Buried (Bone Secrets, #3)(69)

Michael focused on the hazel eyes and the bearing of the head and shoulders. Cautious. Protective. Feet apart, hands and arms ready to defend his child. A man who had spent his life looking over his shoulder and preparing for the worst. He stood motionless, assessing Michael.

Michael rubbed a hand over his eyes. And looked again. Chris still hadn’t moved. Michael took two steps and halted, scanning the man from head to toe. Movement from the truck pulled his attention, and he looked at the small, chubby face studying him through the back window of the cab. Everything in his peripheral vision vanished. He saw Brian as if looking through a tube.

He looks like Daniel. Daniel as a child. Coloring is wrong…but…

“Michael,” said the man.

Not Chris Jacobs.

The man’s hair was buzzed short, Marine length.

“Make them look like Marines,” said The Senator to the barber.

Michael’s mental picture of his hefty younger brother morphed into the lean man standing before him. He blinked.

Daniel.

“Michael,” he said again. “I know—”

Michael knew that voice. It belonged to The Senator but was coming out of this man’s mouth. He focused on the young man. “Holy shit!”

Daniel. His brother was standing in front of him. Joy and relief washed over him, and his knees shook. He took a stuttering step toward his brother, unable to take his gaze from that face.

Why didn’t he let us know he was alive?

Michael froze.

“What the f*ck, Daniel? Why the hell—why haven’t you—God damn it!” Michael’s mind spun into a swirling mass of joy and anger. He didn’t know what to feel. He strode forward, a red haze tunneling his vision. “Why in the hell did you let us think you were dead?” he spit out. He stopped three feet from Daniel, his gaze drinking him in. He didn’t know whether to hit him or hug him.

Daniel subtly shifted into a defensive posture. “I can explain.”

“No, you can’t explain! There is no f*cking reason to explain away twenty years of us wondering about you!” Michael expanded his lungs, searching for oxygen. His ears were still ringing. “Thank God, you’re okay!”

“I’m sorry, but—”

Michael made a cutting motion with his hands. “Save it! You have no idea—”

“You have no idea what my life—” Daniel leaned forward, voice rising.

“God damn you! Do you know what you’ve done to our parents? Couldn’t you have called? You forget which family you belonged to?”

“No, I’ve known—”

“Does Chris Jacobs even exist? Are both of you out here? Hiding from your families?”

“Chris didn’t make—”

“Does Jamie know you’re not Chris?”

Daniel’s shoulders slumped. “She thinks I’m Chris. I am Chris. To her. And everyone else.”

Pain shot up Michael’s spine. “Shit! I can’t find Jamie!” How could he have forgotten her for even two seconds? “I think he’s grabbed her. He’s been trying to get to you!”

Daniel straightened, his brows coming together. “What? When? I just saw you two on a news broadcast. Are you talking about the Ghostman? Who grabbed her?”

“The Ghostman? The tattooed freak?”

“Yeah, that’s him. We always called him the Ghostman because he was so f*cking white.”

“Jesus Christ. We?”

“Us kids.”

Michael pulled out his cell phone. “You have a f*cking lot of explaining to do, but right now we need the police.”

He punched Spencer’s contact and held his phone to his ear, staring at Daniel.

Daniel?

His hand touched wetness on his cheeks. He brushed at it and looked blankly at the evidence of tears on his hand. A lot of tears.

What the hell just happened?





I didn’t handle that well at all.

Chris watched Michael talk on his phone. He didn’t know what to do. When he’d seen Michael on the sidewalk as he drove through town, he’d simply reacted. He’d known he had to reveal himself to Michael and Jamie. That’s why he’d come back to town. Once he’d seen on TV that Jamie was safe, and that she’d linked up with his brother, he knew he had to make contact.

He was sick of hiding. And running.

Did the Ghostman have Jamie?

He closed his eyes. All the stress that had vanished after seeing her alive on TV came roaring back. One of his worst nightmares had just been confirmed by his brother. His brother. Chris mouthed the words. For two decades, he hadn’t let himself think or say the phrase. He’d insisted in his brain that he no longer had a brother. It was the only way he’d been able to stay sane and function in Jamie’s family. He’d had to believe he was no longer a Brody to protect them.

The Ghostman had said he’d kill Michael and his parents if they ever found out that Daniel was still alive. During his captivity, the threats had been daily. Every day in that metal hole in the ground, the Ghostman had regaled Daniel and Chris with stories about what he would do to Daniel’s family.

Daniel never understood the focus on his family. Why the obsession with his family? Why not threaten Chris’s?

When Daniel managed to escape, he took on Chris’s identity. It wasn’t hard. After two years with Chris, he knew everything about him. The only activity to do in the bunker was talk and tell stories of their families and lives. And they were both walking skeletons by the time it was over. Their eye color was similar. His hair was lighter, but hair changes color. If Chris’s parents had ever doubted that Daniel wasn’t their son, they never said a word. Sometimes you overlook inconsistencies if you want something bad enough.