Chapter 5 - My Father Was Alive
I showed Daniel immediately.
He stared at the photograph.
“This was taken three days ago?”
“Yes.”
“Who put it in your bag?”
“I don’t know.”
Vanessa had searched my backpack.
Maybe she had dropped it.
Or maybe someone else had placed it there before she ever touched my things.
Daniel checked the diner sign in the background.
Miller’s Roadhouse.
Briar Falls, Vermont.
I searched it on my phone.
Real place.
Four hours away.
Daniel said, “We’re going.”
I looked at him.
“We?”
“You got a death threat tonight.”
“I can drive myself.”
“That’s exactly what someone who gets murdered in the second act of a bad movie says.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
His expression changed.
Because there was history between us.
Small history.
Coffee in the kitchen at six in the morning.
Conversations when neither of us could sleep.
The night his engagement ended and he sat on the back steps for two hours without speaking.
The time he brought soup to the staff quarters when I had the flu.
Nothing inappropriate.
Nothing spoken.
But not nothing either.
“My family helped create this mess,” he said.
“You didn’t.”
“No. But I’m not leaving you alone in it.”
At 6:00 AM, we drove north.
Margaret begged us to wait for police.
I couldn’t.
I had waited twenty-nine years without knowing I was waiting.
By noon we reached Briar Falls.
Miller’s Roadhouse sat beside a narrow highway surrounded by pine trees.
Inside, an older waitress looked at the photograph.
Her expression changed.
“You know him?”
She wiped her hands on her apron.
“What’s this about?”
“I’m his daughter.”
She studied me.
Then her face softened.
“Oh.”
My heart pounded.
“Please.”
She looked toward the kitchen.
“He calls himself Mike Barnes.”
Of course he did.
“Does he live here?”
“Cabin outside town.”
“Address?”
She hesitated.
Daniel quietly said, “Someone threatened his life last night.”
That changed everything.
Twenty minutes later we were driving up a dirt road.
A cabin appeared between the trees.
Smoke rose from the chimney.
My hands started shaking.
Daniel stopped the car.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Want me to go first?”
“No.”
I walked to the front door.
Knocked.
Nothing.
Again.
“Michael?”
Still nothing.
I tried the handle.
Unlocked.
“Dad?”
The word felt strange.
Inside, a mug sat on the table.
Coffee still warm.
A chair was overturned.
Daniel noticed blood on the floor before I did.
“Emily.”
I followed his eyes.
A thin streak led toward the back door.
I ran.
Outside, snow had been disturbed.
Footprints.
Two sets.
One deep.
One dragging.
“They took him.”
Daniel pulled out his phone.
Then I saw something wedged beneath the porch step.
A small metal case.
My name was written across the top.
EMILY CARTER.
I opened it.
Inside was a flash drive.
And a handwritten note.
If you found me, Charles finally failed.
My breath caught.
May you like
There was more.
Do not trust Margaret.
