Chapter 47
[Chapter 47: The Face of the Enemy]
The CPS annex building was surrounded by emergency vehicles, their yellow and red lights flashing against the rainy afternoon sky. Children and staff members were huddled under blankets in the parking lot, being guided toward three white transport vans.
Ethan slammed his rental car onto the curb, throwing the door open and sprinting into the chaos.
“Noah! Noah!” he screamed, shoving past social workers and firefighters.
He spotted a woman dressed in a dark blue paramedic’s uniform, carrying a small child wrapped in a thick wool blanket toward an unmarked black SUV parked at the edge of the perimeter. The child was clutching a small, stuffed blue elephant with a torn ear.
Noah.
“Lauren!” Ethan roared, his voice cutting through the noise of the sirens.
The paramedic froze. She slowly turned around, pulling down the medical mask covering her face.
It was Lauren.
Her face was completely free of the bruises Ethan had seen at the weigh station. Her hair was cut short, dyed blonde, her eyes cold, sharp, and entirely detached. She looked at Ethan not with love, nor with guilt, but with the icy calculation of a hunter looking at an obstacle.
“Ethan,” she said, her voice steady against the howling wind. “You should have stayed at the library in Zurich. You were safe there.”
“Put him down, Lauren,” Ethan said, stepping forward, his hands open. “He’s my brother. I loved him as my son. I won't let you use him as a paycheck.”
“He’s my ticket out of this hell, Ethan,” Lauren whispered, taking a step back toward the open door of the SUV. “Your father ruined my life. Your mother made me a prisoner. I earned this money. I earned this boy.”
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Suddenly, a loud, deafening crack echoed from the roof of the adjacent building.
The driver’s side window of Lauren’s SUV shattered into a thousand pieces. A sniper shot.
