What Happened When I Triggered the Alert on That Account
The next morning I went back to the bank and spoke with the branch manager. I told him I wanted to initiate account closure proceedings.
He looked up from the paperwork. “That may trigger immediate alerts to anyone currently using it.”
“Good,” I said.
He studied me for a moment, then nodded and began processing the paperwork.
Three days later, there was a knock at the front door.
I had been in the kitchen when I heard it. I walked to the door knowing, somehow, before I opened it. The body knows things sometimes before the mind catches up.
The man on my porch looked older than I remembered. Smaller, somehow, in the way that people sometimes look when you see them after a long separation and the image you’ve been carrying was from a different time. But it was Daniel. Unmistakably. And Laura stood half a step behind him, thinner than the woman I remembered, her eyes moving and restless.
“So it’s true,” I said. “You’re alive.”
Behind me, all seven of them had gathered without my asking. I felt them before I heard them — that particular presence that a group of people creates when they are holding very, very still.
Daniel’s eyes moved past me. When he saw them, his face changed.
Aaron stepped forward from somewhere behind my shoulder.
“Where have you been?” His voice was controlled in the way that takes a great deal of effort to maintain. “Why did you leave us? We found the box. The money, the documents.”
Daniel and Laura looked at each other. The way couples look at each other when they need to decide something quickly.
