must apologize. Our reports state you were born deaf.”
“I was. I had cochlear implants done three years ago. They made me not deaf.” I almost laugh at the daftness of my reply, but the seriousness of the situation stops me from doing that. “Can you tell me what this is about? Your email was quite blasé, and when I called the number at the bottom of your message, the gentleman on the other end wasn’t overly obliging, either.”
She smiles to settle my unease. “It’s a habit of the job. The less they know, the less—”
“Likely they’ll find themselves in trouble.” When surprise crosses her pretty features, I mutter, “My dad use to say that all the time.”
Her eyes twinkle even more when she smiles. “Mine still does. Along with many more annoying odes.” When she gestures for me to sit, I do. “Would you like me to excuse Agent Moses, so we can talk girl to girl?”
I hide the gurgle of my stomach with a cough. Why would we need to talk girl to girl? Female agents usually reserve that courtesy for victims of… Oh, God, does she know my secret?
Incapable of speaking, I shake my head, acting brainless to her reasoning behind us needing privacy.
The tight knot twisted in my stomach loosens when Phillipa says, “Okay,” before she flips open the chunky file in front of her. It isn’t full of witness statements from the attendees of Joey’s summer party. It’s evidence from my family’s home invasion. “I know you were very young when this incident happened, but I’m hoping the steps your father took after it has kept it fresh in your mind.”
She speaks as if she knows about the drills my father ran Brandon and me through every weekend he wasn’t deployed.
When she requests permission to show me some photographs, I nod. “These were taken shortly after the incident. I don’t want you to look at the objects the forensic team was focused on. I want you to look deeper. Take in the background of each photo.”
I lick my dry lips before nodding again. “These are from the basement?”
“Yes,” she agrees, nodding. “How did you know that?”
I point to a bike with pink tassels in the background. “My dad put the tassels on the day before the home invasion. I loved them so much, I wouldn’t let him put the bike into the back shed. After a long-winded compromise, we agreed my bike could sleep in the basement for the night.” I stop when I choke on my last three words. The memory is a happy one, but it reveals how much my father changed only a few short hours later.
“That’s good, Melody. What about the other images? Can you spot anything familiar in them?”
I half-heartedly shrug. “I think that was the table in the foyer. I didn’t give it much attention when I was a kid. Dad always threw his keys on it.”
Phillipa points to a line of picture frames on the table I just referenced. “And the photos on the table? Do you recognize those?”
As my lips curl, I smile. “Yes.” My smile greatens when I recall my dad shoving them into the drawers of the table every time my grandma came over. My mother said she was so obnoxious, she criticized any photograph that didn’t include her.
My eyes lift from the images to Phillipa when she asks, “How old were you in those pictures?”
My nose screws up. “Around three or four? I think.”
“And these?” She pushes across a handful of photographs to reveal one of the stairwells in the old brownstone my parents sold to fund my father’s legal fight. They have similar pictures to the one of the entrance table, but they’re ten times the size. “I don’t know. Around the same age, I guess.”
“Is this not you?” Phillipa asks, tapping on an image of a baby in the far corner of the picture.
I shake my head. “No. That was a cousin of mine. I can’t recall his name…” I stop talking when shock rockets through me. When my grandma passed away years ago, I thought that was the end of my family legacy. I completely forgot about the boy in the portrait at the bottom of the stairwell. “Do you know who he is?”
My wish to be a cooperative witness flies out the window when Phillipa’s eyes shift upward and to the right before she shakes her head. She’s lying, which doubles my hostility. “What is this about? This incident occurred over