Chương 8
“What was on the missing pages?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Mara.”
“I’m serious.”
She sounded frustrated now.
“Daniel, I found the notebook because I was looking for answers.”
“And?”
“And it gave me more questions.”
That sounded exactly like their father.
A person who could turn a simple explanation into another locked door.
“When can I see it?” Daniel asked.
“Tonight.”
“Bring it here.”
“No.”
He paused.
“Why not?”
“Because if someone came into your apartment looking for something, I’m not bringing them another thing they might want.”
Daniel looked toward the door.
The lock suddenly felt less solid than it had an hour earlier.
“You think someone will come back?”
“I think we don’t know enough to assume they won’t.”
That was the part he could not argue with.
Mara was not being dramatic.
She was being careful.
Something about that frightened him more.
“Where are you now?” he asked.
“In my car.”
“Driving?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I pulled over.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m talking to you.”
Daniel heard a faint sound in the background.
Not traffic.
Not music.
A door closing.
“You’re not in your car.”
Another pause.
“Mara.”
“I’m outside your building.”
He looked toward the window.
Across the street, her car was parked near the curb.
She was not inside it.
She was standing beside the driver’s door, phone pressed to her ear.
“You were already here.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before I called you.”
Daniel felt irritation rise again.
“You could have just come upstairs.”
“I wanted to know if you were alone.”
The sentence stopped him.
“What?”
“I sat there for ten minutes.”
“Why?”
“Because when I was in your apartment earlier, I noticed something.”
Daniel’s hand tightened around the phone.
“What?”
“The front door lock.”
“What about it?”
“It was already damaged before I used my key.”
He looked at the door.
The small scratches near the lock suddenly seemed obvious.
“Mara.”
“I didn’t do that.”
The apartment went silent.
“You think someone was here before you?”
“Yes.”
Daniel walked slowly toward the door.
He did not touch it.
He did not need to.
The scratches were fresh.
Tiny marks around the metal.
The kind of damage he would have ignored yesterday.
The kind of damage he would never ignore now.
“Daniel.”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t open it.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
A lie.
A small one.
But Mara knew him too well.
“Stay away from the door.”
He stepped back.
For once, he listened.
Then his phone vibrated.
Not Mara.
Not an unknown number.
A message from a contact he had not seen in eleven years.
Dad’s old phone number.
The number that had been disconnected after the funeral.
The message contained only three words.
Do not trust Evelyn.
Daniel stared at the screen.
And behind him, the apartment door handle moved.
The Last Letter Hidden Beneath the Floorboards Changed Everything They Thought They Knew About Home
The envelope was still warm from the printer when Clara Bennett saw her own name written across it in handwriting she had spent twelve years trying to forget.
She stood in the hallway of the old house with one hand on the peeling wallpaper and the other holding the envelope like it might break apart if she squeezed too hard.
The renovation crew had left twenty minutes earlier after discovering the loose floorboard in the upstairs bedroom, and the contractor had called it a lucky accident.
Clara did not believe in lucky accidents anymore.
Not after what happened to her father.
Not after what happened to her family.
The handwriting belonged to him.
She knew that before she opened it.
That was the part that frightened her most.
Her father had been dead for almost a decade, but there were still things about him that existed in the house.
The dent in the kitchen counter where he had dropped a heavy toolbox.
The faint mark on the garage wall where he measured Clara's height every birthday until she stopped letting him.
The old coffee mug he kept even after the handle cracked because he claimed it still held coffee the same way.
Small things.
Ordinary things.
The kind of things people left behind without realizing they were leaving pieces of themselves.
She placed the envelope on the table and walked away.
Then she came back thirty seconds later.
"That is exactly what you do when you're scared," her younger brother Daniel said from the doorway.
Clara looked up sharply.
She had forgotten he was coming over.
"You were supposed to text me when you got here."
"I did."
"No, you called."
"Calling is still communication."
"Not the kind where I know you're outside."
Daniel shrugged and stepped into the kitchen.
He was carrying two grocery bags, though neither of them needed groceries.
He had always done that when he was uncomfortable.
Bring something.
Offer something.
Find a reason not to arrive empty-handed.
"What did you find?" he asked.
Clara looked back at the envelope.
His expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Daniel was not dramatic.
That was one of the reasons she trusted him and one of the reasons she sometimes wanted to shake him.
He moved closer.
"Where was it?"
"Under the floor."
"That sounds normal."
"It was hidden under the floor."
"Okay."
"Daniel."
"I know."
"No, you don't."
He stared at the envelope.
For a moment, neither of them touched it.
Outside, a lawn mower started somewhere down the street.
A dog barked twice and stopped.
A delivery truck rolled past the house with a low mechanical hum.
The world continued like nothing had changed.
Clara hated that about the world.
She opened the envelope because waiting had become worse than knowing.
Inside was a single page.
The paper was yellowed but carefully folded.
She recognized her father's handwriting immediately.
Clara,
If you are reading this, then I failed to tell you the truth when I had the chance.
She stopped there.
Daniel noticed.
"What?"
She handed him the page.
May you like
He read the first sentence and looked away.
Their father had always been better at leaving messages than having conversations.
