Chapter 1
“Where’s my brother? Choose your answer carefully.”
Dahlia stopped moving on the padded seat.
Ellis remained beside the split feed bags with dry pellets scattered across his suit.
Neither answered.
I kept one hand beneath the German Shepherd’s collar.
The rectangular watch rested against my fingers.
Nolan’s.
No question.
My younger brother had worn it for eleven years. Brushed steel. Black face. A thin scar across the lower corner from the night he dropped it while helping me drag our father out of a burning garage.
There was no second one.
Archie sobbed behind me.
“Tessa.”
“I have him.”
Good.
I turned the watch over.
Something had been scratched into the metal back.
Not neatly.
One word.
RED.
My breathing slowed.
Dahlia saw it.
Her face changed.
Interesting.
“Red what?”
She swallowed.
“It means nothing.”
Ellis laughed too quickly.
“Nolan probably lost the watch.”
I looked at him.
“And a stray found it?”
He shrugged.
“Dogs pick things up.”
“Then fasten them around their own collars?”
Silence.
The dog stood calmly beside me.
No fear.
No aggression.
Its coat smelled faintly of rain, cedar, and something metallic.
Not kennel soap.
Travel.
I looked toward Archie.
“Buddy.”
He raised his head from Tessa’s shoulder.
“When did the dog come?”
Dahlia snapped:
“Don’t question him.”
I turned slowly.
She stopped.
Archie whispered:
“Truck.”
“What truck?”
“The green one.”
Ellis closed his eyes.
There.
Our estate used one green groundskeeping truck.
It ran between the main property and Red Hollow.
An old Flynn hunting lodge forty miles north.
Closed for years except occasional maintenance.
I looked at Dahlia.
“Red Hollow?”
No answer.
Then Archie said:
“Uncle was sad.”
My chest tightened.
“What?”
He pointed at the dog.
“Uncle put watch.”
The room went completely still.
“You saw Nolan?”
Archie shook his head.
“Dog video.”
Tessa looked confused.
I wasn’t.
The kennel security monitor.
There was one camera overlooking the service loading area.
I looked at Ellis.
He went pale.
My brother had not simply lost his watch.
May you like
Someone had captured footage of how it reached my estate.
And Dahlia had locked my son in a kennel before he could tell me.
