CHAPTER 2 — THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
The ambulance doors slammed shut, cutting off the sight of my childhood home.
But they couldn’t cut off the image of the elderly man standing behind the living-room curtain.
His frightened eyes.
His trembling hand pressed against the glass.
The way the curtain had been pulled closed from behind him.
Someone else had been in that house.
Someone my family clearly didn’t want me to see.
“Sadie, stay with me.”
Wyatt’s voice sounded distant, even though he was sitting only inches away. His shirt was torn at the shoulder from fighting with my father. Thin scratches covered his neck, and one side of his jaw was already swelling.
He held my hand with both of his.
“I’m here,” he said. “You’re safe.”
I wanted to believe him.
But the left side of my face felt as though it had been split open. Every bump in the road sent a fresh blade of pain behind my eye. The paramedic beside me kept asking questions.
“What’s your full name?”
“Sadie Davis.”
“Do you know what day it is?”
“Friday.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“In an ambulance.”
“Good. Keep talking to me.”
I swallowed hard.
“There was a man in the window.”
The paramedic glanced at Wyatt.
“What man?”
“Inside my parents’ house.”
Wyatt leaned closer.
“What did he look like?”
“Old. Gray hair. Thin. I’ve never seen him before.”
The paramedic continued checking my pupils, but Wyatt’s expression changed. His anger sharpened into something colder.
“Did he look hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he asking for help?”
“I think so.”
The paramedic told me not to strain myself. He said the police would handle whatever had happened at the house.
But when we reached Riverside Methodist Hospital, the first two officers who met us were already acting as if the case were simple.
Family argument.
Assault during an emotional disagreement.
One person injured.
They took Wyatt’s statement in the hallway while the doctors rushed me for scans.
The brick had fractured my left orbital bone, split my eyebrow, and damaged the nerves surrounding my eye. The ophthalmologist explained that swelling was preventing them from knowing whether my vision would return fully.
He used careful words.
“Possible permanent impairment.”
“Potential reconstructive surgery.”
“Risk of retinal damage.”
I stared at the ceiling while he spoke.
All I could hear was my mother’s voice.
Let’s see if Wyatt still loves you with that face.
Wyatt stayed beside my bed long after midnight.
He never looked away from me.
Not when a nurse cleaned the blood from my hair.
Not when the surgeon explained that my face might never look exactly the same.
Not when I finally whispered, “You don’t have to stay.”
His expression hardened.
“Don’t ever say that again.”
I turned my good eye toward him.
“My mother might have been right.”
“Your mother is a monster.”
“She said—”
“I heard what she said.”
He stood, leaned over the bed, and carefully placed his hand against the uninjured side of my face.
“I loved you before tonight. I love you now. And I’ll love you after every surgery, every scar, and every bad day that follows. They don’t get to decide what you’re worth.”
My throat tightened.
For the first time since the brick struck me, I cried.
Wyatt rested his forehead against mine.
“I’m going to make sure they never touch you again.”
At three in the morning, Detective Elena Morales entered my room.
She was in her forties, with sharp brown eyes and a calm voice that made it impossible to tell what she was thinking.
She introduced herself and sat beside the bed.
“I’ve spoken to the responding officers,” she said. “Your father claims the brick slipped from his hand while he was repairing a garden border.”
Wyatt let out a bitter laugh.
“He threw it at her face.”
“Your mother claims Ms. Davis fell during the disagreement.”
“She laughed while Sadie was bleeding.”
Detective Morales looked at me.
“Your sister says Mr. Campbell started the physical confrontation.”
“My father kicked his phone away when he tried to call 911,” I said.
“The electrician confirmed that part. He also recorded approximately ninety seconds of the scene after he arrived.”
Hope flickered inside me.
“There’s video?”
“Yes.”
“Then arrest them.”
“We arrested your father for felonious assault and obstruction of emergency services. Your mother and sister were detained for questioning but released.”
Wyatt stared at her.
“Released?”
“For now.”
“They helped plan it.”
“That may be true, but I need evidence.”
I remembered the man again.
“There was someone else inside.”
Detective Morales leaned forward.
I described him carefully.
Gray hair.
Pale face.
Dark cardigan.
One hand on the window.
The detective wrote everything down.
“Your parents told officers there was no one else in the house.”
“They’re lying.”
“Would that surprise you?”
“No.”
Morales closed her notebook.
“We searched the main floor. No one was there.”
“What about upstairs?”
“Clear.”
“The basement?”
A pause.
“The basement door was locked.”
Wyatt stood.
“And you didn’t open it?”
“The house belongs to your parents. Without a warrant or evidence of immediate danger, officers were limited.”
“He was standing in the window asking for help.”
“That may be enough to obtain a warrant, especially if we can identify him.”
I tried to remember more.
Then something came back to me.
The man hadn’t just placed his hand against the glass.
There had been something written on his palm.
At the time, I’d thought it was a shadow.
Now I could see the letters.
Three uneven black marks.
“E-L-I,” I whispered.
“What?” Wyatt asked.
“He had writing on his hand. I think it said ELI.”
Detective Morales stopped writing.
“Are you certain?”
“No. But I think so.”
The detective looked toward the door, then back at me.
“Does the name Elias Davis mean anything to you?”
My heart skipped.
“No.”
“Elias was your father’s older brother.”
I stared at her.
“My father doesn’t have a brother.”
“According to public records, he does.”
Wyatt moved closer to the bed.
“What happened to him?”
Morales studied me before answering.
“Elias Davis disappeared twenty-nine years ago.”
The room went silent.
I had been told my father was an only child.
My whole life.
No brother.
No uncle.
No missing relative.
“What do the records say?” I asked.
“He was reported missing by a coworker. Your grandparents were already deceased. Your father told investigators Elias had struggled with mental illness and wandered away voluntarily.”
“Was he ever found?”
“No.”
I thought about the man’s hollow cheeks and terrified eyes.
“He’s alive.”
“We don’t know that.”
“That man was my uncle.”
Wyatt looked at the detective.
“Get the warrant.”
Morales stood.
“I’ve already requested one.”
Before she reached the door, her phone rang.
She answered, listened for several seconds, and turned toward us.
Her face had changed.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The officers assigned to watch your parents’ house reported smoke coming from the rear of the property.”
Wyatt’s fingers tightened around the bed rail.
“They’re burning something.”
Detective Morales was already moving.
“We have fire crews on the way.”
“What about the man?”
She didn’t answer.
The door swung shut behind her.
For the next forty minutes, Wyatt and I waited without speaking.
At 3:47 a.m., Morales returned.
Her jacket smelled faintly of smoke.
“The fire started in a storage room attached to the basement,” she said.
“Was anyone inside?”
“We found evidence that someone had been living there.”
My breath caught.
“A mattress. Food containers. Medication. Restraints.”
Wyatt looked sick.
“And the man?”
Morales stepped closer.
“We didn’t find him.”
“Then where is he?”
“We found blood near the basement stairs and tire tracks behind the house. Your mother’s SUV is gone.”
“My mother left the hospital?”
“She was released two hours ago. Your sister left with her.”
I tried to sit up, and pain exploded through my face.
“They took him.”
Morales nodded grimly.
“We believe so.”
My father had attacked me.
My mother and sister had helped him.
But the brick was no longer the most terrifying secret in that house.
My family had been hiding a missing man in their basement.
And now they were running with him.
Detective Morales placed a clear evidence bag on the table beside my bed.
Inside was a small photograph recovered from the burned room.
The edges were blackened, but the image remained visible.
Two young men stood beside a pickup truck.
One was unmistakably my father.
The other was the elderly man from the window, only decades younger.
On the back, written in faded blue ink, were seven words:
Gregory, you can’t steal what belongs to me.
May you like
And beneath that sentence was a date.
The exact day Elias Davis disappeared.
