Chapter 10: Gabe's Key

Gabe's POV

I waited until her light went out.

Then I stood in my own kitchen for ten minutes holding her house key.

She had hung it on the hook by my door the night before without thinking about it.

She had told me not to go in.

She had said it twice, in the rain, to my face, and I had said I heard her.

That was true.

I had heard her, and I was going anyway.

The house on Kenwick Road was dark when I parked three streets over and walked in through the neighbors' side yard.

It had an apple tree in the back garden, and under it a plastic slide in a pink foil bow.

The key turned in the kitchen door on the first try.

Diane had not changed the locks, because she had never believed anyone would use them.

I stood in the mudroom and thought about eleven years of not being allowed in my father's house.

Then I went up the back stairs in my socks.

Her mother's room was on the third floor.

The door stood open, and a night-light cast a rosy glow on the walls.

Someone had painted over the old yellow.

A white crib stood where Margaret Ames's bed had been.

Beside it were a rocking chair and a shelf of folded blankets, all in pink.

I stood in the doorway for a second longer than I should have.

The cedar box was on the closet shelf behind the blankets.

It was the size of a bread box, dark red wood, with a brass latch and a small round lock.

It was exactly where Claire had said it would be.

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