Chapter 7 - THE LIE THAT GREW
Daria moved Caleb to Hawthorne Farm that same afternoon.
Frank stayed with him.
Victor returned to the lake and staged panic.
Search teams arrived.
By evening, national attention had begun.
Daria told herself:
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow they would arrange a discovery.
But tomorrow meant explaining:
why Caleb had been thirty miles away,
why Victor lied,
why Daria had hidden him overnight.
Every hour increased the cost of truth.
Then Caleb developed a fever.
Daria brought a private nurse to Hawthorne.
Still no police.
Still no Samuel.
The nurse believed the child belonged to a family avoiding media.
Daria used the Kincaid name.
People asked fewer questions.
Samuel listened to this and felt nauseated.
His wealth had helped hide his son from him.
Then Laura asked Victor:
“When did you stop planning to return Caleb?”
Victor cried.
“I don’t know.”
He claimed he begged Daria after three days.
Daria said:
“Too late.”
After a week:
“We need a clean way.”
After a month:
“Samuel is unstable. We can’t drop this on him.”
That argument hardened.
Samuel really was unraveling.
He stopped sleeping.
Drank too much for several months.
Missed work.
Daria used the damage caused by the lie as justification for continuing the lie.
“He can’t handle Caleb now.”
Circular.
Then Catherine revealed another piece.
Daria had told the boy:
“Your father is sick.”
Not dead.
Not gone.
Sick.
She told him Samuel could not see him until he “got better.”
The boy waited.
For nearly two years.
Then one day Catherine found him crying over a drawing.
He had written:
May you like
DAD FORGOT ME.
That was when she decided she would leave even if police arrested her.
