Page 29 of The Liar's Wife

“Can you show me her profile?”

I nodded, lifting my phone from the coffee table. My vision was blurry with tears, but it didn’t take me long to pull her up. I turned the phone around and Kessler looked it over, passing it to McGuire, who wrote something down. She handed the phone back to me.

“Thank you. If you can give us whatever information you have on her, directions to her house, that sort of thing, that’ll give us a good head start. And you said Ben doesn’t have any friends? What about his family? Could he have gone to stay with them?”

“His parents are divorced, and they haven’t spoken in years. There was some big falling out. Ben doesn’t like to talk about it. I’ve never even met them.”

The muscle in her jaw tightened again. “Do you know where they’re located?”

“I know they live out of state, and I know their names, but I don’t have much else on them.” I scoffed, realizing howpathetic I must sound. “Ben never even told me which state they live in.”

She looked at her partner, and I could see it all over their faces. They thought I was crazy, that Ben was leaving me, that I’d made a mistake, that I was wasting their time. I sucked in a sharp breath. “I just want my son back. Please just…please help me. Even if Ben’s leaving me, I just want to see my son. I need to know he’s safe.”

She nodded, cocking her head to the side. “We’re going to put a few calls in, okay? Check with area hospitals, check police reports, check in with this Katie, check in with his old employer, see if we can track down his parents. In the meantime, I want you to sit tight, okay? I know you’ll want to help, to go out and look for them, but the best thing you can do is just be here when he gets back.”If.“If he does, or if you hear from him, you’re going to have to call me, okay? Keep in touch with me, and I’ll do the same.”

I nodded. “Of course. Will you…I mean, will you put out an Amber Alert for Gray? I get them on my phone sometimes for other…missing children.” The words hurt to say. The thought of seeing Gray’s picture on one hurt even more.Please, no. Please be safe. Please come home.

“One step at a time,” she said, pulling out a notepad of her own for the first time. “Right now, we don’t even know that they’re missing, just that they haven’t come home. Gray hasn’t legally been kidnapped if he’s with his father, even if you didn’t give him permission to take him.”

“But I’m his mother,” I cried, panic settling further down in my stomach. “Don’t I have a say in where he is? He can’t just…he can’t just take him, can he?”

She was solemn, refusing to answer. “We’re going to focus on finding them with every resource we have, but wehave no reason to believe Ben would be a threat to your son, do we?”

“Ben would never hurt Gray,” I said quickly. “He loves him.”But maybe not me.“We have to find him…”

“That’s great news, Palmer. Great. That means we are just trying to find out where they ended up. Why they left. We’ll start digging into his past, his bank records, everything. It’s hard for people to go missing for too long these days, okay?” The warm smile was back. “I know this is scary, but I promise you we’re doing everything we can to bring that baby home to you.”

I felt cool tears lining my eyes as I nodded. That was all I wanted. All I cared about. I needed Gray to be safe. I needed him to be home. I needed my baby back with me. I should’ve followed them closer. Should’ve spoken up sooner. If I had, I wouldn’t have lost my son. If I had, things would be so different.

Chapter Seventeen

The next morning, I paced the quiet apartment. Truth be told, I never stopped pacing. Ben never called. He never came home. Gray was still gone. Ben had taken Gray somewhere. He’d taken him away from me. But where…and why? What had I done that was so wrong?

My breasts ached from the need to pump, but I couldn’t bear it. Doing so only made me think of Gray, and to do that was taking a dagger to my heart, plunging its sharp blade into my most sensitive places. Had I done enough? Had I loved him enough? Had I smiled at him, cuddled him enough? Was I enough for him? What if I never saw my son again? Were these weeks, these mere days enough to satisfy me? To give him a memory of me at all? I’d grown him in my belly, cared for him, loved him, fought for hours to bring him into the world before having my stomach torn open to pull him free. I’d done so much and would do everything over again, but would any of that matter? If something had happened to them? If Ben had run off?

Nothing would matter to me anymore.

I thought losing Nate after finding out he’d been having an affair would be the worst pain I’d ever experienced, but this, no, this was worse. This was fire to my insides and scraping of my bones. Pulling at the tender nerves on every frayed part of the shell that remained in my place. Without Gray, I was nothing. Without Gray, I’d cease to exist. I was sure of it. I’d fall to the ground, nothing left of me but ash. The charred remains of a woman who’d lost the most important thing to her. Someone would sweep me away or the breeze would carry me off, and no one would know. No one would speak of my pain or know that it existed. My pain is not the kind you talk about. It’s the kind that’s swept under the rug at family get-togethers, where I’d become that cousin who lost her son. That niece whose husband ran away. The girl with the missing child. And with time, that would all fade. I’d be left with nothing. I’d be nothing.

I stared around the apartment, its walls mostly bare, and entirely bare of pictures of my son. I had three printed photos total from the hospital, and now one of those was being passed around by the police. I hadn’t even thought to ask if I’d get it back when she asked to keep it.

I had a few snapshots on my phone, as well as the blurry photos of him with Kat, but nothing more.

A knock on my door pulled me from my thoughts, and I sprang forward, hope swelling in my chest so quickly I felt like it may burst.

I swung open the door, shocked to see a familiar face.

“Dannika?” I wiped my cheeks, though the tears were long dried. I felt my brows knit together in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to check on you,” she said, stepping further into the apartment. “I’m worried.”

I shut the door once she was inside and turned to face her. “You didn’t have to come.” I was so relieved to see her, though. To see any familiar face at this point.

“Well, I know you, and I know it’s not like you to miss work this much. Howie’s covering for you, saying you’re taking meetings and whatnot, but I wanna know the truth, Palmer. Is everything okay?” She glanced behind me. “Where is everybody?”

I shook my head. “They—” My voice quivered and cracked, and I stopped, unable to prevent the tears I felt.

Concern clouded her expression. “Palmer, what is it?” She reached for me, touching my arms, and I fell into hers, letting my weight—the weight of the world—be a shared burden between the two of us. I sobbed, my body convulsing with heavy, raddled breaths. She was still for a moment before her arms made their way around me and she patted my back. “Shhh…” she soothed. “It’s going to be okay, I’m sure. We’ll make it okay.” She whispered niceties into my ear, patting my back and nodding until my last tear had dried. I felt powerless, ashamed of my breakdown. It was accomplishing nothing. I didn’t have time to be sad.