Chapter 2 - The Brother Who Was Never Supposed to Come Home
"Then tell me who I should be afraid of."
Nathaniel Lancaster kept his eyes on the man emerging from the darkness.
Fifteen years had passed since he had last seen his younger brother.
Mason had been twenty-six then, broad-shouldered and restless, always wearing the crooked smile that made their mother forgive almost anything.
The man standing before him was forty-one.
His hair had gone gray around the temples. His left leg dragged slightly, and an ugly scar disappeared beneath the collar of his sweater.
But the eyes were the same.
The same troubled blue eyes Nathaniel remembered from childhood.
"Mason?"
His brother pressed one finger against his lips.
"Turn off the monitor."
Nathaniel glanced toward the security screen.
Downstairs, Eleanor stood inches behind Rachel.
The silver object in her hand looked like a syringe.
"Caleb, get to Rachel," Nathaniel ordered.
Caleb hurried toward the stairs.
Mason caught Nathaniel's arm.
"Don't send him alone."
Nathaniel pulled free.
"That's my security chief."
"I know who he is."
Something in Mason's voice stopped him.
"He's also the man who told Father I was dead."
For several seconds, neither brother moved.
Then Nathaniel pulled out his phone and contacted two guards stationed near the main entrance.
"Go to the library. Stay with Rachel Collins. Nobody touches her."
He watched the security monitor.
Eleanor leaned toward Rachel.
Rachel turned.
Even without sound, Nathaniel could see the sudden fear in her face.
Then Eleanor lowered the silver object.
It wasn't a syringe.
It was a small pair of embroidery scissors.
She used them to cut the cord of a delicate bracelet around Rachel's wrist.
Rachel grabbed for it.
Eleanor pulled away.
Nathaniel stared.
"Why would Mother want her bracelet?"
"Because Father put something inside it."
Mason crossed the room and closed the hidden door behind him.
Up close, Nathaniel noticed that his brother was trembling.
Not from fear.
From physical weakness.
"What happened to you?" Nathaniel asked.
Mason looked at the floor.
"I made the mistake of trusting the wrong person."
"Who?"
"Father."
The word landed harder than Nathaniel expected.
For fifteen years, Thomas Lancaster had spoken of Mason with a mixture of grief and bitterness.
He claimed Mason had stolen company money, betrayed the family, and disappeared rather than face the consequences.
Nathaniel had believed him.
At first, he had searched.
Then he had stopped.
That was the part he had never forgiven himself for.
"You could have contacted me," Nathaniel said.
"I tried."
"When?"
"Christmas Eve, fourteen years ago. And again after your wedding fell apart."
Nathaniel stiffened.
His divorce had happened six years earlier.
"You're lying."
Mason reached beneath his sweater and removed a flat leather pouch.
Inside were three faded envelopes.
Nathaniel recognized his own handwriting on the return addresses.
They were letters he had written to Mason during the first year of his disappearance.
All three had been opened.
None had ever reached their intended recipient.
"Father kept them," Mason said. "He gave them back to me last month."
Nathaniel stared at the letters.
His anger had nowhere to go.
"Where have you been?"
"Mostly in a rehabilitation facility near Glenwood Springs. Sometimes in the city. Never anywhere for long."
"Why?"
"Because someone made sure I couldn't stay."
Mason sat on the hospital bed.
Nathaniel noticed the room wasn't dusty.
The sheets were clean. A pitcher of water stood beside the bed.
Someone had prepared it recently.
"Father brought you here?"
"Three weeks ago."
"Why didn't he tell me?"
"Because he was afraid you'd go straight to Caleb."
Nathaniel almost laughed.
Caleb Shaw had protected the Lancaster family for twenty years.
He had accompanied Nathaniel to funerals, negotiated dangerous disputes, and once taken a bullet during a warehouse attack.
He was practically family.
"Caleb saved my life."
Mason nodded.
"Yes. That made him useful."
Nathaniel stepped toward him.
"If you have something to say, say it."
Mason looked at the security screen, where the two guards had just entered the library.
Eleanor stepped away from Rachel.
"Fifteen years ago, I found out someone was moving money through Father's medical charities," Mason said. "Money that should have gone to patients."
Nathaniel frowned.
"The Lancaster Recovery Foundation?"
"Yes."
"Mother runs that foundation."
"Mother signs the checks. She doesn't control the accounts."
Nathaniel remembered the charity dinners, the hospital donations, the photographs of children receiving expensive medical treatments.
His mother considered the foundation her life's work.
"Who controlled them?"
"Father, until his stroke. Then Caleb."
Nathaniel shook his head.
"Caleb isn't an accountant."
"He doesn't need to be. He just needs people willing to do what he says."
Mason reached into the leather pouch again.
This time, he removed a photograph.
It showed three men outside a small brick medical building.
Thomas Lancaster stood in the middle.
Caleb was on his right.
The third man was younger, with dark hair and a serious expression.
Nathaniel recognized him.
Dr. Adrian Vale.
Thomas's current physician.
The photograph was dated fifteen years earlier.
"Vale told me he'd never met Caleb before Father's stroke," Nathaniel said.
"He lied."
Nathaniel's phone vibrated.
One of his guards had sent a message.
Rachel is safe. Mrs. Lancaster refuses to surrender the bracelet. Caleb is here.
Nathaniel looked toward the hallway.
"Caleb's downstairs."
Mason nodded.
"That's where he wanted to be."
Before Nathaniel could respond, the security monitor changed.
The library image disappeared.
A black screen replaced it.
Then a single line appeared.
CAMERA ACCESS TERMINATED.
Nathaniel's phone rang.
It was Caleb.
"Boss, we've got a problem."
"What problem?"
"Rachel attacked your mother."
Nathaniel said nothing.
"She tried to stab her with scissors," Caleb continued. "I've restrained her."
Nathaniel looked at Mason.
His brother's face had turned pale.
"Let me speak to Rachel."
"She's hysterical."
"Put her on."
A muffled struggle sounded through the phone.
Then Rachel's voice.
"Nathaniel, don't believe him. Your mother was trying to give me something."
Nathaniel froze.
"What?"
"She said your father made her promise—"
A sharp sound interrupted her.
The connection ended.
Nathaniel looked at the silver button still lying on the bedside table.
Then at the photograph.
Then at Mason.
"You said Mother wasn't the person I should fear."
"She isn't."
"Then why has she been hurting Rachel?"
Mason lowered his head.
"Because she's been protecting the wrong person for fifteen years."
Nathaniel headed for the door.
Mason grabbed his sleeve.
"Before you go, there's something Father asked me to tell you."
Nathaniel turned.
"What?"
Mason's eyes filled with tears.
"The night I disappeared, Father didn't order me killed."
May you like
He swallowed.
"He ordered Caleb to kill you."
