Chapter 14 - The Other Brother
The slip carried two words: Simon Hale. Underneath was a post-office box in a neighboring state. Ben gave the note to Alvarez rather than contacting the name himself.
"If he's alive," Ben said, "I want him to know someone has been looking."
"We'll verify first," she promised.
Within hours, investigators identified a Simon Hale, twenty-nine, a public-school mechanic in Ohio. His childhood records showed placement through a county program with disputed documentation. A comparison of family DNA samples, conducted with informed consent, was arranged through appropriate channels.
Ben paced his apartment while waiting. He was trying to build a stranger out of fragments: yellow trucks, a toddler photograph, a child-sized shoe beside a river.
Nora called him after Eli went to bed.
"You don't owe us every minute of your life," she said.
"This case started with your son."
"And you helped him. That's not the same as having to carry everyone alone."
"I keep thinking I should have remembered more about Sam."
"You were a kid, Ben. Memory isn't a promise."
The kindness caught him off guard. He thanked her, then returned to the desk where his phone lay.
At the county operations center, Jordan traced payments from LANTERN to a shell contractor called Orchard Consulting. Orchard had leased Briar Depot for years, but the lease had been terminated the previous week.
"They're cleaning up," Tessa said.
"Or moving," Alvarez replied.
The forensic team obtained an urgent search warrant. At the depot they found stripped shelves, shredded cardboard, and a child-height measurement line penciled on a wall. The oldest mark read Sam, 1999.
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Beside it, painted fresh enough to smell, was a threat aimed at the investigation.
ASK THE OFFICER WHO TOLD US WHERE TO GO.
