Claire Bennett had barely slept in three days.
Travel had always exhausted her even before life fell apart, but now, carrying her nine-month-old son Oliver through a crowded airport while grief still lived inside her chest like a dull ache made every step feel heavier than the last. Seven months earlier, Claire had buried her husband, Ryan Bennett, a federal investigator whose sudden death in what authorities described as a “highway accident” had left more questions than answers.
But grief didn’t pause the world. Bills still arrived. Flights still departed. Babies still cried.
Oliver, thankfully, slept quietly inside his stroller, wrapped in a soft gray blanket Claire’s mother had knitted for him. The stroller itself had always felt strangely heavy, built from reinforced aluminum with thick plastic panels and compartments Claire had never bothered to examine. Ryan had bought it months before Oliver was born, insisting it was “the safest model on the market.”
Claire had trusted him without question.
She pushed the stroller slowly through the airport security line, the hum of rolling suitcases and tired conversations filling the terminal. Travelers shifted forward inch by inch under the fluorescent lights while TSA officers directed them toward metal detectors.
Then the police dog stopped.
