Chapter 1 - The Panic Call
“Dad!”
My four-year-old son was screaming so hard I could barely understand him.
“Dad, Mom’s boyfriend hit me with a baseball bat!”
The call crackled. Then I heard crying. Real crying. The kind that makes your stomach drop before your brain can even process what’s happening.
“What? Ethan, where are you? Are you okay?”
“He hit me... he hit me...”
Then the line went dead.
I stared at my phone for half a second before grabbing my keys and running.
I was twenty minutes away. Twenty minutes felt like a lifetime.
I called my ex-wife. No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Again.
Straight to voicemail.
My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone.
Then I called the only person who could get there faster.
My younger brother, Ryan.
He lived less than five minutes from my ex-wife’s house.
“Ryan,” I said the second he picked up. “Get over there right now. Ethan just called me. He said Melissa’s boyfriend hit him with a baseball bat.”
“What?”
“Go!”
Ryan hung up without another word.
I was already speeding down the freeway when my phone rang.
Ryan.
I answered immediately.
“I’m here.”
“What do you see?”
There was silence.
Too much silence.
“Ryan?”
“I don’t see Ethan.”
My heart stopped.
“What do you mean you don’t see him?”
“The front door’s open.”
The words hit me like a punch.
“Where’s Melissa?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s the boyfriend?”
“I don’t know.”
I could hear Ryan moving through the house.
Furniture scraping.
A cabinet opening.
His breathing getting heavier.
Then his voice dropped.
“Jake...”
“What?”
“I found blood.”
Everything inside me went cold.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s my son?”
Ryan didn’t answer.
“Ryan!”
Then I heard footsteps running.
Fast.
Very fast.
A door slammed somewhere inside the house.
And Ryan suddenly shouted:
“HEY! STOP!”
A loud crash exploded through the phone.
Then the call disconnected.
I hit redial instantly.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
I pushed my car harder, my pulse pounding in my ears.
Five minutes later, my phone buzzed.
A text from Ryan.
Just three words.
NOT WHAT IT SEEMS.
And before I could reply, another message appeared.
The photo attached made my blood freeze.
Because standing in the picture was Ethan.
Holding the baseball bat.
And beside him, lying unconscious on the floor...
was Melissa.
Something about that image felt horribly wrong.
And when I zoomed in, I noticed the one detail that changed everything.
Ethan wasn't alone.
Someone else was standing in the room.
Just outside the frame.
Watching.
A person who should have been impossible to be there.
For one terrifying reason.
I had personally watched them leave town three months earlier.
A person who wasn't supposed to come back.
Yet somehow... they were standing inside that house.
And looking directly at my son.
The next ten minutes would uncover a secret none of us were prepared for.
A secret that would turn everything upside down.
May you like
Before I reached that house, someone was going to tell a lie.
And someone else was going to disappear.
