I drove to my late wife’s mountain house to say goodbye to the life we had lost. Instead, I found two abandoned twin girls standing on the porch,

Mercer. Their mother, Mara’s younger sister Vanessa, had left them there three nights earlier.

“She said it was a game,” Lily told me through chattering teeth. “She said we had to find Aunt Mara’s treasure before she came back.”

“And if you didn’t?”

Rose stared at the bread in her fist. “No food.”

My grief turned icy inside me.

Vanessa had ridiculed me continue reading …