Known (16 page)

Tax forms. Mortgage information. Health insurance.

“Outside of that room I thought everything looked very neat,” said the other officer. “For a break-in, it’s one of the cleanest I’ve seen.”

Not teenagers. Who’s doing this to us?

“Kitchen was neat, the bedrooms didn’t look disturbed,” he continued. “The closet in the master bedroom was open, but it’s a walk-in.”

Her heart stopped. She always kept that door closed.

“You’re gonna want to protect against identity theft. That’s the big thing these days,” said the younger one earnestly.

She nodded numbly, feeling that this was larger than simple identity theft.

“I can’t get any clothes?” Violet asked.

“Not tonight. Are you going to hang around and wait? I hate to say it, but sometimes the investigators can take forever to get here. You don’t have to stay. Can you two go to a hotel or a friend’s for the night?” he asked kindly.

Not without my credit cards.

“They can stay at my place tonight,” said Michael. “I’ll call Jamie. We have more than enough room.”

“I don’t want—” Gianna started.

“You’re not imposing. End of discussion.”

She met Chris’s gaze, and he nodded at her.

It’s just for one night. And I’ll feel calmer with more people around Violet.

Once he saw Michael and Jamie’s home, Chris finally relaxed. He’d been on high alert for too long and he could feel it in every cell of his body.

“I’ll run you home once she’s settled,” Michael said quietly to Chris as he pulled the SUV into the driveway of the little house. Michael had moved into Jamie’s place soon after they’d become a couple. Chris and Brian had lived with them for several weeks before finding a house close by, and they had dinner with them at least twice a week. Essentially it was Chris’s second home.

Jamie stepped out of the front door as they came up the front walkway. She kissed Michael and moved to hug Chris.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” she whispered in his ear.

“Hey, little sis,” said Chris.

“What?” Violet’s voice sounded right behind him. “I thought Michael—wait a minute. Who are the siblings here?”

Chris turned and saw the confusion on Violet’s face as she studied the three of them. “Biologically, Jamie is not my sister,” he explained. “I’ll let Jamie tell you the whole story later. She does it best.”

Michael gave a small smile as he addressed Gianna. “Chris doesn’t like to talk about himself.”

“I figured that out.”

Jamie hustled the women into the house and down a long hallway to her guest room. Chris heard her launch into the abbreviated version of their past. He knew Jamie would skim over the darker aspects of his story, but anyone who spent a little time on the Internet would easily discover the horrors he and the other children had suffered at the hands of the Ghostman. Suddenly he wanted to be the one to explain his past to Gianna. He wanted to sanitize the information, assure her that he was still a normal, functioning human being.

Normal? Him?

Would she see him differently if she heard the truth?

“Hey.”

Chris turned at Michael’s voice, realizing he’d been staring down the hall long after the women had vanished, regrets and fears overtaking his thoughts.

“How much do you know about her?” his brother asked.

Chris recognized Michael’s full-on investigator voice. “She’s going to start at the medical examiner’s office soon. They haven’t lived here long.”

“That’s it? You spent all that time with her and that’s what you know?” Michael narrowed his brows.

“She likes her coffee black. And Violet was hanging with a bad crowd at her old school.”

“And here I thought you’d be a good addition to the private investigation practice I want to open.”

“You said I’d be in charge of the computer side.”

“But you need some basic curiosity about people. Where are your instincts for asking questions?”

“I’m not nosy.” Annoyance shot up his spine. “You don’t know what it was like up there, she and her daughter were in a crisis. I wasn’t about to ask their life history.”

“Well, I did. As soon as you gave me her name, I had people digging.”

“What? Why?”

“Because two people are dead and you’re involved.”

“I’m not—”

“Not directly involved, but I wanted to know who’d thrust themselves upon your mercy.”

Curiosity swirled in his brain. “You found out something,” he stated.

“When Gianna was eight, her parents were killed in a car wreck. Gianna was with them when their car went off a cliff and down a hundred-foot drop. That little girl crawled out of the wreck and all the way back up to the road. Then she walked over two miles in the pitch dark in the middle of the night until she found a house.”

Chris couldn’t speak.

Michael nodded. “Yeah, that’s how I felt. I remembered the story once I was reminded of it this morning. Her story was all over the national news. She survived when everyone else died.”

Like me.

“Hard to miss some of the parallels to your past. A lot of the same elements.”

Memories poked at his brain and he fought them back. Day after day of imprisonment in that bunker below the dirt. The faces of the other children he’d believed had been set free but who had been murdered instead. Pushing through the dark forest, half dragging the real Chris Jacobs, terrified neither of them would survive. The sight of the farmhouse where he’d finally found safety.

“Chris!”

“What?”

“Jesus Christ. You look like you’re about to faint.”

He turned away from his brother as his vision started to narrow. He braced his hands on the hall table and breathed deep.

Michael’s hand gripped his shoulder.

He flinched but didn’t pull away.
It’s Michael.

“I’m sorry, Chris. I didn’t realized it’d hit you like that. I’d hoped it’d be better by now.”

“This is better.” He forced a laugh. “A few years ago you’d be stepping over my pool of vomit and have a black eye for touching me.”

Michael let go.

“No. Don’t.”

Michael put his hand back and gripped harder. “You’ve come a long way. I can see it. Jamie does, too. And you’re raising Brian to be an amazing kid.”

The mention of his son’s name nearly made his knees buckle in longing and sheer terror because the boy was out of his sight. Panic shot through him.
Is Brian okay?
Sweat started under his arms and the air in the house suddenly grew thin. He met Michael’s gaze.

“Have you heard from Cecelia today?” Chris asked.

Understanding crossed Michael’s face and he pulled out his phone. “No. Need to talk to Brian?”

“Yes.”

Chris counted the seconds between his breaths, trying to calm his heart, while Michael called their mother, his phone at his ear. The moment went on too long, and he felt sweat run down his side.

“Mom? No, everything’s okay. Chris needs to talk to Brian.”

Michael handed the phone to Chris. He held his breath until he heard the sleepy voice of his son.

Chris moved to the family room and sat heavily on the couch. The abrupt absence of stress left a stabbing pain in his left temple as he listened to his son talk about the Tower of Terror ride. He made encouraging comments, not fully listening to the excited chatter.

Brian’s fine.

He listened for a few more minutes, ended the call, and noticed Michael was staring at him with hawklike intensity. Chris closed his eyes and sank back in the cushions.

He didn’t have the energy to tell his brother to knock it off.

“So Chris’s name is actually Daniel Brody. And Michael Brody is his real brother,” Violet said slowly, trying to make sense of the confusing story Jamie had just shared. “And your brother—the real Chris Jacobs—died when he was a young teen.”

Jamie nodded.

“But back then you hadn’t seen your brother for two years and Chris—our Chris—assumed your brother’s identity after he escaped from their kidnapper.”

“I know. It’s hard to believe,” said Jamie. “I look back now and I’m still stunned.”

“How long was he in the hospital after he was found?” her mom asked.

“Months. He looked like a walking skeleton when he returned. For a while the doctors weren’t sure he’d survive.”

“He was held and tortured for two years?” Violet whispered, remembering the scars on the side of his neck.

“It’s amazing that he had the presence of mind to keep up the charade after he escaped,” Gianna said. “He must have been terrified the kidnapper would come after him and the Brody family.”

Violet thought about the quiet man she’d spent the last days with.
What is it like to have someone want you dead?
“No one figured it out for all that time?”

“Not until someone discovered the remains of the other missing children from the kidnapping. All the children were accounted for except for Daniel. Everything started to crumble at that point. Michael wanted to know why his brother’s remains weren’t found with the other children’s.”

Violet liked the way Jamie smiled when she said Michael’s name. Even though the story was horrible, just saying his name clearly made her happy.

“So Michael did what he does best,” said Jamie. “He snooped and poked and prodded until he got answers.”

“That’s how you met?” Violet asked.

“Yes.”

“And Chris is like your brother now.”

“I was only ten when he escaped from his kidnapper and came to live with us. He’s the only brother I’ve known since then. I understand my real-life brother died . . . and I feel his loss. But Chris has filled that hole for decades.”

It made sense to Violet. It was hard to miss what you didn’t remember. Sometimes she wondered if she should feel more loss over her maternal grandparents’ deaths, but they’d died when her mother was eight. She carried a tiny bit of guilt for not missing some people she’d never known.

But she missed Nana every day.

Gianna sat on the guest bed beside her and hugged her. Violet sniffled and realized she had tears on her face. “I’m really tired,” she mumbled.

“And I’ve been talking your ear off for ten minutes,” said Jamie. “I brought the two of you some pajamas.” The tall woman smiled at Gianna. “Clearly you’ll have to roll up the legs.”

“I’ll be asleep. It won’t matter. Thank you so much.” Her mom yawned. “Tomorrow we’ll figure out what is going on.”

An image of the blood on her mother’s coat popped into Violet’s head. She’d nearly forgotten that they’d left two dead people up in the forest.

He’d gone against his father’s directive.

No one told him what to do.

Even his father. He would get the job done, and it was time he followed his own initiative. The end result would be the same: he’d recover the device. But now he was doing it his way.

Gianna Trask would be taken care of. He was pleased she hadn’t died in the fire. Yes, she would still have to die at some point, but until then he would enjoy every minute.

Breaking the front window at her home had been a risk. But he’d been watching for so long that he’d ached to set foot where she walked every day. He’d seen her and Violet load their vehicle, clearly leaving for a few days, and had decided to take a chance. He had a tracker on her vehicle; he could catch up. That night in the dark, he’d broken in. It had almost been too easy; the home had no defenses. Something he’d checked thoroughly before risking an alarm.