Something went through me sideways at that word and I did not stop on it.

There was too much arriving at once — the boys were alive, my husband was alive, the man who brought me groceries had done this — and a sentence about my daughter went past me in the dark, and I let it, and I would let it go past for another five years.

My daughter covered her mouth. I reached for her blindly, and she fell against me, shaking.

“Claire, watch Michael,” Daniel continued. “Don’t trust him. Don’t let him near Sophie alone. He’ll act sad. He’ll tell you to accept it. He’ll push the drowning story because he needs me legally dead.”

Then he held up a folder. The image blurred, but I could see a bank logo, account numbers, and a name across the top. Michael Reeves.

His voice broke. “The evidence is hidden where Ethan put his first lost tooth.”

My breath stopped. The ceramic lighthouse. A little white lighthouse Daniel had bought at a roadside shop the summer Ethan lost his first tooth. It sat on the bookshelf in our living room.

For seven years I had dusted it. For seven years, the truth had been ten feet from my couch.

The video ended with one last whisper. “If I can come back, I will. If I can’t — tell the boys I tried every day to get home.”

The screen went black.

Chapter 2 — Ten Feet from My Couch

Sophie and I sat on my bedroom floor in silence. No mother should discover her children might be alive through a dead phone and a seven-year-old secret.

No daughter should have to hand her mother a ghost and ask what it means.

Finally Sophie whispered, “Mom, are Ethan and Noah alive?”