The cabin seemed to close around me.
“Why didn’t she come back?” I demanded, forgetting the voice was only a recording.
Carl answered as though he had expected the question.
“She claimed returning would place you in d/@/nger. I did not believe her. Not entirely. There was fear in her voice, but also guilt.”
The tape hissed.
“I asked her to meet me here. She refused. Then she sent me the missing half of her final letter.”
I searched the chest again.
Nothing.
“I placed it inside the lining of the lid,” Carl said.
My fingers found a loose strip of fabric beneath the chest’s cover. I tore it open and pulled out a folded page.
The handwriting matched Evelyn’s.
There is something else you must know.
Victor did not discover Carl’s secret by accident.
Nora told him.
She believed Carl would take you away from her. She gave Victor the photographs and helped him find the evidence. When his plan collapsed, she arranged my disappearance and convinced Carl I had chosen never to return.
