I can’t help but wonder where my sister decided to move once we split up in 2003. I spent the majority of 14 years by her side with little reward and little need for it, and then all of a sudden, on a whim, on desperation, she fled the scene of the crime yet to be committed. Fear drives all of us. It’s not something difficult to discover. It’s not the backdrop. It’s the shadow cast on it. The thing we spot first. My sister knew it, recognized it, identified it, and acted on it. I was left alone — the unfinished project. The failure doomed to begin.

Her name was Megan. I couldn’t tell you what her name is now. I doubt she’d want me to know. I know she wouldn’t want me to tell you. We began scouting for talent two summers ago just southwest of the city. Our Mother and Father knew nothing of the plan. I feel Father suspected something. We’d carry on about nothing, in clear disguise, but when you’re hiding demons of your own it’s quite simple to identify the same secrecy in others.

Mother was free. Independent and open. Oblivious.

Our first mission revolved around Lyle Paris. Insignificant. Intelligent. Faulty. Absolutely perfect. He settled in town four and a half years earlier after drug possession charges were dismissed by the state. Not enough to sell, too much to use on his own. He claimed the batch wasn’t his, and when the selling weight fell though, it became impossible to charge on either account. He had no idea what he was really dealing with.

The blow belonged to our neighbor, Charlie Craig, an insurance salesman and a hell of a liar. His mother lived upstairs in his attic, the room where he once understood recovery is more than a mission statement. It’s a life decision, and he had to fill that room with the one person that existed before he did.