Chapter 6 - THE CHILD'S DRAWING
David.
Mark staggered back from the window, his mind fracturing. David was dead. Mark had identified the body. He had buried an empty casket because the remains were too damaged, but the DNA had matched. The police had confirmed it.
Yet, there he was. Standing in the freezing rain, glaring up at the exact floor where Mark was hiding.
“Dad, my shoes are tied. Can we go?” Leo’s small voice anchored Mark back to reality.
Mark turned away from the window, swallowing the bile in his throat. “Yeah, buddy. We’re going.”
He shoved the hospital bracelet, the burner phone, and the pills into his pockets. He grabbed Leo’s hand, and they slipped out of the room, hurrying down the carpeted hallway toward the back stairs. As they descended, the echoes of their footsteps seemed deafening. Mark’s brain was spinning. If David was alive, did he fake his death? Was he “T”? But the message said Thomas.
Unless the entire network—Lorena, Thomas, and David—were all in on it.
They reached the underground parking garage. Mark’s sedan was parked near the exit. He ushered Leo into the backseat, double-checking the locks before sliding behind the wheel. As the engine roared to life, Mark’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Not the burner phone. His personal phone.
He pulled it out. It was a text from Lorena.
Mark, please. If you leave the city with Leo, they will kill him. Look in the glove compartment. Look at the drawing.
Mark slammed on the brakes just before the exit ramp. He stared at the screen. A trap? Or a genuine warning?
He reached over and popped the glove compartment open. Amidst the registration papers and old napkins, there was a folded piece of construction paper. Mark pulled it out and opened it.
It was a crayon drawing done by Lily, Lorena’s six-year-old daughter—the youngest of the three children who weren't his.
It depicted a house, drawn with typical messy, childish strokes. But standing outside the house were three stick figures. One was a woman with blonde hair, crying. One was a tall man with black hair, holding a red balloon. The third figure was a boy with brown hair, but the boy's face was completely scribbled out with violent, heavy black crayon.
At the top, written in Lily’s shaky handwriting, were the words: Uncle Dave says the boy has to go away.
Mark felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck. Uncle Dave. David had been visiting Lorena's children. He had been playing the role of a secret uncle, poisoning their minds, preparing them for the day Leo would be removed from the picture.
Suddenly, a loud SMASH echoed through the concrete garage.
Mark jerked his head up. The passenger side window of the sedan spider-webbed, then shattered inward, showering the empty front seat with glass.
Standing outside the window, holding a heavy tire iron, was David.
May you like
He looked older, his face scarred and weathered, his eyes manic. “Hello, little brother,” David rasped, his voice echoing in the damp garage. “Unlock the door. Give me the kid, and I’ll let you walk away.”
Mark didn’t say a word. He shifted the car into reverse, slammed his foot on the gas, and sent the sedan hurtling backward.
