The place had a chaotic feel. It wouldn’t be a comfortable place to live. Or grow up. He wondered if it had always been this way.

“Let’s talk in the kitchen.”

The kitchen was a sunny room. Less cluttered. A couple cups in the sink, plants in need of watering. A newspaper open on the counter.

She saw his gaze. “I left it where I found it.”

He nodded and crossed to it. The San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area/State News. Short piece. His name and numbered circled.

“I tried her back several times,” he said, “it just rang.”

“Mom didn’t believe in answering machines. Can I get you anything? Water, coffee?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

She poured herself a cup of coffee and carried it over to the café-style table. They sat, facing each other. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “I have so many questions.”

“Actually, that’s my job.” She smiled. He went on, “I’m sorry about your mom.”

The pain was fresh; tears flooded her eyes. To her credit, they didn’t spill over. “Thank you.”

“I spoke with Investigator Hwang. He said your mother had a history of mood swings and had previously attempted to take her own life.”

“Yes. She was… troubled. When you knew her, what was she like?”

“I was only ten.”

“You must have some recollection of her.”

He thought a moment. “She was kind. Gentle. She seemed happy.”

The tears welled again, this time spilling over. She wiped impatiently at them. “You say I was five when we left Sonoma. Was I happy?”

“You seemed to be. You were a pistol, always into everything. A chatterbox. You used to drive Rachel crazy, the way you followed her around.”

“Rachel?”

“Your stepsister, Alex.” He said it gently, giving her a moment to digest the information, then leaned forward. “Alex, your mother called me the same day she took her life. She said she had information about the baby from the news story. Do you have any idea what that information may have been?”

A bitter sound slipped past her lips. “Actually, I was hoping you could tell me that.”

He studied her a moment, looking for a trace of deception. “I think she was wondering if the baby we found was Dylan.”

He saw her stiffen slightly. Saw the combination of fear and curiosity race into her eyes. “Dylan?” she asked, voice shaking.

In that moment, he wondered if she could be playing him, then rejected the thought. She really didn’t know.

“Your brother,” he said softly. “Dylan Sommer was your baby brother, Alex.”

Thursday, February 18

11:00 A.M.

Nothing he could have said would have rocked her more. She simply stared at him, unable to find her voice.

“Actually, Dylan was your half brother. I’m sorry.”

A half brother. She’d had a half brother and a family in Sonoma. How could she not remember? People couldn’t just forget things like that, could they?

The detective was looking at her strangely, as if she was some sort of freak for not knowing these things. She didn’t blame him; she felt like one.

“Tell me about him,” she managed, voice small and choked.

“He was abducted from his bed. Your mom and Harlan had left you with his fifteen-year-old daughter.”

“Rachel?”

He nodded. “Nobody knows for sure what happened. Someone entered the house and took Dylan. No ransom demand arrived, and he was never found. Your mother’s marriage ended. She took you and left.”

Alex clasped her hands together, imagining her mother’s anguish. What would it be like to lose a child that way? To never know what happened, if he was alive or dead. If he had suffered and cried out for her.

“She never told you any of this?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Mother was always… secretive. I always wondered why. I always thought…” She let the words trail off.

He picked them up. “Always thought what?”

She met his gaze. “That she was hiding something. But I never imagined it was something like… this.”

“And you have no recollection of your time in Sonoma or your brother?”

Alex shook her head again. How was it possible she had blocked it all out? “Do you have any photographs of him? Or any of my stepfamily?”

“My parents do. Harlan does.” He cleared his throat. “I hate to ask, but could I have a look around? I’m hoping whatever your mom wanted to tell me didn’t die with her.”

Alex followed while he searched. They didn’t speak, and truth be told, she was there in body only, her thoughts on the things he’d said, sorting through the way she felt about them.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any help,” she said, when he had finished and come up empty-handed.

“Here’s my card. If you think of anything, some comment your mother made, anything at all, call me.”

“I will.” She walked him to the door. “You’ll let me know if that baby turns out to be my brother?”

“Of course.” He held out a hand. “It was nice seeing you again, Alex.”

She took it. “You, too, Dan.”

“Call me Reed. Everybody does these days.”

A moment later he was across the porch and down the front steps, heading to his car. She watched as he climbed in and drove away. For a long time after he had gone, she wandered the house, thoughts whirling.

Anger and betrayal rose up inside her. She’d had a brother. A stepfather and stepsister. Her mother had kept them from her. Why?

If only she’d picked up that last call. Her mother had been ready to tell her everything. From her own lips, with explanations.

Now, she would never know why.

Fury took her breath. She wanted to scream, strike out at someone or something, kick and wail. How could her mother have done this? This was her history, her family. Whatever had occured had happened to her as well.

Of course. She started to pace. Something missing, she’d always felt that way. As if she had an empty place inside her that she’d kept trying to fill up.

A place that had once held a brother she loved-and who had been stolen from her.

Literally. And figuratively.

How had her mother managed to keep his existence hidden from her all these years-

Hidden.

Photographs. Mementos, official records. Dylan had been her child, she wouldn’t have destroyed all that remained of him. She couldn’t have done it, even in her deepest despair.

Alex moved her gaze over the room. If she had kept a box of mementos, where would she have hidden it? Here in the house, no doubt. A place she could easily access, but Alex didn’t frequent.

Or wasn’t allowed.

Her mother’s bedroom. Of course.

Alex ran up the stairs. Like the rest of the house, her mother’s bedroom had become part art studio. She picked her way around drawings in progress, laid out on the floor, crossing to the dresser. Beginning with the top drawer, she rifled through them, tossing the contents into a heap on the floor.

Nada. Nothing.

Undeterred, Alex moved on to her mother’s closet, then bathroom, the vanity drawers, tearing them apart. From there she moved from one room to another, until she had searched every drawer, closet and compartment.

Still she came up empty.

Her mother destroyed her art, why not all physical remnants of her son? The thought planted and Alex stopped, heart racing. No. She refused to believe that. Somewhere in this house her mother had stashed a record of her son’s short life.

The attic, she thought. The only place left.

She made her way there, pulled down the attic steps, then climbed them, cold air swirling around her as she ascended. When she reached the top, she yanked the cord attached to the single lightbulb.

Weak light illuminated a lifetime of stored stuff. Brown cardboard boxes, dozens of them, stacked one on top of the other. A cry rose in her throat. Where did she start? It would take her days to go through every box.