I felt the air leave my lungs. “What?”

“They have a sleeping bag, a camping mattress, dozens of empty water bottles, and canned food,” he continued, opening the green bag to show me.

Inside were cans of Great Value brand black beans and peaches. My brand.

The bulk cans I bought at Walmart and kept in our pantry in the kitchen.

“But that’s not the worst of it,” Officer Miller said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a stack of photos.

They were photos of us.

There was a photo of me hanging laundry on the line. A photo of Toby riding his bicycle in the driveway. A photo of us sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner, taken through the window at night. Forty-seven photos in total, all of them secretly taken from the dark corners of our yard, taped to the concrete foundation walls right beneath our living room floor.

My body felt numb. I couldn’t breathe. “Who is it? Please tell me you know who it is.”

Officer Miller opened the dusty leather wallet he had found near the sleeping bag. He pulled out a Michigan driver’s license and looked at the name.

“The ID belongs to a Marcus James Mitchell,” the officer said.

Marcus.

My husband’s younger brother.

I stood there on the lawn, the ground spinning beneath my feet.

Marcus was supposed to be in a federal correctional facility in Ohio. Seven years ago, he had been convicted of grand larceny after stealing over $100,000 from a local credit union. Greg had told me that Marcus was estranged, that he had cut all ties with the family, and that we were never to speak his name in our house.

But Marcus hadn’t been in prison. He had escaped transitional custody six months ago, and Greg had hidden him under our own home.

Every time Greg went to the backyard shed to “work on his tools,” he was bringing his fugitive brother food, water, and news about our family. While I was working at the dental office and Toby was playing with his toys, Marcus was sitting in the dark beneath our feet, watching us through the floor vents.

I looked at the bulk cans of beans. I looked at the peppermint candies. Greg had been stealing them from our pantry, one by one, to feed his brother.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. A strange, cold clarity washed over me.

I called my husband’s cell phone. He answered on the second ring, his voice warm and normal.

“Hey, honey, just finished a meeting. Everything okay at home?”