A Mother's Claim. Janice Kay Johnson

did this feel so much like grief? Or was she letting go of an overload of grief that had built, day by day and year by year, until it was too much to contain?

      Someone knocked. When she didn’t answer, the door cracked open. Jillian Markham, who had the next office, took one look and then rushed in.

      “Oh, my God! Dana, what’s wrong?”

      Dana’s face contorted and she cried harder.

      Jillian saw the phone. “Bad news?”

      Dana managed to shake her head.

      “Oh, honey.” Jillian bent to hug her, deftly swiping her nose and cheeks with a tissue at the same time. “Just let it out.”

      Dana couldn’t have said why that struck her as funny, but suddenly she was laughing and crying at the same time. Her body shook even as she soaked her coworker’s blouse, but Jillian only held her tighter.

      Slowly, slowly, the storm abated. Maybe she’d run out of tears. Exhaustion swept through her, and she sagged. She felt as if she could slither to the floor, becoming a puddle.

      “Honey?” Jillian pulled back a little, her face worried. “Let me get a wet washcloth and we’ll clean you up a little.”

      She couldn’t have been gone a minute. The slightly rough cloth, wet with cold water, felt astonishingly good. Dana couldn’t remember the last time anyone had babied her like this—and that included her mother. She wouldn’t have permitted it. Yet here she sat, docilely accepting it.

      Finally, Jillian patted her face dry, then perched on the edge of Dana’s desk. In her thirties, too, she was a curvaceous brunette whose husband was a physics professor at the University of Colorado. Dana always tried not to look at the framed photos of Jillian’s husband and two children on her desk.

      “Can you tell me about it?” she asked.

      Could she? Dana scrunched up her face and worked her mouth. The muscles were still obedient, if oddly numb.

      “My son was abducted when he was a baby. Eight months old.” She could talk after all. Until now she’d only ever spoken of Gabriel to other parents who had lost a child. None of her coworkers knew, not even the ones like Jillian she considered to be friends. If they had, they might have worried about her. Pity, sympathy, might have broken her. “He was stolen from his crib. Police never found a trace. Nobody noticed anyone around the house.” Her mouth was dry. She finished, “That was eleven years ago.”

      “I wish I’d known,” Jillian whispered. Suddenly tears glittered on her lashes. “I’m so sorry.”

      “The phone call. It was the police detective who investigated.” Pressure built in her chest again. “They’ve found him, Jillian. Gabriel is alive. I don’t even know why I cried.” The words were so stunning, so beautiful, she had to say them again. “He’s alive!”

      And, just like that, the pressure became a radiance that was surely visible through walls.

      “He’s alive.” She smiled, she laughed and she cried again, Jillian doing the same. “I’ve waited eleven years to say this. My Gabriel is coming home.”

      * * *

      A MAN WHO’D once melted into the shadows and waited without moving for hours on end when he’d been hunting bad guys, Nolan couldn’t make himself sit down. He prowled the downstairs, wound so tight he expected to snap. Why hadn’t the woman called?

      “Crap.” He rolled his shoulders. Maybe she’d never call. Maybe she’d had five more children by now and written off her firstborn. He could hope.

      Christian was huddled upstairs in his bedroom. He’d promised to come down when he heard the phone ring, but he hadn’t promised to speak to Dana Stewart. His mother.

      Nolan reached the living room wall and spun to continue his restless pacing.

      The news had come a lot faster than he’d expected and could not have been worse. Either Marlee herself had stolen Christian—whose name had been Gabriel Angus Stewart—or she’d gotten him from someone who’d done the stealing. Either way, Christian had parents. Parents who had searched desperately for him, who had loved him, mourned him. Parents who had never given up.

      Or, at least, a mother who hadn’t given up. Evidently, Gabriel’s parents had split up after his disappearance. Nolan knew that a tragedy often led to that outcome. People didn’t grieve the same way or at the same pace. They turned inward. They had to focus their rage on someone, and who was more available than a spouse?

      It was the mother who was supposed to call any minute. Nolan had no idea what to say to her. He remembered his promise to Christian.

      I’ll fight dirty to keep you, if it ever comes to that. And if there’s one thing I learned at Fort Bragg and overseas, it’s how to fight dirty.

      But panic stalked him. How was he supposed to fight a woman who’d done nothing wrong? Who only wanted her little boy back?

      His phone rang.

      He closed his eyes for a moment, gathering himself, before answering. No sound came from upstairs. No eager or even reluctant feet thudded down the staircase.

      “Nolan here.”

      There was a small silence. Then a soft woman’s voice said, “Mr. Gregor?”

      “That’s right.” It wasn’t in him to help her.

      “I’m Dana Stewart. Gabriel’s mother.”

      “He’s been Christian for a long time, Mrs. Stewart.”

      “Ms.,” she said, almost sharply. “I’ve been divorced for a long time, too.”

      “Why did you keep your husband’s name, then?” He threw it out, a challenge.

      “Because it’s Gabriel’s.”

      The simple truth in a tremulous voice made his head bow, his face twist.

      “I understand.”

      “Will you tell me more?” She sounded humble. “I mean, about how you ended up with my son?”

      He couldn’t deny her this much.

      “I’m former military. I was overseas when my sister emailed to let me know she was pregnant and expecting anytime. She was living in Denver.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “My parents and I weren’t thrilled. Marlee was mentally ill. At the time, she seemed stable. She responded well to medication but wouldn’t always stay on it.” He paused. “She returned to the West Coast about the same time I came home on leave, her little boy eight months old.”

      “She planned to steal a baby.” This voice wasn’t tremulous. It was lent resonance by rage.

      “It...would appear so. When I confronted her after finding out Christian’s blood type, though, she denied anything like that. I think she really believed that Christian was hers. That she’d gone through a pregnancy and had him the usual way. She told me how many hours she’d been in labor.”

      “She lied.”

      “Her truths weren’t the same as most people’s.”

      “You’re excusing her.”

      Suddenly angry, he said, “I’m explaining her. Do you want to hear it or not?”

      In the silence that followed, he felt her grabbing for calm. He wondered what she looked like. Had Christian’s blond hair come from her or his father? Christian was a strikingly handsome boy, embarrassed because girls liked him. Did his looks come from her? His height?

      “You’re right,” she said, with what he suspected was hard-won poise. “I know this can’t be easy for you. She’s your sister.”

      “She was my sister. Marlee died a month ago.”

      “Oh,”