Chương 3
The next morning, Daniel went to the Riverside Historical Society because he needed answers before someone else decided they had them.
The building smelled the same as it always had.
Old paper.
Dust.
Coffee that had been sitting too long.
The receptionist at the front desk looked away when he entered.
That hurt more than he expected.
“Daniel,” a voice called.
Mara Ellison stood near the archive room holding a stack of folders.
She was the only person in the building who looked directly at him.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
“Then why are you?”
“Because somebody used my face to tell a lie.”
Mara glanced toward the hallway.
Her expression changed slightly.
“Come inside.”
The archive room was smaller than Daniel remembered.
Or maybe it only felt smaller because he was seeing it as someone who was no longer welcome.
Mara closed the door.
“I heard about the photograph.”
“Everyone heard.”
“I didn’t post anything.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because you would have called me first.”
The answer surprised both of them.
Mara looked down at the folders in her hands.
“We need to be careful.”
“Careful about what?”
“About what we say.”
“Why?”
She hesitated.
That hesitation was the first thing that scared him.
“What happened, Mara?”
She placed the folders on the table.
“Two weeks before the theater fire, someone accessed the restricted archive.”
Daniel frowned.
“Restricted archive?”
“You know the basement records.”
“The ones nobody opens without approval.”
“Yes.”
“Who accessed them?”
Mara did not answer immediately.
“Daniel.”
Her voice became softer.
“Your name was on the access log.”
For a few seconds, he only heard the hum of the old air conditioner.
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
His voice rose, and he stopped himself.
Mara looked away.
“I was not in the basement,” he said.
“I know.”
“I never touched those records.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you telling me this?”
Mara rubbed her forehead.
“Because someone else is going to tell you eventually, and they won’t be trying to help you.”
Daniel looked at the folders.
“What records were taken?”
Mara opened one carefully.
Inside was a list of names.
Most of them meant nothing to him.
One name did.
His father.
Daniel stopped breathing for a second.
His father had been dead for twenty years.
He rarely talked about him.
Not because he missed him.
Not because he hated him.
Because the truth was more complicated than either feeling.
His father had disappeared from their lives before Daniel was old enough to understand why.
His mother never explained everything.
She only said some people left because staying required more courage than they had.
“What does my father have to do with this?” Daniel asked.
Mara looked at him.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
The answer should have felt like progress.
Instead, it made the room feel colder.
Because Daniel had spent years believing the hardest thing about his past was not knowing the truth.
Now he was afraid the truth had been waiting for him.
Daniel did not leave the archive room immediately.
He stood beside the table with his hand resting on the edge of the folder, staring at his father's name as if looking at it long enough might turn it into something else.
Mara waited without speaking.
She had always been good at silence.
That was one of the reasons Daniel trusted her.
She never rushed to fill empty space just because it made her uncomfortable.
“Tell me everything you know,” Daniel said.
Mara pulled out a chair.
“You should sit.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re standing like you’re trying not to fall over.”
Daniel almost argued.
Then he realized she was right.
He sat.
Mara opened the folder again and moved through the pages carefully.
The papers were copies of old archive documents, not originals.
Someone had marked certain sections with small pencil lines.
“Three weeks ago, I noticed several files had been requested from the basement archive,” she said.
“By who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said my name was on the access log.”
“It was.”
“That means someone knows who used the system.”
Mara looked uncomfortable.
“The access log showed your employee account.”
Daniel stared at her.
“My employee account was deleted when I was fired.”
“Yes.”
“So how was it used?”
“That’s the part nobody can explain.”
The answer sat between them.
Daniel looked around the room.
The shelves.
The old boxes.
The faded labels written by people who had worked there long before either of them arrived.
For years, he had believed archives were honest places.
Not because the records were always complete.
They weren’t.
People lied.
Families hid things.
Communities protected reputations.
But paper had one advantage.
Paper could not pretend it remembered something different.
“What records were taken?” Daniel asked.
Mara turned several pages.
“Not taken exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“They were copied.”
Daniel frowned.
“Copied by who?”
“We don’t know.”
“Then why are you showing me this?”
“Because one of the files was about your father.”
She pushed a document across the table.
The top line read: Mercer, Thomas.
Daniel did not touch it.
His father’s name looked strange on official paper.
Too permanent.
Too ordinary.
“What was he involved in?”
Mara looked toward the closed door.
“Before I answer that, I need you to understand something.”
Daniel gave a tired laugh.
“That sentence has never made anyone feel better.”
“I know.”
A small smile appeared on her face, but it disappeared quickly.
“Your father wasn’t just a name in the archive.”
Daniel waited.
“He worked with the historical society.”
The room became quiet.
“No.”
Mara looked at him.
“Yes.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“He did.”
“My mother would have told me.”
“Would she?”
The question landed harder than Daniel expected.
He looked away.
His mother had spent years avoiding certain subjects.
Not just his father.
Other things too.
Family conversations had always had invisible borders.
May you like
Places nobody crossed.
Daniel had accepted that because children often mistake silence for peace.
