Ellen considered it, and it made sense. "She skimmed the money before she turned it over, and Moore must have agreed. How did she deliver it?"

"In a gym bag, he specified that."

"Did you check the bag?"

"No, why would I?" Bill kept shaking his head. "We packed it, she took it, and she left with it."

Ellen had no answer. It was an ingenious scheme, until it wasn't.

"If Moore had given Timothy back, the plan would have worked. It would have been fine. But he killed our babysitter and he kept Timothy. G.o.d knows why."

Ellen told him that Amy wanted the baby because she couldn't have one herself, and Bill's eyes widened in disbelief.

"So why not keep him then?"

"He got sick, as you know. Carol said she'd read my articles about him."

"I read them, too."

"So when I wanted to adopt him from the hospital, Timothy Braverman became Will Gleeson."

Bill's upper lip curled in disgust. "Someone can put a baby that isn't theirs up for adoption and get away with it? You'd think that somebody, the state or some agency, would catch that. You think they'd do background checks or something so this doesn't happen."

Ellen agreed. "They do background checks on the adopting parent, like me, but they don't do them on the women putting their baby up for adoption. Funny, huh?"

Bill sighed, his shoulders slumping. "I just cannot believe that Carol did this to me and Timothy. For money."

"Desperate people do desperate things." Ellen paused, feeling an odd sort of peace that came either from perspective or exhaustion. "She's beyond judgment now. She came up with a terrible solution to a terrible problem, one that resulted in a murder, and eventually, even her own."

Officer Halbert interjected, "I'm looking at two parents, and both of you love the same boy. Neither of you did anything wrong. It's a lose-lose situation, and I'm sorry for you both."

"Thanks," Ellen said, having nothing better to say, and Bill sighed again, looking at her with new eyes. He had learned the truth, and his truth was as terrible as hers.

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment, and Ellen nodded, trying not to cry.

"Me, too." Then she added, because it needed saying, "It sounds awful now, but I want to tell you how Carol died, because she redeemed herself. She gave her life, for Will. For Timothy. She saved his life."

"What happened?" Bill's lip trembled, and Ellen told him the story, after which he heaved a great sob, then collapsed into hoa.r.s.e, choking sounds that hunched his broad shoulders, collapsing his frame and driving his face into his hands, in his own private h.e.l.l.

There was a soft knock at the doorway, and the emergency-room nurse appeared, leaning into the room. "Ellen, your son is back from X-ray."

"How is he?" she asked, rising.

"The doctor will give you a full report," she answered, and Ellen went to the door.

"No, wait." Bill looked up from his hands, his eyes red and his cheeks tear-stained. He gave a mighty sniffle. "I'm his father. Can I go in, too?"

Ellen turned to him. "If you don't mind, Bill, would you not? It might upset him. I'll be sure to come out and tell you."

"He's all I have, now. For G.o.d's sake, I just lost my wife."

"This isn't about you or me. It's about Will."

"Timothy," Bill corrected, rising. He wiped his face with the back of his hand.

"Whatever his name, he needs comfort now. He needs me." Ellen watched as Bill's eyes hardened, even wet. "Please, be realistic. He doesn't know who you are yet. You're a stranger to him."

Officer Halbert stood up, too. "Mr. Braverman, she adopted him, and she's still his mother."

"She was never his real mother," Bill shot back, and Ellen swallowed hard, but the ER nurse raised an authoritative hand in Bill's direction.

"Sir, are you listed as next of kin on the intake form?"

"No."

"Well, Ms. Gleeson is. She's on the form as his mother, and only she can be admitted to the unit, per this hospital's regulations. You are not permitted back with us."

Ellen turned to go. "Bill, I'll ask someone to come out and tell you how he is," she said, following the nurse, who led her to the emergency-unit door, pressing in the code to unlock the door.

"What was that all about?" the nurse asked.

"It's a long story." Ellen only shook her head. "I just want to see if my son is all right."

Chapter Eighty.

They reached Will's examining room, and Ellen felt a wave of deja vu. Will lay under the covers, wearing a print hospital gown, looking tiny in the adult-size hospital bed. His head was bandaged with gauze, and he lay on the pillow with his eyes closed. Another nurse was putting up the guardrails of his bed, next to the ER doctor, a young man with rumpled hair who stopped writing on his clipboard to flash Ellen a rea.s.suring grin.

"Don't worry, he's fine," the doctor said quickly, and she almost cheered with relief.

"What did the X-ray show?" Ellen went to the bed and held Will's hand, which felt oddly cool to the touch. His eyelids looked bluish, and she a.s.sumed that was okay, if scary.

"There's no fracture. Children's bones have a lot more give than adults, and it served your son well. The cut behind his ear is all st.i.tched up."

"Thank G.o.d. How about his heart?"

"All good." The doctor looked sympathetic. "You've gotta get over that, Mom. He's fine now. Don't worry so much."

I'll get right on that.

"I'd like to admit him and keep an eye on him overnight."

"Sure, better to be on the safe side. I can stay, right?"

"Yes. We'll get him a room and put in a cot for you."

"Great." Ellen looked down at Will. "He's sleeping so soundly."

"I gave him a light sedative, and he'll rest until morning."

"Good, thanks." Ellen pulled up a chair. "You know, he saw terrible things tonight, people getting shot right in front of him, and in the next few weeks, there will be a major disruption in his life. Can you give me the name of some counselors that can help him?" Her throat went tight. "With the transition?"

"I'll have the social worker make some recommendations." The doctor moved away, touching her lightly on the shoulder. "Take care."

The nurse left with him, saying, "We'll let you know when we have a room for him."

"Good, thanks." Ellen turned to the other nurse. "Would you tell the man in the waiting room that he's okay?"

"All right, but only as favor to you. Don't like him, myself." She scuffed off, and Ellen took Will's hand.

His breathing was slightly congested, and his crusty nose bubbled away.

Ellen closed her eyes, to listen better.

The sound of him breathing.

It was the sweetest thing she had ever heard.

Chapter Eighty-one.

Two hours later, Ellen cuddled Will in a private room, holding him close in the darkness while he slept and the TV played on mute, showing photos of Ellen's own house. DOUBLE HOM I CIDE IN BABY DRAMA DOUBLE HOM I CIDE IN BABY DRAMA, said the red banner on the screen, and she read the closed captioning, its spelling occasionally funky: Police report that Narberf resident Ellen Gleeson was attacked in her home in an attempt to kill her and her baby, who she adopted but who was really Timothy Rravermark, a child kidnapped from wealthy Miami socialites ...

Ellen looked away to the snow swirling outside the window. The hospital was quiet, and the only sound was the faint talking of the nurses down the hall. The door was partway closed, and she felt the world at bay. Snow inched up the panes, making a drift with an icy edge, thin as a knife. Steam heat fogged the gla.s.s, blurring the lights outside. She and Will had come full circle together, ending up in a hospital. She wondered how they could ever be separated, if that were even physically possible, but she'd insulate herself from thinking about that as long as she could, surely as the snow insulated the room, the hospital, and the world entire.

Somewhere out there was Marcelo, who had been trying to call her, but she couldn't take the call and had switched off the cell phone. Hospital signs read that cell phones interfered with the equipment, and she wanted to spend the time alone with Will.

She thought fleetingly of her father, still off in Italy, but she'd call him tomorrow when they got home. She wasn't sure when he was coming back. She had no idea how she'd tell him the news, which would crush him. She'd have him over to say good-bye to Will and she couldn't imagine that scene.

He's Will. He's ours.

She thought of Connie, too, and how upset she'd be. The babysitter loved Will and would feel his loss almost as acutely as Ellen would. There would be no see-ya-later-alligator, this time. She worried most of all about how Will would cope. He loved Connie, as surely as he loved her, and he would need help to deal with the trauma and the transition. The child had known, and lost, three mothers in three years. She would get one of those therapists that the doctor recommended as soon as she got him home.

Will stirred in her arms, breathing deeply, and Ellen gazed down at him, his bandaged head on her chest. Multicolored lights from the TV flashed across his face, mottling his features like a kaleidoscope, but she could make out the gentle hillock of his cheek, his cheekbone still buried under baby fat, the contours of his face yet to be formed by time. She tried not to think that she wouldn't know what Will would grow up to look like. Or how he'd do in school. Who his friends would be, or his wife. Or the minutiae, like if he'd always love cats or would dogs count, too? How would he dance at a party? What about later, when SATs came, and shaving, and college? What would he be when he grew up? All the stuff of a boy's life. Her boy's. Not her boy. Her boy no longer.

She held on to Will while a Bowflex commercial came on, and in time she drifted into an anguished sleep, wondering about the thousand other questions to which she would never know the answer.

And someday, wouldn't permit herself even to ask.

Chapter Eighty-two.

Dawn came late, the sky dark until well after six, when the winter gloom lifted like a black velvet curtain, revealing yet another curtain, one of dark pewter. Ellen woke up slowly, still cuddling Will, and waited, lying in bed, listening to the hospital come slowly to life, with the nurses talking in low tones about the snowstorm, the skeleton crew, and the mom with the kidnapped baby in Room 302. Today, the reporter was the news.

"Mommy, when we get home, can we make a snowman?" Will asked, after the doctor had cleared them for discharge.

"We sure can." Ellen zipped his hoodie, and he was dressed to go, except for being shoeless. All he had on was a pair of blue cotton socks, stretched out of shape. "What was I thinking last night? I forgot your feet!"

Will giggled, looking down, so that their heads almost touched. "My feet are in my socks!"

"They are? Show me, just to make sure. Wiggle them for me."

"Look." Will's tiny toes popped around in their socks. "See, there they are. Under."

"What a relief. Whew. You know what that reminds me of?"

"What?"

"Of Oreo Figaro, when he's under the sheets. Remember how every time I make the bed, he gets under the new sheets and runs around?"

"He gets lost."

Ellen popped on his hood. "Right, he doesn't know how to get out, and we have to get him out."

Just then the nurse came in with the discharge papers on a clipboard. "Can you give me your John Hanc.o.c.k?" she asked, handing the clipboard to Ellen and smiling at Will. "How you doing?"

"I have my feet."

"Good." The nurse smiled. "You need your feet."

Ellen stuffed her purse under her arm, took the pen the nurse was offering, and scribbled her name. "Thanks."

"Just to give you a heads-up, there are reporters out front."

"Great." Ellen managed a smile for Will's sake, then turned to him. "Hear that, pal? You know what a reporter is, don't you?"

"You're a reporter!" Will pointed at her, smiling, and Ellen grabbed his finger and gave it a quick kiss. a reporter!" Will pointed at her, smiling, and Ellen grabbed his finger and gave it a quick kiss.

"Right, and there'll be lots of people like me out front, only they might shout your name and take your picture. You ready for that?"

"Ready!"

"Good. Let's go home."