The employee remembered Daniel buying one orange whistle for each boy. More importantly, he remembered something that had never appeared in the official investigation.
“And another adult flotation vest.”
I frowned because Daniel already owned one.
“Said his brother might meet them.”
I drove directly to Dean’s house with Daniel’s phone in my hand. The moment he opened the door and saw it, his expression changed as though I were holding something he had hoped would remain buried forever.
“You were supposed to go.”
Dean finally admitted that he had changed his mind on Sunday morning and started driving toward the lake. Before he arrived, emergency vehicles passed him on the road, and by the time he reached the area, the search operation had already begun.
For six years, Dean had attended birthdays, dinners, and school events with us while carrying that secret. When I demanded to know why he had never told me, he said he had spent every day wondering whether another adult on the boat might have changed what happened.
