The cedar box containing our mother’s jewelry?
Then I saw the framed photograph above the fireplace.
Rosie and me beside a lake, ages twelve and eleven. We wore matching red life jackets. I had one arm around her shoulders.
The summer before that picture, I had promised I would never swim without her.
Two weeks later, I went to a pool party hosted by girls who refused to invite Rosie.
She found out.
She did not speak to me for three days.
I lifted the frame.
Nothing.
Daniel checked the backing.
“No compartment.”
Another memory surfaced.
When Rosie was fourteen, she made me promise I would never read her diary.
I broke that promise after she wrote that a boy at school was calling her names. I wanted to know who he was.
Her old diary was in my attic.
I climbed the narrow stairs, Daniel behind me.
The attic smelled of dust and cedar. Boxes lined the rafters. Christmas ornaments, college textbooks, our mother’s dishes, clothes I had not worn in a decade.
I found the plastic container labeled ROSIE—KEEP.
Inside were school papers, ribbons, handmade birthday cards, and a small pink diary secured with a useless silver lock.
I opened it.
A rectangular section had been cut from the back cover.
Inside was a black flash drive.
