Chapter 4 - Daniel's VoiceI drew my weapon.
"Everybody stay together."
The darkness swallowed the basement.
Then a gunshot exploded.
Bennett shouted.
Something shattered against the wall.
I pulled Evan behind me.
"Stay down!"
Another shot.
This one hit the metal door.
We crawled behind a concrete pillar.
The emergency lights flickered on.
A figure stood at the far end of the basement.
Black coat.
Black gloves.
Face covered.
He raised a pistol.
Then something strange happened.
He looked directly at Evan.
And lowered the weapon.
"Not him."
His voice was distorted.
"Why?"
The figure turned toward me.
"You look exactly like your brother."
Then he disappeared through a hidden doorway.
Bennett chased him.
I stayed with Evan.
"Are you hurt?"
He shook his head.
I looked toward the place where the man had vanished.
There was a door.
I hadn't seen it before.
Someone had known this basement better than we did.
Bennett returned moments later.
"Lost him."
I stared at the hidden doorway.
"What did he say?"
"He said Daniel wasn't dead."
I already knew.
The recording had confirmed it.
What I didn't know was why everyone had spent nine years pretending otherwise.
Back at the station, our forensic team began processing the basement.
I listened to Daniel's recording again.
This time, I noticed something I had missed.
A faint sound behind his voice.
Machines.
Beeping.
Then a woman's voice.
"Daniel, you shouldn't."
My heart stopped.
The voice was familiar.
I replayed it.
Again.
Again.
Bennett heard it too.
"Who is that?"
I didn't answer.
Because I recognized her.
My mother's voice.
Impossible.
My mother had died six years earlier.
I had been with her in the hospital.
I had held her hand.
I had watched her heart monitor flatline.
Yet there she was.
On a tape recorded after Daniel's disappearance.
I called the hospital.
They confirmed the dates.
My mother had been admitted six years after Daniel vanished.
The voice on the tape was from a recording made before she died.
That meant she had known Daniel was alive.
And she had hidden it from me.
I sat alone in my office.
For nine years, I had mourned my brother.
For six years, I had mourned my mother.
Now both deaths felt like lies.
My phone rang.
A number appeared.
This time, it was my mother's old phone number.
I answered.
Silence.
Then breathing.
"Hello?"
A woman's voice whispered:
"Jack?"
I stood.
"Mom?"
The line went dead.
I immediately called the number back.
Disconnected.
Bennett rushed in.
"What happened?"
"My mother's number just called me."
He stared.
"That's impossible."
"Exactly."
Before we could process it, one of the technicians entered.
"We found something in the basement."
He held up a small black box.
"Hidden inside the wall."
I opened it.
Inside were six photographs.
The first showed Daniel.
The second showed my mother.
The third showed Ryan Carter.
The fourth showed Evan's mother.
The fifth showed me.
The sixth showed a hospital nursery.
On the back of the last photograph was a date.
Nine years earlier.
And one sentence.
THE BOY WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE.
I looked at Evan through the glass.
He was drawing on a piece of paper.
A house.
A woman.
A man.
And a little boy.
Then I noticed what was drawn beneath the house.
A long row of graves.
My blood ran cold.
"Evan."
He looked up.
"Who are those people?"
He didn't answer.
"Who are they?"
He slowly pointed toward the drawing.
"My dad."
"Daniel?"
He shook his head.
"No."
He pointed to the grave beside him.
"These are the people who tried to help him."
Then he pointed at the largest grave.
The name was written in childish letters.
JACK.
May you like
I stopped breathing.
Because the date beneath it was tomorrow.
