He bounced on to the pavement with a jolt that threatened to throw him through the front window. As he got out of the car and drew his weapon what Gabriel had said spun around and around his head. The threat and the comments, words and phrases delivered as inside jokes that Gabriel seemed to assume Chandler would get. As if he should know Gabriel, or Gabriel know him. Sly remarks about Chandler not caring about the victims and moving on after the cases were over.

You’re a family man, policeman – not a grief counsellor, aren’t you?

Plus he knew that Mitch used to be Chandler’s partner. How? Had he overheard something in the station? Or was it that obvious? Or did he just know? He couldn’t be someone they had arrested. Chandler knew this from the date of birth on the orphanage records. Gabriel was too young to have been one of theirs, back when he and Mitch had worked together. Perhaps Gabriel had lied about his age to match Heath’s – to help his story fit Heath’s. There also existed the possibility that Gabriel was someone that Mitch had wronged down in Perth – but then why bring that up here and involve Chandler and his family, if his grudge was solely against Mitch?

Reaching the front window, he peeked inside. The light was on but his dad wasn’t on guard. The room was empty, the TV off, the piano in the corner unused. Everything looked normal. His hopes grew that Gabriel hadn’t been here after all and the phone call, all of it, had been nothing more than a sick joke played by a sick bastard, leading them – especially him – around for kicks. Hope, however, was an emotion easily extinguished and fear rose to encompass the whole of Chandler’s being as he opened the front door and slipped inside.

The living room was indeed empty, his heavy footsteps echoing on the wooden floor. The desperation to see his kids, to see them alive, swelled in his heart but he resisted calling out and giving Gabriel forewarning that he was here.

With his gun drawn, Chandler crept to the edge of the kitchen. Thoughts of the worst possible kind began to fill his imagination, visions of blood and agony, of savage terror. Still he could see no sign of a struggle, no signs of blood or splattered bloodstains, no awful groan of the mortally wounded. Another thought forced its way in. What if no one was here? Could he take that as a good sign or not?