Chapter 6 - THE BROTHER WHO STOLE MY LIFE
The first gunshot shattered the kitchen window before Nathan could reach the front door.
Glass exploded across the floor.
Ismerie screamed.
Nathan threw himself over his daughter as another shot struck the wall above the fireplace.
"Everybody down!" Lena shouted.
Outside, Cole Rowan yelled, "NATHAN! GET THEM AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS!"
Nathan dragged Ismerie behind the sofa.
Meredith crawled toward them.
June pulled Zoey into the hallway.
The house was completely dark except for a narrow beam from Lena's flashlight.
Nathan heard an engine revving outside.
Then three more shots.
"How many?" Lena called.
Cole shouted from the porch.
"Two in the SUV! Maybe another one behind the garage!"
Nathan pressed Ismerie's head against his chest.
"Close your eyes, sweetheart."
She trembled violently.
"The bad Daddy came back."
Nathan kissed her hair.
"I know."
From the hallway came another child's frightened voice.
"Dad!"
Nathan froze.
It wasn't Ismerie.
It was a boy.
Cole shouted, "Theo, stay behind me!"
Nathan glanced toward Lena.
"My brother brought his son."
"I heard."
"We can't leave them out there."
Lena checked the magazine in her handgun.
"Then we get everyone inside or everyone out. We don't split the group."
A bullet tore through the front-door window.
Cole yelled in pain.
Nathan sprang up.
"Nathan!" Meredith cried.
He ignored her.
He crawled to the entrance, reached for the lock, and opened the door just enough to pull a small boy inside.
Theodore Rowan stumbled over the threshold.
His cheeks were streaked with tears.
Behind him, Cole pressed one hand against his bleeding shoulder.
Nathan grabbed his brother's collar.
"Get in!"
Cole fell into the foyer.
Lena slammed the door.
Outside, footsteps crunched across the gravel.
The attackers were approaching.
Cole struggled to breathe.
"There's a storm entrance in the basement," he gasped.
Nathan stared at him.
"How do you know?"
"I've lived here for ten months, remember?"
The words struck like a slap.
Nathan forced down his anger.
"Meredith! Take the children downstairs!"
June already had Ismerie by the hand.
Zoey lifted Theo, who was sobbing too hard to walk.
They hurried toward the cellar.
Meredith hesitated.
"Nathan?"
"Go."
She looked at Cole.
Then at her husband.
"Please don't do anything stupid."
Nathan managed a grim smile.
"I've already spent ten months paying for one stupid decision."
She disappeared downstairs.
Lena called for state backup while Nathan pulled Cole behind the staircase.
Blood soaked through Cole's shirt.
"How bad?"
"Through the shoulder."
Nathan examined the wound.
"You're lucky."
Cole laughed bitterly.
"Never been called that before."
Another shot struck the front door.
Lena returned fire from behind the living room wall.
Outside, someone shouted.
An engine started.
Then the SUV sped away.
The sudden silence felt unnatural.
Nathan moved to the window.
Lena grabbed his arm.
"Don't."
"They're leaving."
"They might want us to think that."
She looked toward the basement.
"We need to move before they return."
Fifteen minutes later, the family emerged through the old storm-cellar hatch behind the garden shed.
A state police vehicle waited beyond the neighboring fence.
Two investigators helped June and the children inside.
Nathan followed with Meredith.
Cole limped behind them, supported by Lena.
Theo refused to let go of his father's shirt.
"Daddy, please."
Cole knelt despite the pain.
"I'm right here, buddy."
"They said you weren't coming back."
Cole closed his eyes.
"Who said that?"
"Mr. Voss."
The boy's voice was barely audible.
"He said when people stop being useful, they go away."
Nathan watched his brother's face crumble.
Whatever Cole had done, his love for Theo was real.
And Voss had used it against him.
The vehicles drove toward a secured state police facility outside town.
Meredith held Ismerie against her.
Nathan sat beside them.
Across the aisle, Cole tried to comfort Theo while a medic bandaged his shoulder.
Finally, Nathan spoke.
"Tell me about the mill."
Cole looked up.
"What about it?"
"The fire. Twenty years ago."
Cole's expression darkened.
"Why now?"
"Because I'm tired of living with what I think happened."
For several seconds, only the engine could be heard.
Then Cole spoke.
"Voss's father was storing chemicals there illegally. Our dad found out."
Nathan remembered their father, a maintenance electrician, coming home angry in the weeks before the fire.
He remembered whispered arguments at the kitchen table.
Cole continued.
"Dad was going to report it. I followed him to the mill that night because I thought he was meeting somebody."
"But Dad wasn't there."
"No. The men waiting for him were."
Nathan felt his stomach tighten.
"I saw them setting the fire," Cole said. "I tried to run. They caught me."
"Then why were you screaming?"
"Because I heard you looking for me."
Nathan closed his eyes.
He remembered breaking a window.
Smoke filling the stairwell.
His brother crying for help.
"I tried to get upstairs," Nathan whispered.
"I know that now."
Nathan looked at him.
Cole swallowed.
"Back then, Voss's father told me you ran away."
Nathan stared.
"He said you could have saved me but chose yourself."
"I went back into that building three times."
Cole's eyes filled.
"I found out years later."
"Then why didn't you come home?"
Cole looked toward Theo.
"Because by then, I'd done things I couldn't explain."
Nathan remained silent.
Cole continued.
"Voss's father kept me hidden until my burns healed. Then he sent me to work for people who did favors for him. Fake identities. Bank accounts. Documents."
"Crimes."
"Yes."
Cole didn't look away.
"I did criminal things. A lot of them."
Nathan felt no satisfaction hearing the confession.
Only grief.
Their parents had died believing one son was gone forever.
And the surviving sons had spent twenty years living inside a lie.
Cole rubbed his face.
"When Theo was born, I tried to leave."
"What happened?"
"They threatened his mother. After she died, Voss had the courts place Theo in Harbor House."
"Why didn't you go to the police?"
Cole gave a bitter laugh.
"Which police?"
Nathan thought of Harlan.
Cole continued.
"Then Voss discovered you were investigating his accounts. He showed me your photograph."
Nathan felt sick.
"You agreed to replace me."
Cole lowered his head.
"Yes."
"You lived with my family."
"Yes."
"You frightened my daughter."
Cole closed his eyes.
"Yes."
Nathan leaned forward.
"And you poisoned my wife."
Cole looked up sharply.
"I didn't want her dead."
"That wasn't the question."
"I gave her what Voss ordered."
Nathan's voice hardened.
"You could have refused."
Cole looked at Theo.
"I thought they'd kill my boy."
Nathan swallowed.
Then he said the words he had been holding back since the bedroom.
"You should have protected him without destroying mine."
Cole began crying.
Not loudly.
Not theatrically.
Just a broken man staring at the floor.
"You're right."
The vehicle fell silent.
After a while, Theo spoke.
"Dad?"
Cole looked up.
"Yeah, buddy?"
"Are you going to jail?"
Cole's face twisted.
"I might."
"Because you were bad?"
Cole swallowed hard.
"Because I hurt people."
Theo's eyes filled.
"But you helped us tonight."
Cole reached for his hand.
"Helping once doesn't erase what I did before."
Nathan turned away.
For the first time, he saw something in his brother that resembled the boy he remembered.
Not innocence.
Not forgiveness.
But regret.
At the state facility, Lena gathered everyone in a conference room.
Zoey sat beside Meredith while a doctor examined her injured arm.
Lena spread photographs across the table.
"Before the attack, we received word that a maintenance van left Harbor House shortly before our search team arrived."
Zoey leaned forward.
"Was it white?"
"Yes."
"With an orange stripe?"
Lena nodded.
Zoey began trembling.
"That's the van."
"What van?"
"The one they used when children asked too many questions."
Nathan leaned closer.
"Where did it take them?"
Zoey glanced at Cole.
He looked down.
"They told us the paper mill," she said. "But we didn't always go there."
Lena placed a map before her.
"Show me."
Zoey studied the roads.
Her finger moved slowly across the paper.
Then stopped.
"There."
Nathan recognized the location.
Blackwater Quarry.
The abandoned industrial property where he had been imprisoned.
His hands curled into fists.
Lena looked at Cole.
"Is there still an underground structure beneath the quarry?"
Cole nodded.
"Old maintenance tunnels. A pump station. Storage rooms."
"How many entrances?"
"Three, but only one is used."
Zoey whispered, "There's a big metal door. You can hear water behind it."
Nathan remembered.
Every night in captivity, he had listened to rushing water beneath his cell.
It had sounded like a river moving through the walls.
Lena picked up her radio.
"Get tactical units moving toward Blackwater Quarry. We may have nine missing juveniles on-site."
Cole suddenly sat upright.
"Wait."
Everyone turned.
His face had gone pale.
"What time is it?"
Lena checked her watch.
"Ten forty-eight."
Cole struggled to his feet.
"Oh, God."
Nathan grabbed his arm.
"What?"
Cole stared at the map.
"The quarry's old pump system is connected to the Blackwater reservoir spillway."
Lena frowned.
"Meaning?"
"Voss scheduled a maintenance release tonight."
Nathan felt the room grow cold.
Cole's voice cracked.
"The lower tunnels flood when they open the gates."
Zoey began crying.
"The children are down there."
Lena snatched up her radio.
"Get me the reservoir control station!"
Cole looked at Nathan.
"The automatic release begins at eleven fifteen."
Nathan checked the clock.
Twenty-seven minutes.
Nine missing children.
Locked beneath a quarry.
And thousands of gallons of water waiting above them.
Then Cole whispered something even worse.
"Voss knows they're there."
May you like
He swallowed.
"Because he's the one who ordered the gates opened."
