Chapter 2 - The Brother Nobody Mentioned

The man vanished before Daniel could get his camera open. By the time a patrol car arrived, the porch held nothing but a thin scratch beneath the deadbolt and a muddy shoe print angled toward the road.

Officer Reyes took pictures while another officer checked the backyard. Daniel kept Eli on his lap. The toddler watched the window with the concentrated frown he usually reserved for stubborn jar lids.

"The man said he was your brother," Daniel told Claire for the third time.

"I heard him." Her voice cracked. "I just don't know why he'd come here."

"So you do have a brother."

Claire sat on the edge of the coffee table. She had been wearing the same charcoal T-shirt since breakfast, but she looked like someone who had dressed in a rush for a disaster. "His name is Owen. I haven't spoken to him in eight years."

Reyes folded her notebook. "Why eight years?"

"Because he stole from our father. Because he threatened me when I found out. Because Dad made me promise not to tell anyone until the police finished investigating." Claire swallowed. "Then Dad died, the case fell apart, and Owen disappeared."

Daniel stared at her. Eight years. They'd met six years ago. Married four. Had a child. All that time there'd been an entire human being missing from the story of the woman he knew best.

"And the red box?" he asked.

Claire looked genuinely confused. "I don't know."

"Red box," Eli repeated, touching the corner of a picture book. "Grandpa's box. Under the sad house."

Nobody spoke. Claire's father had died before Eli was born. She had never shown her son a picture of the old family house, much less talked about its basement.

Reyes crouched until she was level with him. "Can you tell me where you saw the box, sweetheart?"

Eli pointed at the television. It was off; the screen held only their pale reflections.

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"Daddy phone," he said.

Daniel pulled out his phone. At the top of the screen sat a message from an unknown number, received two minutes earlier. No words. Just a video thumbnail showing Eli asleep in his crib the night before.