“Where was it?” I asked.
“In the dream.”
“On the door?”
He shook his head.
“On the silver box.”
My skin went cold.
“What silver box?”
“The one the man put under the floor.”
Mara stared at me.
I could barely breathe.
At the Lake George cabin, there had been a loose floorboard beneath my father’s study desk.
I knew because, when I was eleven, I had hidden a broken pocket watch there.
No one else knew.
Or so I had thought.
“What did the box look like?”
Milo held his hands about a foot apart.
“Metal. With numbers.”
“A combination lock?”
“I guess.”
“Did you see the numbers?”
“No.”
He paused.
“Thomas said you knew them.”
That night, long after the boys fell asleep, Mara and I sat across from each other in the darkened living room.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
Finally she said, “There has to be a reasonable explanation.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe he heard you talking about your father at the restaurant.”
“I never mentioned him.”
“Maybe someone else did.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m trying to be.”
She rubbed her arms.
“Is the cabin still there?”
“Yes.”
“Who owns it?”
I looked at her.
“My mother.”
Silence.
“Has anyone used it recently?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could the floorboard still be there?”
“Possibly.”
“And the box?”
“I’ve never seen a silver box.”
Mara looked toward the hallway where the boys slept.
“What do we do?”
I considered Vermont.
The letters.
The DNA test.
Samuel Greer.
My mother.
Then Lake George.
Too many roads.
Too many unanswered questions.
“We start with what we can prove.”
“DNA.”
“Yes.”
“And the box at my aunt’s.”
“Yes.”
“And your mother?”
I picked up my phone.
Thirty-nine missed calls now.
I opened my messages.
Most were predictable.
Call me immediately.
Where are you?
This is unacceptable.
Brielle deserves an explanation.
Then I found the newest message.
It had arrived seven minutes earlier.
From my mother.
Only six words.
Do not let Mara leave again.
I read it twice.
Mara watched my face.
“What?”
I handed her the phone.
She read the message.
Her eyes lifted slowly.
“She knows I’m here.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
I didn’t answer.
Because another message appeared.
This one from an unknown number.
A photograph.
My stomach turned.
It had been taken through the front windows of the restaurant that afternoon.
Mara stood beside me on the sidewalk.
The four boys were climbing into my SUV.
Beneath the photograph was a sentence.
You were supposed to find out years ago.
Mara sat beside me.
“Who sent that?”
“I don’t know.”
Another message arrived before I could answer.
Ask Eleanor what Thomas discovered before he died.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown caller.
I answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
I stood.
“Who is this?”
Still nothing.
Then breathing.
Faint.
Unsteady.
And finally an elderly woman’s voice.
“Adrian?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Margaret Shaw.”
Across from me, Mara went completely still.
I switched the call to speaker.
Mara’s face drained of color.
The woman continued.
“I saw the news about your engagement tonight.”
“There was no engagement.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because I’ve been waiting six years for you to finally ask the right questions.”
Mara moved closer to the phone.
“You came to my hospital room.”
There was a sharp intake of breath.
“Mara?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank God.”
Mara’s hands trembled.
“Who hired you?”
Silence.
“Margaret?”
“I can’t explain everything over the phone.”
“Then explain one thing,” I said.
“Did my mother hire you?”
Another long pause.
“No.”
Mara and I looked at each other.
“Samuel Greer?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then who?”
The woman sounded frightened now.
“Your father.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“My father died three years before Mara became pregnant.”
“I know.”
“Then that’s impossible.”
“Yes,” Margaret whispered.
“That’s what Samuel thought too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There was a letter.”
“What letter?”
“Thomas left instructions with me before he died.”
My pulse hammered.
“Instructions about Mara?”
“No.”
“Then why did you visit her?”
“Because of you.”
I gripped the phone tighter.
“What did my father tell you?”
Margaret’s breathing became uneven.
“That if you ever fell in love with someone outside the family’s plans, I was supposed to warn her.”
“Warn her about what?”
A click sounded somewhere on her end.
Margaret lowered her voice.
“Adrian, listen carefully. Don’t speak to Samuel until you have the silver box.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“How do you know about the box?”
“Because I put it under the floor.”
Mara covered her mouth.
I stared toward the dark windows.
“What’s inside?”
Margaret was silent for several seconds.
When she answered, her voice had changed.
Sadness had replaced fear.
“Proof that Thomas Whitaker spent the last year of his life trying to protect you from someone you trusted.”
“Who?”
Another sound.
A door perhaps.
Margaret whispered quickly.
“I have to go.”
“No. Margaret—”
“Go to the cabin. Find the box. And Adrian…”
“Yes?”
“Whatever your mother tells you tomorrow, remember this.”
Her voice dropped until I could barely hear it.
“Eleanor didn’t separate you from Mara.”
The call went dead.
I remained standing.
Mara stared at the phone.
Neither of us moved.
Finally she whispered, “If your mother didn’t do it…”
My screen lit again.
One last message from the unknown number.
This time it contained no photograph.
Only an address.
The Lake George cabin.
And beneath it, four words.
Samuel is already there.
PART 3
For several seconds after the call ended, neither Mara nor I spoke.
The city glowed beyond the apartment windows, all silver towers and moving headlights, but the room around us seemed strangely still.
Samuel is already there.
The message remained on my phone.
Four words.
Simple enough.
But they rearranged everything.
Mara sat on the edge of the sofa, staring at the screen in my hand.
“Do you believe her?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That woman came to my hospital room six years ago.”
“I know.”
“She knew I was pregnant. She knew your family. She knew where to find me.”
“I know.”
“And now she says your father sent her.”
I looked toward the hallway.
The boys were asleep.
At least I hoped they were.
For the first time since finding them, every instinct in me was pulling in two directions.
One part wanted to get in the car and drive north immediately.
The other part wanted to lock every door, sit beside those four boys until sunrise, and refuse to let another missing year slip through my hands.
Mara read the answer on my face.
“You’re thinking about going.”
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
I hesitated.
“Yes.”
She stood.
“No.”
The firmness in her voice surprised me.
“Mara—”
“You promised Micah you wouldn’t disappear.”
“I’m not disappearing.”
“To a six-year-old, leaving in the middle of the night without explanation looks exactly like disappearing.”
That stopped me.
She crossed her arms.
“If the box has been hidden there for years, it can wait until morning.”
“Samuel is already there.”
“According to an anonymous text.”
“And according to Margaret, I shouldn’t talk to him until I have the box.”
“Which means rushing into a dark cabin in the middle of winter is somehow the sensible option?”
I exhaled.
“You always did enjoy making my decisions sound ridiculous.”
“They rarely needed much help.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
For one second, the tension loosened.
Then the hallway creaked.
Micah stood there in dinosaur pajamas.
His hair stuck up on one side.
“Are you leaving?”
Mara and I looked at each other.
I put the phone away.
“No.”
Micah studied me carefully.
“Promise?”
I walked over and crouched in front of him.
“I’m staying tonight.”
His shoulders relaxed.
“Okay.”
He turned to go.
Then stopped.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Max stole my pillow.”
From somewhere inside the bedroom came Max’s sleepy voice.
“I borrowed it.”
“It was under your head,” Micah called.
“That doesn’t mean I was using it.”
Mara closed her eyes.
“Coming.”
She started toward the bedroom, then looked back at me.
“Morning.”
I nodded.
“Morning.”
And for once, a mystery waited.
My sons came first.
—
I did not sleep.
By three in the morning, I had read every old message on my phone that included Samuel Greer’s name.
There were hundreds.
Board meetings.
Estate documents.
Family trusts.
Condolences after my father’s death.
Birthday messages.
Invitations.
Advice.
Samuel had existed in my life so steadily that I had never thought to question his presence.
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