Chapter 1 - The Creek Bed Discovery
The air in the clearing behind our house tasted like wet dirt, crushed leaves, and the metallic tang of approaching thunder. The crimson strobe lights of the county sheriff’s cruisers painted the tree trunks in frantic, bleeding strokes, casting long, jittery shadows across the tall grass.
I held Maisy tight against my chest. Her small body was still trembling, a fine, rhythmic shudder that refused to stop even after the paramedics wrapped her in a foil thermal blanket. Theo was in the back of the ambulance now, hooked to a pediatric oxygen mask and a saline drip, his breathing finally stabilizing from the terrifying rapid wheeze that had greeted the EMTs.
“Mrs. Miller?”
I looked up. Deputy Miller—no relation to the nightmare unfolding around us—stood over me, his notepad open, his face tight with professional gravity.
“They found him,” the deputy said quietly. “Down by the culvert near the old drainage pipe. He’s conscious, but he’s unresponsive to questioning. We need to know what happened before we bring him up here.”
My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. “My father?”
“Yes, ma'am. Curtis.”
Maisy whimpered into my collarbone, her small fingers bunching into the fabric of my scrub jacket. “Don’t let him come back, Mommy. He looked mean. He didn’t have his glasses on, and he looked right through me.”
“She was protecting her brother,” I told the deputy, my voice shaking with a cold, terrifying fury that eclipsed my exhaustion. “She sat in a boiling car while my mother abandoned them. Then my father lost his mind and terrified them so badly a seven-year-old child dragged a toddler through a thorn thicket to save his life. Where is my mother, Deputy? Where is Joanne?”
The deputy’s expression shifted, a flicker of dark hesitation crossing his eyes. “We’re searching for her vehicle now, Mrs. Miller. Her phone pinged about three miles away at a local pharmacy, but she hasn't answered dispatch.”
Before I could answer, a commotion echoed from the edge of the tree line.
Flashlights cut through the gloom. Two deputies emerged from the brush, half-supporting, half-dragging a heavy, stumbling figure between them.
It was my father.
His plaid shirt was soaked through with creek mud, his gray hair plastered to his forehead, his face pale and slack. He wasn't handcuffed, but his hands hung limply at his sides. As they guided him past the amber glow of the ambulance lights, his eyes rolled aimlessly across the scene until they landed on me.
For a fraction of a second, I saw something flicker behind his eyes—recognition, perhaps, or a sudden, sharp wave of horror. But then it vanished, replaced by that same vacant, terrifying glaze Maisy had described.
“Curtis,” I stood up, lowering Maisy gently into the arms of the paramedic, my feet carrying me across the wet grass before I even realized I was moving. “What did you do? Where were you? Where is Mom?!”
My father’s lips parted, dry and cracked. He didn't look at my eyes; he stared fixedly at the silver badge on the deputy’s chest.
“It was too hot,” my father muttered, his voice a gravelly rasp. “The glass... the glass was so hot.”
“What are you talking about?!” I screamed, lunging forward, only for a deputy to catch my arm and hold me back.
“Easy, ma'am. Let us handle him,” the officer said.
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“He left them in the car!” I sobbed, the dam finally breaking as the adrenaline gave way to raw, agonizing grief. “My mother left them in a locked car in the middle of a July heatwave, and he chased my daughter into the woods like an animal!”
Curtis didn't defend himself. He didn't blink. He just let the deputies lead him toward the squad car, mumbling incoherently about the heat and a clock that wouldn't stop ticking.
