‘Hello?’ I called out timidly. But I was met with complete silence. I exhaled. For now, it seemed I was alone.

I beelined through a door right off the kitchen and found a small room with just two wooden chairs, a cot and an end table. Dust covered all the surfaces. It appeared to be an unused room, maybe a den or guest room, but too small to be considered a true bedroom. I rushed out and checked a door on the other side of the living room. I pushed it open, bracing myself for some important reveal. It was a bedroom, the bed neatly made with tightly tucked corners, an off-white crocheted blanket folded over at the bottom. When I ran my finger along the dresser, dust came up on my fingertip. I couldn’t imagine Cris letting dust collect on any surface but maybe he’d spent less time here now that the FBI was closing in. On the nightstand was a newspaper dated from almost two months ago. Underneath the paper were several sports magazines. The address labels read Frank Dominio and carried a different Connecticut address than Cris and Rosie’s house. Were Frank and Cris in on it together? The women were taken in pairs after that first victim. Cris must have been his partner, carrying on alone now that Frank was gone.

After frantically looking around the nightstand and dresser and finding nothing else of interest, I turned and just before I was about to exit the room, I noticed that there was a small, dust-free square on top of the dresser. Crouching down, I looked under the dresser and found nothing. I reached around the side and felt around blindly. My hand came into contact with a small piece of slick paper. It was a photograph. When I pulled it up I froze. A wave of nausea rolled over me, the hair standing on the back of my neck as goosebumps spread along my arms. Oh God, Cris really was manipulating me this whole time! Finally, concrete proof of his deception. There in the photo was my great grandfather, Rodrigo, several years older than in the black and white photo I’d seen in the box. He was again in front of the cabin with his arm around Frank at about age ten or eleven. His other hand was placed on the shoulder of a smaller boy, about age five or six. That had to be Cris. Having my suspicions confirmed heightened my anxiety about Cris following me up here. My hand shook as I shoved the photo in the back pocket of my jeans.