***
For a moment, I couldn't understand her words.
The man at the door had looked thirty.
My mother was talking about someone who would now be nearly eighty.
“That doesn't make sense,” I whispered.
She shook her head.
“No. Not the young man. I saw someone else.”
My heart began racing.
“Where?”
“In the gray sedan.”
I stared at her.
“When Daniel broke into the house, I ran toward the backyard. Before I climbed the fence, I looked through the kitchen window.”
She pressed her trembling hands together.
“There was an older man sitting in the passenger seat.”
“Richard Price?”
She nodded.
“I recognized him immediately.”
Detective Harris leaned forward.
“Why didn't you tell us?”
“Because I was afraid he'd come back.”
I looked at my mother.
Twenty-six years.
She had carried this fear for twenty-six years.
And now the man who had terrorized our family was apparently alive.
Detective Harris requested an urgent review of Richard Price's death records.
