Page 50 of Is Anyone Listening?
"When I turned eighteen, I became his legal guardian. We were on our own after that. I worked construction during the day, went to community college at night. Got a scholarship to Yale eventually. Marcus lived with me the whole time."
"That must have been hard on you."
"He's my brother. I couldn't let him live with anyone else."
"Do you see a lot of him now?"
He hesitated, then said, "Not that much."
"Tyler…"
"What?"
"I looked you up. I know your brother is awaiting trial for fraud and some other charges."
He shrugged. "I should have figured you'd do that."
"You could have told me."
"It's a difficult situation. Marcus is completely innocent. He was set up."
His words puzzled me. "If that's true, then why aren't you trying to help him? Why are you looking for Jessica?" I'd no sooner asked the question when I realized I already knew the answer. I knew why Tyler had stumbled over calling Jessica his friend. "Jessica is part of your brother's problem, isn't she?"
He didn't answer right away, then said, "Yes. She is. She ran away because she was scared. She knew Marcus was innocent, and she was afraid she'd get set up along with him. I need to find her because she's the only one who can prove my brother didn't do what they said he did."
It all made so much more sense now. As I processed what he'd told me, another idea occurred to me. "If she ran away from that situation, is it possible she's still running? Maybe she did get off that boat and disappear by choice."
"It's possible," he admitted. "Or someone else found her and made sure she couldn't come back and tell the truth. I have to know, either way, so I can help my brother. He's my only family, Cassidy. I have to save him. He would do the same thing for me."
"I understand. I wish you'd told me sooner."
"It doesn't change anything. I still need to find her and make sure she's safe. Then I'll have a chance to convince her that telling the truth will protect both her and my brother."
I was impressed with his loyalty to his brother. He'd put his whole life on hold to save him and also Jessica. "Then we better find her."
He gave me a smile. "It does feel good not to be doing this completely on my own."
"I feel the same way. I have to admit I'm a little jealous of your relationship with your brother. I always wished I had a sibling, especially after my mother died."
"How old were you?"
"Fourteen. She died of cancer. And then it was just me and my dad. But we had never been close, and without her loving presence, our house felt incredibly cold. My father had also been focused on work, but without her to come home to, he would stay later and later at the office. I don't think he wanted to be in that house any more than I did."
"Who took care of you?"
"I took care of myself. We had a housekeeper who would clean and cook meals we could heat up later, but that was it."
"That sounds lonely."
"It was. I tried everything to get his attention. Good grades, following his rules, going to the college he wanted, studying accounting and economics, even though I hated those subjects, but nothing really mattered. I finally decided to stop trying to be who he wanted me to be. I moved to New York and got into media, although my fact-checking job wasn't all that exciting, but it felt like the first step toward becoming a journalist, which is what I really want to do."
"And the podcast? How did that start?"
"The three of us got laid off from the same company a few months ago, and the podcast was just something fun to do while we looked for other jobs. Tessa, Morgan, and I are true crime fans. We'd drink wine and talk about crime, hence the name Mysteries Uncorked. To our surprise, we started to garner a following, and that's when we decided to dive deeper into Natalie's disappearance. You know the rest."
He didn't actually know all the rest, but he knew what mattered, and that was enough for now.
"I hope you won't regret the decision to dig deeper," he said.
