Chapter 2 - The Footsteps Above the Christmas Tree
Gabriel did not chase the sound upstairs.
Every instinct told him to.
But Noah was shaking against his side, and Gabriel had spent too much of the past year choosing urgent things over important ones.
He carried his son into the den, wrapped him in a blanket, and called his sister Rachel.
“Come now.”
Rachel heard his voice and asked no questions.
Meredith stood in the doorway.
“You’re humiliating me.”
Gabriel looked at Noah.
“No. I’m listening to him.”
“You think I locked him in a pantry?”
“There’s a latch on the outside.”
“It was already there.”
“And the blanket?”
“He hides.”
“The cup?”
“He gets thirsty.”
“The crackers?”
Meredith’s mouth tightened.
Gabriel held up Caroline’s necklace.
“And this?”
For the first time, Meredith had no immediate answer.
Rachel arrived twenty minutes later with her husband, an attorney named Thomas Reed. Noah ran to Rachel before she had removed her coat.
“Aunt Rach.”
She knelt and hugged him.
Gabriel watched his son relax against someone else and felt shame burn behind his ribs.
Thomas inspected the little room without touching anything.
“You need photographs.”
Gabriel took them.
“You need Noah somewhere safe.”
Rachel answered, “He’s coming with me.”
Meredith laughed. “You people are behaving like I committed a crime.”
Thomas looked at the outside latch.
“I’d stop talking.”
She glared at him.
Gabriel asked Noah whether he wanted to leave.
The boy nodded immediately.
That answer hurt more than anything else.
While Rachel packed Noah’s pajamas, Gabriel searched the pantry carefully. Behind the blanket he found pencil marks on the wall.
Seven short lines.
Each had a date beside it.
December 3.
December 5.
December 8.
December 11.
December 14.
December 19.
December 24.
Gabriel photographed them.
Noah appeared behind him.
“What are those?”
The child looked embarrassed.
“I counted.”
“Counted what?”
“The times.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Meredith called from the kitchen, “He’s lying.”
Noah flinched.
Gabriel turned.
“Rachel, take him.”
After Noah left, Gabriel faced Meredith alone.
“When did this start?”
“It didn’t.”
He showed her the dates.
She rolled her eyes.
“He writes on walls now? Wonderful.”
“You recognize the handwriting?”
She stopped.
Gabriel had not said whose handwriting it was.
Meredith realized her mistake.
He put the phone down.
“Why did you know those marks were his?”
“Because obviously—”
“Enough.”
She crossed her arms.
“You want to blame someone because you feel guilty.”
That landed.
Gabriel did feel guilty.
He had traveled constantly after Caroline’s death. He had buried himself in Callahan Construction, the company he had built from three trucks and a rented office. Meredith had arrived as an event consultant, then a friend, then the woman who offered to help when Gabriel could barely remember to buy groceries.
She had become indispensable.
Or so he had thought.
“You’re right about one thing,” he said.
“What?”
“I was absent.”
Her expression softened with victory.
Then Gabriel continued.
“That doesn’t make you innocent.”
He asked her to leave for the night.
She refused.
“The house is partly mine.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“We’re engaged.”
“We were.”
Meredith stared.
“You’re ending our engagement because a six-year-old drew lines in a closet?”
“I’m ending it because my son begged me not to leave him with you.”
Her face hardened.
“You’ll regret this.”
“Maybe.”
“You need me.”
“Noah needed me.”
That stopped her.
Gabriel called security and had her escorted out.
At Rachel’s house, Noah slept beside the Christmas tree because he did not want a bedroom door closed.
Gabriel sat on the floor nearby until sunrise.
At six-thirty, Noah woke.
“Dad?”
“I’m here.”
“You stayed?”
“Yes.”
Noah crawled into his lap.
Gabriel held him.
After breakfast, Thomas arrived with an investigator named Elise Moreno.
She asked Noah simple questions.
No pressure.
No accusations.
“Did Meredith ever put you in the little room?”
Noah nodded.
“What happened when you were inside?”
“She turned off the kitchen lights.”
“Were you allowed to come out?”
“When the timer beeped.”
“What timer?”
“The red one.”
Gabriel remembered the red kitchen timer shaped like an apple.
“How long?”
Noah shrugged.
“Sometimes one cartoon. Sometimes a movie.”
Gabriel’s hands clenched.
Elise noticed.
“Mr. Callahan, take a minute.”
“No. Keep going.”
Noah looked at him.
“Are you mad at me?”
Gabriel immediately knelt.
“Never for telling the truth.”
Noah studied his face.
“Meredith said you’d send me away if I made trouble.”
Gabriel’s throat closed.
“I will never send you away.”
“Promise?”
“On everything I have.”
Noah hugged him.
Later, Elise examined the photographs of Caroline’s necklace.
“Are you certain it belonged to your wife?”
“I bought it for our tenth anniversary.”
“Could Meredith have obtained it after Caroline died?”
“No. The hospital returned Caroline’s belongings to me. The necklace wasn’t there.”
“You reported it missing?”
“I assumed it was lost in the accident.”
Caroline had died when her SUV left an icy road two days after Christmas the previous year.
Elise asked, “Did Meredith know Caroline?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“She said they met once.”
Elise looked up.
“Said?”
Gabriel understood the question.
He opened old company files.
Meredith had worked events for Callahan Construction for three years before Caroline died.
He searched photographs.
At first, nothing.
Then he found a company Christmas party picture from two years earlier.
Caroline stood beside Gabriel.
Across the ballroom, half hidden behind a floral arrangement, was Meredith.
She was not looking at the camera.
She was looking directly at Caroline.
Gabriel enlarged the image.
A second woman stood beside Meredith.
Older.
Gray-haired.
Familiar.
Gabriel stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Elise leaned closer.
“Who is she?”
Gabriel swallowed.
“Caroline’s mother.”
The woman had told Gabriel she had never met Meredith.
He called her immediately.
No answer.
He called again.
Nothing.
Then Noah wandered into the study carrying the silver necklace in a plastic evidence bag.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“There’s something inside the star.”
Gabriel frowned.
The pendant was hollow.
Thomas carefully opened it.
A tiny folded strip of paper slid onto the desk.
Three words were written in Caroline’s handwriting.
DON’T TRUST EVELYN.
Evelyn was Caroline’s mother.
And at that exact moment, Gabriel’s phone rang.
Evelyn’s number.
He answered.
A man spoke instead.
“Mr. Callahan?”
“Who is this?”
“Your mother-in-law has been in an accident.”
Gabriel looked at Caroline’s warning.
“What kind of accident?”
May you like
The man paused.
“Her car went off the road.”
