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So what was so special about it that they’d framed this photograph and hung it here?
I frowned at it and added it to my phone along with the rest. Then I turned my attention to the desk.
The papers I could see were printouts of news articles marked up with a few notes in what I could recognize as my father’s handwriting. There was nothing particularly odd about them—they were reports on recent crimes here in DC, with things like the police response time circled. He was analyzing the performance of local law enforcement, which seemed like a totally Damien Malik thing to do.
I would have dug deeper, but just then a floorboard creaked somewhere above me. My nerves jumped, and I froze in place.
The family had come back inside. If I went back up now, they might spot me using the hidden entrance. They might already be wondering where I was.
My hand darted to my phone. I tapped out another quick text to Garrison that an additional distraction was needed ASAP.
I’ll take care of it, sweetheart, he shot back with a blowing kiss emoji I couldn’t help seeing as sarcastic. A moment later, whatever he’d done, the footsteps above creaked away in the opposite direction.
There was no time to examine anything else right now. I dashed up the stairs, placing my feet as quietly as I could, and pressed my ear to the door. When I heard nothing on the other side, I nudged it open and squeezed out.
I shoved it back into place and was just starting down the hall toward the dining room when Grandma Ruby appeared from the back of the house. I swiped my hand over my hair, hoping I didn’t look too rattled.
“Well, you certainly know how to miss a party,” she said with an eye roll that didn’t seem particularly hostile. I relaxed just a tad. If I’d been even a few seconds slower…
“What happened?” I asked in as casual a tone as I could summon.
She shook her head. “I’m still not even sure. We heard the strangest sounds, like there was a whole farmyard out there, and then some shouts for help, but we couldn’t figure out where they were coming from. Then just as I’d come back inside, because really, it’s dinner time, your mother shrieked like they were being murdered.” She let out a huff. “It was only a rock that landed in the garden and crushed a few flowers. Nothing worth fretting about.”
Somehow I thought she’d have taken a different tune if it’d been her own garden assaulted. “How strange,” I said innocently.
I joined her back at the table. In less than a minute, the rest of the family poured back in, exclaiming to each other with their theories about what had been going on—neighbors acting out, poultry escaped from a delivery truck, a prank from a political opponent.
They were all so engrossed in their speculation that I didn’t have to say anything at all, just eat the rest of my dinner in silent reverie. My body might have been at the table, but my mind was stuck in the room downstairs, trying to make sense of its strange contents alongside the photographs we’d found in the bank.
Noelle and Anna had always claimed that they were protecting me, that they’d taken me in to shelter me from the cruelty of the world. I knew that was at least partly a lie… but what if there was some truth to it too?
My parents hadn’t died, obviously, but maybe the household really had seen kidnapping me as a way to protect me. Because I was starting to think that whatever my birth family was up to was way worse than anything my former captors had done.
