"Dad sent me a video the night before they left and asked me not to show you."
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"I was six, Mom. I didn't understand it. He texted me not to show it to you until 10 years had passed. I forgot the phone was even there after they vanished." Lily started crying softly. "He said you might hate him when you saw it."
She handed me the phone. I hit play and already knew I wasn't going to come out of it the same.
Ryan's face filled the screen in a video filmed in the garage.
"Anna," he said softly. "If you're seeing this, then enough time has passed that maybe you've started to move on. I'm sorry. Jack and Caleb deserve something I had no right to keep from them any longer, and by the time you watch this, I will already have taken them to their biological mother."
A broken little gasp slipped out of me. Lily's hand landed on my arm, but I barely felt it.
"He said you might hate him when you saw it."
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Ryan looked into the camera and added, "By the time you see this, you probably won't forgive me. And maybe I won't deserve that. Everything has gone beyond my control now. Tell Peanut I love her."
Then the screen went dark.
Lily was crying. "Mom? What do we do now?"
I stood up so fast that the bed frame creaked. "We'll go find out the rest."
***
The next morning, we drove about 235 miles.
Andrea, Ryan's ex-wife, answered the door. She appeared to be in her early 40s. The moment she saw me, the color drained from her face. She started to close the door.
