Chapter 2 - MY FATHER AT THE DOOR
Nobody moved.
My father knocked again.
“William?”
Lily grabbed my arm so hard her nails dug into my skin.
“Don’t open it.”
I stared at her.
Our father was seventy-one.
A retired contractor with arthritis in both knees.
The last time I saw him, he needed a cane to cross a parking lot.
Yet Lily looked like a deer hearing a rifle being loaded.
“Why are you afraid of Dad?”
She whispered, “Because he’s the reason I disappeared.”
The knock came again.
Harder.
Clara pulled Eva toward the stairs.
“Take her upstairs.”
“No.”
“William, please.”
My father tried the handle.
I had locked it when I came inside.
Thank God.
“Your car’s outside,” he called. “I know you’re home.”
I picked up my phone.
No signal.
That made no sense.
We always had service in the kitchen.
Clara saw me checking.
“He uses a jammer.”
I turned on her.
“He uses a what?”
The back door suddenly rattled.
Lily flinched.
“He didn’t come alone.”
I grabbed the heavy cast-iron skillet from the stove.
It was ridiculous.
But it was all I had.
A shadow crossed the frosted glass at the back door.
Then came a metallic scrape.
Someone was working the lock.
I pointed toward the hallway.
“Basement?”
“No,” Clara said. “That’s where they’ll expect us.”
“They?”
She looked sick.
The back lock clicked.
I didn’t have time for another question.
“Eva, shoes. Now.”
We moved toward the attached garage.
A crash exploded behind us.
The back door burst inward.
A man stepped into the kitchen.
Not my father.
Evan Reed.
I remembered him from childhood.
He had been a sheriff’s deputy back then.
He used to come to family barbecues.
He used to let Lily and me sit in his patrol car.
Now he was holding a flashlight in one hand and a stun gun in the other.
“William,” he said calmly. “Put the skillet down.”
I almost laughed.
“You broke into my house.”
“I’m trying to stop you from making a mistake.”
Behind me, Lily whispered, “He’s the one who drove the van.”
Evan’s eyes flicked toward her.
That tiny reaction told me she was telling the truth.
I stepped forward.
“You took my sister?”
“She was sick.”
“Shut up.”
“Your father was trying to protect both of you.”
I swung the skillet.
Evan ducked.
The pan slammed into the wall.
He drove his shoulder into my chest.
We crashed across the kitchen table.
Clara screamed.
Eva cried.
Evan reached for his stun gun.
Lily kicked his wrist.
The weapon skidded beneath the refrigerator.
Then my sister—thin, weak, barely able to stand—picked up the broken pasta-sauce jar and held the jagged glass toward his face.
“Come closer.”
Evan froze.
For the first time, I saw fear in his eyes.
Outside, my father shouted.
“Evan!”
Clara opened the garage door.
“Move!”
We ran.
I shoved Lily and Eva into the back seat.
Clara jumped in beside them.
I started the car.
The garage door lifted painfully slowly.
My father appeared in the driveway.
No cane.
No limp.
He walked straight toward us.
And in his hand was a gun.
He raised it.
I slammed the accelerator.
We shot backward through the opening.
My father fired.
The rear window exploded.
Eva screamed.
I spun the wheel and tore down the street.
A mile later, Clara yelled, “Turn off your headlights.”
“What?”
“They can track the car.”
“How?”
She stared at me.
“Because your father gave it to us.”
I looked in the rearview mirror.
Lily was bleeding from a cut on her cheek.
Eva was sobbing.
And my wife looked like a woman who had been waiting years for this exact night.
“Start talking,” I said.
Clara swallowed.
“You’re not going to like what I tell you.”
“No kidding.”
She looked at Lily.
Then at me.
“Eighteen years ago, the night your sister disappeared…”
May you like
Her voice cracked.
“I was there.”
