So, there's this family with ten children, nine of whom are home on Christmas Eve, 1945, when a fire engulfs the family home. The parents and four of the children escape; the other five, aged 5 through 14, disappear without a trace. No bones or human remains among the ashes. Nothing. The parents, convinced the children are alive, do everything they can to find them. They chase down every lead, write to J. Edgar Hoover asking for an FBI investigation, they even hire a private investigator but he goes missing himself.
And then, 23 years after the fire, a mysterious photograph shows up in the mail, purporting to be an image of the missing 9-year-old boy, all grown up. And it really does look like him. No letter from the unknown sender, no return address.
Eventually the parents died without ever knowing the truth. Four of the remaining five siblings died as well. Now, the last surviving child, who was two years old when the fire happened, still hopes to find out what became of her five brothers and sisters.
You really need to read this story. Mysterious visitors, creepy strangers watching, arson and bombs, mafia-related threats, strange noises in the night, credible sightings of the missing children, and then that cryptic photograph! Why were they taken? Where did they go? And why, if they did live 23 or more years after the fire, did they never try to contact their parents?
Oh, this story is just too much. Someone please figure out what happened. I am dying here.
