Chapter 2 - The Voice of a Dead Man
For ten full seconds, nobody moved.
Mateo’s father, Tomas Rivera, had died nineteen years earlier in a highway crash outside Cedar Ridge. Mateo had been seventeen. The casket remained closed because the body had been badly burned.
That was the story everyone knew.
Now Tomas’s voice was coming through a camera hidden inside a stuffed bear.
“Mateo,” the speaker said again.
Mateo gripped the device.
“Who is this?”
A small laugh.
“You know.”
“No.”
Elena whispered, “Turn it off.”
Mateo looked at her.
“You recognize him too.”
She backed toward the wall.
“Turn it off.”
“Is Dad alive?”
Her silence answered something, though Mateo didn’t yet know what.
The speaker crackled.
“Ask your mother what happened at Mile Marker Forty-Two.”
Elena’s knees almost gave way.
Mateo caught her elbow.
“What happened there?”
“Not in front of the children.”
That was the first sensible thing anyone had said.
Mateo carried Sofia to Nico’s room, locked the windows, and told both children they were going to play the quiet game.
“Can I have Teddy?” Sofia asked.
“No.”
Her face fell.
“Why?”
“Because Teddy needs fixing.”
Nico looked at him with an expression far too old for seven.
“Is the man bad?”
Mateo thought about lying.
Then decided everyone in his family had lied enough.
“I don’t know yet.”
He closed the door and returned to the nursery.
Elena sat on the floor.
The device had gone silent.
Mateo crouched in front of her.
“Start talking.”
She stared at her hands.
“I didn’t know the bear had a camera.”
“That is not where we start.”
“I heard the voice two weeks ago.”
“Dad’s voice?”
“I thought I imagined it.”
“What did it say?”
“Little things at first. That Sofia liked the blue cup. That Nico was hiding crackers under his pillow.”
“Things someone watching the house would know.”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“It began telling me things nobody else knew.”
“Like what?”
Elena looked at him.
“The song your father used to sing when you were sick.”
Mateo’s throat tightened.
“Recordings can be faked.”
“I know.”
“Then why obey it?”
“Because last night it told me what happened on the highway.”
He sat back.
“What happened?”
She whispered, “Your father didn’t die in that car.”
Mateo stood.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“Mateo—”
“You watched me bury him.”
“I watched you bury a sealed box.”
He stared at her.
The room felt smaller.
“Whose body was in the casket?”
“I don’t know.”
“You signed the death papers.”
“Yes.”
“You collected insurance.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe my father was dead for nineteen years.”
“Yes.”
He stepped away before anger made him cruel.
“Why?”
Elena looked at the open nursery door.
“Because he told me if I ever tried to find him, men would come for you and Gabriel.”
Mateo’s brother Gabriel lived forty miles away with his wife, Vanessa. They had barely spoken in three years after a fight over the family repair shop.
“What men?”
“I never knew.”
The front door opened.
Mateo froze.
Clara rushed in.
She wore jeans, a cream sweater, and sneakers.
Not conference clothes.
No suitcase.
No badge from the hotel.
Mateo met her in the hallway.
“You weren’t at a conference.”
She stopped.
“Elena called me earlier.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Clara looked toward the nursery.
“What happened?”
“You tell me.”
She saw the bear.
Her face changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Mateo lifted the camera.
“You knew.”
Clara closed her eyes.
“I knew something was inside.”
“For how long?”
“Three days.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I thought your mother put it there.”
Elena came into the hall.
“That’s a lie.”
Clara turned on her.
“You were talking to the bear when I walked in.”
“Because it spoke first.”
Mateo stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Clara pointed at Elena.
“She has been acting strange for weeks. Forgetting things. Standing in the kids’ rooms at night.”
Elena stared at her.
“My pills.”
Clara’s face went still.
“What about them?”
“They started looking different.”
Mateo looked from one woman to the other.
“What pills?”
“Blood pressure medication,” Elena said. “The tablets changed color.”
“Did you ask the pharmacy?”
“I asked Clara.”
Clara said, “The manufacturer changed.”
“You told me that,” Elena said. “But I called today. They said it didn’t.”
Mateo’s stomach turned.
Clara took a step back.
“Are you accusing me of switching her medication?”
“I’m saying somebody did.”
A car pulled into the driveway.
Headlights swept across the hallway.
Mateo looked through the front window.
Gabriel’s black SUV.
His brother stepped out.
Vanessa climbed from the passenger side.
Neither had been invited.
Mateo opened the door before they could knock.
“What are you doing here?”
Gabriel looked past him.
“Clara called.”
Mateo turned.
Clara shook her head.
“I didn’t.”
Vanessa smiled nervously.
“Mom called us.”
Elena appeared behind Mateo.
“No, I didn’t.”
Nobody spoke.
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“Can we come inside?”
“No.”
“Mateo.”
“No one moves until somebody tells me why everyone knows something happened here except me.”
Vanessa’s eyes flicked toward the bear.
Just once.
Mateo saw it.
So did Elena.
Mateo held up the hidden camera.
“You recognize this?”
Vanessa shook her head too fast.
“No.”
The tiny speaker crackled again.
Everyone froze.
Tomas’s voice came through.
“Vanessa.”
Her face drained white.
The voice continued.
“You should have stayed away from my grandchildren.”
Gabriel grabbed the doorframe.
“What the hell is that?”
Mateo looked at his brother.
“Dad.”
Gabriel laughed.
Then stopped when he saw Elena’s face.
“No.”
Tomas’s voice returned.
“Mile Marker Forty-Two. Midnight tomorrow.”
Then the device went dead.
Vanessa backed toward the SUV.
Mateo noticed something on her right wrist.
A small tattoo.
A circle with a line through it.
The exact same mark someone had drawn behind Sofia’s ear.
Later, Mateo would remember the way the kitchen looked while everyone argued: one cabinet door hanging open, a glass of milk warming on the counter, the children’s school drawings held to the refrigerator by plastic magnets. Ordinary life had not vanished. It had simply been surrounded by secrets.
He checked on Nico and Sofia again before returning to the adults.
Sofia was asleep.
Nico was not.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Grandma bad?”
Mateo sat on the edge of the bed.
He hated the question because children asked for categories when adults had only contradictions.
“Grandma did something dangerous tonight,” he said. “That matters.”
“But is she bad?”
“I don’t know if people fit in one word.”
Nico thought about that.
“Is the man in Teddy bad?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“You don’t know a lot.”
Mateo almost laughed.
“That is becoming clear.”
Nico looked toward the closed door.
“Grandma was crying before she took Sofia.”
“Why?”
“She kept saying she was sorry.”
“For what?”
“She said, ‘I promised I would never let Cedar touch another child.’”
Mateo went still.
“You heard the word Cedar?”
Nico nodded.
“Did Grandma say who Cedar was?”
“No. I thought it was a tree.”
Mateo kissed his forehead.
“So did I.”
When he returned to the kitchen, Elena was still staring at Vanessa’s tattoo.
Now Mateo had a new word.
Cedar.
He wrote it on a yellow legal pad.
Under it he wrote four names:
Tomas.
Elena.
Warren.
Vanessa.
Then he added a fifth.
Clara.
May you like
He hated himself for doing it.
He did it anyway.
