Chapter 2 - THE NAME OF THE HOMELESS BOY
For three seconds, the darkness inside Bellamy’s was absolute.
A woman screamed.
Chairs scraped against the floor. Glass shattered near the bar, followed by the panicked voices of diners reaching for their phones.
Ethan felt the homeless boy’s hand tighten around his wrist.
“Get down,” the boy whispered.
Ethan dropped behind the hostess station just as the restaurant’s emergency lights flickered on. Dim red illumination spread across the room, turning familiar faces into shadows.
Marcus was no longer standing near Katherine.
He was moving toward the entrance.
Toward them.
“Ethan!” Katherine shouted. “Where are you?”
The boy pulled Ethan through a narrow opening beside the hostess desk and pushed open a service door.
They stumbled into a kitchen filled with confused cooks and shouting servers. Pots clattered. Steam rose above stainless-steel counters.
“Where are we going?” Ethan demanded.
“Away from him.”
“My mom is still in there.”
“If you go back, he’ll take both of us.”
Ethan tried to pull free.
The boy turned on him.
“My name is Lucas,” he said. “Lucas Reed. I know this sounds impossible, but I’ve been trying to get to your family for months. Marcus has people watching your house, your school, even your mom’s office.”
“How do you know my stepfather?”
Lucas’s expression tightened.
“Because I lived in one of his shelters.”
Marcus Vale was nationally known for his charitable work. His Vale Hope Foundation operated youth centers across Illinois and Indiana. News stations often showed Marcus serving holiday meals or standing beside smiling teenagers.
Ethan had attended three of the foundation’s fundraising galas.
His mother had donated millions.
Lucas pushed through the rear kitchen door, and freezing February air struck them.
They emerged in an alley behind Bellamy’s.
“Those shelters aren’t what people think,” Lucas said. “Some of them are real. They have teachers, counselors, and donors. But there’s another place. It isn’t on any official list.”
Ethan glanced toward the restaurant.
The rear door opened.
Marcus stepped into the alley.
His calm expression had returned.
“Ethan,” he called. “Come here.”
Lucas pulled Ethan behind a delivery truck.
“You see?” he whispered. “He didn’t check on your mother. He came after us.”
Marcus walked slowly into the alley.
“Your mother is terrified,” he said. “That boy is confused. He has been living on the street and clearly needs medical attention.”
“I’m not confused,” Lucas shouted.
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“You stole something that doesn’t belong to you.”
Lucas touched the ring beneath his sweatshirt.
“It belongs to Ethan’s father.”
Ethan stepped out from behind the truck.
“Is my dad alive?”
Marcus looked at him for a long moment.
Then he sighed.
“Of course not.”
“Then how did Lucas get his wedding ring?”
“People steal jewelry from grieving families every day.”
“My mom placed it inside the coffin.”
Marcus’s eyes flickered toward Lucas.
That tiny reaction told Ethan more than any answer could have.
Lucas suddenly grabbed Ethan and pulled him down as a black sedan turned into the alley without headlights.
The car accelerated.
Marcus stepped aside.
Lucas and Ethan ran.
They squeezed between two parked vehicles as the sedan struck a row of garbage cans, throwing metal lids across the pavement. Ethan could hear the engine reversing.
Lucas led him through a gate, across a small courtyard, and into a laundromat that opened onto another street.
They burst through the front entrance.
A television played above a row of dryers. An elderly woman looked up from folding towels as the boys rushed past her.
Lucas did not slow down until they reached a crowded train station two blocks away.
Ethan’s lungs burned.
“We have to call my mom.”
“Marcus controls her phone account.”
“She needs to know.”
“She might already know more than you think.”
Ethan stared at him.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Lucas looked around the station before lowering his voice.
“Your father didn’t die in the crash. The plane went down, but he wasn’t inside it.”
Ethan shook his head.
“That makes no sense.”
“Your dad discovered that Marcus was using the Vale Hope Foundation to hide money. The fake youth home was only part of it. Kids without families were being moved under false names. Some were used as couriers. Some heard things they weren’t supposed to hear.”
“And my dad found out?”
“He collected evidence. Before he could give it to the FBI, he disappeared.”
“My mother said the police identified his watch in the wreckage.”
“Marcus planted it.”
Ethan felt sick.
The station seemed to tilt beneath him.
“How do you know all this?”
Lucas’s voice became quieter.
“Because your father told me.”
Ethan could not speak.
Lucas reached inside his sweatshirt and removed a folded photograph.
It had been taken inside a dim room with concrete walls. Lucas appeared younger in it. Beside him sat a thin, bearded man with tired eyes and a scar near his temple.
Ethan knew those eyes.
He saw them in the mirror every morning.
His father was holding a newspaper dated five months earlier.
“This could be fake,” Ethan whispered.
“It isn’t.”
“Where is he?”
“At Blackwood Farm. It’s an abandoned juvenile treatment center about two hours west of Chicago. Marcus keeps people there when he needs them to disappear.”
“Why didn’t my dad escape?”
“He tried. That’s how I got out.”
Lucas explained that Daniel Carter had created a plan. During a transfer between buildings, he distracted the guards so Lucas could slip through a maintenance tunnel. Daniel gave him the wedding ring and a list of names.
Lucas was supposed to find Katherine.
But Marcus’s men caught him near Chicago’s Union Station.
“They took the list,” Lucas said. “They wrote that message on my arm and told me to return to Blackwood Farm by midnight. They said if I didn’t, your father would pay for it.”
Ethan’s phone rang inside his pocket.
His mother’s name appeared on the screen.
Lucas shook his head.
“Don’t answer.”
Ethan answered anyway.
“Mom?”
For a moment, he heard only her breathing.
“Ethan, where are you?”
“With Lucas.”
“You need to come home immediately.”
“Mom, Dad is alive.”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Not disbelief.
Silence.
Ethan’s stomach tightened.
“You knew,” he whispered.
Katherine began to cry.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“You knew he survived?”
“I found out six months ago.”
Lucas stared at Ethan.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” Ethan demanded.
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Marcus showed me a live video of your father. He said Daniel would be killed if I spoke to anyone. Then he showed me photographs of you leaving school.”
Ethan leaned against a station wall.
His own mother had known.
For six months, she had eaten dinner with Marcus, slept beside him, attended charity events with him, and smiled for cameras.
“I was trying to protect you,” she said.
“Where is Marcus now?”
“He’s with me.”
Ethan’s body went rigid.
A man’s voice came through the phone.
“Hello, Ethan.”
Marcus.
“You have something that belongs to me,” he said.
“You mean my father?”
“I mean the boy.”
Lucas’s face hardened.
Marcus continued, “Bring Lucas to the Vale Hope Center on West Monroe before midnight. If you do, your mother and father may both survive this unfortunate situation.”
A muffled sound followed.
Katherine cried out.
Then Daniel Carter’s voice came through the line, weak but unmistakable.
“Ethan, don’t listen to him.”
Ethan’s eyes filled with tears.
“Dad?”
“Run, son.”
A hard impact sounded through the phone.
The call ended.
Lucas looked at the station clock.
10:17 p.m.
Less than two hours remained.
“We can’t go to the police,” Lucas said. “Marcus has officers working for him.”
Ethan wiped his face.
“Then we find someone he can’t control.”
“Who?”
Ethan looked toward the television above the ticket counter. A news report showed footage from Bellamy’s. Reporters were already gathering outside the restaurant.
At the bottom of the screen appeared the name of the journalist covering the incident.
Rebecca Shaw.
Ethan recognized her.
His father had trusted Rebecca Shaw more than anyone.
“She investigated my dad’s plane crash,” Ethan said. “And she never believed he was on that plane.”
Lucas followed his gaze.
“Can she help us?”
Ethan took Daniel Carter’s wedding ring from Lucas and closed it inside his fist.
“She’s going to help us expose everything.”
Across the station, a man in a black coat lowered his newspaper.
Ethan recognized him as one of Marcus’s drivers.
May you like
The man raised his phone and spoke into it.
Then four other men began moving toward the boys.
