Chapter 3 - The Brother Who Had a Key
David called Tom immediately.
No answer.
Again.
Voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
Detective Morales took the phone from his hand.
“Stop calling.”
“That’s my brother.”
“And right now your brother appears to have entered your home secretly in the middle of the night.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand.”
David paced the kitchen.
Tom was thirty-seven, two years younger than him.
They had grown up fighting over bicycles, baseball cards, girls, college choices, and eventually company decisions.
But they were brothers.
When Sarah died, Tom had practically moved in.
He brought groceries.
Handled funeral arrangements.
Canceled meetings.
Sat on David’s kitchen floor at three in the morning while David cried.
“You’re not doing this alone,” Tom had said.
David remembered those words now.
They made him sick.
Morales questioned him for almost an hour.
Did Tom have keys?
Yes.
Security codes?
He used to.
Access to Sarah?
Of course.
Financial motive?
David hesitated.
Their father had left the development company equally to both sons.
But David had become CEO.
Tom hated that.
“How bad was the resentment?” Morales asked.
“Normal sibling stuff.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
David rubbed his face.
“Bad sometimes.”
Then Morales asked about Sarah.
“Did she get along with Tom?”
David opened his mouth.
Stopped.
There had been arguments.
Small ones.
Sarah would go silent whenever Tom walked into certain rooms.
Once, seven months into her pregnancy, she had told David, “Your brother doesn’t respect boundaries.”
David had laughed it off.
“He doesn’t respect anybody’s boundaries.”
Sarah hadn’t laughed.
Now guilt struck him like a fist.
Morales played more of Sarah’s recording.
“I found transfers,” Sarah said. “Shell companies connected to projects Tom approved. I asked him about one. He told me to stay out of family business.”
Her breathing sounded uneven.
“I didn’t tell David yet because he’s already fighting with Tom, and I wanted proof.”
A pause.
“Yesterday, Tom came into the nursery while I was alone.”
David’s fingers dug into the table.
“He told me accidents happen all the time during pregnancy.”
Morales stopped the recording.
David stood so suddenly his chair fell.
“I’ll kill him.”
Cole stepped between him and the door.
“No, you won’t.”
“He threatened her.”
“We need evidence, not another crime.”
David’s chest heaved.
Then the recorder continued.
Sarah’s voice softened.
“I hid copies somewhere he won’t think to look. If something happens to me, David needs to know I didn’t imagine this.”
The recording ended.
“Where are the copies?” David asked.
“We haven’t found them,” Morales said.
Cole entered from upstairs carrying an evidence bag.
Inside was a small wireless speaker.
It had been hidden behind the nursery wall.
“That explains the singing.”
David stared.
“Someone was playing Sarah’s voice for Ethan?”
“Looks that way.”
“Why?”
No one knew.
Then Dr. Mitchell, who had been sitting with Ethan, spoke from the doorway.
“Conditioning.”
Morales turned.
“What?”
“If someone repeatedly played his mother’s voice from that wall while he was upset, Ethan could learn to associate that location with her.”
David looked horrified.
“So when he said ‘Mama in there’…”
“He was telling you what he heard.”
Not a ghost.
Not imagination.
Someone had deliberately taught his child that his dead mother lived inside a wall.
David nearly vomited.
Cole’s phone rang.
He listened.
His face hardened.
“What happened?” Morales asked.
“Patrol found Tom’s SUV.”
“Where?”
“Airport parking.”
David swallowed.
“So he ran?”
Cole shook his head.
“The car’s been there for six days.”
A silence settled over the kitchen.
Then Morales asked the obvious question.
“If Tom’s car has been at the airport for six days…”
May you like
She looked toward the security image.
“…who entered this house last night?”
