Chapter 5

Time crawled by, second after second.

Outside, the sky shifted from dusk to deep darkness.

Lights blazed throughout the police station.

I pressed my face to the window in the break room, watching the police cars come and go downstairs.

I felt so empty inside.

I had no idea when Mom and Dad would be allowed to leave.

Would we ever get to go home again?

Our home had been cold for a long time now.

The policewoman brought me a plate of steaming pasta. "Lucas, you must be hungry. Come on, eat something."

I shook my head.

I didn't feel like eating.

Images of the boy, frozen in that freezer, kept flashing through my mind.

He must have been so cold. And he must have felt so lonely.

"Miss, can I ask you something?" I looked up at her.

"Of course," she replied.

"Where do people go when they die?" I asked.

The policewoman paused, her eyes showing a hint of pity.

She crouched down and wrapped her arms around me in a gentle hug. "They turn into stars up in the sky, looking down at us."

"Has that boy become a star, too?"

"Yes, he'll be the brightest one, always looking out for you, Lucas."

My tears finally started to fall.

I didn't know how much time had passed before Edward came back.

This time, he was holding a pink diary with a bear design on the cover.

I knew that diary right away.

It was Mom's.

She always kept it locked away in the drawer of her nightstand.

She always said it was her secret garden, and no one else was allowed to see it.

Edward's expression grew more somber than before.

He opened the diary and handed it to me. "Lucas, do you recognize any of the words in here?"

Mom's handwriting was really pretty, so graceful, almost like fancy calligraphy.

But I couldn't read much of it.

I could only recognize a few easy words, like "Lucas," "Dad," and "home."

I shook my head.

Edward sighed, then pointed to a page and read it out loud, word by word.

It was a diary entry from last winter.

He read it out. "December 3rd, it's heavy snow. I argued with him again today, all because of Connor.

"I'm really losing it. Why is there suddenly someone else in this family?

"William said Connor is the only family his brother left behind, so he can't abandon him. But has he ever thought about me? About Lucas?

"Connor's eyes are exactly like his father's. Every time I look at him, it's like I'm staring right at that devil. I hate him. I really, really hate him."

Edward paused, then kept reading. "William told me to put up with it, said he'd send Connor back to his hometown after the New Year. But I can't wait one more day.

"Lucas asked me today, 'Mom, why doesn't Connor go to kindergarten? Is it because he's sick?' I didn't know what to say.

"All I could do was lock him in his room and not let him out. William said I was abusing him, and we had another huge fight.

"This whole family is about to be destroyed by that little bastard, Connor."

She pressed so hard when she wrote "little bastard" that the pen nearly tore right through the page.

It felt like an invisible hand was squeezing my heart. The pain was so intense that it was suffocating.

So, that was how my mom felt about Connor.

All those arguments were because of him.

Edward turned to a later page in the diary.

The date at the top was February 14th, Valentine's Day.

There was no long entry this time, but a single line, scrawled in red ink, the handwriting messy and almost crazed. [He's dead. He's finally dead. There's no Connor left in this world. Never again.]

Underneath, there was a huge brown stain, all dried up.

I couldn't tell what it was.

But I heard Edward say to the officer next to him, "Get this tested right away. See if it's blood."