Chapter 13 - BENEATH THE FLOOR
We entered my childhood home after midnight.
The place smelled of dust and wet wood.
Every room looked smaller than I remembered.
My old bedroom still had faded stars on the ceiling.
I almost smiled.
Then Nathan found the basement.
Behind an old furnace was a concrete wall.
He knocked.
Three times.
Hollow.
He pulled out a crowbar.
The wall cracked.
Behind it was a steel door.
No handle.
Only a keypad.
I stared at it.
Six numbers.
Nathan tried my mother's birthday.
Wrong.
My birthday.
Wrong.
My father's.
Wrong.
Then I remembered something.
A sentence my mother used to repeat when I was little.
“You were never supposed to be here.”
I entered:
061984.
The lock opened.
Inside was a small room.
Shelves covered every wall.
Documents.
Photographs.
Tapes.
Bank records.
And one box marked:
GRACE — DO NOT OPEN UNTIL HE RETURNS.
My hands shook.
“Who?”
Nathan stared at the box.
“Your mother knew someone would come back.”
I opened it.
Inside was a letter.
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
My mother's.
Grace,
If you're reading this, then the people I feared have finally found you.
Don't trust the man who tells you your father died protecting you.
He didn't.
He sold you.
My breath caught.
Nathan read over my shoulder.
“Keep going.”
The letter continued.
Your real father is alive.
And he knows where I am.
I dropped the paper.
“No.”
Nathan looked at me.
“Grace…”
A noise came from upstairs.
Footsteps.
Someone was inside the house.
Nathan killed the flashlight.
We stood in darkness.
Another step.
Then another.
A man's voice echoed through the basement.
“Grace?”
I knew that voice.
I had heard it once.
At a funeral.
May you like
Twenty years ago.
My father's voice.
