Sophia’s.
I had given it to her on our fifth anniversary.
There was a tiny scratch beside the clasp where she once caught it on our backyard gate.
“Where did you get that?”
“Behind your house.”
“When?”
“The night she was taken to the hospital.”
“Why were you there?”
“There’s an abandoned detached garage behind the property next to yours. I sleep there sometimes.”
Then Samuel said:
“I heard Sophia screaming.”
I felt sick.
“Did you see who came out?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Samuel looked past me.
His face changed.
I turned.
Richard had just stepped out of the elevator.
The second Sophia’s father saw Samuel standing beside me, every bit of color disappeared from his face.
Samuel leaned close.
“That’s the man who told police she was found in the alley.”
Richard froze.
I looked at him.
Then back at Samuel.
I had never asked Richard who had found Sophia.
Before I could say another word, Samuel pulled an old phone from his pocket.
“I took pictures that night.”
And when the first photograph appeared on the cracked screen, I realized Richard’s lie was only the beginning.
THE MAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Richard started walking toward us.
Fast.
“Ethan, don’t listen to him.”
Samuel immediately stepped closer to the wall.
I looked at my father-in-law.
“You know him?”
Richard ignored the question.
“He doesn’t know what he saw.”
Samuel held up his phone.
“I know exactly what I saw.”
The photograph had been taken from behind a fence.
A dark SUV was parked behind my house.
The timestamp read 12:17 a.m.
Richard stood beside the vehicle.
Someone else was near our back door.
His face was turned away.
But I recognized the jacket.
Brown canvas.
Dark collar.
Sophia had bought it the previous Christmas for her older brother.
Marcus Carter.
My stomach dropped.
“Show me the next one.”
