Chapter 1 - THE MAN THEY LEFT BEHIND
The Christmas I drove three hours to surprise my son, I thought the cruelest thing I was going to discover was that Marcus and his wife had gone to Italy without telling me.
By midnight, Italy barely mattered.
The house was glowing when I arrived.
Christmas tree in the front window. Garland around the staircase. Presents arranged beneath the branches with the precision Kaia brought to everything she wanted photographed.
But there was no music.
No luggage.
No voices.
Only Harold Sloan sitting alone beside the tree in his wheelchair.
A sheet of paper had been taped to the armrest.
I pulled it free.
Last-minute Italy trip. Harold needs looking after. Make sure he takes his pills. Don't let him bother you too much. — Kaia
I read it twice.
“My son actually left you here?”
Harold looked at the note.
Then at me.
“Close the curtains, Clarice.”
Something in his voice made me obey.
He was seventy-two, my daughter-in-law's stepfather, and for the last two years Kaia had described him as increasingly confused after a stroke.
Forgetful.
Unsteady.
Unable to manage basic things.
I had believed her.
Then Harold put both hands on the wheelchair arms.
And stood.
Not easily.
Not theatrically.
But steadily enough that I stepped backward.
“What—”
“Quiet.”
He walked three careful steps to the table.
My mouth went dry.
“You can walk.”
“A little.”
“Does Kaia know?”
“She knows enough.”
Before I could ask what that meant, his phone rang.
Kaia.
Harold looked at me.
Then at the clock.
10:17 p.m.
“She said she'd call tonight.”
“Why?”
“Listen.”
He lowered himself back into the wheelchair.
By the time he answered, his shoulders had collapsed and his right hand had begun trembling.
The transformation was so convincing that I felt cold.
“Hello?”
Kaia’s voice came through speakerphone.
“Did you take the pills I left?”
Harold looked at me.
“Not yet.”
Silence.
Then her voice hardened.
“Harold, we went over this.”
“I don't like how they make me feel.”
“Take them.”
“How many?”
A pause.
“All of them tonight.”
My eyes moved toward the large prescription bottle sitting beside the Christmas cards.
Harold did not touch it.
I stepped backward.
My handbag clipped a crystal glass.
It hit the hardwood and shattered.
The phone went silent.
Then Kaia whispered:
“Harold?”
Neither of us moved.
“Who else is in that house?”
Harold looked at me.
His trembling stopped.
Completely.
He pressed one finger against his lips.
Kaia repeated:
“Harold, who is there?”
He ended the call.
For several seconds, all I could hear was my own breathing.
Then he reached beneath the wheelchair cushion and removed a thick envelope.
“What is this?”
“Two years of being treated like I was too confused to notice anything.”
I stared at him.
“What exactly do you think Marcus and Kaia are doing?”
Harold's expression changed.
“I don't know yet.”
That answer frightened me more than certainty.
Then he slid the envelope across the table.
“But if they find out you arrived a day early, we may never get the chance to prove it.”
He looked toward the broken glass.
May you like
Then at me.
“Shall we begin?”
