Chapter 2 - The Cold Gift
I dropped to my knees on the hardwood floor beside Maisie’s chair. The festive noise in the room faded into a dull, underwater roar.
"Maisie," I whispered, my hand resting gently on her trembling knee. "Sweetheart, what is it?"
She didn't speak. She just pointed a small, shaky finger into the depth of the shiny red box.
I reached out and pulled the box into my lap. The glittery foil scraped against my denim jeans. I pushed aside the tissue paper, expecting a broken toy, a distasteful joke, or perhaps something sharp.
Instead, my eyes landed on three items.
The first was a blue knitted woolen scarf, stained with faint patches of dried yellow mud around the fringe. It was the exact scarf I had hand-stitched for Theo’s ninth birthday—the one he had been wearing on the rainy Tuesday six months ago when he walked out of the school cafeteria and vanished into thin air.
The second item was a silver pocket compass with his initials, T.R., scratched into the casing with the point of a key.
And the third item lay flat at the very bottom: a fresh, crisp Polaroid photograph.
My lungs locked. I couldn't breathe.
The photo showed Theo. He was sitting on a bare metal cot in a windowless room with exposed wooden wall studs. His hair was longer, his face thinner, but he was alive. In his hands, he held up a handwritten piece of lined notebook paper.
Scrawled across the paper in blue crayon were the words: Merry Christmas, Maisie. I miss home.
On the white margin at the bottom of the Polaroid, a line had been written in thick black permanent marker: If you call the cops, he freezes.
A wave of dizziness hit me so hard the room tilted. My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird. Theo. My boy. He wasn't dead. He was somewhere cold, somewhere close enough for someone to put this photograph inside a box on my parents' living room floor today.
"Mommy..." Maisie whimpered, tears finally brimming over her eyelids and trailing down her pale cheeks. "Is Theo... is he in there?"
"Shh, baby. Stay quiet," I forced my voice to remain low, steady, and light, even as pure ice rushed through my veins. "Look at me, Maisie. Eyes on Mommy."
She looked at me, her brown eyes wide with terror.
"You did so good," I murmured, squeezing her hand tightly. "You're the bravest girl in the world. I need you to go sit with your cousins at the table. Don't say a word to anyone. Can you do that for me?"
She nodded once, her lower lip trembling, and slid out of her chair.
I picked up the lid, placed it back over the red foil box, and stood up. My knees felt like water, but the sheer surge of adrenaline held me upright.
I looked across the room. My mother was still bustling near the dining table, adjusting crystal glassware. My father was leaning back in his armchair, laughing at a television broadcast. My sister Megan stood by the doorway, taking a slow sip from her wine glass, her eyes idly wandering over the festive wrapping paper scattered across the rug.
I looked down at the tag on the box again.
To: Maisie. From: Sadie.
I walked over to Megan’s eight-year-old daughter, Sadie, who was currently busy smearing pink glitter slime across a cardboard box.
"Sadie," I said, keeping my voice gentle as I crouched beside her. "Where did you get this red box?"
Sadie looked up, her fingers sticky with slime. "Aunt Megan gave it to me from the car when we got here," she said plainly. "She told me to put it under the tree and write my name on the tag so Maisie would think it was from me."
The air went completely cold around me.
I looked up. Across the room, Megan’s eyes flicked toward me. For a fraction of a second, before she could catch herself, I saw it—a sharp, calculating flash of panic in her dark eyes before she smoothed her features into a pleasant, careless smile.
"Everything okay, Clara?" Megan asked, raising her glass toward me. "Maisie looks a bit under the weather."
I didn't answer her. I didn't scream. I didn't cause a scene that would give her a second to react.
I clutched the red box against my ribs, turned on my heel, and walked straight down the long hallway toward my father’s back study. I stepped inside, pulled the heavy oak door shut, and turned the brass lock until it clicked into place.
My hands shook so violently I could barely hit the screen on my phone.
I dialed three numbers.
May you like
"911, what is your emergency?"
"My name is Clara Rayhan," I whispered into the receiver, my voice trembling with a mixture of terror and lethal rage. "Six months ago, my nine-year-old son Theo went missing from Oakridge Elementary. I am at my parents' house on Maple Street. Someone just put a fresh photo of my kidnapped son under the Christmas tree... and the person who brought it into this house is my sister."
