Approaching Marcus

Julian didn't look away from the glowing screen of my laptop. The blue light cast deep, skeletal shadows across his face, making him look decades older. I could hear the sharp, rhythmic ticking of the wall clock, each second a hammer strike against the silence of my locked office.

"I need to know who else remembers," I whispered. "Evelyn Sterling is gone. My mother is gone. My brothers and Chloe are the ones who built the cage."

"There’s Marcus Finch," Julian said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. He rubbed his eyes, the rough skin of his palms catching on his stubble. "Tommy’s older brother. He runs a landscaping crew now. I see him on the high-end residential sites in the valley."

I knew the name. The Finches had moved away a year after the 'drowning,' driven out by the pity of a town that believed their son was fish food. I hadn't realized Marcus had stayed behind.

I found him the next morning at a sprawling construction site on the ridge. The air was bitingly cold, the frozen mud crunching beneath my boots as I navigated past stacks of cedar mulch and heavy machinery. Marcus was standing near a flatbed truck, shouting orders to a man in a bobcat. He was broad-shouldered, with a weathered face and eyes that looked like they hadn't seen a full night's sleep since 1998.

"Marcus Finch?" I called out, stopping ten feet away.

He turned, his expression tightening into a mask of pure, unadulterated hostility the moment he recognized me. He didn't drop the heavy clippers in his hand.

"Vance," he spat, the name sounding like a curse. "What are you doing here? I told your brother Arthur three years ago I wasn't interested in his 'charity' lawn care contract. My family doesn't take blood money."

"I'm not here for Arthur," I said, stepping closer despite the urge to bolt. I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking so badly I had to steady them with my forearm. "I'm here because I found something in my mother's house. Something that was walled off."

"I don't care about your house, Eleanor. I care about the fact that your father and his friends made sure the search for my brother ended before the first thaw." Marcus turned his back on me, his shoulders tensed like a coiled spring. "Get off my site."

"Look at the photo, Marcus," I said, my voice cracking. "Please. Just one look."

He let out a jagged, frustrated breath and swung around, his eyes burning with a mix of grief and rage. He snatched the phone from my hand, his gaze dropping to the screen.

I watched his face. The hostility didn't just fade; it vanished, replaced by a gray, hollowed-out shock. His grip on the phone tightened until I thought the glass would shatter. He stared at the green nylon, the dark starburst stains, and the specific, heavy-duty brass zipper.

The silence of the job site seemed to expand, drowning out the roar of the bobcat and the shouting of the crew. Marcus looked up at me, his eyes wet and wide with a sudden, devastating recognition.

Marcus went pale. 'Tommy had that bag the night he vanished.'