Chương 6
It bothered Daniel more than it should have.
The world was continuing.
People were making breakfast.
Buying groceries.
Complaining about traffic.
Meanwhile, he was sitting in his dead father’s kitchen discovering that his entire childhood might have been built on missing information.
“Officer Ortiz,” Daniel said.
“Can I see the letter?”
“I can’t release evidence yet.”
“Yet?”
“There are procedures.”
“Procedures.”
The word came out sharper than he intended.
Ortiz did not react.
“I understand you’re frustrated.”
“No, you don’t.”
A silence followed.
Daniel regretted saying it.
Not because it was false.
Because it was unfair.
Ortiz had probably heard that sentence from hundreds of people.
People who believed their pain was unique because it was happening inside their own body.
“I’m not trying to make this harder,” she said.
Daniel looked at the floor.
“I know.”
“The second page changes the situation.”
“How?”
“It suggests your father was looking for your mother.”
Claire stood up.
Daniel looked at her.
“What?”
Ortiz continued.
“The letter was not an apology.”
Daniel waited.
“It was a request.”
“For what?”
“To come home.”
Nobody spoke.
The refrigerator clicked softly behind them.
Daniel stared at the old magnets on the door.
Most were souvenirs from places his father had never visited.
A fishing tournament from 1998.
A hardware store calendar.
A faded sticker from a town festival.
His father had kept reminders of everything except the things that mattered.
“Why would he write that?” Claire whispered.
Daniel looked at her.
“You tell me.”
Her face changed.
The accusation landed.
“I don’t know.”
“You said Dad lied.”
“I said he hid things.”
“Same difference.”
“No.”
Her voice was stronger now.
“Those are not the same.”
Daniel stood.
“You spent twenty-five years letting me believe Mom abandoned us.”
“I was fourteen.”
“You were fourteen for one year.”
The words were out before he could stop them.
Claire looked away.
That hurt more than anger would have.
“I know,” she said.
The room became quiet.
Daniel had imagined this moment many times over the years.
A conversation where someone finally admitted the truth.
He had imagined feeling victorious.
He did not.
He felt tired.
Claire picked up the grocery bag and moved the muffins to the refrigerator.
“They’re going to get stale.”
Daniel stared at her.
“What?”
“I brought blueberry.”
He almost smiled despite himself.
It was such a Claire thing to do.
Standing in the middle of a family collapse and worrying about baked goods.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I know.”
For a second, they were not two adults discussing a twenty-five-year-old mystery.
They were children again.
A brother and sister sitting at the same table while their father pretended everything was fine.
Then Daniel’s phone buzzed.
A message from Ortiz.
The station had located the original envelope photographs.
She had attached one image.
Daniel opened it.
The front was exactly as he expected.
His father’s handwriting.
His mother’s name.
Then he noticed something.
The address.
It was not their farmhouse.
It was another town.
A place Daniel had never heard of.
“What is it?” Claire asked.
He turned the phone toward her.
She read it twice.
“Riverside.”
“Do you know anyone there?”
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
Daniel looked at the handwriting again.
There was a small mark beneath the address.
A circle.
His father used to do that.
Not often.
Only when something mattered.
Daniel remembered finding old repair notes in his father’s workshop.
Numbers.
Measurements.
Parts lists.
The important ones always had circles.
He hated that he remembered that.
He hated that even after everything, his brain still searched for pieces of Robert Mercer that could explain him.
“I’m going there,” Daniel said.
Claire looked up.
“No.”
The answer surprised him.
“No?”
“Not alone.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
“You don’t have to.”
He stared at her.
She looked exhausted.
Scared too.
But she was standing.
That was something.
“You think you know what’s there?” Daniel asked.
“No.”
“Then why come?”
Claire folded the top of the grocery bag.
“Because if Dad spent twenty-five years hiding something from us, I’m done finding out the truth one person at a time.”
Daniel wanted to tell her she was wrong.
He wanted to say he had spent his whole life dealing with disappointment alone and he did not need anyone joining him now.
Instead, he picked up his keys.
The drive to Riverside took forty minutes.
Neither of them talked much.
Claire played with the radio twice and turned it off twice.
Daniel kept checking the address on his phone even though he knew it was saved.
The road passed fields, small businesses, and houses that looked almost identical from a distance.
Every few miles, the world offered another reminder that most people were carrying private stories nobody else could see.
At a red light, Claire spoke.
“Do you remember when Dad taught you to drive?”
Daniel looked over.
“Why are you asking that?”
“Just answer.”
“Yes.”
“He was angry the whole time.”
Daniel smiled slightly.
“He was always angry when he was teaching.”
“No.”
Claire looked out the window.
“He was scared.”
Daniel said nothing.
It was an uncomfortable possibility.
His father had spent decades appearing impossible to hurt.
The idea that fear might have been underneath all of it felt almost like an insult.
“He wasn’t good at saying he was scared,” Claire said.
Daniel watched the light change.
“No.”
That was the first thing they agreed on all morning.
And somehow, it made the silence afterward easier.
The Last Letter Found Beneath the Floorboard Changed Everything They Thought They Knew
Mara Voss was holding the eviction notice when the landlord changed the locks from the outside, leaving her standing in the hallway with a cardboard box of her own belongings and a question nobody wanted to answer.
The paper in her hand said she had abandoned the apartment for more than thirty days.
The problem was that she had slept there every night.
May you like
The neighbors saw her leave for work every morning.
The grocery store cashier two blocks away knew her usual order.
