CECELIAS POV
"Vehicle tracks?" Zeke asked.
"None that we could find. The ground there is mostly rock and dirt, hard to leave impressions." Ryder looked apologetic. "But we did interview witnesses. Three separate pack members reported seeing a dark vehicle, possibly an SUV, parked near the preschool that afternoon."
"Same vehicle the teacher mentioned," I said.
"Yes. We're pulling traffic footage from the main roads leading out of Seacreek, but it's going to take time. Most of their cameras are outdated."
Zeke nodded slowly, processing the information. "What about the preschool staff? Any of them behave suspiciously?"
"We questioned all of them. Everyone's alibis check out." Ryder hesitated. "But there is something odd. One of the teachers mentioned that a woman had been asking questions about Golden a few weeks ago."
My head snapped up. "What kind of questions?"
"General things. Who his mother was, where they lived, if the father was in the picture." Ryder consulted his notes. "The teacher thought it was strange but not alarming. She assumed it was just another pack member being nosy."
"Description of the woman?" Zeke's voice had gone cold.
"Mid thirties, dark hair, average height. The teacher said she seemed professional, well dressed. She claimed to be doing a survey for the pack school system."
I exchanged a glance with Zeke. Seacreek didn't have a pack school system. It was too small. Everyone knew everyone.
"The teacher realize it was suspicious afterward?" I asked.
"Not until we started asking questions." Ryder looked grim. "By then it was too late."
Zeke dismissed the trackers with orders to continue investigating. When we were alone again, he pulled out his phone and made another call.
"I'm sending you a description. I want facial recognition run against every wolf in our database and neighboring packs." He paused, listening. "Yes, I know it's a long shot. Do it anyway."
He ended the call and looked at me. "We should get you back to your quarters. It's late."
I glanced at the window, surprised to see it was fully dark outside. Hours had passed in meetings and reports and I hadn't even noticed. Time felt strange when your child was missing, both too fast and unbearably slow.
Zeke walked with me through the quiet hallways. Most of the palace had gone to sleep. Our footsteps echoed against marble floors.
"Thank you," I said softly. "For taking this seriously. For using your resources."
"He's my son, Cecelia. Of course I'm taking it seriously."
We reached my door. I fumbled for the key but Zeke's hand on my arm stopped me.
"Wait." He stepped in front of me, checking the door frame, the lock, the space under the door. "Let me make sure it's safe first."
The caution should have reassured me. Instead, it made my skin crawl. I'd spent three years in Seacreek feeling safe, feeling like I could breathe. Now I was back to checking over my shoulder, afraid of threats in the dark.
Zeke opened the door and checked inside before nodding. "Clear."
I entered and he followed, which surprised me. He stood in the middle of my temporary quarters looking out of place among the soft blues and gentle colors. Everything about Zeke was hard angles and sharp edges. He didn't fit in spaces designed for comfort.
"Tell me about Seacreek," he said suddenly. "What was your life like there?"
The question caught me off guard. "Why do you want to know?"
"Because I don't know anything about the last three years of your life." He moved to the window, that same restless energy I remembered. "You vanished. I thought you were dead. And then you show up with a child I never knew existed. I need to understand what happened. Where you've been."
I sat on the edge of the bed, exhaustion pulling at my bones. "What do you want me to say? That it was hard? That I struggled? It was. I did."
"How did you survive?" The question came out rough. "Three months in a coma, then waking up pregnant and alone in a strange pack. How did you manage?"
"Fatima helped me." I picked at a loose thread on the bedspread. "She took me in when she found me on the beach. She nursed me back to health. When I woke up with no memory, she didn't push. She just let me heal at my own pace."
"And when your memory came back?"
"I remembered everything. The rejection. Layla. The cliff." I forced myself to meet his eyes. "I remembered that you chose her over me. That you never loved me. That our entire marriage was based on duty and political necessity."
Zeke's jaw worked. "Cecelia—"
"I'm not saying this to hurt you. I'm just explaining why I didn't come back. Why would I? You'd made it clear I was expendable. Layla had tried to kill me. There was nothing for me here."
"There was me," he said quietly.
I laughed but there was no humor in it. "You rejected me, Zeke. You stood in your office and told me you wanted to be free to marry my sister. Why would I come crawling back to that?"
"Because I made a mistake." He moved closer, his voice urgent. "Everything that happened, everything I said to you that day, it was the worst mistake of my life."
"Don't." I stood up, needing distance. "Don't do this now. Not when Golden is missing. Not when I'm too tired and scared to think straight."
"Then when?" His frustration leaked through. "When are we going to talk about what happened between us?"
"Maybe never," I shot back. "Maybe some things are better left in the past where they belong."
"Is that what you want? To pretend the last three years erased everything?"
"The last three years changed everything." My voice cracked despite my best efforts. "I'm not the girl you married, Zeke. That Cecelia died on those cliffs. The woman standing here now, she doesn't need you anymore. She doesn't need anyone."
Something flickered across his face. Pain, maybe. Or regret. "You needed me enough to come back."
"I needed your resources. Your trackers and your connections and your money. That's not the same as needing you."
The words were cruel and I knew it. I wanted them to be cruel. I wanted him to hurt the way I'd hurt when he told me he loved Layla, when he said our bond meant nothing, when he made me feel worthless and small.
But Zeke didn't flinch. He just watched me with those unreadable eyes. "Tell me about Golden," he said, changing tactics. "What's he like?"
The question defused my anger instantly. Talking about Golden always did that, softened the sharp edges inside me. "He's perfect. Smart and funny and so full of energy. He never stops moving, never stops asking questions."
"Does he look like me?"
"You've seen the photo. You know he does." I pulled out my phone, showing him more pictures. Golden at the beach, covered in sand. Golden helping Fatima with her nets. Golden's first day of preschool, his little backpack almost as big as he was. "Everyone in Seacreek always commented on his eyes. They'd never seen that color before."
Zeke studied each photo intently, his expression hungry. "I missed all of this."
"Yes."
"I missed his birth. His first word. His first steps." His voice went rough. "I missed three years of my son's life because I was too stupid and blind to see what I had when I had it."
I wanted to agree, to pile on more guilt, but something in his voice stopped me. He sounded destroyed. Absolutely wrecked by what he'd lost.
"You can't get that time back," I said softly. "None of us can. All we can do is move forward."
"Is there a chance?" He looked at me directly. "When this is over, when we find Golden and bring him home safe, is there any chance for us? For our family?"
The question hung in the air between us. I wanted to say no immediately, to shut down any hope before it could take root. But the words wouldn't come. Because part of me, the part that still remembered what it felt like to be held by him, to fall asleep next to him, to believe we could be happy together, that part wanted to say yes.
"I don't know," I admitted. "I honestly don't know, Zeke."