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“
He let me keep him. He told me he wouldn’t tell anyone. That it would be our secret. But I had to help him keep a secret, too.”
Cassie leaned forward. It wasn’t hard to read between the lines. Sherry must’ve had a psychotic break after losing her child, and Henry took advantage of that. None of the reports Cassie had ever read about the man had indicated he was delusional like Sherry. Whatever he’d done to those children, he’d done of sound mind and body.
And he had been smart enough to get away with all but one for several decades.
“What secret did he want you to keep?”
Sherry’s breathing rattled in her chest. She coughed into the tissue, and Cassie gave her a clean one. It was hard not to keep pressing the woman, knowing that the pauses in between every word, every sentence, every answer were ticking down the seconds until Cassie’s time was up.
“Hank told me he wanted to help people like me. People who couldn’t adopt their own babies.” Another cough. Another rattling breath. “He asked me if I would help him take care of the kids while they were waiting to be adopted. He bought me a house away from the city. And all I had to do was take care of everyone.”
“Did you like doing that?”
“Being a mother was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
But that didn’t mean she was good at it. Ethan had died on her watch. And so it seemed, did Sebastian. “Whatever happened to that little boy from the park?”
Sherry looked out the window. Clouds were moving in, and her face was more visible in the glass now. Her lip trembled. “He was a good boy, but he cried a lot. Sometimes I couldn’t take it. I would get headaches. And I’d get mad. But I never put a hand on him. Never.” She looked at Cassie to make sure the young woman understood this before she continued. “But I would make him sleepy to calm him down. And one day, he didn’t wake up.”
Cassie was full of questions, but every single one of them sounded like an accusation. Her blood was boiling, but even though Sherry Miller was the reason Sebastian died, she knew it was Henry Fitzpatrick who was the real culprit.
“Do you understand what happened to him, Sherry?”
Sherry nodded, but her silent sobs kept her from speaking.
“What happened after that? How did Hank react?”
Sherry took a moment. “He took him away. He told me it would be okay. That he’d bring my son back one day. I believed him.”
Cassie’s voice was soft. “You already found him once. You thought you’d find him again.” When Sherry nodded, Cassie pulled up a photo of Sarah. “Do you remember her?”
Sherry took the phone and held it close. She smiled. “Sweet little Sarah. She cried a lot, too. I did the best I could, but she upset the others. She was always asking to go home. Henry told me she needed to sleep, too.”
Cassie’s stomach churned. Sarah had met the same fate as Sebastian. “Is that what happened?”
“She was so tiny. I only gave her a little. I just wanted her to be quiet. But she slept, too. Just like Ethan.”
Cassie swallowed the bile stuck in her throat and took her phone back. “What about the other kids? Did you make them sleep, too?”
Sherry shook her head. “Most of them were good. They’d be quiet if you gave them some food or a toy. Those were the ones we could give to the people who wanted them.”
She didn’t bother keeping the accusation out of her voice this time. “You didn’t think their parents wanted them?”
“Some of them came in with bruises. Some were bad. They just needed attention and love. I did that. For Ethan. So he would come back to me some day.”
Cassie took a deep breath. Sarah hadn’t had any bruises. She hadn’t been a bad kid. It was only because Sherry Miller had seen her out in those woods that night.
“So, Hank would take the kids and they wouldn’t come back after that? Did that make you sad?”
“Sometimes. But then he would bring more. And I would be happy again.”
“Did he ever find Ethan again?”
“Only in my dreams.” She looked around the room. “Sometimes he visits me. But he doesn’t stay for very long.”
Cassie followed the woman’s gaze, half expecting Sebastian to be standing there in the corner, staring at them. But the room only held the living, and for once, Cassie was glad the little boy wasn’t there. Seeing him would make her heart break all over again.
