“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”
“I thought you already had too many things to fix.”
I pulled her gently into my arms.
“You are never one more thing to fix.”
She pressed her face against my shoulder.
Over her head, I looked at Claire’s message, the brass key, and the old Westbridge brochure.
The school had not selected Emma by chance.
Someone had placed her mother’s signature on the application, created a false scholarship, and ensured my daughter entered the same institution Claire had once investigated.
Perhaps it had been done to monitor our family.
Perhaps someone had hoped Emma would eventually find what Claire left behind.
My phone chimed.
An email had arrived from an address made entirely of numbers.
There was no message, only one attached photograph.
It showed the locked compartment beneath the badge cabinet, its door standing open. Inside sat a blue folder bearing Claire’s name.
Across the folder rested a recent photograph of Emma walking into school on her first day of kindergarten.
On the back, written in black ink, was a sentence:
Daniel Carter still believes Claire’s death was an illness.
I stared at the words until the room seemed to tilt.
Then another message appeared.
Do not trust the person who gave you the key.
I looked down at Emma.
She was no longer holding the brass key.
The front door, which I was certain I had locked, stood slightly open.
PART 3(END)
For one suspended second, I could hear nothing but the soft creak of the front door moving in the morning breeze.
The brass key was gone.
Emma stood beside me, her small hand still half-open where it had rested moments earlier. Her face had drained of color.
“Dad,” she whispered, “I didn’t drop it.”
