Chương 6
At least that was the story Mara had repeated enough times that it became easier than questioning it.
"When did you find it?" she asked.
"Yesterday afternoon."
"Where?"
Cole glanced toward the hallway.
"Under the floor."
Mara looked at the old boards.
For a second, she felt embarrassed that she had never noticed.
Then she remembered something worse.
Her father had always told her never to step on the third board near the stairs because it was loose.
She had thought it was because he was planning to fix it.
She had not considered that he might have been protecting what was beneath it.
"Why are you asking me about fingerprints?" she said.
"Because the notebook contains pages written after your father supposedly stopped using that room."
Mara frowned.
"What room?"
"The basement office."
"He didn't have a basement office."
Cole reached into the folder beside him and pulled out a photograph.
Mara did not want to look.
She looked anyway.
It showed a small room below the house.
A desk.
A lamp.
A chair.
And on the wall behind the desk was a photograph of Mara when she was nineteen years old.
Her stomach dropped.
"My father never had that room."
"According to the property records, he did."
"Then the records are wrong."
"Your father signed the renovation permit himself."
Mara took the photograph from him.
The paper shook slightly between her fingers.
She hated that he noticed.
She hated that she noticed.
"Why didn't I know about this?" she whispered.
Cole leaned back.
"That's the question you should probably answer before I do."
The accusation was quiet.
Almost polite.
That made it worse.
After he left, Mara stayed at the kitchen table until the sunlight disappeared from the windows.
The house felt different.
Not haunted.
That would have been easier.
Haunted houses had rules.
They creaked.
They whispered.
They gave people warnings.
This house simply kept things.
Her father had lived there alone after her mother died, and when Mara moved across town after college, she had accepted his distance as part of who he was.
He was not cruel.
He was just private.
That was what she told herself.
She repeated it when he missed birthdays.
She repeated it when he refused to talk about her mother's illness.
She repeated it when he died without leaving her a letter.
Now she was standing in a kitchen filled with objects he had touched every day, wondering how many things she had mistaken for normal.
Her phone buzzed.
The message was from her younger brother, Evan.
He never called.
He considered phone calls a personal attack.
The message contained only three words.
"Did they find it?"
Mara stared at the screen.
She typed.
"What are you talking about?"
The reply came thirty seconds later.
"Don't pretend."
She walked to the window.
Across the street, a neighbor was watering plants despite the evening cold.
Mrs. Halpern had lived there for forty years and knew everything about everyone.
Mara wondered if Mrs. Halpern knew about the basement room too.
She wondered who else had known.
Her phone buzzed again.
"Did Dad leave the notebook?"
Mara's fingers stopped above the screen.
The question changed everything.
Not because Evan knew.
Because Evan assumed.
She called him.
He answered after one ring.
"Why did you know about the notebook?"
Silence.
"Evan."
"I didn't know where it was."
"You knew it existed."
Another pause.
"Mara, I was going to tell you."
"People always say that right before they explain why they didn't."
"I know."
His voice was softer than usual.
That scared her.
Evan was younger by four years, but he had always been the calmer one.
Their father used to joke that Evan could sleep through a hurricane.
Mara was the one who checked the locks twice.
Mara was the one who saved every voicemail.
Mara was the one who remembered every argument.
"What did Dad write about me?" she asked.
"I don't know."
"You just said you knew about the notebook."
"I knew about the room."
She closed her eyes.
"How?"
"I helped him build it."
The answer sat between them.
Mara looked at the kitchen floor.
The loose board near the stairs seemed almost obvious now.
"When?"
"Before Mom died."
The room went quiet.
Her mother had died twelve years earlier.
Twelve years of believing the worst thing her father had hidden was his grief.
"Evan, what was in that room?"
"I don't know everything."
"Then tell me what you do know."
"I know Dad was scared."
Mara laughed once.
It was not a happy sound.
"Dad was scared of losing money. He was scared of doctors. He was scared of admitting he was wrong."
"No."
Evan's voice changed.
"He was scared of someone finding out the truth."
The refrigerator hummed behind her.
A car passed outside.
Somewhere nearby, a dog barked twice and stopped.
Normal sounds.
That was the strangest part.
The world continued like nothing had happened.
"What truth?" Mara asked.
"I can't tell you over the phone."
"Why?"
"Because if I'm wrong, I ruin everything."
"And if you're right?"
Evan did not answer.
Mara looked again at the photograph on the table.
Her younger self smiled from the wall of a hidden room.
She remembered that day.
She had been nineteen.
Her father had insisted on taking the picture because he said she was finally becoming her own person.
She remembered him standing behind the camera.
She remembered him saying something she had forgotten until that moment.
Not the exact words.
Just the feeling.
Pride.
Fear.
Like he was preparing to lose something.
"Where are you?" she asked.
"At home."
"Stay there."
"Mara."
"Stay there."
She ended the call before he could argue.
Then she walked toward the basement door.
She had avoided that room for three years because after her father's funeral she could not stand being surrounded by unfinished projects.
Now she opened it.
May you like
The smell of dust and old wood rose toward her.
At the bottom of the stairs, she saw the third floorboard near the wall.
