Page 30 of The Fix
Chapter Nineteen
Cami stared at the phone and, true to the caller’s word, thirty seconds later a text came through from a different unknown number with a photo attached.
Cami clicked on the photo, and her blood ran cold. It was a young boy, sitting on a bed in a room with bars on the window. There was no other furniture present, only a bedpan and a bottle of water.What the hell is this?She blinked, her eyes moving back to the child, sitting with his knees drawn up the same way she had been just minutes before. He looked terrified. With suddenly shaking hands, Cami used her fingers to zoom in on the boy’s face. And she nearly fell over.
He looked just like her.
My eyes. My nose.Even his ears were the same. And she saw Hollis in his expression, but he overwhelmingly looked like her.
With a tortured gasp, Cami reached for the wall, leaning on it as her legs turned to jelly.
Was it . . . but how . . .
The boy looked to be the same age her son would be. She shook her head. But no, this wasn’t possible. Her boy was somewhere in San Diego, California, living with a beautiful young couple who had a white poodle and a lovely home with a pool. He worked in tech, and she had planned to be a stay-at-home mom when the woman from the adoption agency had placed the baby in her arms.
The baby Cami had wailed silently for as she pictured the couple counting her son’s toes and running a finger over his tiny nose.
No no no no. What is this?Was it some kind of sick joke?
She pushed herself off the wall, anger racing through her. Who would do something so demented? So cold? Who would torment her like this just to be cruel?
But if it’s a cruel prank, who is this child? And why does he look like me?
She massaged her temple. Nothing made sense.
“Oh my God.” Cami set the phone down and then stepped away. She had to call the police. They’d trace this call and find out who the sicko was who’d either sent her a fake photo, or who’d kidnapped a child who looked like her son might look right now.
Or, who’d kidnapped her actual son.
Do not call the police or you’ll regret it. And others will too. Innocents.
Innocents? Like the child sitting alone in a barred room with nothing but water and a bedpan? Another shiver made her draw up her shoulders.
If a child had been kidnapped, it would be all over the news. He was a beautiful young boy with parents who, if not as affluent as her family had once been, were well-to-do. Cami ran to her room and grabbed her laptop and then sat down on the couch, placed it on the coffee table, and entered her passcode.
She did a Google search for local San Diego news stations and then quickly scrolled through that day’s headlines. Nothing about an abducted child. She used the search bar to look up any stories that might have the wordskidnappedorabductedin the headlines. There were a few, but nothing recent. Cami clicked on a story from a couple of months before, but when she skimmed the article, she saw that the little girl who’d gone missing from her yard had been found later that day. Something about a parental rights dispute.
Just in case her son’s adoptive family had moved, she did a more general Google search, looking for missing boys who’d been takenrecently and fit her son’s description. But after scrolling through a few that looked like possibilities, she found nothing.
Her heart rate slowed, and she blew out a long breath as she sat back.
She felt mildly better and more assured that this was a sick prank for reasons she couldn’t begin to understand, but the worry didn’t evaporate completely. What if her son had been taken very recently—like within the last hour—and he hadn’t even been reported missing yet? Was it possible that some kidnapper somewhere knew she was his mother and thought they still had the money they’d once had? Would a ransom be forthcoming? Her dad was retired now, yet still well off, but Cami herself had very little in the bank.
But how would someone know she was related to this child, if in fact she was? It’d been a completely closed adoption. Even she wasn’t supposed to know where her son’s adoptive parents lived, but she’d accidentally seen the location in the family’s file when she was being shown photos. That information was another reason she’d chosen them—it would save her from the pain of wondering if she’d run into her son someday. It was easier for her to know he was well loved and cared for, but far enough away that she wouldn’t have to wonder if every little boy she saw with Hollis’s smile or her hair color was the baby she’d given away.
She picked up her phone and looked at the text log, noting that twenty-eight minutes had passed since the photo had come through. She sat there, her nerves firing up again as she waited. Her knee bounced, and she chewed at her thumbnail. Two minutes passed, and her phone didn’t ring.
A prank. It was just a prank.She had questions, and she’d definitely call the authorities, but—
Her phone screen lit up with a call. “Shit,” she said under her breath. Yet another unknown number. She picked her phone up and swiped the screen. “H-hello?”
“Are you ready to agree to a do-over?”
“I don’t understand what that means. I don’t understand what this is.” What was she agreeing to? What kind of do-over? What had she done once that she was being given the opportunity to do again? This was whacked. She heard the sound of something in the background that sounded like soft, wheezy breathing as though the caller were related to Darth Vader. And maybe the pure ridiculousness of that visual was the thing that caused her to say, “Sure, I agree. I’d like a do-over. What am I doing over?”
“You will receive a link to a video and, using that footage, you are invited to locate the child. If you fail to find him in four days, he will be given to other interested parties who, shall we say, do not have his best interests at heart. Again, do not call the police. If you do, the video will be removed, and you will not hear from me again. If you log in on more than one device, the video will be removed.”
Cami’s head buzzed and her thoughts were disjointed as she tried to make sense of what was nonsensical. And even despite her confusion, dread continued to descend. “I ... yes, I’ll be sent a video ... to use to find a child in ... four days? He’s at risk. Only log in on one device, and no police.”
