Chapter 2 - Sixteen Nights of Lies
"Call 911," I told Denise.
She was already dialing.
Nathan sank onto the bottom stair, cradling his injured arm against his chest.
I wanted to hold him.
I wanted to scream at him.
Most of all, I wanted to understand how two boys I thought I knew so well had managed to deceive us for two entire months.
Only eighteen hours earlier, I had believed my son was safely spending another ordinary weekend with his best friend.
It had been a little after ten on Saturday morning when Denise called.
"Hey, Laura. When is Cole coming home?"
I laughed.
"What do you mean? Nathan's at your house."
Silence.
Then Denise said something I would never forget.
"Laura, I haven't seen Nathan in weeks."
I thought she was joking.
But when I asked her when she had last seen him, she told me it had been early August.
That was almost two months earlier.
Denise had believed Cole was sleeping at my house.
I had believed Nathan was sleeping at hers.
Our boys had carefully arranged their stories so that neither mother would question them.
Every Friday evening, Nathan packed his overnight bag.
Every Sunday morning, he returned home.
Sometimes he was cheerful.
Sometimes he barely spoke.
But lately, something had changed.
He had begun coming home with dark circles beneath his eyes.
His clothes smelled of damp concrete and machinery.
Several times, I noticed scratches across his knuckles.
When I asked what had happened, he shrugged.
"We were messing around outside."
I believed him.
That was what haunted me most.
I had believed every word.
After Denise's call, we spent the afternoon contacting classmates, teammates, and anyone who might know where the boys had been going.
Nobody knew anything.
By midnight, Denise was sitting at my kitchen table, her face pale with worry.
"Has Nathan been acting strange?" she asked.
I remembered how he had stopped talking about his weekends.
"Yes."
"Why didn't we notice sooner?"
I couldn't answer.
At three in the morning, we were both crying.
At four, we were preparing to contact the police.
And at 4:37, Nathan walked through the door alone.
Now, as Denise spoke urgently to the emergency dispatcher, the full weight of those sixteen missing nights began to crush me.
I knelt beside Nathan.
"Look at me."
He slowly raised his head.
"You've been going to that mill every weekend?"
He nodded.
"Sleeping there?"
"Sometimes."
"With Cole?"
"Yes."
"Doing what?"
Nathan stared at his trembling hands.
"Cooking meals. Carrying supplies. Fixing things. Making sure nobody came in at night."
I shook my head.
"Who was there?"
"Six families."
I stared at him.
"Six families?"
"Some had little kids. Some had babies. They were supposed to be staying in hotels, but the rooms were never there."
I couldn't understand what he was saying.
"What hotels?"
"The emergency housing program. After Willow Court was damaged."
I remembered the news reports.
A water main failure had flooded an apartment complex on the eastern side of town in early August. Several families had been forced to leave their homes.
The city had announced that temporary accommodations were being provided through a private contractor.
I remembered seeing photographs of officials standing outside the damaged building, promising that no family would be forgotten.
"What does that have to do with you?"
Nathan's expression darkened.
"Everything."
Denise finished speaking with the dispatcher.
"Police and firefighters are coming," she said. "They want the exact location."
Nathan gave us directions to the mill.
Then he whispered something that made me stop breathing.
"Mom, those families never got the hotel rooms."
"What?"
"The company collected money for housing them. But the families were sleeping on the floor of that mill."
I stared at him.
He continued.
"Cole found proof. That's why those men came tonight."
Denise stepped closer.
"What proof?"
Nathan looked toward the window, where the sky was still black.
"Records. Names. Payments. Things that could get important people into serious trouble."
I felt a cold realization beginning to form.
This wasn't simply about two teenagers hiding their weekend activities.
Someone had been stealing money meant for homeless families.
And my son believed the people responsible had discovered what he and Cole knew.
Then Nathan looked at his phone.
A message had just appeared from an unfamiliar number.
He held it out to me.
STOP LOOKING. HOLLOWAY MILL IS EMPTY.
Nathan shook his head.
"They're lying, Mom."
May you like
His voice broke.
"There's no way Cole and Eli got out."
