Chapter 4 - The Brother on the Screen
Lucas did not react immediately.
He looked at Claire as though he had misheard her.
“What do you mean, exactly like me?”
“Same height. Same hair. He was wearing a dark coat like yours.”
“My coat is common.”
“He turned when I drove past.”
“And you saw his face?”
“Part of it.”
“Enough to know it was me?”
Claire’s certainty weakened.
“I thought it was you.”
Lucas looked toward Daniel.
“I was across the city.”
“Can you prove that?” Detective Quinn asked.
“Yes. I was at my office. Security cameras, building access, twelve employees.”
Quinn made a note.
“Then someone wanted to be mistaken for you.”
Lucas’s eyes shifted toward the torn sleeve of his coat.
Daniel noticed it again.
“What happened to your arm?”
“I fell climbing the fence behind Rachel’s property.”
“You entered before the police?”
“I thought Sarah was still inside.”
“You could have destroyed evidence.”
“I was trying to find your daughter.”
Detective Quinn stepped between them.
“Start at the beginning.”
Lucas leaned against the wall and exhaled.
Three weeks earlier, he had received an automated warning from an old server account. The account belonged to the security system he had helped design for the Mercer Foundation more than fifteen years ago.
He assumed it was an error.
Then he noticed that the login request came from Northbridge Family Recovery Center.
Lucas began investigating without telling Daniel because he did not want to raise false hope. He discovered that the Northbridge network communicated with a second server hidden inside Rachel’s home-security system.
“I thought Malcolm was monitoring her,” Lucas said. “I didn’t know Sarah was being recorded until tonight.”
“What changed tonight?” Quinn asked.
“The server began deleting files.”
“Why?”
“Someone realized I had accessed it.”
Lucas copied as much data as he could before the connection disappeared. The final live camera showed Sarah walking through the kitchen alone.
A man entered behind her.
He wore Lucas’s old foundation identification card clipped to his coat.
His face was turned away from the camera.
“Show us,” Daniel said.
Lucas unlocked his phone and opened the saved clip.
The video lasted seventeen seconds.
Sarah crossed the kitchen carrying her backpack.
A tall man followed.
He wore a dark coat, and from behind he did resemble Lucas.
The man reached for Sarah’s backpack.
She stepped away from him.
The movement was small, but Daniel felt something inside him break.
The man said, “Your aunt is coming. You know what to tell her.”
Sarah answered, “I don’t want to lie anymore.”
The man turned partially toward the camera.
Claire gasped.
His face remained mostly in shadow, but he had Lucas’s general features.
The same narrow jaw.
The same straight nose.
The same dark hair.
Yet something was wrong.
Daniel watched the clip again.
“Pause there.”
Lucas stopped the image.
Daniel enlarged it.
The stranger’s left hand rested on the kitchen chair.
A dark red ring encircled one finger.
Malcolm wore the same kind of ring.
But the man in the video was at least twenty years younger.
“Who is he?” Claire asked.
Lucas shook his head.
“I have no idea.”
Daniel looked more closely at the stranger’s face.
There was something familiar in it beyond the resemblance to Lucas.
A shape around the eyes.
A slight asymmetry near the mouth.
Daniel had seen it before, but he could not remember where.
Detective Quinn requested a copy of the clip.
“Was Sarah left alone with this man?”
“For at least fourteen minutes,” Lucas said. “Then the camera feed stopped.”
Claire stepped closer to Daniel.
“When I reached the house, the front door was open. Sarah was sitting near the driveway.”
“Where was Rachel?”
“I didn’t know. I called her several times, but she didn’t answer.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“Sarah begged me not to.”
Daniel’s voice hardened.
“She was frightened.”
“I know. That is why I took her to the hospital.”
“You should have called me immediately.”
“I did call you.”
“After driving halfway across the county.”
Claire’s eyes filled with tears.
“I didn’t know who I could trust.”
Daniel wanted to remain angry, but the fear in her voice stopped him.
Claire had also been manipulated.
Perhaps that was the point.
Malcolm had isolated each of them until none knew which family member might be dangerous.
Nurse Evelyn appeared at the door.
“Sarah is awake.”
Daniel immediately went inside.
Sarah sat upright beneath a white blanket. A carton of apple juice rested on the table beside her, untouched.
“Is Uncle Lucas in trouble?” she asked.
“No.”
“Mom said the police would take him.”
“Why?”
Sarah looked toward Claire.
“Because he went into the blue room.”
Lucas entered slowly.
“Sarah, did you see me in that room?”
She studied his face.
“You looked different.”
“How?”
“You talked differently.”
“What did I say?”
Sarah tightened her fingers around the blanket.
“You said Dad had forgotten me.”
Lucas closed his eyes.
“That wasn’t me.”
“I know.”
Daniel sat beside her.
“How do you know, sweetheart?”
“Because Uncle Lucas has a line on his eyebrow.”
Lucas touched the faint scar above his right eye, a souvenir from a childhood bicycle accident.
Sarah pointed toward him.
“The other Uncle Lucas didn’t have it.”
Detective Quinn crouched near the foot of the bed.
“Did the other man tell you his name?”
Sarah shook her head.
“Mom called him Mr. Gray.”
“Did Mr. Gray work with Malcolm?”
Sarah looked confused.
“Who is Malcolm?”
“The man you called Uncle Victor.”
“Oh.”
She nodded.
“Mr. Gray worked for him.”
“What did they want you to do?”
“They wanted me to forget.”
“Forget what?”
Sarah’s eyes moved toward Daniel.
“The day I saw Grandpa.”
Daniel’s body went still.
His father had died when Sarah was a baby.
“You saw a photograph of Grandpa?”
“No.”
“A video?”
Sarah shook her head.
“He was standing behind the glass.”
Daniel’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“When?”
“At Northbridge.”
Lucas stared at him.
Detective Quinn remained calm.
“Sarah, are you sure it was your grandfather?”
“He looked like the picture in Dad’s bedroom.”
“What happened after you saw him?”
“Mom pulled me away. Then Uncle Victor got angry.”
Daniel felt cold spread through his chest.
His father’s body had never been recovered after the boating accident. The authorities declared him dead based on debris, blood evidence, and Malcolm’s testimony.
Malcolm had claimed Thomas fell overboard during a storm.
“What did your grandfather do when he saw you?” Daniel asked.
Sarah looked toward the dark window.
“He put his hand on the glass.”
“And then?”
“He wrote something.”
“What did he write?”
Sarah traced letters on the blanket with one finger.
Daniel watched carefully.
D.
O.
C.
U.
M.
E.
N.
T.
She paused.
Then continued.
E.
V.
E.
R.
Y.
M.
A.
May you like
R.
K.
