“Ethan James Miller. It is the only name I have ever known,” I said, sinking back into the chair.
The security guard had moved closer, but Cole waved him back.
“Tell me about your earliest memory,” Cole said, pulling up a chair to sit across from me. “Not what you have been told, but what you actually remember.”
I closed my eyes, trying to push past the panic to think clearly.
“A yellow kitchen, sunflowers on the wallpaper, my mother singing, ‘You are my sunshine,’ while making breakfast. But when I try to focus on details, they slip away.”
“How about friends from childhood before age six?”
I opened my eyes.
“I do not know. We
Phân cảnh 9: Finding the biological family
moved a lot, my mother said. After my father died, we could not afford to stay anywhere long.”
“But you said your father died when you were six. Why would you have moved a lot before that?”
The inconsistency hit me like cold water.
“I do not know. That does not make sense.”
Cole leaned forward.
“Mr. Miller, I am going to tell you something that will be hard to hear. The patterns in your early memories, the inconsistencies, the fact that you are using a deceased child’s identity, all point to one possibility. You may have been abducted as a young child and raised under a false identity.”
“That is insane.”
The words came out automatic, but even as I said them, pieces were clicking into place.
Gary’s immediate hostility toward me, the way my mother could never look me in the eye when talking about my father, the complete absence of photos from before age seven.
My phone buzzed again.
Another text from Agent Dana Blake.
“Federal Building 915 East Lincoln Avenue, 5th floor. Your birth parents are flying in from Tulsa. They have been searching for you since 1991.”
I showed the text to Cole.
He read it and nodded.
“I just got off the phone with the FBI. They have been tracking this case. Mr. Miller, or whoever you are, you need to go with them. But first, I need to ask you something important. The woman who raised you, Carol, where is she now?”
“I do not know. After Gary threw me out, I cut all contact. Last I heard from my halfsister, Emily. Mom and Gary divorced about 5 years ago. Mom moved somewhere out west.”
“Utah,” Cole said, reading from his phone. “The FBI already has her in custody. She was living under the name Carol Jenkins.”
The room tilted again.
“She has been arrested. She has been wanted for kidnapping since 1991. Mr. Miller, your name is not Ethan. The real Ethan James Miller died with his father when he was three. Carol was his mother. After losing her son, she apparently took another child to replace him.”
“You.”
I thought about all the times my mother had held me just a little too tight. Looked at me with eyes full of something I had thought was love, but now recognized might have been guilt or fear or both.
“Gary knew,” I said suddenly, the realization hitting me
Phân cảnh 10: Uncovering the kidnapper
like a physical blow.
“That is why he hated me. That is why he threw me out the second I turned 18. He found out somehow.”
Cole nodded.
“According to the FBI, Gary Dawson contacted them this morning after seeing news of Carol’s arrest. He said she confessed to him when you were 17. She begged him to wait until you were legally an adult before doing anything. He agreed on the condition that you leave and never come back.”
“So instead of telling me the truth, he just threw me away.”