The hardest meeting came three weeks after Deborah’s arrest.
Lena Price arrived at Graham’s office wearing a faded green coat and shoes polished for dignity rather than wealth. She was smaller than Harrison expected. Her hands held a folder of missing-person flyers, each one showing Evan’s face beneath the words HAVE YOU SEEN MY SON?
Harrison stood when she entered.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Harrison said, “Mrs. Price, my family owes you the truth, and I owe you more than an apology can carry.”
Lena looked at Julian. Her eyes moved over his scars, his braces, his crutches.
“You’re the boy they thought was dead.”
Julian nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And my Evan?”
Harrison’s voice broke. “He was the young man buried under Julian’s name.”
Lena closed her eyes.
The sound she made was not loud. It was worse than loud. It was the sound of a mother whose hope had been kept alive just long enough to be killed properly.
