Chapter 9
Leo moved quickly to the stairs, gently taking Toby by the shoulders and guiding him down into the shelter. “You should be upstairs resting, Tobe. Your hands need time to heal.”
“They don't hurt anymore,” the boy lied bravely, walking past his father straight toward the cot. He reached out with his gauze-wrapped fingers, gently touching Maya’s pale hand where it rested on the quilt. “Is she waking up?”
“Not yet, buddy,” Clara said softly, pulling up a wooden stool so Toby could sit comfortably beside the mattress. She reached out and adjusted the blanket around the boy’s shoulders. “Your sister is very strong. She’s going to be okay, thanks to you and your dad.”
Toby looked up, his big blue eyes fixing on Clara with a maturity that felt entirely unnatural for an eight-year-old. “I had to scratch the red door. Dad said we couldn't tell anyone, but when I heard her calling from beneath the floorboards yesterday morning, I thought she was gone forever. I didn't want her to be stuck in the dark like Mom.”
The words dropped into the quiet room like a lead weight.
Clara froze, her hand hovering just inches from the edge of the mattress. She slowly turned her head to look at Leo. The carpenter had gone entirely rigid, his face draining of what little color it had left, his jaw locked in a terrifying grimace of pure panic.
“Toby,” Leo said, his voice dropping into a harsh, warning growl that made the boy shrink back against the stool. “We talked about this. That’s enough.”
“No, wait,” Clara interrupted, her voice sharp and uncompromising. She stood up, towering over Leo in the confined space of the shelter. “What did he just say, Leo? What happened to their mother?”
Leo stared at her, his chest heaving as if he had just run a marathon. He looked at Toby, then back at Clara, the fragile wall of his justifications finally beginning to crumble under the crushing weight of accumulated truths.
“She didn't die of an illness in a hospital, did she?” Clara whispered, the pieces of the puzzle suddenly snapping into a horrific, coherent picture in her mind. The isolated property, the subterranean bunker, the obsessive need for absolute control, the terror in the boy's eyes.
“She left,” Leo said through gritted teeth, his voice shaking with suppressed fury and grief. “Five years ago, she packed her bags while I was out at the lumberyard and walked out the front door, leaving me with a toddler and a baby. She didn't look back. She didn't call. She just vanished into the city.”
“And you told the children she died,” Clara said, horror washing over her.
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“I told them the truth in a way they could live with,” Leo retorted, stepping forward defensively. “A mother who chooses to abandon her children is dead to them. It’s better than letting them grow up wondering why they weren't enough to make her stay.”
“And Maya?” Clara asked, her voice trembling. “Did Maya start asking too many questions about that day? Is that why she was up in the loft when the beams fell?”
