All too soon, the reception disappears and I'm on my own. I have to try to remember what I saw, remember how to get through the inky black trees and potential dangers at every turn. Finally, I find myself on a path. I shine my flashlight down it and choose my direction with the shreds of confidence I'm dragging up and forcing into every step.
Deep in my heart, I keep calling out to Dean. I gather every bit of positivity, every bit of good energy I possibly can, and force it through to him. I don't know what it means. But I know he's out there. I know we're connected, and maybe he'll somehow feel it.
The path doesn't lead me directly to the campground, but around to the back to the other side of the lake and the cabins decaying there. A light glows in a boarded-up window of one of them. It's the cabin Laura pointed out, the one she stayed in every time she came to the park. Cabin 2.
I glance down at my phone, but there's no more signal. Stuffing it back in place, I make my way to the cabin. There's only one door, and I step in front of it. Usually, I would take the time to try to look in the windows or find a subtle way to get inside.
Not this time. I don't know what's on the other side of the door, but it doesn't matter. It's a risk I’m going to have to take. Grabbing onto the support beams on either side of the porch, I brace myself and kick the door, just under the doorknob, as hard as I can. It splinters and I rush inside.
The first thing I see is Laura sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room, cradling an unconscious Dean in her arms. She rocks him back and forth like a baby, looking down into his face and stroking her fingers down his cheek. Tears stream from her eyes as she sings to him.
I recognize it as the same tune she was singing on Elsie's footage, and when she was standing in the lake. I can only imagine the nights when she held Aaron in her arms and sang the same song to him.
“Laura,” I say.
She looks up at me and shakes her head.
“You can't be here,” she says. “You can't be here. You have to go.”
“I came for Dean,” I say. “You need to let him go now.”
“My son,” she whispers. “My baby. He just came home.”
“Laura, that isn't your son,” I say.
I can't play along anymore. Dean isn't moving. He isn't responding to anything around him, and I don't know how much time he has. I have to get him out of here.
"You need to go," she repeats in a desperate whisper. "Go."
"I'm not leaving without Dean."
"You have to go. Don't let him find you here."
"Who?" I ask.
“Rodney.”
A door at the back of the cabin crashes, and I turn toward it. My hand instinctively goes to my hip, but my gun is gone. The man coming into the room has fire in his eyes, and they burn into me. I square off in front of him. I didn't see his face, but I know this is the man who hit me and the one who shot Dean.
The edges of his face are different, but I can still see the boy in the pictures. This is Laura's older son. Aaron's brother.
"Don't hurt her," Laura says. "She'll leave. Just let her go."
"No, she won't. She's not just going to walk away from here and leave him," he says. "She's a cop."
“There's one thing you're right about. I'm not just going to walk away from here and leave him. But I'm not a cop. I'm FBI,” I say.
“Just go,” Laura asks desperately. “Just go.”
“I'm not going anywhere. Laura, I need you to listen to me. That is not your son.”
“Yes, it is,” she practically wails. “Stop it.”
“It's not,” I say curtly.
“Stop saying these things,” she begs.
“His name is Dean Steele. He is my cousin. Aaron is dead. He died when he was a little boy.”
“Stop it,” Laura says. “Don't say that. He's right here. My Aaron is right here.”
"No," I say, shaking my head. "Laura, I need you to listen to me. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't cause Aaron's death. It was an accident. It was horrible, and I know you miss him. But you didn't do it. It wasn't your fault. And you couldn't save him. But you can save Dean. He's alive right now. But I don't know how much longer that's going to last. He needs a doctor. He needs help. Let me take him to help.”
“He's fine,” Laura sobs.
“Then why are you crying?” I ask.
“I'm happy he's home.”
“He's not home,” I say. “Listen to me, Laura. This is not your son.”
I take a step towards them, and Rodney lunges at me. It forces me back and deeper into the dimly lit living room. He's positioned between me and the door to the cabin now. I can't get out. But from this vantage point, I notice my backpack on the side of the room. On the floor beside it is my gun. He must have tossed both of them aside without thinking.
"Stop talking to her like that," Rodney says. "He's not going anywhere. Neither of you are. We're here now. We're a family again. You aren't going to ruin that."
For the first time, I really look at his face, and I realize I've seen it more recently than in the pictures of when he was young.
"You did the project with Adrian," I say. "You made sure those pictures were captioned as having Aaron in them."
"He was," Rodney says.
"No," I say, shaking my head. "You know he wasn't."
Laura lets out a sob, and
