Chapter 4 - The Locked Study
The police came, photographed the knife, and questioned me for an hour. Holt repeated his story with perfect calm. I repeated mine until the words felt scraped raw. The detectives collected the knife but declined to arrest anyone; Sophie's account contradicted Holt, and the camera records were too convenient to trust.
Marcus offered to drive me home. I said no.
“You ought to be careful,” he told me quietly. “People who search for ghosts sometimes become them.”
Adrian heard that. “Is that a warning, Marcus?”
“Concern for your employee.”
“Then show it by leaving her alone.”
After midnight, Adrian found me beside Evelyn's study. Its door had been locked since the funeral. I was tracing the old brass plate that read PRIVATE when he approached.
“I can fire you for this,” he said.
“I know.”
“Why didn't you leave when you had the chance?”
“Because my father left me one message before his phone went dead. He said there were children on those shipments. I don't know what he meant. If I walk away, I may never find out.”
Adrian took out Evelyn's key ring, which he had kept despite everybody telling him to pack her things. The study smelled of cedar and dry paper. On the desk lay a framed picture of Sophie with frosting on her nose. Adrian touched the frame like it might bite him.
We searched for an hour. Most of the drawers contained ordinary documents: school forms, invoices, letters to charities. Behind a row of travel books, though, I found a narrow slot cut into the wall. The brass key Sophie carried fit the lock. A shallow panel clicked open.
Inside was a folded letter addressed to ADRIAN, a flash drive, and a child's drawing of a warehouse with seventeen blue doors.
Adrian read the first line aloud. “If you're holding this, it means they came for me.”
His hand began to tremble.
A noise sounded downstairs. Not a creak or the wind. A window smashing.
I grabbed the drive. Adrian pulled Sophie’s photograph from the desk and moved toward the door.
May you like
The study's lamps cast a pool of light across Evelyn's desk. There was an ordinary grocery list tucked beneath her calendar: milk, strawberries, toothpaste, purple socks for Sophie. Those words hurt Adrian more than the threatening letter. A woman who had been planning breakfast and school laundry was also planning how to survive a conspiracy. The two truths occupied the same square of paper.
The security monitor on the wall flickered back to life. On it, a figure in a dark coat stood at the front door, holding Mrs. Bell with one arm and pointing a gun toward the camera.
