Chapter 11 - The Blood on the Stairs
My son’s name turned every other mystery into background noise.
I read the page twice.
Then a third time.
“No.”
Vanessa took it from me.
Her hands began shaking.
The document authorized behavioral testing on a minor in the event “adult candidate C-01 proved unstable.”
I was C-01.
Noah was backup.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
“I would never sign this.”
“You didn’t know,” Hale said.
“I signed it.”
“You were impaired.”
“My name is still there.”
Noah stood very still.
“What kind of testing?”
“No kind,” I said.
Hale looked at me.
I repeated it.
“No kind. Not now. Not ever.”
Then Lily called from the staircase.
“Daddy?”
She was pointing at the wall.
A dark stain had appeared where old wallpaper had peeled near the bottom step.
Blood.
Not fresh.
Vanessa whispered, “That wasn’t there before.”
Hale knelt and touched the edge.
“It was painted over.”
We pulled back the wallpaper.
More blood.
A handprint.
Small.
Claire’s.
My memory came in flashes.
Claire yelling.
The fake voice of my father.
My hand signing papers.
Claire grabbing me.
A shadow behind her.
Then Claire falling.
Not pushed by me.
Pulled.
I pressed both hands against my head.
“I remember someone behind her.”
“Who?” Vanessa asked.
“I don’t know.”
Noah spoke.
“I do.”
We looked at him.
He pointed at Hale.
“Your ring.”
Hale looked down.
He wore an old college ring with a square black stone.
Noah pointed to a scratch in the wooden banister.
A tiny black chip was embedded in it.
The same color as Hale’s ring.
Hale stared at the banister.
Then at us.
“I wasn’t here that night.”
Vanessa backed away from him.
Hale’s phone buzzed.
A message appeared.
A photograph of Marcus Hale standing on the staircase thirteen months earlier.
Behind him, Claire lay bleeding.
The sender wrote one sentence.
TELL THEM WHY YOU LEFT HER THERE.
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