Chapter 2 - THE SON MY MOTHER COULDN'T EXPLAIN
Kristen was alive.
For the first hour, that was the only fact I could hold onto.
She was taken to Renown Regional Medical Center with dehydration, hypothermia, bruising, and abdominal pain. Her obstetric team found the baby's heartbeat quickly, but they admitted her for observation because of her previous complications.
Tyler was pronounced dead at the scene.
The backyard became a crime scene before midnight.
My mother was separated from me almost immediately.
Detectives did not let me wander through the house collecting explanations. They photographed the shed, the lock, the chain, the kitchen, and the mud between the back door and garage.
A deputy asked me where I had been.
Denver.
Hotel receipts.
Jobsite records.
Flight confirmation showing I had returned early.
Another asked when I had last spoken with Kristen.
Monday night.
She'd sounded tired.
Not frightened.
That fact would torture me later.
At the hospital, Kristen woke shortly after two in the morning.
I wasn't allowed to question her.
A nurse let me sit beside her.
Her lips were cracked. One side of her neck carried three red scratches. A silver chain hung broken around her throat.
The teardrop pendant I'd given her on our first anniversary was missing.
When she saw me, she started crying.
“I'm sorry.”
I bent over her bed.
“For what?”
She shook her head.
“I tried to be good.”
The sentence nearly broke me.
“Kristen, none of this is your fault.”
Her eyes shut.
I wasn't entitled to say that yet.
I didn't know what had happened.
I only knew I had spent years teaching her that keeping my mother happy was part of being married to me.
Detective Marisol Vega from the Washoe County Sheriff's Office arrived near dawn.
She spoke to Kristen without me.
Then she interviewed Mom.
Afterward, Vega asked me to meet her in a consultation room.
“Your mother admits locking Kristen in the shed.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
“She says it was punishment.”
“For refusing to cook dinner.”
“Yes.”
“And Tyler?”
“That's where her story becomes less clear.”
According to Diane, she had forced Kristen into the shed Tuesday evening after an argument about dinner.
Tyler had watched.
Mom claimed she intended to leave Kristen there “for an hour or two.”
Instead, she went inside, drank wine, and fell asleep.
The next morning, Kristen was still locked inside.
“Why didn't she let her out?”
Vega asked.
I had no answer.
My mother did.
Kristen had been screaming that she would call me, police, her doctor, and anyone else who would listen.
Mom panicked.
So she kept her inside.
“And Tyler?”
“Your mother says he brought Kristen water Wednesday night.”
“Then what?”
“She says he never came back into the house.”
My pulse slowed.
“Mom didn't look for him?”
“She says she thought he went out.”
That was possible.
Tyler disappeared overnight often enough that nobody considered it unusual.
But one detail didn't fit.
The medical examiner's preliminary estimate placed Tyler's death sometime Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.
Kristen had been locked inside since Tuesday.
Whatever killed my brother happened after she was already trapped.
Vega watched me process that.
“Mr. Miller, right now your wife is a victim of unlawful confinement.”
“Right now?”
“We still have a dead man.”
I stared through the narrow window at the hospital hallway.
Then Vega said something I hadn't expected.
“Your brother has injuries on both hands.”
“What kind?”
“Fresh abrasions.”
She paused.
“And something was found in his right fist.”
My stomach tightened.
May you like
“What?”
“A silver pendant.”
