I touched my cheek, the scar as much a part of me as the nose on my face. “That’s not what this was about.”

“Like hell. He split your face open with a rusty nail. That should never have happened.”

“I didn’t see it coming. I couldn’t have stopped him.”

“It shouldn’t have happened,” Doug said, “because Abe was supposed to be gone.”

When he was little, Doug developed a tell that allowed my parents to measure the potential force of his tantrums. There was a spot on the back of his neck that flushed when he started to freak out. Salmon-pink was manageable. Fruit punch meant trouble. I could see the spot now, at the base of his hairline. It was fire engine red.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said. “Doug?”

He’d reached the peak of his anger and was coming down the other side. My brother looked at me for a long time before he said, “With Brett. Abe was supposed to leave with Brett.”

“We know,” I said, glancing at Tim. “Crissy told us. Brett was going to take the kids with him to Philadelphia, only Felicia found out.”

“That didn’t matter. Brett never showed up at the meeting place. He intentionally left them behind.”

That’s what Crissy had said, too. Except . . . “How would you know that?”

“I was there.”

“Where, Doug? With Crissy? At the last place Brett was seen alive?” I stared him down, challenging him to come up with an excuse, any excuse, for such an egregious omission. Doug’s jaw shifted. What my brother was about to divulge, he’d kept hidden for more than half my life.

“Brett told me he was planning on leaving with the kids,” Doug said. “He needed help. I said I’d pick up Crissy and Abe and drive them out to where he was.”

“To the boat launch?” Tim said. “Crissy told us she walked it.”

“No. I drove her.”

Something wasn’t adding up. Doug knew things weren’t right at the Skiltons, but he’d never shown any interest in getting involved. “Since when was Brett in the habit of calling you for favors?”

“He wasn’t. I offered. You were too young,” Doug said. “You didn’t get it. Felicia was a disaster, Crissy was in a tailspin, and Abe . . .” He shook his head. “I didn’t like the way he was with you. I didn’t trust him, not ever.”

Doug and I didn’t get close until after Abe left town. I’d always assumed that up until my injury, I was alone in the knowledge that Abe was unstable. That wasn’t the case, though. Doug had seen it, too.

My head swam. I didn’t trust myself to formulate the questions that needed asking. I felt Tim’s eyes pass over me before settling on Doug.

“Start at the beginning,” Tim said. He took out his notebook, and the conversation shifted from a chat over lunch to a witness interview.

Doug took his time recounting what he knew. Well after midnight, when we’d long since gotten home from the movie, Doug went to Crissy’s house. He expected to find both cousins ready to go. Instead, he found only her.