Chapter 2 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
I lowered the window three inches.
Daniel looked older than the photographs.
His hair had gone gray at the temples. A thin scar ran from his left ear toward his jaw. His eyes, however, were unmistakably Sarah’s.
“Get in,” I said.
“No.”
“Then start explaining.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“My seven-year-old daughter was brought here in hiding.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Yes.”
I opened the door.
Daniel stepped backward.
I got out.
“You have ten seconds before I call the police.”
“If you call them, you may kill Sarah.”
That stopped me.
Daniel held up the photograph.
Sarah was younger in it.
Maybe twenty-two.
She stood beside Daniel and another man whose face had been torn away.
On the back, handwritten in blue ink, were four words.
IF DANIEL DIES, RUN.
The handwriting was Sarah’s.
I recognized it from birthday cards, grocery lists, notes tucked into Lily’s lunchbox.
“What is this?”
“Insurance.”
“Against whom?”
Daniel looked toward the security camera.
“Not outside.”
I followed him through the steel door.
The interior was nothing like the exterior.
There were no drugs.
No cages.
No frightened children.
There were filing cabinets, computers, surveillance monitors and a long table covered with photographs.
My family was everywhere.
Sarah leaving a restaurant.
Evelyn buying groceries.
Lily entering school.
Me getting into cars.
My house.
My office.
My jet.
“What the hell is this?”
“Eight years of staying alive.”
Daniel locked the door.
“You supposedly drowned.”
“That was the point.”
“Sarah believes you’re dead.”
“No.”
I stared at him.
“She knows?”
Daniel’s silence answered me.
The betrayal landed slowly.
My wife knew.
For eight years?
I thought about every time Sarah had cried on the anniversary of Daniel’s death.
Every candle she had lit.
Every story she had told Lily about Uncle Daniel watching from heaven.
“Why?”
“Because if people knew I survived, they would finish the job.”
“What job?”
“The boating accident wasn’t an accident.”
Daniel opened a cabinet.
Inside were binders labeled with dates.
He removed one.
My wedding date.
He placed it on the table.
“Your marriage brought you into something that started long before you met Sarah.”
I did not touch the binder.
“Who tried to kill you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I know who ordered certain things. I know who moved money. I know who cleaned records. But the person at the top? No.”
“And Lily?”
His expression changed.
“She wasn’t supposed to be involved.”
“She is involved.”
“Because Evelyn panicked.”
“About what?”
Daniel looked at the photograph.
“Six months ago, someone started watching Sarah again.”
My mind immediately went to Evelyn moving into our guest cottage six months earlier.
“That’s why Evelyn came to live with us.”
“Yes.”
“And the secret visits?”
“Lily overheard something.”
“What?”
“We don’t know exactly.”
I stepped closer.
“You’ve been questioning my daughter?”
“Protecting her.”
“By making her hide in a car?”
Daniel flinched.
Good.
He deserved to.
“You’re right,” he said. “That was wrong.”
“Then tell me everything.”
His phone rang.
He checked it.
His face changed.
“What?”
He turned one of the monitors toward me.
A camera feed showed the road outside.
A black sedan was parked where there had been nothing minutes earlier.
“That car followed Evelyn last week.”
My anger shifted.
“Who is it?”
“We never got the plate.”
The sedan moved.
Not after Evelyn.
Toward Greenwich.
Toward my house.
I called Marcus.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then Sarah.
Voicemail.
I was already moving.
Daniel grabbed my arm.
“If they know you found me, going home could be exactly what they want.”
“My daughter is there.”
“So is Evelyn.”
“And Sarah?”
He released me.
“I don’t know.”
That answer frightened me more than everything else.
I drove back faster than I should have.
During the trip, Marcus finally called.
“Sorry. I was underground.”
“Get to my house.”
“Why?”
“Now.”
I arrived twelve minutes after Evelyn.
Her SUV was parked outside.
The front door was unlocked.
I entered through the side hall.
No voices.
I found Lily in the dining room.
Alone.
She saw me and ran into my arms.
“You followed us.”
“Yes.”
“Are you mad?”
“No.”
I held her tightly.
“Where’s Grandma?”
“She went to find Mommy.”
My blood went cold.
“Why?”
Lily reached into her dress pocket.
The red notebook was gone.
“What happened to your notebook?”
“Grandma took it.”
“What was inside?”
She looked toward the doorway.
“Uncle Daniel told me not to tell.”
I crouched.
“Lily, there are no more secrets from me. Ever.”
She nodded.
“He wrote down the things I remembered.”
“What things?”
“About the man.”
“What man?”
“The man Grandma is scared of.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
I stood.
“Stay here.”
“Daddy—”
“Stay here.”
I moved toward the staircase.
At the top, Sarah’s bedroom door was open.
Our bedroom.
The drawers had been pulled out.
Clothes covered the floor.
The safe behind the painting stood open.
Empty.
Then I heard Evelyn crying in Sarah’s dressing room.
I entered.
She was sitting on the floor.
The red notebook lay beside her.
“Where is Sarah?”
Evelyn looked up.
“I don’t know.”
“What happened?”
“He got here first.”
“Who?”
She stared at me.
“You should have gone to Chicago.”
I felt anger rise.
“Stop speaking in riddles.”
Evelyn picked up Lily’s notebook.
“He knows Daniel is alive.”
“Who?”
“And now he knows Lily remembers.”
“Remembers what?”
Evelyn opened the notebook.
On the first page was a child’s drawing.
Three people.
A boat.
A man standing on a dock.
Beside the man, Lily had written a name.
I reached for the notebook.
Before I could read it, the bedroom phone rang.
Not my cell.
Not Evelyn’s.
The landline Sarah and I had disconnected three years earlier.
Evelyn stared at it.
It rang again.
Then a third time.
She whispered, “He found us.”
I picked up the receiver.
May you like
A man said my name.
Then he said, “If you want your wife alive, don’t let Evelyn tell you who I am.”
