What Marcus Found

I threw the deadbolt open and burst onto the porch, where the cold struck me like a slap.

The wind had risen, shrieking around the house. I raced down the steps toward the sedan beneath the glaring driveway lamp, fumbling so badly that the keys slipped from my fingers twice. On my third try, I found the right one and drove it into the trunk lock.

The mechanism clicked, and the lid lifted with a short, airless sigh.

“Maya!” I shouted, raising the heavy trunk door.

She was curled into the far end, tucked between sacks of quick-set cement and nearly swallowed by a dark wool blanket. I yanked the covering aside, my hands clumsy with panic.

Her whole body shook. Her lips had gone a frightening blue-white, yet her wide eyes found mine, full of terror.

“I’m here, Maya,” I managed, my voice breaking. Tears stung and froze against my face as I lifted her from the trunk and pressed her close. “You’re with me now. You’re safe.”

Then I saw the thick plastic covering beneath where she had been hidden. The memory of what I’d glimpsed under the car came rushing back. Keeping one arm around Maya, I pawed through the sheeting until my fingers closed on a smooth plastic bottle.

My father’s blood-pressure pills.

I thrust the bottle into my pocket and turned toward the garage, holding Maya tight against me.

Marcus came running around the side of the house just then, the iron crowbar in his grip. He was gasping, his eyes darting across the yard as if he expected danger to leap out of the dark.

“He never came out!” he yelled against the wind. “Tyler didn’t open the cellar doors. They set us up!”

“I figured it out!” I called, hurrying toward him with Maya in my arms. “The whole thing was a distraction. Brenda and Tyler are still in the kitchen. Tyler’s hurt. Keep them there, Marcus—don’t let either one get off this property!”

His gaze fell on Maya, shaking against my chest. Whatever he saw in my face hardened his expression, turning it cold and fierce.

“Get your sister into my office,” he ordered, his voice carrying through the gusts. “Lock the steel door, then find your dad. I’ll keep those two where they are.”

He strode for the house, both hands wrapped around the crowbar as if it were the only answer he needed.

I rushed into the garage, opened the office’s heavy steel door, and lowered Maya onto the leather chair. The space heater was already there; I cranked it as high as it would go.

“Stay here, Maya. Marcus is close by. I’m going to bring Dad back,” I told her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

I shut her inside and secured the lock. Then I ran back toward the house, forcing myself to move faster than the fear clawing at my chest.

I stayed clear of the kitchen. Marcus’s deep voice rolled through the bare rooms, ordering Tyler to remain on the floor and Brenda to keep both hands on the island. Neither dared test him.

I took the staircase two steps at a time, my boots hammering the wood. At the second-floor landing, I lifted my eyes to the ceiling.

The attic hatch was almost impossible to make out in the weak light. Its cord had been tucked out of sight.

I jumped and caught the frame with my fingertips. When I pulled, the trapdoor swung down, and the folding stairs creaked as they unfolded onto the runner.

A rush of stale, bitter cold spilled over me. There was no insulation up there; the attic must have been nearly as frigid as the yard.

I climbed, switching on my phone’s flashlight to cut through the darkness. Its narrow beam trembled as I raised it over the rafters.

“Dad!” I called. My voice splintered in the empty space.

Light passed over exposed joists, dusty pink insulation, and boxes stuffed with old holiday decorations. Then it reached the brick chimney at the far end.

For one dreadful second, everything inside me seemed to stop.

My father hung slumped against the bare brick. Black industrial ties cinched his wrists and ankles—the same kind I’d seen in Tyler’s trunk. He wore only a thin cotton undershirt and jeans. His lips were split, and his gray, drained face barely looked like his.

“Dad!” I cried, letting the tire iron fall. I slid over the plywood and dropped beside him.

His skin was shockingly cold beneath my hands. His chest moved so faintly that I could hardly tell he was breathing at all.

“Look at me, Dad. Please,” I begged, gripping his shoulder and giving it a careful shake.

His eyelids fluttered open a fraction, darkened with bruises and weighed down by whatever Tyler had made him swallow. A thin, rattling sound escaped his throat.

He was slipping away. The cold, the sedatives, and the hours without his blood-pressure medicine were doing what Brenda had intended: shutting his body down.

With numb fingers, I dragged the orange bottle from my pocket. I snapped the safety cap loose and tipped two little white pills into my palm.

“You need to take these,” I pleaded, touching them to his cracked mouth. “Come on, Dad. Swallow them for me.”

He couldn’t open his mouth on his own. His weakness was so complete that panic nearly took me under.

I glanced around the dark, freezing attic, searching for water, anything that might help. There was nothing.

I tilted his head back a little, pried his jaw open with my thumb, and set the pills as far onto his tongue as I could reach. Then I held his mouth shut and rubbed gently at his throat, trying to trigger a swallow.

At last, his throat moved. He swallowed the medicine, but he remained dangerously weak, and I had no idea how long I could keep him alive.