Chapter 1 - Dad Help Me)
The first thing Daniel Reed heard when he pushed open the front door was his son screaming.
Not calling.
Not crying.
Screaming.
"Dad! Help me!"
The black and tan duffel bag slipped from Daniel's hand before his mind had even understood what his ears were telling him.
It struck the hardwood floor with a heavy thud.
Daniel had been away for three days.
Only three days.
He had spent the entire drive home imagining the ordinary things he missed about being there. Owen running down the stairs in mismatched socks. A half-built plastic spaceship abandoned on the kitchen table. Cereal bowls in the sink. Cartoons playing too loudly.
Instead, the house felt wrong.
The front hallway was empty.
The living room lights were off.
Somewhere upstairs, metal scraped across the floor.
Then came another sob.
Daniel ran.
He took the stairs two at a time.
By the time he reached the upper landing, his lungs were burning and his hands had already curled into fists.
Then he saw his son.
Seven-year-old Owen lay on his stomach in the middle of the beige hallway carpet.
A heavy dark chain had been wrapped around his chest and both arms.
His green and cream striped shirt was soaked with sweat.
His cheeks were red.
Tears covered his face.
He was trying to pull himself toward Daniel, but every movement dragged the chain behind him with a horrible scraping sound.
And standing over him was a stranger holding a wooden baseball bat.
The man was huge.
Dark hooded sweatshirt.
Faded black jeans.
Heavy boots.
Buzzed hair.
Short beard.
He turned slowly when Daniel appeared.
For one frozen second, father and stranger stared at each other.
The man's expression changed first.
Not fear.
Annoyance.
As if Daniel had interrupted him.
Daniel saw the baseball bat.
He saw Owen.
He saw the chain.
Something inside him went completely silent.
"Get away from my son!"
The stranger swung.
Daniel barely saw the bat coming.
Instinct pulled him sideways.
Wood cut through the air beside his face.
Daniel brought up his left forearm, knocking the attack off line, stepped forward and drove his right fist into the man's jaw.
The stranger staggered.
His heel caught the edge of the carpet.
He crashed backward beside the tall ceramic vase near the wall.
The bat dropped from his hand.
Daniel kicked it away.
Then Owen made a broken sound.
"Dad."
Daniel forgot the man.
He dropped to his knees.
"I'm here."
His fingers shook as he fought with the chain.
"I'm here, buddy. Look at me."
Owen could barely breathe normally.
"He said you weren't coming."
Daniel pulled another loop free.
"He was wrong."
"He said nobody was coming."
"I came."
The chain finally slipped from Owen's arms and hit the carpet.
Daniel lifted him.
Owen threw both arms around his father's neck so hard Daniel nearly lost his balance.
Daniel held him against his chest.
For several seconds, nothing else in the world existed.
Not the stranger.
Not the abandoned duffel bag downstairs.
Not Daniel's job.
Not the three missed calls on his phone.
Only the trembling boy in his arms.
Daniel closed his eyes.
"I've got you."
Owen buried his face against Daniel's leather jacket.
Behind them, the stranger coughed.
Daniel looked over Owen's shoulder.
The man was lying near the wall, one hand pressed against the carpet.
Conscious.
Breathing.
Watching them.
Daniel shifted Owen protectively behind him.
"Don't move."
The stranger smiled.
It was a small smile.
That frightened Daniel more than the bat had.
"You don't even know what this is about."
Daniel picked up the baseball bat.
"I know enough."
"No."
The stranger wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.
"You know nothing."
Daniel heard sirens outside.
Someone must have called the police.
Perhaps a neighbor had heard Owen screaming.
The man glanced toward the stairs.
Then back at Daniel.
"You should've stayed away."
Daniel tightened his grip around the bat.
"From what?"
The smile vanished.
The stranger's eyes moved toward Owen.
"Ask him what I wanted."
Daniel felt his son stiffen.
The first police officer reached the top of the stairs seconds later.
"Drop the bat!"
Daniel immediately placed it on the carpet and lifted one hand.
"My son was chained. That man attacked us."
More officers rushed into the hallway.
The stranger was rolled onto his stomach.
Handcuffs snapped around his wrists.
Daniel turned back to Owen.
"It's okay."
But Owen was staring at the stranger.
The stranger looked at him one last time before officers dragged him toward the stairs.
Then he whispered something.
Daniel barely heard it.
Owen heard every word.
"Your mother should've told us where she hid it."
Daniel froze.
His wife had been dead for two years.
Claire Reed had been buried on a cold November morning beneath an oak tree in Saint Matthew Cemetery.
Daniel had stood beside the grave.
Owen had placed a yellow toy airplane on her coffin.
Daniel had watched the coffin disappear into the ground.
But Owen was staring at the arrested man with absolute terror.
Daniel knelt in front of him.
"Owen."
His son's lips trembled.
"What did he mean?"
Owen slowly looked toward the large ceramic vase beside the wall.
The same vase the attacker had fallen next to.
"He kept asking me about Mom."
Daniel's heartbeat changed.
"What about her?"
"He said she left something in the house."
"What?"
Owen swallowed.
"A blue key."
The hallway suddenly seemed colder.
Daniel looked at the vase.
Two years earlier, three nights before Claire died, she had moved that vase from the living room to the upstairs hallway.
Daniel remembered teasing her about it.
He remembered asking why anyone needed a four-foot ceramic vase beside a linen closet.
Claire had smiled.
Because sometimes the safest hiding place is the thing everyone sees every day.
Daniel had forgotten the sentence.
Until now.
He stood.
Slowly.
The police were downstairs.
Owen clung to his jacket.
Daniel approached the vase.
There were cracks along its base from where the attacker had fallen.
He touched one of them.
A loose piece of ceramic shifted.
Behind it was something that did not belong.
Blue metal.
Daniel pulled.
A tiny key slid into his palm.
Stamped into its surface were three numbers.
317.
Owen stared at it.
Daniel stared at it too.
Claire Reed had been dead for two years.
Yet a violent stranger had entered their home, chained their son to the floor and threatened him with a baseball bat to find something she had hidden.
And the key was exactly where the stranger believed it would be.
Daniel closed his hand around it.
From downstairs, a detective called his name.
Daniel did not answer immediately.
Because beneath the key, hidden inside the broken base of the vase, he had seen something else.
A folded photograph.
He pulled it out.
The image had been taken outside a train station.
Claire stood in the center.
Beside her was a man Daniel recognized.
A man who had attended Claire's funeral.
A man who had hugged Daniel beside her grave.
And on the back of the photograph, in Claire's handwriting, were six words.
If I disappear, do not trust Samuel.
May you like
Samuel was Claire's brother.
And he was standing downstairs with the police.
