Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO HID MY FAMILY
I hit Daniel before he finished saying my name.
Not hard enough to put him down.
Hard enough to make six years of grief visible.
He staggered against a stack of cardboard boxes, one hand pressed to his mouth.
Emily stepped between us.
“Stop.”
I stared at her.
“You’re protecting him?”
“I’m protecting you.”
That almost made me laugh.
Daniel straightened slowly.
At forty-three, he looked older than the last time I had seen him three weeks earlier. Gray had spread through his dark hair. His expensive coat looked strangely out of place beside boxes of canned tomatoes.
“You deserve to hit me,” he said.
“Don’t tell me what I deserve.”
“Ethan—”
“You watched me bury an empty coffin.”
Daniel’s expression tightened.
“Yes.”
“You stood beside me.”
“Yes.”
“You held me up when I couldn’t stand.”
His voice dropped.
“I know.”
I stepped toward him again.
Emily caught my arm.
“Ethan, Theo is twenty feet away.”
That stopped me.
My son.
I lowered my fist.
“Start talking.”
Daniel looked at Emily.
She nodded.
Six years earlier, Daniel had been chief of security for my family’s investment company. He had been my friend since college, long before money made friendship complicated.
Three days before Emily vanished, she had called him.
Not me.
Daniel had met her at a pharmacy parking lot, where she showed him the photographs and the threat.
“I thought it was extortion,” he said. “Until I checked your security logs.”
“What did you find?”
“Someone had copied Emily’s medical appointment schedule from your private network.”
My stomach tightened.
Only four people had administrator access.
Daniel.
My executive assistant, Margaret Sloan.
My younger brother, Lucas.
And me.
“I told Emily I needed twenty-four hours,” Daniel continued. “That night, somebody followed her from the grocery store.”
Emily wrapped her arms around herself.
“A black sedan.”
Daniel nodded.
“The plates belonged to one of Ethan’s corporate vehicles.”
I stared at him.
“You should have come to me.”
“I tried.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I drove to your office.”
His jaw tightened.
“You weren’t there.”
“Then you wait.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
Daniel reached inside his coat.
I tensed.
Instead of a weapon, he pulled out an old wristwatch.
My father’s watch.
A scratched Omega with a brown leather band.
I hadn’t seen it since the night my father died twelve years ago.
I took it from Daniel.
“Where did you get this?”
“Emily’s mailbox.”
I looked at her.
She nodded.
“It arrived the morning I disappeared.”
Daniel turned the watch over.
Something had been scratched into the metal backing.
Three words.
FAMILY COMES FIRST.
My father used to say that.
Constantly.
At breakfast.
At Christmas.
Before every business meeting where he expected Lucas and me to stop arguing.
I looked at Daniel.
“This proves nothing.”
“Open the clasp.”
I did.
Inside the leather band was a tiny smear of blue paint.
Daniel said, “Your father’s watch was kept in the display case in your mother’s study.”
My throat tightened.
Our mother, Evelyn Brooks, still lived in the house where Lucas and I had grown up.
“You’re saying someone broke into my mother’s house?”
“No.”
Daniel looked directly at me.
“There was no forced entry.”
Emily moved closer.
“That’s when I believed him.”
“Believed what?”
“That whoever was threatening us was family.”
The word sat between us.
Family.
I thought of Lucas.
My younger brother had always been reckless, jealous, angry at living beneath the shadow of the older son who inherited control of our father’s company.
But threatening an unborn child?
No.
Daniel seemed to read my face.
“I never proved Lucas did anything.”
“Then why hide Emily for six years?”
“Because the next morning I found a tracker under her car.”
He paused.
“And because someone disabled the camera outside your house for exactly eleven minutes.”
I knew who had installed that system.
Daniel had.
“You could have traced it.”
“I did.”
“Where?”
His silence told me I wasn’t going to like the answer.
“The override came from my security credentials.”
Emily watched me carefully.
I understood then.
Daniel hadn’t simply suspected someone inside my family.
He had realized somebody was framing him.
“So you ran.”
“I moved Emily before whoever used my credentials could make their next move.”
“You could have told me afterward.”
Daniel shook his head.
“Every time I tried to create a safe channel to you, somebody reacted.”
He told me about three attempts.
A letter mailed from Vermont that vanished before delivery.
A message passed through an investigator who was fired from my search team the next morning.
A meeting Daniel arranged with me in Chicago four years ago.
I remembered Chicago.
Daniel had canceled.
Or I thought he had.
“My schedule changed,” I said slowly.
Daniel nodded.
“Margaret moved your flight.”
My executive assistant.
The woman who had managed my calendar for eleven years.
Emily looked toward the storage-room door.
“We need to leave.”
I hated the fear in her voice.
“I’m done running.”
“You can be done. Theo can’t.”
That silenced me.
A moment later, a small red crayon rolled beneath the storage-room door.
Then Theo pushed it open.
Rosie stood behind him apologetically.
“He insisted.”
Theo looked from Daniel’s bleeding lip to me.
“Did you guys fight?”
I crouched.
“A little.”
“Mom says fighting doesn’t fix stuff.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Daniel almost smiled.
Theo walked toward me.
In his hand was a folded piece of diner paper.
“I made this.”
He handed it to me.
A child’s drawing.
Three stick figures beneath a yellow sun.
One was Emily.
One was Theo.
The third was a tall man with gray eyes drawn much too large.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
Theo shrugged.
“Dream Dad.”
The room went painfully quiet.
“You drew him before today?”
Theo nodded.
“Lots.”
Emily’s face changed.
She took the paper.
On the corner was a fourth figure.
Smaller.
Standing far behind the family.
Colored entirely in blue.
Emily stared at it.
“Theo, honey, who is this?”
“The man from Grandma’s picture.”
I looked at Emily.
“What grandmother?”
She shook her head.
“Theo has never met either of his grandmothers.”
Theo pointed at the blue figure.
“The lady showed me.”
“What lady?”
“The nice lady who came when Mommy was sick.”
Emily went completely still.
“When?”
Theo thought about it.
“When Rosie took you to the doctor.”
Emily turned to Daniel.
“That was last Tuesday.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
“I wasn’t here.”
Emily crouched in front of Theo.
“What did the lady look like?”
“Old.”
“That’s not polite,” Rosie murmured.
Theo frowned.
“She had white hair.”
My pulse slowed.
My mother had white hair.
Emily saw the realization on my face.
“No.”
Theo reached into his little jacket pocket.
“The lady said this belonged to Daddy.”
He opened his hand.
A small silver object lay in his palm.
I recognized it immediately.
It was half of a broken compass pendant.
My father had given matching halves to Lucas and me when we were boys.
Mine had disappeared six years ago.
The week Emily vanished.
Theo looked up at me.
“The lady said you’d know where the other half is.”
I did.
Lucas still wore it around his neck.
May you like
And suddenly, for the first time in six years, I knew exactly where I needed to go.
---
