Until I Find You - Rea Frey Page 0,91

minute.

Crystal assesses the guy: cute, young, tall. “Who’s that?”

“Just a friend. Greg.” Pam glances at her shoes and at Greg again. She bites her bottom lip and smiles. “I’ll be right back, okay?” Pam tentatively approaches Greg and succumbs to a flurry of flirtatious behavior. Crystal sighs and retreats toward the car. When she turns back, she hunts for the red hair, but Pam has been sucked into the crowd.

Crystal curses under her breath. Should she go after her? She strains to find Rebecca, but she’s vanished too. She raps on the window for Savi to roll it down.

“Where’d Pam go?”

“With a friend,” Crystal says. She peers into the car, her daughter’s large eyes worried. She jogs around to the driver’s side. “I told you I wouldn’t be gone long.”

Savi points out the window. “But I wanted to see Ms. Rebecca.”

“I know.” Crystal buckles her seat belt and tentatively steps on the gas. “I do too.” She inches forward as people flood the street. She hunts for Rebecca or Pam. Her mind is a vortex of jumbled facts and thoughts. Through it all, Rebecca’s statement still roars in her ears:

His name is Oliver Watson. And he’s not my son.

40

BEC

Oliver Watson. I chew over the unfamiliar name and sift back through Chris’s colleagues, his family, my family, and our mutual friends, but I don’t know anyone with the last name Watson.

Jake drives us to the police station in silence. Everything’s gone so fast since just a few hours ago, but I will never forget that pivotal moment when the nurse revealed who this mystery baby was. The absolute validation cascaded through my entire body: Oliver Watson.

Not Jackson Gray.

The nurse had cranked the screen to show Jake, and he’d confirmed. They’d both hunted through the rest of the file, but the electronic medical records hadn’t told us the mother’s name. Only the Department of Children and Family Services was listed.

My mind had exploded with possibilities. Was this baby put up for adoption? Was he a drug baby? Did he even have parents? How did he get to Elmhurst? Jake had contacted DCFS immediately, but had only gotten a voice mail. He’d been trying ever since to get someone active on the line, and now that Officer Toby is in my corner, I’m cautiously confident they’ll figure out next steps.

“You okay?” Jake asks.

“Debatable.” I’m still absorbing the crowd I just left, what it was like to stand behind a podium and verbalize the truth. I wasn’t imagining things. Oliver is a different baby. Knowing I was right all along is still overshadowed by the truth: Jackson is out there. All the recent fears and mishaps haven’t been because I’m too tired, paranoid, or grieving. He really is gone. Another baby really is in his place.

Oliver.

My heart jolts. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“Oliver?” Jake flicks on his blinker and parks. “DCFS will probably take him.”

I swallow the giant lump already forming in my throat. “What if…”

“You’d never be able to adopt him, Rebecca. Too many factors to name.”

I nod again, gutted. Not that I want another baby, but I can’t fathom handing him over to DCFS. I know what happens. My mother was a case worker for years. Oliver will be bounced from home to home until someone finally adopts him. My mother told me more horror stories around what happened to children in foster care than I can recount. Perhaps it wasn’t a weak heart that had killed her after all, I realized. Maybe it was heartbreak.

“Ready?” Jake’s words crack into my reverie about my mother.

“No.” I unbuckle my seat belt anyway. I’d like to say that I am prepared for this, that finally, after days that feel like months, we are getting somewhere, but I have that feeling like I’m the one about to get fooled.

Jake grabs my arm, just as I situate Oliver into my arms. “Let me do most of the talking, okay?”

“I know.”

Inside the station, it is abnormally quiet. No ringing phones. No inmates. No people waiting to bail other people out.

“Where is everyone?”

“Vigil,” he says.

“Right.” Only in Elmhurst would a police station clear out to go to a vigil. Talk about a supportive community.

Toby walks in a few moments later. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” I gauge his voice—calm and even—as he leads us back to his office. No stark interrogation room this time.

“Is this off the record?” I ask.

“You’re not on the record, Bec. It’s not an interview.” Jake clears his throat. “So Oliver Watson. What