My steps stopped.
A family?
Marcus had never married.
No children.
His parents lived out of state.
His sister had children nearly grown.
Who was he rebuilding his house for?
Then something worse happened.
A light from the patio shifted across Marcus’s head.
And I saw the thing Sophie had been staring at.
THE TINY COMPASS
Behind his ear was a small tattoo.
A compass rose.
No bigger than a coin.
Still slightly pink around the edges.
My entire body went cold.
Daniel had the same tattoo.
Exactly the same.
Same design.
Same place.
He had gotten it when he was nineteen on that old trip to Lake Briarwood.
Daniel used to joke that Marcus had been supposed to get one too but backed out at the last minute.
Nobody noticed Daniel’s tattoo very often.
Sophie did.
When she was little, she would sit on his shoulders and trace it with her fingertip.
