’d always been technically inclined, much more so than Eli, who couldn’t hammer a nail properly.
She felt a sense of accomplishment when she put the key in and locked the door.
Problem solved. Now none of Harper’s friends would go in there.
She was behind on her research, so she went into the office with a strong cup of coffee and opened her laptop.
Navigating to Facebook, she saw that she had some friend requests from old colleagues and high school and college friends.
She accepted them and spent some time looking at their pages.
Then she remembered the other reason she’d gotten off social media.
Everyone seemed so happy and complete. Beautiful pictures of family holidays, babies being born, vacations.
It made her loss feel even larger. Sighing, she shut the laptop and leaned back in her chair, summoning the memory of their last family vacation.
They’d gone to Rehoboth Beach the last week of summer.
Every year, they rented the same house right on the beach.
Charlotte loved sleeping with the sliding doors open and listening to the crashing waves.
Both Harper and Sebastion loved the beach, and they’d spend all day building sandcastles and playing in the surf.
Harper had brought a friend with her, and the two girls walked the beach every day, shyly smiling at cute boys, trying to act older than their twelve years.
Sebastion, only four, was happy digging in the sand and playing in the small wading pool Eli would bring down every morning and filled with ocean water.
It was simple and wholesome, and Eli insisted she take some time to read her book while he watched over Sebastion.
He was great in that way, so unlike many of her friends’ husbands, who believed childcare was the mother’s responsibility.
Her friends always came back from their vacations needing a vacation.
But she and Eli had worked out a rhythm and balance that gave them each time to relax.
Sebastion had been delighted when his digging yielded sand crabs, and he’d run over to her, excited.
“Mommy, Mommy, crabbies. Can we cook them?”
She laughed. Even at his young age, he was a true Marylander who’d had his first taste of steamed blue crab at age two.
“No, sweetie, those are different kinds of crab.”
“Oh, I’ll put it back.”
They’d had their photo taken by the young guy selling telescope photos. It was the last picture ever taken of the four of them.
She stood up and stretched, pacing briefly to try to center herself.
She needed to focus. She watched two more videos on social media trends then picked up her phone and opened Instagram.
She was following a little over four hundred accounts right now—a mix of authors, bookstores, and publishers, to get a sense of what the ads targeted to that segment looked like.
She scrolled through posts of book covers, writing advice, television series, quotes, and more books.
She liked the book-related posts to see how that would affect the algorithm and narrow down the sponsored content she saw.
After an hour, her eyes began to blur as she clicked on a story from a bookstore in Florida.
Her heart sped up, and it took her a minute to absorb what she was seeing.
She scrolled back down and stared. A group of kids sat in a circle, being read to by someone in a Cat in the Hat costume.
Her eyes rested on a little boy half turned away. Could it be?
She took a screenshot and enlarged the photo.
It looked exactly like Sebastion. His hair was shorter and his face thinner, but otherwise he was a dead ringer for her son.
But of course, this wasn’t the first time she thought she saw him.
It seemed like she saw him everywhere. She’d been told that was common.
She studied the picture again. A surge of hope soared through her.
They had never found some of the children’s bodies, Sebastion’s among them.
Had he somehow survived the crash? The boy in the picture was wearing shorts and a T-shirt she’d never seen.
She zoomed in farther and that’s when she noticed the strawberry birthmark above his knee.
At least, she thought that’s what it was.
Enlarging it made it a little bit blurry.
Yes, she was sure, it was the same shape as the one on Sebastion’s leg!
It was him—a little older, but undeniably her Sebastion.
She broke out into a cold sweat. Grabbing a pad of paper and a pen, she clicked on the account’s profile.
The Sunshine Bookstore in Rosemont, Florida.
It looked like a small independent bookstore.
There was a username on the bottom of the photo; @rebeccabronson had tagged the bookstore.
She opened the laptop, found the bookstore’s website, and dialed the number.
“It’s a beautiful day at Sunshine Books.”
“Hello, yes, may I speak with your social media person?”
“That would be me. Social media person, manager, owner. How can I help you?”
“Well, this may sound crazy, but I just saw the picture on your website and I was hoping you could tell me when it was taken.” Charlotte didn’t know why, but something kept her from disclosing the truth.
“Which picture?”
“The children being read to by the Cat in the Hat.”
“I’m sorry, who is this?”
“My name is Charlotte Fleming, and my son has been missing for a year. He was in that photo.”
“Oh my gosh, that’s horrible. It was a birthday party last week. I don’t feel comfortable giving out the name of the person who booked it, but if you call the police, I’d be happy to release the information to them. You understand, I have to be careful these days.”
Charlotte resisted the urge to press, realizing it might do more than good. “Okay, I understand. Of course. The police.”
She hung up, still reeling. She called Eli.
“You need to come home. Something’s happened.”
“What? Are you okay?”
Suddenly, she couldn’t catch her breath again. “It’s Sebastion. I think he’s alive! I saw his picture. I’m going to call the police.” She filled him in on everything she’d just discovered.
“Whoa, whoa. Hold on. I’m coming home right now. Don’t call anyone.”
She heard the skepticism in his voice. “I’m not imagining this, Eli. It’s him!”
“Okay, okay, just wait until I get there. Let’s take this one step at a time. I’m leaving now. Wait for me.”
Charlotte wanted to jump out of her skin.
She looked at the screenshot she’d taken and went to the profile of the person who’d tagged the bookstore.
Shit. It was a private Instagram account.
She clicked the follow button and hoped the woman would click accept.
It took all the restraint she could muster not to book a flight to Florida.
She went to Facebook and typed in the woman’s name.
She had a Facebook profile. She went to the Messenger app and began to type:
You don’t know me, but my son went missing a year ago. I have reason to believe that he was at a birthday party at Sunshine Bookstore. Can you please contact me? Whoever has him has kidnapped him. I am desperate. I’m attaching a picture here of my son, Sebastion.
Charlotte sent a picture of herself with Sebastion taken a few weeks before the accident and included her cell phone number.
Hopefully, the woman would get back to her.
Another thought occurred to her. And she froze.
What if the woman she’d just sent a message to was the one who had taken Sebastion, and she’d just tipped her off?
She needed to slow down and think this through before making any more rash moves.
She’d wait to go to the police until she had more information.
The last thing she needed was for them to dismiss her as a grieving mother with no hold on reality.
She would go back over every detail of that day with clear eyes.
Somehow, her son had escaped that terrible fate.
She was going to find out how. She got up and walked down the hall.
She unlocked the door to Sebastion’s room and looked around with eyes of hope.
Now she understood why she’d never been able to put his things away. She was going to bring him home.