Page 103 of Veil of Silence

Christian had known what this report would say. So he’d intercepted the envelope and tucked it beneath his mattress so the Loveless family would continue believing their son had returned.

Nora pressed her hand against her mouth.

The boy sitting beside the fire wasn’t her brother.

Christian hadn’t come home.

Yet for three weeks, Nora had cared for the boy. She’d watched to see whether he ate enough, worried when he wandered at night, and taken his hand after she fell—even though, for one awful moment, she’d been afraid to.

He had lied about who he was. None of her concern for him had been a lie.

Which made things that much worse.

But somewhere, the real Christian might still be waiting for them to find him.

Through the closed bedroom window, Nora saw her family gathered around the fire.

Mom tipped her head back in laughter. Dad sat beside her, finally home. And between them was the boy they believed they had lost ten years ago.

Except he wasn’t Christian.

Nora lowered her gaze to the report.

Maybe there had been a mistake at the lab. Samples could have been switched. Paperwork could have been mislabeled.

She clung to each possibility for only a second before the next one appeared.

Because even if the results were wrong, Christian had hidden them.

He’d intercepted the envelope. Opened it. Read it.

Then he’d tucked it beneath his mattress and allowed the family to keep believing he was their son.

Why?

She pressed her eyes closed.

Three weeks of strange behavior rearranged themselves in her mind.

Christian digging near the barn in the middle of the night.

His reaction to the Renshaws.

The facts he knew but claimed not to remember learning.

The hymnal page.

The way he’d walked barefoot toward the woods whispering, Sinner, come home.

The papers he’d tried to burn.

And the pressure between Nora’s shoulder blades before she fell.

Had she imagined that? She still didn’t know whether he had pushed her down the stairs—or what he knew about her brother.

Nora lowered her gaze to the report. The paper shook in her hand, and she forced her fingers to still.

She needed to confront him.