Chapter 1 - The Ghost from the Ashes
The name hung in the cold air between us, freezing the blood in my veins.
Gabriel.
I had not spoken my older brother's name since the night our family estate burned to the ground twenty years ago.
The official police report stated that Gabriel perished in that tragic inferno.
I had spent my entire adult life carrying the crushing guilt of surviving while he died.
Slowly, I turned my wheelchair to look at my housekeeper, Rebecca.
The broom had completely slipped from her trembling hands and crashed onto the patio.
All the color had vanished from her face, leaving her looking like she had just seen a ghost.
"Rebecca," I whispered, my voice shaking with an emotion I could not quite identify.
"How does your six-year-old son know the name of my dead brother?"
She did not answer my question.
Instead, she lunged forward, grabbed Sammy by his tiny arm, and dragged him toward the mansion.
"We are leaving right now," Rebecca cried out frantically.
"Stop right there!" I yelled, pushing the wheels of my chair with all my remaining upper body strength.
My tires spun against the damp grass, desperately trying to gain traction.
I finally reached the smooth concrete of the patio and rolled into the house just in time to see the servant's door slamming shut.
I propelled myself down the hallway, ignoring the burning ache in my shoulders.
When I threw open the door to Rebecca's quarters, the room was completely empty.
The window was wide open, and the curtains were blowing wildly in the Chicago wind.
They had vanished into the dense woods behind my property.
I wheeled myself closer to her unmade bed, feeling a sudden, terrifying suspicion washing over me.
My eyes locked onto a loose wooden floorboard jutting out near the nightstand.
I leaned down from my wheelchair, gritting my teeth as I pried the heavy board away with my bare hands.
Beneath the floor, hidden in the darkness, was a rusted metal lockbox.
I smashed the lock with a heavy brass lamp from the bedside table and threw the lid open.
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Inside the box lay the exact severed brake line from the car crash that had paralyzed me six months ago.
And resting right on top of the cut metal was a recent, crystal-clear photograph of my brother Gabriel, alive and smiling.
