Chapter 7: Walker’s Night

Cane settled Lila in the guest room and retreated to the living room without turning on a light.

He heard her moving around in there—pulling curtains, dragging a chair, and finally the soft creak of a bed frame. The light went out.

He sat in the dark for a long time.

On the table lay a worn, dog-eared case file—a photocopy he’d ground out inch by inch from the county courthouse’s old archive. Five girls’ names. He’d copied them down a hundred times in twenty years. Megan Doyle—the file used her married name, but his sister hadn’t married in twenty years; it was the police, back then, tidying the record, who’d assigned her that surname.

He fished the small brass key from his pocket and turned it between his fingers.

Megan’s nightstand drawer at the care facility. Inside it was a stack of crayon drawings he’d peeked at once—all the same sea: a small white-clothed figure standing on the rocks, no face.

Why hadn’t he spoken up twenty years ago? He’d asked himself ten thousand times. The answer was always the same: because the next day, Megan was strapped to a chair and photographed.

He heard a faint, suppressed sob from the guest room.

Lila was crying. She thought he couldn’t hear.

Cane closed his eyes. He remembered that foggy night twenty years ago, the girl on the reef looking back at him before she was pushed—not pleading for help, but pleading for him to remember.

He hadn’t remembered. He’d played mute for twenty years.

He reached out, closed the old case file on the table, and slid it into the bottom drawer.

Tomorrow. He told himself. Tomorrow, if she asks again, I’ll tell her.