Chapter 4 - The Man Beside Me
Dominic had protected my family for thirteen years.
He had carried Leo around my garden before the boy could walk.
He had stood beside Ethan's coffin.
Now his signature appeared on documents connected to missing children.
I didn't call him.
Ramirez did.
We watched Dominic enter the hospital twenty minutes later.
He knew immediately.
“What's wrong?”
Ramirez showed him the signature.
His face changed.
“That's mine.”
“Explain.”
“I can't.”
Wrong answer.
I moved toward him.
Ramirez stepped between us.
“Thomas.”
Dominic looked at me.
“I signed transportation authorizations for the foundation.”
“What transportation?”
“Medical.”
“For children?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“St. Catherine.”
Same hospital connected to Ethan's false autopsy.
Ramirez asked:
“Who gave you the documents?”
“Ethan.”
My brother again.
Dominic claimed Ethan had asked him to arrange discreet transportation for children receiving medical treatment through the foundation.
No Moretti vehicles.
No publicity.
No records beyond authorization forms.
“I thought he was protecting their identities.”
“Did you ever see the children?”
“Once.”
“Who?”
“A girl.”
“What name?”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“Ava.”
He had driven her personally.
Not from Rebecca's house.
From St. Catherine to a private property outside Austin.
“Whose?”
Dominic hesitated.
Mine.
An old ranch I hadn't visited in years.
I stared.
“You took a missing child to my ranch?”
“Ethan told me you approved it.”
“I didn't.”
Someone had used my name.
Again.
We drove there before dawn with police.
The ranch house appeared abandoned.
Dust.
Empty rooms.
No children.
Then Ramirez found recent footprints.
Behind the barn was a storm shelter.
Locked from outside.
My chest tightened.
Police opened it.
Inside were children's blankets.
Food.
Medicine.
But no children.
On the wall were photographs.
Leo.
Maya.
Ava.
Seven other children.
Every photograph had a date.
Some went back three years.
Then I saw one that made no sense.
Ethan.
Standing beside Ava.
Photographed six weeks after his funeral.
Not a corpse.
Standing.
Alive.
The timestamp could have been altered.
But beside him was that day's newspaper.
My brother had survived his own funeral.
Ramirez looked at me.
“You said you haven't spoken to him?”
“No.”
Then someone moved behind the shelter door.
Officers spun.
A woman screamed.
She was thin, terrified, perhaps thirty.
She held her hands up.
“My name is Caroline Webb.”
“Who are you?”
Her answer changed everything.
“Ava's mother.”
Ramirez lowered her weapon.
“Where is your daughter?”
Caroline started crying.
“I don't know.”
Then she pointed at Ethan's photograph.
“But that man saved her from Rebecca.”
I stared at my supposedly dead brother.
May you like
Caroline whispered:
“And three weeks ago, Rebecca found him.”
