Chapter 1 - THE BOY WHO KNEW MY BROTHER
The little boy hit the police station doors so hard I thought someone had fired a gun.
“LOCK IT!” he screamed. “PLEASE—LOCK THE DOOR!”
Every cop in the lobby looked up.
I was halfway through a report when the kid stumbled across the tile barefoot, bleeding from one knee, his chest jerking with every breath.
He couldn’t have been older than eight.
Purple bruises covered his arms.
One side of his face was swollen.
And around both wrists were angry red marks that looked nothing like the kind of injuries a kid got falling off a bike.
I stood so fast my chair rolled backward.
“Hey. Come here.”
He looked at my uniform.
Then at my gun.
Then behind him.
“He’s coming.”
“Who?”
The doors slammed open.
A man charged inside.
“EVAN!”
The boy screamed.
He ran behind me and grabbed the back of my uniform.
The man stopped six feet away.
“Officer, thank God. That’s my son. He ran away.”
Behind me came a tiny whisper.
“He’s lying.”
The man’s face changed.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
“Sir,” I said, “stay where you are.”
“My name’s Ryan Keller. I’m his stepfather.”
Interesting.
Thirty seconds ago, he’d said father.
Ryan forced a nervous laugh.
“Look, Evan has issues. He gets confused. Makes up stories.”
Evan’s grip tightened around my shirt.
“He locks me in the basement.”
The lobby went dead quiet.
Ryan stepped forward.
Officer Luis Ramirez moved between us.
“Back up.”
“Oh, come on,” Ryan snapped. “This is family business.”
“No,” I said. “The second a bruised child runs into my station begging for protection, it becomes police business.”
Ryan stared at me.
His eyes narrowed.
Then something strange happened.
He looked at my name tag.
MORGAN.
The color drained from his face.
I noticed.
So did Ramirez.
I crouched beside Evan.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Evan looked at Ryan and started shaking harder.
“Mom went to work.”
“What happened after she left?”
“He got mad because I went downstairs.”
Ryan barked, “Because you’re not allowed down there!”
Evan flinched.
“Why not?” I asked.
No answer.
Instead, Evan reached into his shorts pocket.
Ryan immediately lunged.
“DON’T!”
Ramirez and another officer slammed him against the wall.
“Hands behind your back!”
“Get off me!”
Evan pulled out a small brass key tied to an old plastic hospital bracelet.
“My real dad gave me this.”
My heartbeat stopped.
I took the bracelet.
The plastic was cloudy with age.
The lettering was faded.
But the name was still readable.
DANIEL MORGAN.
My younger brother.
Missing for nine years.
I looked at Evan.
“Where did you get this?”
“My dad gave it to me before he disappeared.”
Ryan began fighting harder.
“SHUT YOUR MOUTH, EVAN!”
I slowly stood.
“You knew Daniel?”
Ryan stared at me.
His silence answered before his mouth did.
Evan tugged my sleeve.
“Daniel said if something happened to him, I had to find his brother.”
My throat closed.
“How did you know I was his brother?”
Evan pointed toward my badge.
“He said his brother became a cop.”
I turned toward Ryan.
He had stopped struggling.
Now he was just staring at me.
And there was something in his face I had seen on suspects hundreds of times.
Fear.
Not fear of arrest.
Fear that a secret was finally getting out.
Then Evan whispered something that made the room colder.
“There’s something under Ryan’s basement floor.”
May you like
And Ryan shouted—
“HE’S LYING!”
