Chapter 3 - The Secret in the Garage
The bomb squad arrived within twenty minutes, their heavy gear clanking as they swept through our house like ghosts. The device under Lily’s bed turned out to be an intricate, non-explosive kinetic decoy rigged with a digital timer and a localized speaker—wired with professional precision that far exceeded a fifteen-year-old’s typical hobby electronics kit.
By 3:00 AM, the technicians had confirmed it contained no volatile materials, but the psychological terror it inflicted was absolute.
While the officers questioned Tyler in the living room, taking down his reluctant statements and inspecting his computer setup, I walked quietly out to the detached garage. Mark was detained in the kitchen under observation, forbidden from speaking to Tyler until the investigators completed their initial sweep.
I flicked on the harsh fluorescent overhead lights of the garage. The space smelled of motor oil, cut grass, and Mark’s woodworking projects. But my eyes went straight to Tyler’s private workbench in the corner—a cluttered zone of soldering irons, discarded circuit boards, and plastic storage bins.
For months, Mark had defended Tyler’s secretive nature. “He’s a tech genius, Rebecca,” Mark would say whenever I questioned the hours the boy spent locked in his room or out in the garage late at night. “He’s building robotics for the science fair. Leave him be.”
I walked over to the workbench and pulled on a pair of rubber utility gloves.
Underneath a stack of old magazines sat a locked metal lockbox. It was the same lockbox Tyler kept in his bedroom closet. Using a small tension tool I had learned to use during my corporate security consulting days—before I left the field to raise Lily—I popped the cheap brass latch in less than five seconds.
The lid clicked open. Inside wasn’t computer code or school projects.
It was a collection of journals.
I picked up the top composition notebook, its cover scrawled with aggressive handwriting. I flipped it open to the most recent entries, dated over the last three weeks.
My breath hitched in my throat as I read the words under the heading: Project Shadow-Step.
“Dad still buys it every time. He thinks I’m just acting out because of the divorce. If I make the pranks big enough, they’ll have to send me to live with Mom in Seattle. But the step-brat keeps ruining the fun by crying. Tonight’s the grand finale. The old man will finally see how useless his new family is.”
I turned the page. There were detailed sketches of Lily’s room, floor plans of our house, and notes on how to bypass the house’s primary circuit breaker.
And then, tucked into the back pocket of the journal, was a folded-up shipping receipt.
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The recipient's name wasn’t Tyler. It was Mark.
And the item listed on the invoice, purchased three days ago from an industrial surplus site, was a military-grade tactical simulation timer unit—identical to the one found under Lily’s bed.
