They studied the boy carefully. His eyes were hollow, his cheeks sunken, his skin marked with bruises and scratches. But beneath the dirt and damage, his face was unmistakable once they really looked.
They pulled the file. The dental records. The DNA report.
A young officer leaned closer. “Is there any chance… the body they found wasn’t actually him?”
“No,” I said. “That’s what you told us. That’s what we were told. You said the DNA matched.”
Noah sat beside me on the bench, wrapped in a blanket, sipping water with shaking hands.
“Can you tell us where you’ve been, Noah?” one of the detectives asked gently.
He hesitated, then nodded.
“They took me… from the yard,” he said quietly. “A man in a white van. I thought it was a delivery truck. He said he knew my mom.”
My stomach clenched.
“He put a bag over my head,” Noah whispered. “There were two of them. A man and a woman. They kept me in a basement. No windows. Chains on the bed. They gave me just enough food. They said they were going to make it look like I died so nobody would keep looking.”
The room felt suddenly colder.
“What do you mean… make it look like you died?” the detective asked, leaning forward.