Family
Tracie crumples and falls to the ground. My dad twists around to look at her. He bellows. He lunges at the man again.
Blam!
Blam!
A second person falls to the ground.
Only my dad is left standing.
I was turning the corner to my street when I spotted the key. Because of the way the sun was shining, it glistened. Someone had left it right in the lock of their front door.
The house was a small red brick cottage that looked a lot like ours. I walked up the front stairs and raised my finger to the doorbell. My plan was to let whoever lived there know they'd forgotten the key.
I didn't ring the doorbell. I turned the doorknob and let myself in.
Mark pulled out his phone. "Her name's Casey. She's almost four." He looked at the image on the screen for a long moment, his mouth twisted into a crooked smile. "Your half sister."
I took the phone from him and stared at the photo. A round-faced girl, smiling, with short dark hair and big eyes. My stomach was full of something much squirmier than butterflies, and my throat was getting all tight.
"Must be hard to be away from her," Mom said.
"It is," Mark said. His voice sounded funny, like he really meant it. Like he could hardly stand to be away from his precious little girl.
I sucked on my bottom lip. He'd been away from me, his other daughter, for my whole life and he hadn't cared at all.
"Mark was my firstborn son," my father says, reading the words he has written. "He was a good boy and a hard worker. His mother and I were so proud of him"
But that didn't stop someone from killing him.
It's a bundle of blankets. I pull back the top layer cautiously, and there it is. Not a raccoon or a cougar or anything that belongs in the woods.
It's a baby.
