Chapter 6 - The House on Alder Street
The Bell house had been empty for years. Nora stood at the curb, staring at the porch where her mother used to leave muddy gardening boots. It looked smaller now. That made her angrier than it should have.
As children, Nora and Tessa had crawled through the Bell house pretending the basement was a pirate ship and June was its captain. June had painted the blue heron one snowy weekend because Nora said the walls looked lonely. Remembering that small kindness in the middle of violence nearly broke her. Her mother had not been a symbol or a clue or a name in somebody's ledger. She had been a woman who sang off-key while washing dishes, who saved the crunchy ends of brownies for her daughter. Whoever murdered her had stolen those ordinary mornings too.
"We go in quietly," Vale said.
"And if Tessa's inside?"
"Then we get her out."
A window in the basement showed a sliver of light. Eli and Vale circled the house while Nora slipped through a loose kitchen door she knew from childhood. Every floorboard remembered her weight.
A man with a handgun stood near the laundry room. Nora knocked a pan from a shelf. When he turned, she swung a heavy flashlight into his wrist. The gun hit the tile. She ran before he could recover.
Tessa was tied to a chair beneath the painted heron. Her left cheek was swollen, but her eyes were furious.
"You took your time," she muttered when Nora cut the ropes.
"You're welcome."
"I was going to save myself."
"Of course you were."
Above them a crash shook the ceiling. Eli shouted. Vale fired twice. Nora pulled Tessa through a narrow coal chute they'd used as kids, and they rolled into the garden wet with November rain.
Eli emerged seconds later, limping. "Where's Vale?"
A second later the detective appeared, clutching a leather portfolio. "Found something better than a recording."
Inside were a dozen sealed envelopes addressed to Nora in her mother's handwriting, each dated on a different birthday. Nora broke open the last one with trembling fingers.
May you like
My darling girl, it began. If you are reading this because someone has come looking for the box, don't trust the man wearing my wedding ring.
Nora looked up. Her father had worn her mother's ring on a chain around his neck every day since the funeral.
