Free Torn by Chris Jordan

lungs.”
    “I’m not crazy or delusional,” I announce, marching around the leaf table the way he marched around my house. Hugging myself to force calm as I make my argument. “I know children can die. It may go against nature but it happens all the time. Disease, accidents, even murder. It happens. But it didn’t happen to Noah. It just didn’t.”
    “Mind if I get some water?”
    “Help yourself,” I say, gesturing at the glass-fronted cupboard.
    He pours a glass from the tap. Drinks it, every drop. “Good water, too. I can see why folks live up here, this close to the North Pole.”
    “Say what you’ve got to say,” I urge him. “I can’t stand this. Not knowing if you’ll help.”
    He leans against the sink. “ Help is a big word,” he says, very carefully. “I’m going to look into something but it may not help. You should know that.”
    “Look into what?”
    From his hesitation I pick up that he’s not sure whether or not he should be specific, to safeguard my feelings. Finally he nods to himself and goes, “The lab. I made a call. Confirmed that the DNA lab the State Police used has an excellent reputation. State-of-the-art facility, supposedly. Very unlikely they’ve been compromised or somehow got it wrong.”
    “But possible,” I insist. “If Noah is alive they could plant a sample of his blood, right?”
    Shane looks skeptical. “We’ll see. If I’m satisfied the lab work is correct, and your son was killed in the explosion, that’s the end of it.”
    “It will never be the end.”
    “Let me ask you this, Mrs. Corbin. If your son was hit by a car crossing the street, would you blame the grandfather or his cult followers? Bad things happen sometimes, regardless of wealth or connections.”
    “You don’t have to tell me that! I know that! But if Noah was hit by a car his body would still be here!” I point out, aware that my voice has gone high and loud. “Noah wasn’t killed in that explosion. Nobody believes me, but I know he wasn’t.”
    “Okay,” he says.
    “You want to know how I know?”
    He nods.
    “Because of what Jed said. Months before the plane went down he said if he ever disappeared, ever vanishedwithout an explanation, it would be because of his father. Because he’d been taken.”
    “Your late husband knew your son was in danger?” he asks, looking startled.
    “No. No. Jed meant if he disappeared. Jed himself. Then he laughed, because it was such a crazy idea, that he’d be abducted because of his own father. That the Rulers would want him, of all people—a man who disinherited his own father, cut all ties. What would they want with him? But it wasn’t crazy, was it? Jed died and they took Noah instead—Arthur Conklin’s only living descendent. And they did it in a way that means nobody will look for him. Nobody but me. I know it sounds like a fantastic conspiracy, sending a madman into a school to blow it up so they can steal a child. But it happened. They did it.”
    Oh yes, I’m aware of how it must all seem, the paranoid rant of a mother driven mad by loss. But give him credit: Randall Shane didn’t flash me that look. The look I’d seen on the faces of so many cops and detectives. The look that said, best get away, leave this one to her misery.
    Instead he nods and says, “I’ll look into it, Mrs. Corbin. Whatever I find, I won’t lie to you. Good, bad, or terrible, I won’t lie to you. That’s all I can promise.”
    3. Letter Of Proof
    A few minutes later he’s driving away in his black Lincoln Town Car. A big boat of a vehicle that tacks slowly out of my long, unpaved driveway, bumping carefully over the frost heaves before finally turning onto the main road and vanishing around a long curve.
    Anybody else, I’d figure he’s gone for good. But Shane looked me in the eye and promised that whatever he decided he would return and tell me in person.
    Which gives me something to cling to. He said it would take a day or so to check out the