Chương 2
“The night your father died.”
Mara stopped breathing for a second.
Her grandfather.
The man who taught her how to fix a fishing reel and always gave her the corner piece of pie because he knew she liked the crust.
The man everyone described with simple words.
Kind.
Funny.
Generous.
She had never heard anyone describe him as complicated.
“What does Thomas have to do with him?” Claire asked.
Daniel rubbed his hands together.
“He was there.”
“Where?”
“On the property.”
Mara shifted.
The floor creaked.
The voices stopped.
A moment later, Daniel opened the kitchen door.
He was not angry.
That frightened her more.
“You should be asleep.”
Mara stood.
“You knew I was listening?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you stop me?”
Daniel looked toward the hallway.
“Because I spent years deciding what you could survive knowing.”
His voice cracked slightly.
“And I might have been wrong.”
Mara swallowed.
“What happened to Grandpa?”
Daniel looked toward the front window.
The maple tree stood outside, dark against the yard.
“Your grandfather kept records.”
“Of what?”
“Things he thought people needed to know.”
“About what?”
Daniel did not answer.
That was the answer.
The next morning, the hospital called before breakfast.
Thomas Avery was awake.
Daniel answered the phone while Mara sat at the table pretending to eat cereal.
She watched his face.
The color disappeared slowly.
When he hung up, Claire entered with two mugs of coffee.
“What happened?”
Daniel looked at Mara.
That alone made Claire set the mug down.
“What did he say?”
Daniel glanced at the folded note resting beside the toaster.
“He asked if Mara still had the message.”
Mara’s hand froze around her spoon.
Claire looked confused.
“The message?”
Daniel nodded.
“He said the note in the brace was only the beginning.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Daniel said the words that changed the room.
“He wants to tell Mara where he hid the rest of it.”
The photograph stayed in Clara’s hand longer than it should have.
She stared at the missing piece where a person’s face should have been and felt a familiar anger rising, the kind that came before tears and usually stopped them from arriving.
Her father had always been good at removing things.
Old arguments.
Uncomfortable conversations.
People who asked questions he did not want to answer.
She placed the photograph on the desk and grabbed her keys.
The drive to Mercer Street took less than five minutes, but she managed to make herself late by stopping twice.
Once to check the letter again.
Once to sit at a red light after it had already turned green because she was watching the house number on the corner.
She hated that she was afraid.
She hated even more that some part of her trusted the fear.
The house on Mercer Street looked smaller than it had in her memory.
That was probably because she had only ever seen it from passing cars.
An old two-story structure with peeling white paint, a collapsed fence, and windows covered from the inside.
The kind of place teenagers dared each other to visit.
The kind of place adults pretended not to notice.
Clara parked across the street and stayed inside her car.
A woman walking a golden retriever passed by and glanced at the house before looking away quickly.
The dog stopped to sniff the grass near the driveway.
The woman pulled gently on the leash.
“Come on, buddy.”
The dog ignored her for another few seconds before finally following.
Clara almost smiled.
Even the dog seemed unwilling to leave something unfinished.
She got out of the car.
The front gate was unlocked.
That bothered her more than if it had been chained.
She pushed it open and listened to the hinges complain.
Nobody came outside.
Nobody called out.
Nobody asked what she was doing.
The quiet felt prepared.
Inside, the house smelled like dust and old wood.
There was a layer of dirt across the floor, but not enough to suggest nobody had been there.
Someone had walked through recently.
The thought made her stop.
She looked down.
A set of footprints crossed the hallway.
They were not fresh, but they were newer than the rest of the damage.
Clara took out her phone and photographed them.
Then she felt ridiculous for doing it.
She was not an investigator.
She was a woman who had found a letter from her dead father and was now trespassing in an abandoned house because she did not know how else to handle the fact that her entire understanding of him might be wrong.
She moved deeper inside.
The living room had been emptied years ago.
A torn curtain moved near a broken window.
The kitchen cabinets hung open.
A calendar from eight years earlier remained attached to the wall.
Someone had circled a date in red ink.
Clara stepped closer.
March 14.
No note.
No explanation.
Just a circle.
She took another picture.
The sound of a floorboard creaking upstairs made her freeze.
For several seconds, she did not move.
Then another step followed.
Someone was there.
Clara reached for her phone, but before she could call anyone, a voice came from above.
“I was wondering how long it would take you.”
Her body went cold.
She looked toward the staircase.
“Maya?”
Maya Bennett appeared slowly from the second floor.
She looked older than she had that morning.
Maybe because she was tired.
Maybe because she had finally run out of reasons to pretend.
“What are you doing here?” Clara asked.
Maya held onto the railing as she came down.
“The same thing you are.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one I have.”
Clara stepped away from the stairs.
“You followed me.”
“No.”
“You were already here.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Maya looked around the room.
The question seemed harder than she expected.
“Because I came here after your father died.”
Clara felt something shift.
“You came here alone?”
“Yes.”
May you like
“And you didn’t tell me?”
Maya looked at her.
