Michael slid his phone in his pocket and studied the battered Ford pickup that’d pulled to the side of the road. The truck had been passing by, hit the brakes as the driver glanced at Michael, and then jerked the wheel to pull over. Through the back window of the truck’s cab, Michael could see an adult male and the top of a black-haired head of a child in the second-row seat.
Chris. And Brian.
Michael stood frozen, staring at the window.
Maybe Jamie was with them.
There wasn’t a third head visible, but his heart fervently made the wish. The adult turned to speak to the child, and then the driver’s door swung open. A long, lean man slid out. He was wearing fatigue-print cargo shorts and a black T-shirt. Attire similar to Michael’s everyday wardrobe. From twenty feet away, Michael stared at the scarred profile, pocked with large, pale scars down one side of his cheek and neck. Chris had clearly been battered at one point in his life. He turned and locked gazes with Michael, his crooked nose and jaw coming into view, and Michael felt a chill punctuate his spine. His ears started to ring.
Michael focused on the hazel eyes and the bearing of the head and shoulders. Cautious. Protective. Feet apart, hands and arms ready to defend his child. A man who had spent his life looking over his shoulder and preparing for the worst. He stood motionless, assessing Michael.
Michael rubbed a hand over his eyes. And looked again. Chris still hadn’t moved. Michael took two steps and halted, scanning the man from head to toe. Movement from the truck pulled his attention, and he looked at the small, chubby face studying him through the back window of the cab. Everything in his peripheral vision vanished. He saw Brian as if looking through a tube.
He looks like Daniel. Daniel as a child. Coloring is wrong…but…
“Michael,” said the man.
Not Chris Jacobs.
The man’s hair was buzzed short, Marine length.
“Make them look like Marines,” said The Senator to the barber.
Michael’s mental picture of his hefty younger brother morphed into the lean man standing before him. He blinked.
Daniel.
“Michael,” he said again. “I know—”
Michael knew that voice. It belonged to The Senator but was coming out of this man’s mouth. He focused on the young man. “Holy shit!”
Daniel. His brother was standing in front of him. Joy and relief washed over him, and his knees shook. He took a stuttering step toward his brother, unable to take his gaze from that face.
Why didn’t he let us know he was alive?
Michael froze.
“What the fuck, Daniel? Why the hell—why haven’t you—God damn it!” Michael’s mind spun into a swirling mass of joy and anger. He didn’t know what to feel. He strode forward, a red haze tunneling his vision. “Why in the hell did you let us think you were dead?” he spit out. He stopped three feet from Daniel, his gaze drinking him in. He didn’t know whether to hit him or hug him.
Daniel subtly shifted into a defensive posture. “I can explain.”
“No, you can’t explain! There is no fucking reason to explain away twenty years of us wondering about you!” Michael expanded his lungs, searching for oxygen. His ears were still ringing. “Thank God, you’re okay!”
“I’m sorry, but—”
Michael made a cutting motion with his hands. “Save it! You have no idea—”
“You have no idea what my life—” Daniel leaned forward, voice rising.
“God damn you! Do you know what you’ve done to our parents? Couldn’t you have called? You forget which family you belonged to?”
“No, I’ve known—”
“Does Chris Jacobs even exist? Are both of you out here? Hiding from your families?”
“Chris didn’t make—”
“Does Jamie know you’re not Chris?”
Daniel’s shoulders slumped. “She thinks I’m Chris. I am Chris. To her. And everyone else.”
Pain shot up Michael’s spine. “Shit! I can’t find Jamie!” How could he have forgotten her for even two seconds? “I think he’s grabbed her. He’s been trying to get to you!”
Daniel straightened, his brows coming together. “What? When? I just saw you two on a news broadcast. Are you talking about the Ghostman? Who grabbed her?”
“The Ghostman? The tattooed freak?”
“Yeah, that’s him. We always called him the Ghostman because he was so fucking white.”
“Jesus Christ. We?”
“Us kids.”
Michael pulled out his cell phone. “You have a fucking lot of explaining to do, but right now we need the police.”
He punched Spencer’s contact and held his phone to his ear, staring at Daniel.
Daniel?
His hand touched wetness on his cheeks. He brushed at it and looked blankly at the evidence of tears on his hand. A lot of tears.
What the hell just happened?