Chapter 4 - The House with the Yellow Door
The rain began to fall as the black SUV pulled into the gravel driveway of the small cottage in Ballard. The neighborhood was quiet, flanked by older maritime workshops and newly constructed townhomes. The house at the end of the lane looked small, almost swallowed by overgrown blackberry bushes and wild ferns. The front door, once a bright, cheerful yellow, was now peeling and streaked with gray grime.
Desmond cut the engine. The only sound was the steady thrum of rain against the windshield.
"Keep your eyes open," Desmond said, reaching into his coat to check his service weapon. "If Haven Bridge knows Milo escaped, they’ve likely checked this place already. But a five-year-old boy who doesn't want to be found can fit into spaces grown men ignore."
Marcus stepped out into the damp air, his Italian leather shoes sinking into the muddy gravel. He walked up to the porch, his heart hammering against his ribs. He placed his hand on the doorknob; it was locked. He looked through the small glass pane beside the frame. The interior was dark, stripped of furniture, leaving only the faint silhouettes of built-in bookshelves and a stone fireplace.
"Let’s check the back," Desmond murmured, moving stealthily along the perimeter of the house.
Marcus followed him, his eyes scanning the overgrown grass. Near the base of the back porch, he noticed something that made him halt. The wild ferns had been trampled down. Not by heavy boots, but by something small. A few inches away, half-buried in the mud, lay a small blue plastic toy truck, its wheels encrusted with dirt.
"Desmond," Marcus called out, his voice a tense whisper.
The detective crouched down beside him, examining the toy. "Fresh mud on the plastic. It hasn't been out here for four months. Someone dropped this recently."
Marcus didn't wait. He stepped onto the low wooden back porch and threw his shoulder against the rotting frame of the kitchen door. The wood splintered with a sharp crack, and the door swung inward into the musty darkness of the cottage.
The air inside smelled of old dust, damp drywall, and a faint lingering trace of lavender—the scent Iris had always used in her linen sprays. Marcus walked into the kitchen, his flashlight beam cutting through the shadows. The counters were bare, but on the floor near the pantry, there was a small pile of discarded wrappers. Cracker packs, half-eaten apples from a neighbor's tree, and a small, dirty fleece blanket.
"He was here," Marcus said, his voice thick with emotion. "He’s been hiding here."
"Milo!" Marcus called out into the dark house, his voice echoing off the bare walls. "Milo, it's okay. Your sister sent me. Wren sent me!"
A faint rustling sound came from above them.
Desmond pointed his flashlight toward the ceiling. A narrow wooden ladder led to a small loft space above the living room—the kind of crawl space used for storage or a child’s secret playroom.
Marcus moved past the detective, his long legs taking two rungs of the ladder at a time. As his head cleared the floorboards of the loft, the beam of his flashlight caught a tiny figure huddled in the farthest corner, wedged behind an old stack of cardboard boxes.
The boy was small, wearing an oversized red raincoat that was covered in soot and mud. He had his knees pulled tightly to his chest, his face buried in his arms, his entire body trembling like a leaf in a storm.
"Milo," Marcus said gently, keeping his flashlight pointed at the floor so as not to blind him. He pulled himself up into the small space, sitting cross-legged on the dusty floorboards. "Hey there, little man."
The boy slowly lifted his head. When the light caught his face, Marcus felt a physical ache in his chest. Milo didn't have Iris’s eyes; he had Marcus’s. The same dark, stubborn brow, the same square jaw line, the same intense, searching gaze. He was a miniature version of the man Marcus had been before the corporate world had hardened him.
"Are you the bad man?" Milo asked, his voice tiny, raspy with exhaustion and thirst. "The man from the bridge?"
"No," Marcus said, his voice breaking as he reached out, leaving his hand open on the floorboards between them, a silent invitation. "My name is Marcus. I’m a friend of your mom’s. And I just found your sister, Wren. She’s safe, Milo. She’s waiting for you."
Milo’s eyes widened, a flicker of hope cutting through the terror in his gaze. "Wren? You found her? They said they were gonna put her on an airplane. They said I’d never see her again."
"No one is putting either of you on an airplane," Marcus said fiercely, moving closer and gently scooping the small boy into his arms. Milo didn't fight him. He collapsed into Marcus’s chest, his small fists gripping the lapels of Marcus’s damp wool coat, crying silently as the weight of his three-day ordeal finally broke through his defenses.
May you like
Marcus held his son tightly, his tears finally slipping down his face as he buried his nose in the boy’s damp, dark hair. He had built an empire of concrete and capital, but holding his son in the dusty loft of a abandoned house, Marcus knew he had never been truly rich until this exact moment.
"I’ve got you," Marcus whispered into the darkness. "I’ve got you now."
