The hospital called me before midnight — but my mother's reaction told me the truth was far worse than the news.

The next morning Marsh came back with two federal agents, and that was when I understood the nightmare had grown teeth.

They introduced themselves as Agent Ruiz and Agent Danner. They were polite and precise and far too serious. They asked me about Daniel's military contacts, his money, his friends, his relatives, his schedule in the weeks before he shipped out.

Then Agent Ruiz laid a photograph on the table between us. "Do you recognize this?"

It was a red door. Not a house door — not exactly. A metal door, rusted along the bottom edge, painted a deep, ugly red. There were long scratch marks gouged around the handle.

"No," I said.

She set down a second photo beside it. This one showed the inside of my mother's shed. The floorboards had been pried up. Underneath was a narrow staircase dropping down into the dark.

At the bottom of the stairs was the red door.

My hands started to shake. "That was under the shed?"

"Yes," Ruiz said.

"How long has it been there?"

"We don't know."

I thought about Ethan at four years old, tugging on my sleeve during a Sunday cookout in my mother's backyard.

Mommy, the little house is crying.

I'd looked over at the shed and seen nothing but peeling paint, a padlock, and weeds growing up around the base. My mother had heard him and said sharply, "Stop making up ugly stories." I'd laughed it off, told Ethan to stay away from it, and then I'd forgotten all about it.

Kids tell strange stories all the time. That's what we tell ourselves when the truth would cost us too much.

Agent Danner opened a folder. "Your mother inherited that property from your grandfather, is that right?"

"Yes."

"Were you aware your grandfather ran a private appliance-repair business out of that shed back in the eighties?"

"I knew he fixed things. I barely remember him."

"Were you aware he was questioned in connection with two disappearances?"

My lips parted. "No."

"Never charged," Danner said. "But questioned."

The room seemed to close in around me. My grandfather had died when I was nine. What I remembered of him was his hands, always stained dark with oil. The peppermints he kept in his pocket. A laugh that was somehow too big for whatever room he was in. And my mother at his funeral, crying without any tears on her face.

"How far back does this go?" I whispered.

Ruiz looked at me with something close to pity. "We're still trying to figure that out."

I pushed the photos away from me. "Ethan said Daniel was down there."

"We believe Daniel used the property recently," Marsh said. "And we've found evidence your mother knew he was back in Houston."

"Why hurt Ethan?" I said. "Why him?"