“Dear God. You told him? But what will happen to Ethan? What if they hurt him?” Her mother looked panicked. She glanced at the people strolling along the river walk, at the boats, and the condominium that towered over them. “Why hasn’t anyone gotten in touch about Ethan?”
Her mother’s fear seemed genuine. She pulled her phone out of her bag and touched it, but the screen stayed dark.
“The battery’s dead. I’d forgotten the battery’s dead.” She held the phone out to Aubrey. “How can they tell me where he is if they can’t reach me?”
She hadn’t lied about the phone.
“They don’t have to call anyone to give Ethan back,” Aubrey said. “They can just do it, if that’s what they intended to do.”
“But it wasn’t,” her mother said. “They want to watch me suffer. First, Jonathan. And now . . . oh, God.” She stood up.
“Tell me who these people are. Why do they want you to suffer?”
“I need to go,” her mother said. “I have an idea why all this is happening.”
“Is this connected to your past?”
“It could be.”
“Do you know who has Ethan? Where he is?”
“Not yet, but I may be able to figure it out.”
“There’s a better way,” Aubrey said. “Come with me to Smolleck. Show them the note. Let them analyze it. Tell them your theory. Maybe they can help.”
“They won’t listen. They’re focused on who’s behind Jonathan’s murder, not who has Ethan. They’ll lock me up, then it’ll be too late. We’ll never get our little boy back.”
Was Aubrey once again falling into the same trap, wanting so much to appease her mother that she was willing to go along with her, or was this Ethan’s best chance?
“You have to trust me, sweetheart. Please, just a little longer. If I can’t find what I’m looking for, I’ll go to the FBI.”
If she turned her mother in to Smolleck now, she was eliminating an important avenue for finding Ethan. Mama knew things about the people from her past and would be in a far better position to investigate if she weren’t locked up in an interrogation room.
“Tell me where you’re going,” Aubrey said.
Her mother hesitated. “If I do, that will put you in a difficult spot with the FBI.”
She was right. It was better if she didn’t know. “Promise you’ll call me if you find anything,” Aubrey said.
“Of course.” Her mother squeezed her hand. “I won’t let you down, sweetheart.”
Aubrey’s throat tightened. This woman was her mother, not some stranger.
Mama put her sunglasses back on, hands shaking. Her fiancé had just been murdered, and her grandson was missing. Was she up to this? Would the people who had taken Ethan and killed Jonathan try to hurt her, too? Was Aubrey doing the right thing letting her go?
It was Ethan’s best chance.
Her mother started walking away, then stopped and glanced down at the plants that covered the buried circle. “I was very proud of you that day, sweetheart.”
“What day?”
“The day we ‘Saved the Circle.’”
Why was she bringing this up now?
“If you feel I kept you from being the person you wanted to be, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t—”
Her mother held up her hand. “Wait, please. I need to say this.” Her lower lip trembled ever so slightly. “I only wanted to protect you, to keep you safe, but maybe I smothered you somehow.”
“We don’t need to talk about this now.”
“But we do. In case there is no other time.”
“Mama, don’t—”
“I want you to know.” Her mother’s voice broke. “I want you to know that even if . . . even if you end up hating me, I love you and Kevin more than life itself.”
She walked away quickly, before Aubrey could say anything.
Aubrey stared at the pretty plants covering the old Indian circle, which was buried deep beneath. Most people didn’t even know it was there.
She had once marched with Mama to save the Circle. All that trouble, all that passion to save the past, just so that it could be hidden again.
She wanted to cry out after her mother to come back. Because she was terrified she would never see her again.
And it wasn’t fair to have come all this way and have it end like this.
CHAPTER 32
The vein in Smolleck’s right temple throbbed as he stood in the foyer of her mother’s house.
Aubrey had been hoping to avoid him—not only because she wasn’t sure how she would talk her way out of where she’d been the last hour, but also because she was anxious to get to her computer.
I did the right thing, she repeated to herself. Letting her go was Ethan’s best chance.
“Can you come with me, please?” Smolleck didn’t wait for her to answer, just led the way to her mother’s office in the back of the house.
He sat down at the desk and gestured for her to sit on the other chair.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
She glanced out the window at the trees in the backyard. A blue jay was perched on one of the branches. Stay as near to the truth as possible. “Looking for my mother.”
“May I have your phone?”
She handed it to him, hoping he didn’t notice her hands were shaking. She had turned the phone back on when she had pulled into the driveway.
He examined it. “Why did you have it turned off earlier?”
“Were you trying to reach me? Is there news about Ethan?”
“There’s no news about Ethan, and yes, I’ve been trying to reach you. You received a call from your mother, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What did she say?”
Even though Smolleck had said they weren’t monitoring her calls, she wouldn’t be surprised if their entire conversation had been recorded. “My mother asked me to meet her at the Circle.”
“Which is?”
“Well, I thought she meant the park where we used to go when I was a kid.”
“What park?”
She hesitated. “Ponce Circle. It’s in Coral Gables.”