Chapter 6 - THIRTEEN YEARS IN A DRAWER
We sat at my dining table where Emily used to help Lily with spelling words. My mother held Ethan’s letter as though it might burn her.
“I thought keeping quiet would keep you alive,” she said.
I pulled the envelope from her hands. “You let me mourn him.”
“I know.”
In the letter, Ethan described contractors being paid for apartments never built, families turned away from Harbor House shelters, and a fire that destroyed records just before an audit. He wrote that Dad had helped move the money and Mercer had threatened anyone who questioned him.
Then came a line that made my stomach turn.
Dan, you watched me leave the office that night. You know I was carrying a blue folder, not gasoline. Please remember what you actually saw.
I remembered a hallway. Ethan arguing with Dad. A blue folder under his arm. Later, an investigator asking whether Ethan had smelled like smoke. I said I thought so because everyone kept repeating it.
A guess had become part of a file that ruined his life.
“Why didn’t you give me this?” I asked.
“Mercer sent a man to the house. He knew Lily’s future school before she was even born.” Ruth’s mouth shook. “Your father told me silence was the only thing we could still give you.”
My phone buzzed. The security company had detected movement at our empty house.
I opened the live camera from the new system. Someone in a dark coat was in Lily’s bedroom, searching drawers with a flashlight.
I called 911 instead of driving there. Rios told me to stay put.
On the screen, the intruder picked up Lily’s stuffed rabbit, sliced open its seam, and shook out the stuffing.
May you like
Then he turned toward the camera.
He wore the same gold signet ring Grant Mercer had pressed against my shoulder at Emily’s funeral.
