My six-year-old nephew dragged his broken leg across seven blocks of pavement to reach my porch, with his starving three-year-old sister clinging to his shirt. I was fixing a loose hinge when I heard scraping on the steps and turned to see Drew crawling toward me, pale, shaking, and whispering, “She locked us downstairs again.” I called 911 before I even understood the whole story. But when he told me about Reena’s punishment room, I knew my brother had died believing a terrible lie.

The scraping sound reached Peter Mercer before the crying did.

He was kneeling beside the front door of his small Overland Park, Kansas, house, tightening a loose hinge, when something dragged across the concrete walkway behind him.

Peter turned.

His six-year-old nephew was crawling toward the porch.

Drew’s blond hair was damp with sweat. His blue T-shirt was gray with dirt around the elbows. One sneaker had come off somewhere along the way, and his right leg trailed behind him at an angle that made Peter’s stomach tighten.

Three-year-old Lily had both hands twisted into the back of Drew’s shirt.

She was crying without making much sound.

“Drew?”

The boy looked up.

“She locked us downstairs again.”

Peter dropped the screwdriver.

He barely reached them before Drew’s arms gave out.

“How long have you been walking?”

Drew shook his head.

“Not walking.”

Peter saw the raw dirt ground into his palms.

He pulled out his phone and called 911.