Chapter 2 - The Boy Who Was Lucas
Tyler refused to answer when the detective called him Lucas.
“I’m Tyler.”
Detective Lena Brooks nodded.
“Okay.”
“My name is Tyler Warren.”
“Okay.”
“Then stop looking at that paper.”
The missing-child bulletin lay facedown on the interview-room table.
Brooks was forty-six, patient, and careful in the way people became after years of interviewing frightened children.
Tyler sat wrapped in a gray hospital blanket.
A pediatrician had already photographed the bruise forming along his jaw where Brenda struck him.
A child-protection worker named Miriam Cole sat nearby.
Officer Martinez remained because Tyler had asked him to.
It was nearly midnight.
Brenda had been transported to the Hartford detention center.
Her SUV had been impounded.
And Mark Warren had vanished.
Police called his phone seventeen times.
It went directly to voicemail.
Officers entered the family home using the emergency circumstances surrounding Tyler’s assault.
Mark’s closet was half empty.
His passport was gone.
So was a laptop.
Miriam leaned toward Tyler.
“Do you know where your dad was supposed to be tonight?”
“Boston.”
“For work?”
“Yes.”
“What does he do?”
“He owns a company.”
“What company?”
“Warren Records Recovery.”
Brooks wrote it down.
The company stored and destroyed business documents.
That detail made the duffel bag more disturbing.
“How often does he travel?” Brooks asked.
“A lot.”
“Did he call tonight?”
“No.”
“Did Brenda?”
Tyler looked down.
“She talked to him in the kitchen.”
“When?”
“Before I called 911.”
“What did they say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you hear anything?”
Tyler hesitated.
“Brenda said, ‘You don’t get to leave me holding this.’”
Brooks’s pen stopped.
“What did your father say?”
“I couldn’t hear.”
“Anything else?”
“She said, ‘If you run, I take him.’”
The room went quiet.
Tyler rubbed his wrist where Brenda had grabbed him.
“Is she really not my mom?”
Miriam answered gently.
“She’s your stepmother.”
“I know that.”
“What are you asking?”
Tyler’s eyes filled.
“Is my real mom really alive?”
Brooks had been avoiding that sentence until verification was complete.
Now it was.
“Yes.”
Tyler stared at the tabletop.
“My dad said she died in a car crash.”
“Do you remember her?”
“No.”
The answer came too fast.
Brooks noticed.
“So nothing?”
“I said no.”
“All right.”
Tyler looked angry now.
Anger was safer than terror.
“Where is she?”
“Virginia.”
“Why didn’t she find me?”
Miriam closed her eyes briefly.
Brooks answered.
“She has been looking.”
“For six years?”
“Yes.”
“That’s stupid.”
Nobody corrected him.
“She could’ve called.”
“She didn’t know the name Tyler Warren.”
“My school has my name.”
“She was looking for Lucas Mercer.”
Tyler flinched.
“I’m not Lucas.”
“Okay.”
“Stop saying it.”
“I will.”
The door opened.
A uniformed officer handed Brooks a folder.
“Virginia sent the warrant packet.”
Brooks read silently.
David Alan Mercer had been charged in Virginia with felony parental abduction, identity fraud, wire fraud, and theft.
There was also a federal unlawful-flight warrant.
Mark Warren’s current driver’s-license photograph had been compared with David Mercer’s records.
Facial measurements matched.
Fingerprints from an old professional licensing file confirmed it.
Mark Warren was David Mercer.
Tyler’s biological father had been living under an alias for six years.
Brooks did not tell Tyler everything at once.
She began with the part that mattered most.
“Your dad’s first name used to be David.”
Tyler laughed nervously.
“No.”
“His legal name was David Mercer.”
“No.”
“He changed it.”
“My dad’s name is Mark.”
Brooks slid an old photograph across the table.
David Mercer at thirty-five.
Tyler stared.
His face emptied.
“That’s Dad.”
“Yes.”
“Why does it say David?”
“We’re trying to understand that.”
Tyler pushed the photo away.
“Can I call him?”
Brooks hesitated.
“We don’t know where he is.”
“He’ll answer me.”
“Maybe.”
“Give me a phone.”
Miriam said, “Not yet.”
Tyler stood.
“Why?”
“Because we need to make sure you’re safe.”
“He’s my dad!”
“No one is arguing with that.”
“You are!”
Tyler knocked the chair backward.
Martinez rose but did not approach.
Tyler pointed toward the missing-child folder.
“You’re saying my dad stole me.”
Brooks spoke carefully.
“The court record says he took you when he did not have legal custody.”
“That means stole.”
No one answered.
Tyler began crying.
“I want to go home.”
Miriam’s voice softened.
“You can’t go back there tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know whether your father will return.”
“I want him to.”
Brooks’s phone vibrated.
Virginia number.
She looked at Miriam.
Then at Tyler.
“Your mother is calling.”
Tyler stopped crying.
“No.”
“We don’t have to put you on.”
“No.”
Brooks answered anyway and stepped toward the corner.
“This is Detective Brooks.”
A woman’s voice came through, shaking.
“Is he okay?”
Tyler heard.
His head snapped up.
Brooks turned the volume down.
“He’s physically safe.”
“Does he know?”
“Yes.”
A strangled sound came through the phone.
“Can I hear him?”
Brooks looked at Tyler.
He backed toward the wall.
“No.”
Brooks said, “He isn’t ready.”
The woman began crying quietly.
“Tell him I never stopped.”
Tyler’s face changed.
Brooks did not repeat it.
He had heard.
The woman continued.
“Tell him the blue dinosaur is still in his room.”
Tyler froze.
A strange image flashed through his mind.
Blue wallpaper.
A stuffed dinosaur with one missing felt tooth.
A woman kneeling beside a bed.
He pressed both hands over his ears.
“No.”
Brooks ended the call.
Tyler sat hard on the floor.
Martinez crouched several feet away.
“What happened?”
Tyler whispered, “I had a dinosaur.”
Nobody spoke.
“He was blue.”
May you like
His eyes widened in horror.
“My dad told me I dreamed that.”
