Chapter 2
For several seconds, I forgot how to move.
Nine years.
For nine years, my family had lived with one question.
Where was Daniel?
And now an eight-year-old boy was standing behind me, holding something that had been on my brother’s wrist the night he vanished.
“Mark?”
Officer Jenkins said my name twice before I heard him.
I looked at Ryan.
He had stopped fighting.
That frightened me more than the struggle.
He was staring at Evan with the expression of a man who knew a locked door had just opened.
“Take him to interview room three,” I said.
Ryan immediately shouted.
“You can’t question me without a lawyer.”
“I’m not questioning you.”
Jenkins pulled him toward the hallway.
Ryan twisted around.
“Evan! You tell them what really happened!”
Evan flinched so hard that his shoulder hit my chair.
I stepped in front of his view.
“You don’t have to look at him.”
Ryan’s voice carried down the hallway.
“He lies! His mother will tell you!”
Then the door shut.
The station became quiet again.
Evan was still clutching my uniform.
I crouched.
“My name is Mark Hale.”
His eyes widened.
“Daniel said Mark.”
My throat tightened.
“What exactly did Daniel tell you?”
Evan looked toward the hallway.
“Is Ryan gone?”
“For now.”
“Can he hear me?”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“My dad said if Ryan ever hurt me again, I should run to the police station and ask for Mark Hale.”
Again.
My dad.
Not a photograph.
Not a story his mother had told him.
Daniel had spoken to this boy.
“When did you see your father?”
Evan hesitated.
“Before Christmas.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Christmas had been seven months earlier.
Daniel had been alive seven months ago.
“Where?”
“At school.”
I sat down slowly.
Evan explained that a man had waited near the playground fence after dismissal.
At first, Evan had been afraid.
Then the stranger had said something only Evan and his mother knew.
“He knew my birthday song.”
“Your what?”
“Mom made up a song when I was little. She said my real dad helped her make it.”
Daniel always made ridiculous songs.
As kids, he turned everything into music.
Burned toast.
Flat tires.
Mom getting angry because we tracked mud through the kitchen.
That detail hurt more than the bracelet.
“What happened after he sang it?”
Evan rubbed his palms together.
“I went closer.”
My police instincts screamed at the recklessness of it.
My brother’s voice in my memory whispered something different.
That was Daniel.
“He said he was my father,” Evan continued. “He said he was sorry.”
“Did he tell you where he had been?”
Evan shook his head.
“He said somebody had been watching Mom.”
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
But I already knew.
Ryan had panicked when he saw that bracelet.
“Did Daniel give you this that day?”
I lifted the bracelet.
Evan nodded.
“And the key?”
“Yes.”
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
That surprised me.
“He didn’t tell you?”
“He said I wasn’t supposed to use it.”
“Then why give it to you?”
Evan’s mouth trembled.
“He said if something happened to him, you would know.”
I stared at the key.
I didn’t know.
That was the problem.
A paramedic team arrived to examine Evan.
I stayed close while they documented his injuries.
Every time someone moved too quickly, he recoiled.
When one paramedic asked how his wrists had been hurt, Evan stared at the floor.
“Ryan uses the rope when the lock breaks.”
The room seemed to shrink around me.
“What lock?” I asked.
“The basement door.”
One of the detectives, Maya Brooks, had entered silently.
She caught my eye.
Because I was personally connected, this case was no longer mine.
I knew that.
I hated it anyway.
Maya knelt beside Evan.
“I’m Detective Brooks. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?”
He glanced at me.
I nodded.
“You can tell her the truth.”
He looked back at Maya.
“Ryan says nobody believes kids.”
Maya’s expression stayed gentle.
“I do.”
Evan stared at her.
Then he whispered, “He puts me downstairs after Mom leaves for the hospital.”
His mother worked at a hospital.
“What’s your mom’s name?” Maya asked.
“Sarah.”
My stomach dropped.
Sarah Lawson.
Daniel’s girlfriend when he disappeared.
The woman who had called me crying at two in the morning nine years ago and said Daniel had never come home.
The woman my mother eventually blamed.
The woman I had not spoken to in nearly seven years.
“Sarah Lawson?” I asked.
Evan nodded.
“Sarah Cole now.”
Cole.
Ryan’s last name.
I stood so quickly my chair moved backward.
Maya looked at me.
“You know her.”
“She was Daniel’s girlfriend.”
“Mark.”
“And apparently she married the man chasing Daniel’s son through my station.”
Maya’s face hardened.
“We need a warrant.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Maya—”
“You’re his uncle.”
The word hit me harder than anything else had.
Uncle.
I looked at Evan.
He was watching me.
Neither of us knew what that word was supposed to mean yet.
Maya lowered her voice.
“You stay here. Let us do this correctly.”
I knew she was right.
I hated that too.
A child-protection specialist arrived, followed by another detective.
We tried calling Sarah.
No answer.
Evan said she worked evening shifts in a surgical unit and often couldn’t carry her phone.
Maya sent officers to locate her.
Before she left, she asked Evan one more question.
“Is there anything in the basement we need to know about?”
His entire body stiffened.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A room behind the shelves.”
I felt cold.
“What room?”
“Ryan thinks I don’t know.”
Maya leaned closer.
“How do you know?”
“I heard him talking.”
“To who?”
Evan looked directly at me.
“He said, ‘Daniel should’ve stayed gone.’”
Nobody spoke.
May you like
Then Evan added the sentence that changed the case completely.
“And somebody answered him.”
